Chapter Four
The driveway shimmers with heat as I arrive home, sweat dripping down my arms and legs.
Bear pants happily as she whines and shoves her face into my leg, asking for attention.
I stare at my house, trying to turn once again into mom, wife.
My blood still runs hot and fast, thinking about what Ian told me.
But these two thousand square feet contain everything in the world that matters.
The two little girls inside. The collective that is our family.
A husband who is kind and patient and knows me as well as I dare let him.
I will do whatever I have to in order to maintain this life, to keep them happy and blissfully unaware of who I really am, of the monster that simmers beneath the surface.
Right now, that means I need to chill the fuck out.
“There you are.” Brian pokes his head out the front door. He tries to smile, but it turns into a wince as his hand comes to his temple.
“Late night?” I keep my voice light as I unclip Bear’s leash and she hurries inside for water.
“Mm-hmm. God, I’m too old for this.” He beckons me through the entry, his dark brown eyes catching mine, holding them in a moment of shared intimacy.
He adjusts his glasses, and I stop, watch him.
Something about the movement is utterly sexy, which I don’t really understand—maybe I’ve always secretly had a thing for Clark Kent?
Brian smirks, like he knows what I’m thinking. “Coffee?”
“Yes. Please.” Coffee helps everything. It’s also our favorite ten minutes to share in the morning before he goes off to his job as a management consultant.
When the tradition began, after the first night I spent at his place, it was simply a desperate need for caffeine on my part.
Then I realized how happy it made him to just sit and spend time together.
And so, when I realized he’d be perfect for me, I made certain it became one of our things.
That, according to more than one relationship book, is how you have a successful bond with another person.
To my surprise, I’ve found I enjoy it too.
A few quiet moments together as Nadia and Brian before chaos descends and we become Mom, Dad, busy parents, and workers trying to make it through the day.
We take our mugs and step out onto the patio where Piper and I shared a drink last night.
I lean in, give him a kiss on the cheek, run a hand through his blond hair, careful to not ruin where he’s gelled it neatly to one side.
He likes that, and he grins at me. I spend a moment wondering if his career has been affected by getting married, having kids.
My dad once told me that he got a job because he had a wife and children—that his boss thought he was more likely to stick around and do a good job because he had a family to support.
Funny how it’s the opposite for me.
“Work go okay last night?” He raises his eyebrows, waits for a response, like it matters to him.
Which it does. Brian always remembers to ask me how my day was.
Sometimes, I struggle to know what to say: I took the girls to school.
I cleaned the house. It just seems so ordinary, so boring, a conversation barely worth having.
Parts of our life I am happy to take on but are the same, day in and day out, and sometimes unbearably dull.
It’s a wonder stay-at-home moms don’t all start killing people simply out of monotony or lack of adult conversation.
I have to leave out all the interesting bits like I got a new gun, and it’s so cool!
I cast a look at him, wishing I could tell him the real stuff.
“It was…” I consider the quiet Texas evening, the glittering lights across the lawn, the utter surprise and terror in my mark’s eyes before I pulled the trigger. “A beautiful night. Couldn’t have gone better.”
“That’s great. I’m proud of you, babe.” Brian sips his coffee, nudges his shoulder against mine.
He’s touchy-feely; I am not. But I nudge him back because I know physical affection matters to him.
I’m not sure if love languages are real or just another way for someone to make money, but I’ve spent our whole relationship learning to read him, to respond in a normal, loving manner.
I realized as a child that I didn’t fit in, that I didn’t say the right things or feel the right emotions—I knew from the start that with dating, if I wanted a relationship, I’d have to play the part. Be, if not normal, normal-ish. I’ve learned to be careful, calculated.
Luckily, romantic encounters are easy to come by when you’re a twentysomething with reasonably good looks.
And if I screwed up—if I failed to say the right thing or respond how a regular person would and creeped out my date—well, that was okay.
A failed date was to be expected. You went out with someone new the next Friday night and tried all over again.
By the time I met Brian, I knew what I was doing. Something about him captivated me, kept me interested, even when the predictable bits became, well, predictable.
We met when we both stopped for an accident during one of Texas’s infamous hailstorms. A car in front of me failed to brake fast enough, and it smashed into a semitruck.
When the car came to a smoking stop, the horn honking wildly, I was out of my vehicle before I knew what had happened, sprinting to check on the driver.
No, I hadn’t suddenly gained a conscience; psychopaths will take any thrill they can get, even something so plebeian as a wreck. It was a woman, maybe in her thirties, and she was unconscious—not breathing—soon, dead, if I did nothing.
I could save her. Or I could let her die. The decision lay in my hands, and it took my breath away.
Then Brian appeared, jolting me into action, and we pulled her from the driver’s side.
While I called 911, he performed CPR like someone who knew what he was doing.
After the ambulance came and went, we were left on the walkway, breathless, adrenaline coursing through our veins. For the first time, I saved a life.
Brian had turned to me, all floppy blond hair and dark eyes pulsing with excitement.
A kindred soul, I’d thought, interested in the thrill of life and death.
Perhaps even a fellow psychopath. Anyone else would have been in shock, more concerned about the woman’s welfare than what he said to me next seemed to indicate: “I think I need a drink after that. Wanna come?”
To my surprise, I smiled at him and said yes.
A year later, we were married, and it was good—I was doing what my grandmother had instructed—doing the thing that normal people did.
And I did like him, quite a lot. It helped that he wasn’t afraid of danger, that he’d run toward the action instead of away from it.
He, I had decided, could keep up with me—at least the parts of myself I shared with him.
