The Housewife Assassin's Handbook (4 page)

I’d pretend that these changes in Carl were due to the kind of stress that comes with more responsibility on the job.

Talk about understatement.

Immediately after the cell phone incident, we moved out of our tiny cottage in Santa Monica. Carl’s big raise from Acme provided the down payment for a spacious mock-Tudor on Hilldale Drive, in the tony planned community of Hilldale. It’s the OC and all that implies: grand McMansions angled flatteringly on broad lawns, a posh country club, its very own “village square” sporting a Starbucks, L’Occitane, Williams-Sonoma, a gourmet grocery, even its own bookstore.

And of course friendly, inquisitive neighbors who truly believe that this surreal utopia is the center of the universe.

“It’s certainly a big financial leap for us, what with the baby on the way, and all.” I was pregnant with Trisha. Ready to pop, really. Like her father, little Mary, who was about to start third grade, was ready to take up residence immediately: specifically, in the tree house the previous owners had put up in a leafy heritage oak. “I mean, it certainly is beautiful. And the schools here are incredible! Still … well, I’d feel guilty about the commute you’ll have to make every day–”

But Carl had already made up his mind: the house was going to be ours. The telltale sign of this was the cocky tilt of his head. “Don’t feel guilty, ever, because I’ve earned it. The hard way. Believe me.” For just a second Carl’s satisfied grin was replaced by a hard grimace. “This promotion means more extended business trips. That’s part of my new deal. Don’t I deserve a palace to come home to?”

His new deal.

He never really did explain the terms of that deal.

Had I known what they were, I would have never agreed to let him make it.

As Carl scooped up Jeff and tossed him over his shoulder, our son squealed with delight.

“My turn, Daddy! My turn!” Mary jumped down out of the tree house. Wrapping her arms around Carl’s knees, all three tumbled to the ground, laughing.

“See, babe? This is the American dream, right? Isn’t this what it’s all about?”

My labor began the very night we moved into the house. We’d only had the time to arrange the furniture and hang our clothes in the closets. Everything else would have to stay in the packing boxes until we got home with our new bundle of joy. 

Carl and I dropped Mary and Jeff with Aunt Phyllis, and then set off for the hospital. Only when we got there did we realize that we had left my overnight bag at our new home.

Carl’s soothing tone assured me that he had everything under control. “Now that you’re checked in, I’ll run back to the house and get it. Don’t worry, honey, I’ll be back in no time.”

With that, he leaned over my gurney, gave me a tender kiss, and walked out of my life forever.

My labor was long and painful. Carl had plenty of time to get back before Trisha pushed her way out into the world. But as the minutes turned into hours, my calls to his cell and to the house went unanswered.

He missed Trisha’s delivery.

Seeing the concern on my pain-wracked face even as I cuddled my sweet, suckling newborn, one of the nurses promised to wake me the moment he came back, then gave me a light sedative so that I might sleep through the night.

I woke right before dawn. In what little light that filtered through the shades, I saw him, sitting there, in a chair by the window.

Finally! I propped myself up, but I still ached from my delivery. Hearing my groan, he turned toward me–

And that’s when I realized that I was looking at Ryan Clancy, Carl’s boss.

What was he doing here?

Ah, of course. One of Acme’s far-flung clients must have had some acute emergency that merited taking Carl from my side in my time of need. Hurt at the presumption, I was loaded for bear. “You’ve got some nerve, Ryan, calling Carl into work while I was in labor–”

He winced. “No, Donna, we didn’t call Carl into the office. But I came as quickly as I could, to explain what happened, face-to-face–”

Face-to-face. Why was that necessary? Unless Carl was…

“Ryan, where the hell is Carl?”

He was silent for what seemed like an eternity before he just came out with it: 

“He’s dead.”

 “Dead? What? … How do you know? What do you know?” A wave of dread washed over me. I felt as if I was suffocating. As rapidly as my heart was beating, I thought that I, too, would die.

If I do, then my children won’t have anyone to take care of them, I thought. I will have left them, just like Mother left me…

“When? How?” My questions came out as demands.

“At this point, I’m not at liberty to say.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“Donna, please, you’ll just have to trust me that it’s for the best right now–”

“Trust you? Hell, I don’t even know you. At all.” That was the truth. I’d only met Ryan a few times, at the obligatory holiday party. Even then, we barely exchanged more than a few words. It had always bothered me that he never smiled.

Well, now I know why.

“You tell me that my husband has disappeared off the face of the earth—worse yet, that he’s dead–but you can’t say why, or how you know? So, why should I believe you?”

Again he was silent, as if considering what the truth might cost him in the long run. But we can’t ask for trust if we can’t give it first, can we? It was Ryan’s turn to put out.

“Because I work with the CIA, Donna. And so does–did Carl.”

CIA… Ryan? And Carl, too?

“You’re right. You deserve some answers. I’ll tell you what I know…”

By his nature, Ryan is not one to mince words. What he said that night boiled down to this:

I had been living a lie.

