Now here they were, newlyweds, their hands in each other’s pants. The rain battering the roof of the truck. The trees swaying in the wind. Their bodies pressed close enough to be a single person. She had a way of kissing that took the air out of Hawley and then pushed it back, down to his lungs, as if she’d taken over his breathing. With each inhalation, he felt stronger. Smarter. All the things he’d ever wished to be and knew he wasn’t.
The knock on the window startled them both. Lily scrambled back into her seat and buttoned up her shirt. Hawley pulled his jacket across his lap. The glass was steamed and they couldn’t see out. Hawley used his fingers to clear the condensation. Outside in the rain there was a teenage boy, maybe fifteen. Hawley rolled down the window a crack and the boy leaned in, curling his fingers around the edge, dribbling water inside the car.
“Have you guys seen a dog?”
“What kind?” Hawley asked.
“A mutt,” said the boy. “But she looks like a Lab.”
“We haven’t seen her,” said Lily.
“My dad’s going to kill me,” said the boy. “I took her for a walk and she slipped out of her collar.”
In a locked metal box bolted in the rear of Hawley’s truck, there were two long-range rifles with scopes, a SIG Sauer pistol, a set of derringers he’d been saving as a surprise for Lily, his father’s M14, ammunition for all of the guns and a set of targets. Hawley checked the kid’s eyes, but he didn’t seem like he was on anything. The rain came down steadily and the boy kept his fingers on the window.
“Do you need some help?” Lily asked.
“Sure,” said the kid, and his face brightened.
Hawley didn’t want to leave the car. But Lily had already pulled her jacket on and tied up her boots. Before he knew it, the door was open and she was outside. Hawley reached under the seat, where he kept his Colt. He put the gun into his pocket and then stepped out of the truck into the rain.
“What’s your name?” he asked the kid.
“Charlie.”
“And what’s the dog’s name?”
“Her name is Charley, too. But with a y,” said the boy.
“Is the dog named after you or are you named after the dog?” Hawley asked.
“She had that name when we got her.”
“Funny.”
“Yeah,” Charlie said. He was a skinny kid. He had on torn-up jeans, purple sneakers, a leather coat that was too big for him and a sweatshirt underneath, the hood pulled up against the rain, the fabric shiny and wet. The dog leash was wrapped tightly around his palm several times, the empty leather collar dangling from his wrist like an oversize bracelet.
Lily opened the door to the truck again and pulled out an umbrella from under the passenger seat. The umbrella was from a bank where Hawley kept one of his safe-deposit boxes. Lily pressed the button on the handle and the umbrella sprang to life, extending twice its length, then spreading its mechanical arms. The web of nylon stretched into place with a pop, and Lily stood under the bright-yellow dome, circled with the logo of the bank—a beehive made of dollar bills. YOUR MONEY IS SAFE WITH US HONEY.
“Which way did the dog go?” Lily asked.
“That way,” said Charlie, and he pointed into the trees.
“You should follow the trail,” Hawley said. “We’ll flank the sides.”
The kid hesitated.
“You want to find this mutt or not?”
“Yes,” said Charlie. Then he started calling for the dog and hurried into the trees.
“I think you scared him,” said Lily.
Hawley ducked under the umbrella. Inside the dome the rain sounded like static. “What are we doing out here?”
“We’re helping,” said Lily. “What if that was our dog?”
“Do you want a dog?”
“No,” said Lily. “But I’d want someone to help if our dog was missing.”
Hawley took the umbrella from her and lifted it so he could stand without crouching. All around them the rain poured down, and her green eyes looked greener than ever.
“Give me the gun,” Lily said.
He hadn’t pulled a job since they’d been married. They were living off some money he had stashed away. It was enough to keep Hawley out of the game for at least a year. Even so, he kept a weapon close. For the first time he had something to lose, and it was funny how that changed things, how it made Hawley imagine himself living past the next day, into the next week, the next year. He’d started wearing his seatbelt. He brushed his teeth. Sometimes he fell so deeply inside his new life that the edges of himself felt like they were coming loose. Then Lily would catch him in one of his old habits—checking and rechecking the locks, or doubling back on streets when he thought they were being followed—and the years he’d spent alone would rise up solidly around him, resonating in the dark like blood pushed out of a pinprick.
He took the Colt from his inside pocket and handed it over. Lily checked the barrel and then put the gun in her coat.
“Let’s go find that dog.”
They went in different directions, each taking a branching path from the one where the boy had disappeared. Hawley was glad Lily had the umbrella. It let him keep an eye on the yellow dome bobbing through the branches. Then the woods got thick and he lost sight of her.
The air smelled of moss and mushrooms, things that spring to life from the muck. All around him the branches shook and spattered and spilled. The rain was still coming down hard and Hawley was soaked up past his knees. He could hear Lily’s voice calling, Charley, Charley. Prickers stung his hand. Water ran down the neck of his coat.
If the dog was smart, Hawley decided, she’d be looking for shelter, not off wandering in the woods. There wasn’t any solid cover here—not for miles. Except for the truck. That’s where Hawley would go, if he were a dog.
For a moment he scanned the bushes ahead for movement. Then he turned around and started walking back toward the parking lot. He hoped he was right—that the dog was huddled underneath the engine. Hawley pictured a chocolate Lab, overweight and panting in the mud. With some coaxing the dog would crawl out and lick his hand, and he’d carry it down the path and show Lily that he was the kind of man who could find things.
When he got back to the parking lot, he saw the kid, Charlie, crouched beside the truck instead. At first he thought the boy had had the same idea, and was checking beneath the undercarriage for the dog. But then he saw that one of the backseat windows was smashed and the driver’s side door was propped open. Charlie didn’t look up. All around them, water was pelting down, hitting the trees and covering the sound of Hawley’s footsteps as he left the woods and stood behind him.
“You should have gotten inside and closed the door before you pulled the wires,” he said. “Now you’ll never get it to start.”