“I have a new dad joke. Want to hear it?” Brian’s voice yanks me back into the moment, and a smile curves at my mouth.
“Of course.” Since we had the girls—his whole world—he’s made it his job to tell dad jokes at every opportunity. Before I met him, I didn’t laugh often. But with him, I laugh almost every day.
“I learned this one in honor of you.”
I raise a brow. “Me?”
He clears his throat. Adjusts how his glasses sit on his nose, and peers at me through them as though this is no laughing matter. My heart clenches a little. “Why do melons have weddings?”
“Um…”
“Because they…cantaloupe.”
I groan and drop my face into my hands. When I look up, he’s grinning, delighted with himself—and with my reaction. A flicker of guilt winds through me—he learned this joke because he thinks I plan weddings. But the joke was sweet (and awful), and I lean in to give him another kiss.
We chat for a few minutes—about all the normal topics: the girls, his night out, if we should plan a summer vacation.
“Date night tomorrow. I’m thinking downtown?” He gives my free hand a squeeze. “Do we have a babysitter yet?”
“I’ll talk to Piper today.”
“Great.” Brian presses a kiss to my temple. “Love you.”
We gather our mugs and step inside, where he’ll grab his laptop case and exit out the garage. He has the fun car—a BMW X5, the sort of car he dreamed of as a kid.
I think I’ll have a moment alone—maybe long enough to shower and dress—but Eliza appears a second later, and thoughts of everything else flee.
She wanders down the stairs, all tangled dark hair and bright blue eyes, the mirror image of me.
Her thumb is secure in her mouth. She hugs a stuffed dog tight in the other hand and stares at me.
I stare back, glad I met her dad. Glad I kept the pregnancy.
Glad, more than anything, that she showed me that something about me is normal: I love her unconditionally.
“Hi, baby. How are you feeling?” I open my arms to give her a big hug. She doesn’t answer, just shrugs, accepts my embrace, then heads for the kitchen, boosting herself onto the stool where she usually eats in the mornings.
She looks well enough today and immediately says, “Breakfast, Mama?”
I slice apples and put half of them on a plate for her to share with Evie.
The other half go in identical lunch boxes.
I buzz around the kitchen, making breakfast, lunches: fruit, veggie, protein, complex carb, small dark chocolate dessert.
If anyone at school casts a wandering eye at my girls’ food, they’ll know their mother can pack a healthy, balanced meal.
When Evie cries out, I run upstairs, bring her down to join her sister.
Meanwhile, I remember there are wet clothes in the washer and hurry to the laundry room before I forget to move them over—again.
Then back upstairs we go, dressing the girls, brushing tangles out of their hair, giving them neat, exact braids.
It’s nearly time to leave for school when I remember I’ve yet to shower and haven’t had any breakfast myself.
Both will have to wait.
I load the girls in the minivan I traded my little sports car for when I was pregnant with Eliza. I could complain about not getting the Beemer, but the vehicle is surprisingly convenient. I can fit a whole body in the back.
I kiss them goodbye and send Eliza off to kindergarten, fingers crossed her breakfast stays down. Evie goes to her “threes” preschool at the same private academy. I practically had to off someone to get Eliza in. It’s a relief that Evie, in the preschool, is now assured a spot as she gets older.
I go to the nearest coffee shop drive-through and get a tall Americano and a scone. While I’m eating in the parking lot, I get back to work.
We need to talk, I text John on my work phone.
I want to type out more—want to pound the screen of my iPhone and ask him a billion questions.
I want to know what jobs I’ve been passed over for, which high-profile gigs no one even considered my name for.
It’s wild to think anyone would care that I’m a mom, that I have children at home.
And yet, I’ve read about it happening. It’s one of the reasons Piper left her corporate job and opened her own line of fitness and spa centers—she said she’d never make CEO as a woman.
I glare at my phone, sip my coffee, but John doesn’t reply.
For now, I have to get busy planning the next hit.
It won’t happen for a couple weeks; it needs to look like an accident, which requires research.
And the right preparation will mean I’m ready for all contingencies.
That I’m less likely to be caught. And that no one can say, Oh, it failed because you hired a woman, a wife, a mom.
God forbid they call me what I am, what they’d call a man—an assassin.
I drive across town, peering at the instructions I scribbled on a shred of paper I’ll burn tonight once I know where I’m going, who I’m looking for.
I find the clinic easily enough. It’s an outpatient infusion site.
I park off to one side and sip my Americano, scrolling through my phone to distract myself as I wait impatiently for my next mark to show her face.
My own post-run stench hits me when I raise the scone to take a bite, and I scrunch my nose, nearly missing the woman who bursts from a side door.
Crumbs scatter over my lap as I drop the pastry, lean in, peer at her, my heart accelerating in my chest. She sports a white medical jacket, a blond ponytail, and she hurries to the freestanding coffee shop across the lot.
Behind my dark sunglasses, I size her up to see how much of a challenge she might provide—she’s maybe five foot six?
And she moves smoothly, like she’s had training as a dancer or a gymnast. So she knows how to use her body.
The woman leans into the pickup window of the coffee shop, purse hanging open behind her, blissfully unaware of her surroundings—and of me watching from the van.
It’s almost disappointing; not much of a survival instinct. This isn’t the best part of town.
Then I see what’s in her hand—an eight-ounce cup, d cap Haz scribbled on the side in bold Sharpie, which must stand for a dry cappuccino with a shot of hazelnut.
It’s an uncommon order. How many blond pharmacists who work in the exact same building would get this order at 9:30 a.m., during her usual break time?
Only one. My next mark.