Now What?

What Now?

Rachel knelt by the daybed in the guest room. It was going to be the nursery soon, and the thought made her place her hand over her growing belly.

She hoped her suspicions were wrong, that pregnancy was making her paranoid. Kieran had never given her reason to doubt him before, but lately, he'd been cagey about where he was going and who he was with. She thought he was cheating.

This last time, he claimed to have been on a business trip, and that he would be too busy to get calls. Instead, he told her to text him if anything major happened with her or the baby. He was gone for four days, and when he came home, he dumped his stuff in the guest room instead of their bedroom. So, there she knelt in front of the big black duffle bag she fished out from under the daybed. It was in the compartment where the trundle mattress should have been. Her hands shook as she unzipped it, and then her whole body shook as she took in the contents.

Instead of clothes stained with another woman's lipstick and reeking of another woman's perfume sat bundles of cash. A lot of cash, with two guns on top.

Rachel's heart raced as the whys flooded her mind. She came up with reason after reason why Kieran would have a duffle bag full of money and guns. None of them were good.

"You found it sooner than I thought you would," Kieran's somber voice behind her made her jump and turn to see him leaning in the doorway. He crossed his arms over his chest, and leaned his right shoulder against the doorframe. He made sure his big body blocked the way out in case she tried to bolt. It killed him to see her look at him in fear, but he knew she needed to know this about him. It was long passed time she knew. "What's going through your head, Rache? I know you have questions, so ask me, please." He kept his tone even, he didn't want her to know how desperate he was for her to accept this part of him.

Rachel saw the desperation in his eyes, knowing if she hadn't known him so well she would have thought he didn't care.

"Why do you have this, Kieran? Are you trafficking drugs," she demanded. "People?" She spat the word, feeling sick at the thought of the man she loved, the father of her unborn child, being a human trafficker.

Kieran shook his head, barely holding in his offense at her train of thought. It made sense to him she would think that before what was really going on. "Neither,"

"What, then, Kieran?" She demanded on the verge of hysteria.

Kieran rubbed at the back of his head, contemplating how to tell her before meeting her eyes with his. "I rob banks,"

Rachel felt like she had the wind knocked from her. She shook her head, finding it too hard to wrap her head around. This man, the man she married less than a year ago couldn't be a bank robber. It was too unbelievable.

Rachel heard mention on the radio of a massive bank robbery one state over and the subsequent manhunt taking place. She listened in her driveway as the news detailed that the five suspects were smart, and calculating. They likely planned the heist for weeks, if not months based on how fast they got in and out. They wore full body coverings according to hostages, so descriptions stopped at height and build. The hostages were fine, and each one was thankful to be alive.

She shook her head and shut off her car, feeling a chill at the thought of those men being free.

"Hey, babe," Kieran called from the living room when she came in. "Everything all right? You were sitting in the car for a bit, I almost went out to check on you."

Rachel went over and pecked him on the lips. "I'm fine, I was listening to the news. There was this awful bank robbery a state over," she explained. "They held twelve people at gunpoint while they robbed the bank, and the police have no leads. Kind of scary."