Free 2 A Month of Mondays by Robert Michael

Vickers would be mowing and
trimming, Jacelyn Howard would jog by, waving, and the Corvec and Mendlehouse
children would be playing games and riding their bicycles.
    She sat back at the breakfast nook and listened to the house
waking around her. She could hear Macy coughing, the birds chirping outside,
and old house settling. She picked at her blueberry muffin and sipped her
coffee, content in the direction of her life.
    Jake had come home.
    The first night had been awkward but she had pulled out the
sleeper couch and made him a bed in the living room. She had come down Tuesday
morning to the smell of bacon frying and Macy standing on a step stool flipping
pancakes with Jake helping from behind her. Jake had turned to her as she came
in and had kissed her.
    Right then, it had felt as though he had never left. As if
he had never become an assassin. As if he had never lost his memory. She smiled
at her memory of that morning. She promised herself that no matter how
difficult the future got, she would hold on to that moment. They had been a
family again. Even though she knew Jake was not healed, he had made an effort
to fake it for her sake.
    She finished the muffin and put away the dishes. Macy would
be up soon, so Hallie decided to read a book on her cell phone to pass the time.
She curled up on the couch and put a pillow on her lap.
    She wished she could text Jake. Just a short love note. His
phone had been confiscated earlier and he had not been issued a new one yet. It
was not necessary since he had spent the rest of the week in meetings with psychologists,
doctors, other agents, and NSA specialists.
    Jake had been most relieved when he had gotten the implant
removed from his hip. He asked the NSA agent in charge to deactivate the device
and then to frame it for him as a keepsake. Jake had recounted that the agent
had smiled wryly and refused. Jake had shrugged when he told her, saying that
the contraption was not a security threat once it was deactivated. Hallie had
explained that the technology used would provide a way to trace back to the
agency that had implanted the device in the first place.
    Other than the content of some of his meetings with Evers
and the NSA agent in charge of the investigation, Jake had declined to talk
about his employment at Galbraith. Hallie understood. Her few weeks there had
provided a glimpse of its vast reach, its incredible power, and its complex
alliances. In fact, she had heard rumblings that internal strife at Galbraith
was beginning to rip the organization apart. It had become too big, too fast.
    An organization like Galbraith that was dedicated to dealing
death and was corrupt internally was apt to have power struggles.
    “Mommy?”  Macy called from the bottom of the stairs. She was
rubbing her eyes.
    Hallie looked up from her phone. She realized she had
flipped through several pages yet had not registered the words she had read.
    “Yes, honey?”
    “I hear someone on the roof,” Macy said, her voice
trembling.
    Normally, Hallie would assure her that the noise was a
squirrel or a raccoon trying to enter the attic. Hallie suspected that it was
much more than a rodent.
    She moved swiftly, but did her best to not alarm Macy. Hallie
kicked off her slippers and grabbed a black Swiss bag from the closet. She did
not have time to put on more clothes. She wore only her pajama pants and a
faded NYU t-shirt with no bra. She had no time for decorum. Macy’s life was at
stake.
    She picked up Macy and buried her face in her daughter’s
hair.
    “It’s alright, Macy-baby. Momma’s got you. We have to leave
and go see Daddy. Okay?”
    “But, I don’t have Bugsy,” Macy whined.
    “We will come back later and get Bugsy, honey,” Hallie
consoled her. She looked up the stairs and glanced out into the back yard.
    How could I think we would be safe? She scolded
herself.
    A better question posed itself. Why was her sense of danger
not alerted?  Was someone on the roof, or was she