Okay, in truth, it was Carl’s life that was bullshit. A severe whopper, in fact, from the moment I’d met him.

Even back then, he was already a spook.

Acme had recruited him before he’d left the SEALS. What with the combination of his military training and his math acumen, apparently he had the makings of a perfect street agent.

He was in fact what they called a “hard man.” Forget the usual stuff like surveillance or dead drop retrievals. Carl had the chops to infiltrate a hostile environment, and to carry out what they call “executive actions.”

In other words, Carl was an assassin.

Finally, whether I liked it or not, I had the answers I had been looking for all these years. To Carl’s extended business trips, in which he never called home. To his sullenness since his “promotion.” To the fierceness with which he made love to me.

As if it might be our last time in each other’s arms.

Yes, now it all made sense.

Damn it, where had I been, these past years, anyway? In some dream?

What a beautiful dream it was: four bedrooms and three baths, gourmet kitchen, rockscape pool, home theater–

And let's not forget the panic room.

As if that could keep out the bad guys.

Apparently it could not.

“For the past year now Carl had been in deep cover,” explained Ryan. “He had infiltrated a loose collective of rogue operatives who call themselves the Quorum: freelance assassins who had previously worked at various intel agencies from around the globe. But somehow they had discovered his true identity.”

Carl must have figured this out the day I’d gone into labor, I thought. Then he ran because he didn’t want to put the kids and me in jeopardy.

“Unfortunately, the only evidence we have of this are his remains,” Ryan continued. “Apparently his car exploded out on the I-10, in the desert somewhere beyond Joshua Tree. A trucker who was behind him when it happened called it in immediately, about 7:15 last night.”

“7:15? Oh my God. I had just delivered Trisha.” As I said this, I was holding her to my chest.

And wishing that Carl were there to hold me in his arms.

Ryan started to speak again, but closed his mouth when one of my nurses walked in with my missing overnight bag.

“Sorry,” she said sheepishly. “It was left sometime yesterday, at the front desk. I hope you didn’t miss it too badly.”

No, what I was missing was my husband. To now realize that he’d stopped by, had been so near, and I had missed him—

My sobs came in waves. To Ryan’s credit, He didn’t look away.

And I didn’t want to acknowledge the pity I saw in his eyes. So instead I rummaged through the bag, pulling out all the items I’d packed: a nightgown and robe, slippers, and layette for Trisha, and my mother’s tiny antique locket that now held a picture of Carl on one side and one of Mary and Jeff on the other.

Then I saw it: a small, round disk emitting a faint green light that blinked on and off.

Strange.

I pulled it out and showed Ryan. “I don’t know what it is, but my guess is that you do.”

“You’re right. It’s a GPS tracking device. Carl must have found it, and that’s what tipped him off that they were onto him. Then he left it for you to find, knowing that we’d eventually have this conversation, and that we could confirm with you what happened.” He wiped a bead of sweat off his face with the palm of his hand. “Too bad he hadn’t found the bomb as well. At least neither you nor the kids were with him when it happened.”

I closed my eyes at the horrible thought of Mary and Jeff dying so violently and thanked God that they had been with Aunt Phyllis instead.

Suddenly a strange look came over Ryan’s face. “Donna, this means that the bomb may not have been detonated by the Quorum.”

“Then … then what set it off?”

“Any abrupt motion might have done it. Considering that a Carrera rides so low to the ground . . . It could have been set off by a rock hitting the undercarriage.”

“I guess it doesn’t matter how it happened. What does matter is that we’ll never see him again.”

“It matters greatly to someone.” He eyed the bag curiously. “Did he leave anything else in there?”

“Let me check … no, just my toiletry bag, a nightgown, and robe, a tiny Steiff polar bear that Carl brought home from his last European business trip … and my mother’s locket. Really, Ryan, it’s nothing unusual. Just the stuff we’d packed together.”

I couldn’t help but tear up when I saw the locket. I’d worn it for good luck during Mary and Jeff’s births, and had planned to do the same for Trisha. Now that tradition was broken. 

Carl’s death proves it.

I put the stuffed bear beside Trisha in her perambulator. Ryan walked over and touched Trisha’s tiny hand gently, with his index finger. “Listen, Donna, it’s just possible that the Quorum doesn’t yet know that Carl is dead. If we can keep that information from them…”

“I’m sorry, Ryan, I’m just not following you.”

“Since, at this moment the tracker is still functioning, they may not know he found it and took it off. But I’m guessing they’ll figure that out when he doesn’t show up to the next scheduled rendezvous with his Quorum handler. But by then we’ll have stuck it on some truck headed for Mexico, and the Quorum will assume that he’s now on the lam.” Suddenly Ryan was energized. “Donna, I’d like to ask you to do us a very important favor. I’d like you to—well, to keep the fact that Carl died on the QT. For now, don’t tell anyone: not the kids or your Aunt Phyllis, no one.”