Day 92 #2
Lally ran her fingers playfully through the hair on Harlan’s forearm, scratching him gently with her nails.
Almost instantly, something shifted between them.
They locked eyes for what felt like an eternity; Jesse could have walked back and forth to the mailbox a dozen more times and neither of them would have noticed.
She felt herself lean in, but Harlan did, too, or that was what she would tell herself later when she replayed the kiss in her head.
They both initiated it, and perhaps they both did because it was pure passion and impulse and surprisingly hot—the kind of kiss that inspired teenagers to rip their clothes off in the back seats of cars.
But they were not in the back seat of his Impala and their teenage years were very much in the rearview.
They were adults who sat squarely up front, and bench seats were a thing of the past. But in the moment all of that was secondary to the kind of kiss Lally hadn’t been blessed with in—she couldn’t remember how long.
And for a moment, even if it was just that, it was good to forget about everything—Norman, the embryos, the digging, Jesse’s weight loss, her biological clock—and succumb to something so primal.
And maybe it might have gone further, if—
They weren’t interrupted by a sharp rap on the window.
Lally screamed and recoiled, then buried her head in Harlan’s shoulder, terrified Jesse was just on the other side of the glass.
How would she ever explain herself? She peeked up at Harlan just long enough to register a placid expression (Harlan was always calm), which steadied her.
With as much of her pride as she could muster, she swept the hair back from her face and straightened her blouse, which had somehow come untucked and somewhat unbuttoned.
The mysterious knocker was on her side of the car.
He had thick glasses and a flattop haircut Brylcreemed and shellacked and therefore unmussed by the wind; it made him look as out of place as they did. He said something the wind swallowed.
“What should I do?” she whispered to Harlan, covering her lips so the man could not see. Later she would remember this detail and admire her own instincts for this clandestine line of work.
“Roll down the window?” Harlan said it like it was obvious, but if people were disappearing around these parts left and right, she didn’t think it was so clear.
Especially for this guy, who, unlike Jesse, looked like he might pop up in a late-night Wikipedia serial killer rabbit hole, or on the walls of one’s local post office.
But wanting to maintain her stakeout cool, Lally lowered the window as naturally as she could manage, even though she only let it down a few inches.
She was immediately rewarded with a fresh blast of sand to her eye.
“Good afternoon,” the man said, looking from her to Harlan and back again.
“Can I help you?” Harlan asked. He was the definition of unflappable.
“I was about to ask you the same.” The man placed one hand on the roof of their car and looked down the road a ways ahead of them. “I see this car parked here a lot lately.”
Harlan shrugged. “No law against that.”
“Nope, no law,” the man agreed. “But it does arouse some suspicion.” He was a white suit and pocket watch shy of looking like the sheriff of Hazzard County, setting spring-loaded speed traps to catch those pesky Duke boys.
“My wife and I were looking at property. Started by going to open houses, but now we were wondering if we should build.”
The man cupped his hands around his eyeglasses like he was looking into their car with binoculars. Lally sat on her left hand to hide the lack of a ring, wanting to maintain this little fantasy, even though he was just as likely protecting his eyes from the wind. “Build.”
Harlan rested his forearm over the steering wheel, making it look, to Lally’s surprise, even bigger. “You know. A house. Is that your Airstream?”
The man looked back at the trailer behind him.
“That all depends who’s asking.”
“Well, I’m asking,” Harlan said, and his befuddled tone made Lally smile. He held out his hand for the man to shake. “Kent McCoy.”
“Randall.” The man could only fit a few fingers through the open window and could only shake Harlan’s fingertips.
Lally was struck with a new fit of laughter; the daintiness of the handshake was too much, and she bit her lip to swallow the worst of it.
Randall didn’t seem like the type to enjoy being laughed at.
Fortunately, Harlan continued undaunted.
“We thought maybe you had the right idea. That we should look for a stretch of land on this road and, well, build.”
Lally admired Harlan’s ability to both flatter and obfuscate, and, hopefully, defuse.
“There’s no land for sale on this road.”
Harlan nodded as if he were letting that sink in. “We just liked the view is all. You sure can see quite a distance. What about this house here?” He gestured at Jesse and Norman’s place.
