Page 90 of Say You Will

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 lovesme 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.”

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