27. Franki
twenty-seven
Henry gets on the interstate, and, as the minutes pass, I absorb the worst of my inner turmoil. It settles into my brain and lungs and gut and bones. Diffused, nearly unnoticed. Simply part of me.
I’ve been primed from early childhood to exist in a state of heightened anxiety, so this stress, in many ways, feels familiar. Zoning out is my favorite coping mechanism when it comes to my mother. One I employ way too often, if I’m honest with myself.
So I push her out of my mind and focus instead on the spectacular view. Tree-covered rolling hills dressed in their fall finery hulk in the distance. We cross a bridge high above a sparkling river.
Henry rubs his thumb over my knuckles, and, with a sigh, I turn my hand over and squeeze. We haven’t resolved all of our issues yet, but while we drive, I allow myself to enjoy the moment.
Three minutes later, I’m watching Henry, not the road, when his expression grows intent as he checks his rearview mirror. I’m about to ask if there’s a problem when Henry’s arm shoots out to hold me against the seat as he veers sharply left, then right.
I startle, gasping, and turn in my seat to see what’s happening. Henry’s palm lands on the back of my head and he pushes me over. “Get down. Under the windows. Now, Franki.”
I shift lower, sliding out of the chest strap of my seat belt, and cover my head with my arms two seconds before I hear the crack of gunfire. “Is someone shooting at us?!”
“We have bullet-resistant glass. They’d need armor-piercing rounds or to hit the exact same spot over and over to get through. We’re fine,” he says calmly.
Two more shots. “This doesn’t feel fine, Henry!”
“Can we discuss this later, darling?” Henry slams on the brakes, our tires screaming in protest, as he spins the SUV in a tight circle and fires his own weapon at the person who shot at us. “I’m a little busy.”
Head below the window height, I see nothing except the flash of blue sky and fluffy clouds overhead. Then Henry straightens out the vehicle and we careen in the wrong direction. Horns blare at us as Henry swerves in and out of the oncoming traffic.
The heavy SUV isn’t built for rapid acceleration, but from my vantage point nearly on the floor, I can see Henry’s foot pressing the gas pedal down as far as it will go.
“I need you to take the wheel for a minute.”
It takes too long for his words to make sense, then I creep up enough to see the road. We are absolutely driving the wrong direction on the highway. I wrap my fingers around the wheel.
“That’s it. Keep your head down as low as you can and still see. Use my body as a shield. Breathe, darling.”
I suck in a deep breath.
Henry slides his window down about halfway, turns around, and sticks his arm out the window.
Our assailant fires two more shots, and I shriek and shake so hard I’m surprised I don’t crash us immediately. The cars we pass honk their horns, but the noise barely penetrates. Keep us on the road. Don’t hit anyone.
Henry fires three shots in succession, and I narrowly manage not to run us into a guardrail as oncoming traffic fills both lanes and barrels toward us. The left lane has a semitruck and the right a minivan. It’s probably full of kids or somebody’s dad. I’m not screaming or crying because I have no time. No time, only split-second decisions and decisions and decisions.
Our SUV grinds against the guardrail on the passenger side and narrowly misses the semitruck on the driver’s side. If Henry wanted to, he could reach out and touch it.
Then Henry is facing forward, gun moved to his left hand and taking control of the SUV once more. “You can let go. Well done.”
I release the wheel and turn to see a smoking lump of dark gray SUV behind us. The person or people shooting at us crashed through the same guardrail I’d nearly hit myself.
I sink back into my seat and start to hyperventilate. First, I’d forgotten to breathe. Now, I can’t stop sucking in air. Spots bounce in my vision.
“Stay below the windows a little longer for me, please.”
I crouch back down and reach my hand over to hold on to his thigh. “They’re gone, aren’t they? They wrecked their car.”
“There were two, initially. We lost the second when we turned around. But we’re going to exercise caution.”
“If the glass in this vehicle is bullet resistant, why am I hiding?”
“Because I don’t know if they know you’re with me or assume I’m alone. If they don’t know, I’d rather not provide the information to them.”
A hysterical giggle rises up inside me before I squelch it. We’re driving the wrong way down a one-way highway, and he’s talking about exercising caution.
“Did you kill them?”
Henry shakes his head. “I didn’t aim to kill the driver. If I had, he’d have swerved into traffic and taken innocent bystanders with him. I aimed for damage to the radiator and intimidation.”
I don’t even have a word for the sound that comes out of me. It’s something between a laugh and a keening wail.
“You’re a natural, Franki. Maybe for your birthday, I’ll buy you one of those Formula 1 racing experience packages.”
I squeeze my eyes closed, and he says, “Darling, deep breath in and hold it. Slow. Hold it. I’m counting for you. One . . . two . . . three. Excellent. Slow breath out.”
We bump across what must be the highway divider, though I can’t see much of anything. Then we’re back on the interstate headed in the same direction as traffic. Henry takes the first exit off the interstate, checking his mirrors.
“Grab my phone for me, will you?”
When I sit up, he steers with his knees and puts his hand back on my head. “Stay down. Just for a few more minutes, love.”
He sounds so bizarrely cool and collected that I’m almost questioning my sanity. He called me “love.” He said he chose to call me “darling” by what came naturally. Is he saying he loves me or is this a result of stress? He doesn’t look stressed. He looks completely calm. “What?”
“My phone. Pick it up.”
It’s in the center console, and I snatch it into my sweating grip. “You need me to call 911?”
“Not at the moment, no. Just hold on to it for me.” He tells me his code. “Can you remember that?”