“That house isn’t for sale,” the man said definitively.
“No, I know that. It’s just a big lot and I noticed there was a lot of digging happening on the property. I was wondering if it was for a foundation, or if a subdivision was going in.”
The man didn’t say anything else; they were now in a standoff. Lally and Harlan traded glances.
“Do you know the own—” Harlan began, but the man had had enough.
“I think it’s time you move along.”
Lally jumped in, hoping a woman’s touch could de-escalate.
“Oh, honey,” she said, taking full advantage of the situation to playfully scratch Harlan’s forearm again.
“You said we could see the…Integratron, was it?” She turned to the man at her window.
“Is that near here? Maybe we could grab a bite and see that.”
The man did nothing but point to the cell phone on Harlan’s dash.
His meaning was clear: You have GPS. Lally was about to jump in with something about the reception out here, but the man decided their interaction was through.
He tapped the car twice on the roof and turned to head back to his trailer.
Lally quickly rolled up her window. She turned to Harlan and made a face akin to the gritted teeth emoji; he just rolled his eyes.
When they looked down, they realized she was still holding on to his arm.
Harlan turned to Lally after they’d been driving for a few minutes in silence. “Can I ask you a question?”
“Is it related to the case?” She gestured for him to keep his eyes on the road.
Harlan checked the gas gauge before answering. “Yes and no.”
“Well, there’s no stopping you now.”
“Why do you want to find your brother?”
Do people let their brothers stay missing? “Why?”
“Yeah.” And then Harlan backpedaled. “Besides the obvious.”
Lally was on the verge of regretting that kiss.
“In my office that first day, you said there was a pressing matter.”
“Oh god,” Lally said before she could stop herself.
Harlan turned to look at her quizzically.
Lally buried her head in her hands. This was the most unsexy thing to say.
How could she put this in the least desperate way possible?
“Do you have kids, Harlan?” The words came out muffled, but she thought maybe putting the attention back on him might help.
And it was something she maybe should have known before now.
“No. Never had the chance. I was married once, but I think we knew early on it wasn’t going to last. That kids would just make it more complicated.”
Lally took a deep breath and began. She told him about the embryos.
About how they were for Jesse and Norman and how she had been happy—honored, even—to play her part.
And how over time their feelings about children had changed.
About how they lost their resolve. (Not to mention lost Norman.) And about how the embryos themselves, half her genetic material, were just sitting there in cold storage, waiting to become, waiting to be loved, and how she could be the one to do that—love them—if only she could find her brother.
And about how there was only a limited window of time before all of this was no longer an option, before she wouldn’t feel right about it.
When she was finished, they clicked off a mile in silence.
It could have freaked her out, but instead she felt that an enormous weight had been lifted from her shoulders.
If bringing a baby into this world would cost her a romance with Harlan, then that would have to be the price she would pay.
Still, she added, “But Norman didn’t know any of this.
So it can’t have anything to do with his disappearance. ”
Harlan gripped the wheel with both hands. “Yes, but Jesse did.”
He didn’t need to say any more; the implication was clear.
Norman could have been overseeing a build in Minneapolis or someplace, and after her visit with Jesse, he could have called Norman to warn him to stay away.
To avoid her calls. To steer clear. If that was the case, Norman wasn’t missing so much as hiding.
But that didn’t make sense with the other evidence—the cell phone data, for instance.
Would he have purchased a new phone just to avoid her?
They’d driven for so long, Lally forgot where they were even going. But maybe it didn’t matter. She didn’t need a destination, other than away from how she felt deep inside, away from this mess. “I’m sorry. This is the worst kind of first-date talk. The crazy woman is baby-obsessed.”
Harlan smiled and said, “Then it’s a good thing this is not a first date.”
Lally’s heart raced anew. Instead of denying that this was a date, his tone implied this was more than their first. She yanked at her seat belt to give her some slack and then leaned her head on his shoulder, grateful for Harlan’s confidence, for someone else to help shoulder the weight of her burden when it became too heavy to bear on her own.
She could see how easily one could come to count on partnership.
And how unmooring it would be if it were suddenly, inexplicably, taken away.