Kade and I banter, as usual, as we clean up dinner. I dry the last dish and set it in the cabinet while he wipes down the table.
"And that is why they call it a water cooler," He smirked finishing his story from work with an unrelated topic.
"Okay. I'll bite. Why do they call it a water cooler?" I knew I might regret the answer. His jokes sometimes had no payoff, but his attempts made him dorky and lovable.
"Because I was next to one when I saw you and thought 'Wait. Her? Cooler!'" His smile broadened.
I threw the drying towel at him and he caught it laughing. Goofball.
"Hey!" He remarked as he caught the towel.
Liam ran through the kitchen with an airplane zooming above his head. "Look Mom! It's reaching top speeds." He looped past me before rounding his father in the connected dining room to go into the hallway toward his bedroom.
"As long as it lands in the next 5 minutes, that is great! It is almost bedtime, young man." I called after him.
I turned off the light in the kitchen and dining room as Kade and I had both finished our tasks for the evening clean up. We would soon be headed toward the living room to spend a few moments with Liam as a family.
Kade caught my waist and pulled me into a kiss. I closed my eyes and leaned into him. Everything was perfect for a moment.
My eyes caught light through my closed lids. I opened them to see a strange green light pouring into the kitchen window above the sink.
"What is that? Is Jeff trying out new photography skills?" Our neighbor was always trying out new ways to capture images, even going to extremes of hooking a camera to the end of a rope and swinging it higher than the fence-line to capture images in motion.
"That's not Jeff." Kade said, dragging me into the corner of the dining room and pulling a chair in front of us.
A green light focused into a laser beam line before it ran up and down our kitchen wall twice. It stopped. What was that? A buzzing noise caught my attention as it moved to the first dining room window along the same wall as the kitchen one.
My breath caught in my throat as every question died on my lips. Kade put his finger to my mouth before repositioning the chair between us and the window. The green laser appeared again starting at the ceiling.
Kade covered me with his body. There was enough bulky furniture in the room that the laser passed over both of us without its thin green line touching us. The buzzing started again with another sound coming down the hall.
The hum of Liam's lips as he made his toy plane fly grew louder as he ran to let his plane gain speed. His path would take him in front of the second dining room window.
Assuming whatever was sending this green light into our house took the most direct path to the nearest window, Liam would be illuminated soon.
Kade reached out and tucked Liam into our human dog pile right before the green scanner appeared on the ceiling.
"Shhh" Kade hushed Liam as he started to struggle out of his father's embrace. Liam's plane was thrown from his hand when Kade grabbed him, leaving it outside of our corner of protection.
"Look!" Kade encouraged and Liam seemed mesmerized by the light show projecting on his plane.
The buzzing started again, but the next closest windows did not see into this room. We were safe for the moment from whatever that was.
"What is going on?" I said as Kade jumped toward the hall closet and started digging frantically for something after turning off the hallway light. The erie feeling in my stomach grew seeing my house shadowed in hues of gray.
"Not enough time.." was all my husband muttered.
Movement caught my eye. Something moved on our curved grand staircase that led to a playroom and a guest room. A person. I grabbed Liam a little closer.
"K! Did it catch you?" a tall man in a ski mask whispered while descending the stairs.
"I think we avoided it," Kade offered the man.
Finding whatever he was searching for, Kade pulled out a large black duffle bag from the closet and pulled out a handgun. He tossed it on the dining room table and began to fill a magazine.
The unknown man plopped his matching duffle bag onto our dining room table. I had not noticed it slung across his shoulder. The man pulled out an even larger gun.
"Who are you? What is happening?" I muttered a little above a whisper.
"Glad you don't recognize me." The man responded.
Was that Jeff? Why was no one giving me straight answers?
The doorbell rang. Kade pulled out his phone and opened our doorbell app. The video started instantly.
Three people stood on our porch with weapons that looked bulky. Unlike the sleek and modern guns Kade and Jeff brandished, the barrels of their guns looked like they were all originally designed to be children's squirt guns.
"No one is home. Please come back later." Kade spoke through the app.
"Oh, please K. You were always an expert at avoiding the body scanner." A blonde woman quipped through the doorbell.
"If that is the case, then why didn't you just bang down the door?" Kade asked incredulously.
"The boss did not give us permission to shoot up the whole neighborhood. Can't go alerting the neighbors." The woman exaggerated a pout. The dark haired man beside her gave a chuckle before being elbowed by the mocha skinned woman that rounded out the group.
"For old times sake I thought I would give you a warning. I know you can't resist a chance to talk to me. Remember when we were dating?" Blondie's smug expression beamed through the camera.
"That was not a date, Charlotte. We never dated." Kade cut his eyes toward me, as if he was telling me the last bit and not her.
"I knew that would keep you on the line long enough to trace your whereabouts. See you soon" Charlotte winked at the camera.
Kade cursed under his breath before disconnecting the app. He had been duped.
"I don't have time to explain. Take Liam, cut through the alley. Run a few streets. A man named Lee will find you." Kade pulled me into another kiss. Unlike the one that happened not five minutes ago, this one was quick and sloppy. It had none of the tenderness but more emotion than I could hardly handle.
"You better hurry," Jeff interrupted our kiss.
I looked at Liam, who still clinged to me despite being squished between me and his father.
Kade opened the dining room sliding window and kicked out the screen. I pulled Liam to sit on my hip and did not look back as I ran into the night.
Our back gate creaked as I pushed it. I wish we had kept it in better repair. Maybe Kade kept it squeaky on purpose to catch Charlotte and her friends. Who were those people? Who was Kade?
He always insisted his life before me was boring. He did not talk about it much and whenever his family visited it seemed like stories were always about his childhood and nothing beyond that. I had not found it strange since my family likes to retell the same stories about me.
What had Kade done after college? Had Kade really gone to college? Who did I marry?
I looked down at Liam to see silent tears stream down his face as he bounced to my rhythmic steps.
"Mommy, I'm scared." Was all he managed.
"Me too, Buddy." I managed as I cut across our neighbor's rear entry driveway and through their lawn onto the next street.
I thought I heard something behind me. Instead of stopping to see if Kade followed me, I ran faster. Cutting through the alleys and side streets, I ran toward the main thoroughfare out of our neighborhood.
Without thinking about being seen, I darted under a street light. I aimed for the nearest alleyway to stay off the main streets. Had anyone noticed my shadowed retreat?
Suddenly the roar of an engine revved behind me as I crossed the alley. I cut up a driveway to avoid nearly being hit. The full size travel van drove up onto the small patch of grass between the houses to follow me.
Turning to see how much ground the van gained was my downfall. My foot caught a garden hose that I had not noticed in the dim wisps of streetlight mixed with moving headlights. It pulled taut as Liam and I flung to the ground.
The van screeched to a stop a few feet from me.
"Run, Liam!" I instructed as I pushed my son to his feet before scrambling to mine.
A man swung open the driver's door. Brandishing a gun between the door frame and the open door, he aimed toward me.
"Don't move!" He instructed.
Poor Liam did not understand my urgency in my instruction. He instead clung to my leg before letting out a loud wail he had so bravely been holding in.
The lines in the man's face softened as he looked toward my son clinging to my thigh. He lowered his gun slightly. I pushed myself between Liam and the stranger. I did not appreciate a gun being aimed at my child.
"Do you happen to be looking for someone?" The man said nonchalantly as he fully holstered the weapon.
"Are you Lee?" I asked with all the courage I could muster. At least my voice wasn't quivering.
"Glad we found each other. Get in!"