“Yes.”
“Excellent. Put it in your pocket. If we’re separated at any point, you’re going to call the first number in my contacts. You’ll tell them what’s happening. They’ll ask you for a code word. It’s ‘Cassiopeia.’ Can you remember that?”
“Yes.”
“Thank you.” Through his car, he initiates a call to his security team who’d been shadowing us for this trip. I hadn’t known they even existed. “Status?”
The voice coming through his speakers is so fast and uses so many code phrases that I have no clue what’s happening beyond the fact that they are apparently alive.
Henry responds with a flurry of his own words, then a “Roger that” and continues to check his mirrors and the sky as he drives. Eventually, he pulls down a country lane and to a stop in front of a tiny gas station. “You can sit up now.”
He gets out, and I sit in the car as he speaks to someone who must be a member of his security team, then he’s opening my door and ushering me into a different vehicle.
He reaches past me for the blanket. “Don’t forget your knee warmer.”
The new SUV looks similar to the last one, but is white, rather than gray. Then Henry and I get back on a twisting country road until we reach a gravel lane flanked by forest on both sides, and Henry drives us deep into the shady woods.
I shift stiffly and wince. He reaches to click the seat warmer. “Is your blanket turned on?”
I glance down at the floor. “I forgot to plug it in. I was distracted by the fact that someone was shooting at us.” If my voice sounds a wee bit hysterical, I believe I may be excused.
“Everything is under control. You handled that well, Franki.”
“If it’s under control, why do you still have your gun in your hand?”
“That’s what I’m using to keep it under control,” he quips. “Go ahead and put the blanket on. It will help if you’re experiencing symptoms of shock.”
I pull the blanket onto my lap. “You’re lucky I’m not peeing my pants.”
“You’ve never struck me as a submissive pee-er. If you can manage not to soil the leather, that would be ideal.”
“Ha. Ha.”
“You’re doing great. You’re going to hold on for me just a little longer, love.”
I take a shuddering breath as Henry continues to drive down the bumpy road. He doesn’t hesitate to turn at what, to me, looks like a nearly invisible one-lane muddy path.
No longer gravel, it’s more of a long weed-choked driveway that slowly works its way up a mountainside in a winding trail.
This is way more “country” than I’m used to. It feels as though we’re in the middle of a horror movie set, with tree trunks crowding the road. There are no houses. No sign of anyone else at all. Sometimes the trees give way on one side because the road is cut into a hillside with a ravine looming feet from my car door. If another vehicle approached us head-on, we’d both be in trouble. One of us would be backing up for miles before there was any place for traffic to cross.
Henry knows exactly where he’s going. He anticipates potholes and ruts even when they’re hidden by a curve in the road. At one point, we come to a standstill to wait for two deer to meander their way out of our path.
Henry pops an earpiece into his ear, and I can no longer hear anything but his side of a conversation that involves phrases like “how they made us” and “bogeys.” Henry’s also talking about an asset, which sounds hopeful and encouraging, until I realize he’s talking about a person and calling him “the asset” not “an asset.” I don’t know what the difference is, but I have a feeling it’s important.
The vehicle in pursuit managed to run our backup off the road before shooting at us. When Henry’s people arrived at the scene, the car Henry shot at was already abandoned, its occupants long gone. A search on the plates revealed it had been stolen two days earlier.
We’ve driven miles and miles without any sign of habitation beyond the rutted mess that Henry seems to think is a road. Finally, we emerge into a clearing. The ruts smooth out. I make out a hulking metal building in the near distance and what I think may be an airstrip. We pass a helicopter pad. Then an open field.
Finally, we pull up in front of an adorable wooden cabin with a cute porch and swing. Henry slides the shifter into Park as a man wearing a flannel shirt, his bearded face shadowed by the brim of a ball cap, emerges through the front door with a shotgun resting on his shoulder.
“Stay here.” Henry pops open the glove box, retrieves a Glock, racks it, and places it on the dashboard. “Do you remember how to use one of these from when Dad took you and Bronwyn to the range when you were kids?”
“Vaguely.”
“I’m leaving it on the dashboard for you. I’m 99 percent sure we lost our tail, but, if you need it, don’t hesitate to use it. Remember the glass is bulletproof. Don’t try to shoot through it from the inside.”
“Got it. Won’t try to shoot through the glass.” I nod. Over and over and over.
“When I get out, move into the driver’s seat, then keep down. You have the keys if you need to drive. Doors stay locked. Open them for no one but me or someone with the code word.”
“Where are you going?”
“Making arrangements.”
Then he’s gone.
I sit and listen to my own wheezing breaths and the wind rustling through the creepy woods that less than an hour ago I would have said were peaceful and beautiful. He returns what feels like hours later but is probably only a few minutes. When he knocks on the window, I shriek and do almost pee my pants, but Henry’s gun is back in its holster.
I open the car door, and he gives me his hand to assist me from the car, as if we’re at some red-carpet event. All of me is stiff and aching. My knees barely keep me upright, and I gratefully accept his support.
He eyes me warily, his posture formal. “Garrett flew in and beat us here with your things. One kidnapping vacation coming up.”
“Henry?”
“Yes?” He takes a step away from me and lifts his hands. “I would never hurt you.”
Incredulous, I wail, “I know that. I need you to hold me.”
He blows out a breath and blinks rapidly. Then he yanks me against him, one arm around my back, the other hand clutching my head to his chest as he rocks me gently. “You were amazing, but you can lose your shit now. I’ve got you, love.”
So I do.