“OK,” he said. “What else?” The cold was enveloping him now. He always paced when he talked on the phone, but now, he couldn’t move.
“They hit it with the excavator,” Annabelle said. “The car. When they started digging out the site. And then they called the cops. It was a … it was a Taurus. And there was somebody in the front seat.”
He couldn’t move. He couldn’t breathe.
“Harlan,” she said. “It was Mom.”
31
What Matters Most
Something was very wrong.
She could see it in his posture. She could hear it in his voice. She could practically feel it in the air.
Sometime in there, she’d come to stand beside him. He glanced at her, then focused on the phone again and said, “OK. I’ll be there just as soon as I can. Have you called Alison?” A pause, and he said, “Don’t worry about it. I’ll call her. Vanessa, too. Look. Who’s that friend you’ve got? Kyla, right? Call her. Ask if she and her mom and can come over until I get there. If she’s not there, call your softball coach, and if she’s not there, call your volleyball coach. Somebody’ll be there, and they’ll come. And let me talk to that social worker. But—Bug. Hang on. I’m on my way. I’ve got this.”
When he hung up the phone at last, he looked shattered.
That was the only word. Like he was in a million pieces. He’d sounded steady and sure on the phone, but he didn’t look that way now.
She had her hand on his arm. “Harlan. What happened?”
He stared at her, but she couldn’t tell if he even saw her. “My dad’s been arrested for killing my mom.”
She had a hand at her mouth. “Oh, no. How? I’m so sorry.”
“Yeah. I have to go. I have to book a jet. I have to …” He had a hand in his hair, and it was shaking.
She said, “You need to get something warmer to wear.” The rest of him was shaking, too. “A flannel shirt or something. And socks. I’m going to make coffee and sandwiches.”
“You can’t drink coffee. You’re pregnant. And I can’t. I need to arrange for a jet. Right now.”
“No, you don’t. I’m going to do it. Tell me which company you’re with, and then go get that warm shirt.” When he just stared at her, she gave him a little push. “Go. I’m doing it.”
That was why, fifteen minutes later, she was hanging up her phone, which she’d put on speaker while she worked. She put roast-beef sandwiches on two plates and told Harlan, who was sitting at the counter, “That’s the jet arranged. Wheels up in an hour and a half, and flight time two and a half hours. I’ll call and cancel that clinic appointment. We’ll do it another time.”
“No,” he said. He was eating his sandwich like he was starved. She got the fixings out again and started making him another one. “We should go on and do it. Get the answer.”
“Harlan …”
“No. It’s swabbing my cheek and doing a blood draw on you, right? It’ll take five minutes. You said the appointment was in an hour and a half. What’s that now? Forty-five minutes?”
“Well, yeah. I’m not sure how you’ve kept track of the time with that much on your mind, but yes. About that.”
“So we do it on the way.” He stopped eating, raised his head, and looked at her like she’d just come into focus. “Hey. Would you come with me?”
“Uh … what?”
“There’s going to be a lot. My sisters. The police. The social worker asked me if I was there when my mom disappeared. I wasn’t, but my sisters were, and I’m pretty sure the cops will have questions. And there’ll be …” His hand was shaking again. Even as she noticed it, he tightened it around his coffee mug like he was trying to make the shaking stop. “Details. I’m going to have to stay somewhere. My sisters will have to stay, too. And Bug.”
“Annabelle.”
“Yeah. She can’t be at the house. I need to move her out. And bring her back here, whatever I have to do to make them let me.”
“I agree,” she said. “And I can’t imagine that they won’t let her brother take her, if her father’s been arrested for murder.”
“I can do this,” he said. “But I need help. I know it’s too much to ask. You’ve got Dyma. Your grandfather. Your job. But I need help.”
Still an hour out from Bismarck, and the thoughts kept circling. He was trying to focus. Next thing. What’s the next thing?
Calling his sisters. Vanessa, first. He got through the explanation, which sounded just as bad for the repeating, said “I don’t know,” a bunch of times, and gave her the address of the place Jennifer had booked.
Vanessa said, “I’m supposed to be flying to London tomorrow,” and sighed. “I just can’t wrap my head around this, you know?”
“Yeah,” he said. “I know. I’m supposed to be in L.A. on Monday myself. I don’t think either of us is going to make it. Maybe it’ll be easier if we do it together, though. I have a feeling it’s going to be pretty bad. A lot of … issues.”
“I’ll let you know when I can get a flight,” she said. “It’ll be tomorrow.”
“Let me know,” he said, “and I’ll pick it up. Or if you want me to charter something.”
She laughed, the sound so unexpected, he jumped. “Harlan. I’m a flight attendant. The flight’s the least of my problems. And I’m not exactly …” An exhalation of breath. “Burning to get out there, you know?”
“Yeah,” he said, his throat trying to close, the dread trying to take him over, to suck him down. “I do.”
“I’ll see you tomorrow, then. Thanks for rushing out there, buddy.”
Buddy. How long had it been since anybody had called him that?
His mom had called him that.
Alison next. More, “Oh, my God,” on her part; more, “I don’t know,” on his. Finally, she said, “Uh … we’ll drive down this afternoon, I guess. Steve’s at the hardware store, and Colleen’s at a birthday party. Oh, my God. Mom. I can’t …”
“Yeah,” he said. He couldn’t either. “I’ll reserve a room for you, then.”
“It’d be good if it has a pool, so Steve can keep the kids occupied. And make sure there’s a restaurant, will you? I can’t believe it. I can’t.”
“It does have a pool. Holiday Inn. I’ll pick up the tab.”
“I hope so,” she said. “Or we couldn’t come.”
He wanted to say, Really? What would you have done, then? Stayed home? But he didn’t.
Jennifer had said, before she’d started doing the booking, when she was setting out a little notebook, a pen, and her phone on the fold-down table like a workman arranging his tools, “You need a house, I think, not a hotel. So you can talk and relax a little, and you don’t have to eat meals out. So Annabelle has a space where she feels safe.”