Chapter 12
CHAPTER TWELVE
“ S tay at the ranch,” Maria said. “Just for tonight.”
Harrison lowered his head, because he couldn’t refuse her while looking into her eyes. And yet, when he wasn’t looking at her, he kept seeing Robert again, lying on a stainless-steel bed, his skin gray-blue, a small round hole in the center of his forehead. So he looked at Maria again. “Robert didn’t do any of it,” he said and realized he’d said it a few times already.
They’d been sent packing. There hadn’t been room in the tiny morgue anyway for that many living bodies and two dead ones. So they’d decided to return to the ranch for the moment. They were in Maria’s van, and she was driving.
“I was sure Robert wouldn’t hurt anyone, and Solomon was an accident,” he went on. “But it wasn’t Robert at all. He was a victim, too. And Carrie’s still missing, and I can’t find my sister. You…” He stopped talking, swallowed hard. “If you’re near me, you’re in danger.”
“So, what are you fixin’ to do? Head home and put your dad in danger?”
He opened his mouth, then closed it again. “I have to make sure he’s okay.”
“I know you do. I agree with you on that. So we’re gettin’ a private jet to fly you to Ithaca. No questions asked. No commercial airline. Nobody to follow you. As far as anyone knows, you’ll still be holed up at the ranch.”
He shook his head slowly. “Where are we supposed to get a private jet?”
“ Hon ,” she said, with a look that pitied his lack of knowledge. “My family owns one of the biggest operations in seven counties. We know people. Most of them owe one or more of us a favor. And some of those favor-owers have private jets.”
He looked her way. “I keep forgettin’. You all seem so…”
“What? Hayseed? Redneck?”
“Down to earth,” he said. “Relatable. I want to say ordinary, but the truth is your family is far from it.”
“Oh,” she said. “Thanks. I agree.”
“The private jet’s a good idea.”
“Because if nobody knows you’re goin’ up there, you won’t put your father in danger by bein’ near him,” she said.
He nodded.
“And so, by extension, I wouldn’t be in any danger from your proximity, either.”
He frowned at her, realizing she had tricked him with logic. “Not that it will matter, with you in Texas and me in New York,” he said.
“Oh, no. I’ll be in New York, too.” She took her eyes off the road long enough to look right into his. “I come with the plane.”
She came with the plane.
Harrison didn’t have to spend the night at the ranch, because three hours later he was sitting in the most comfortable airplane seat in existence. It was one of six plush seats, in sets of two, facing one another. There was also a small sofa, full bathroom, a galley with coffee maker, and a mini fridge full of beverages.
“I had no idea private jets were like… flying campers,” he said.
“It’d have to be a nice camper. This thing’s amazin’.” Maria was rummaging in the mini fridge. She popped the top on a Coke, ignoring the wine bottle with the gift card dangling from its neck. Harrison had been too curious not to read the card. “Always happy to lend a hand.” It was signed, “Senator Mark Tompkins.”
“Pilot said four hours,” Maria said, nodding toward the closed and locked door between the cockpit and the passenger area. “There’s a TV.” She made that part a question.
He nodded and she located a remote and started flipping through the available selections. When they both said, “Oh!” at the same time, she was on O Brother, Where Art Thou? She looked back at him. “You love this one, too?”
He shrugged. “It’s a good movie.”
“One of my faves.”
It had been his mom’s favorite, as well. They’d watched it every year on her birthday. She’d loved movies. For a moment, his mother stood there in front of him, gauzy and beautiful. She was smiling and turning in a circle, holding the skirts of a long blue sundress she’d worn on one of those birthdays. Her head was angled downward, eyes up, smile bright.
Maria clicked play then returned to rummaging. She found a package of chocolate chip cookies, and returned to her seat, swiveling it so they both faced the screen.
When she offered him a cookie, he took one and a dewy can. Then he tried to focus on the movie but failed. And the cookie didn’t appeal, which meant the world was off its axis. He checked his phone to see if Lily had replied, and then he tried to track her phone from his. He and Lily had convinced their father to enable this feature for them both by saying they were all doing it for each other, so none of them would ever be lost.
He’d never had reason to use it.
The app said his sister’s phone was offline.
Maria slid her hand over his. It was cool from the Coke can, and he found that soothing, for some reason. He wanted to flip his hand over, interlace their fingers, and give a squeeze. But he didn’t. He was trying not to lead her on. There was no future for them.
She took her hand away and returned to looking at the TV screen, munching her cookie, sipping cola. He set his drink in the cup holder untouched and willed the time to pass quickly. They were all alone. The pilot was behind a locked door and oblivious to them. The movie was playing with what might’ve been the greatest soundtrack of all time.
Maria fished a little packet of wet wipes from her bag and offered him one.
“Thanks.” He wiped his fingers. She wiped hers. She put the packet back into her bag and came out with something else.
“Mint?” she asked
“Sure.” He accepted the wintergreen Life Saver she pressed from the pack into his hand. She popped one as well. They settled back and watched the movie until his mint had dissolved to nothing in his mouth.
And then she got out of her chair and came to his. She sat on his lap, facing him, one leg on either side. “There’s nothing we can do to help until we get there.”
“I kn-know.”
She pressed her palms to his cheeks and kissed him. Oh, man, how she kissed him. And before his brain finished processing the surprise of it and what to do about it, his body was already fully involved. His arms wrapped around her waist and his mouth joined them in the mutiny.
She sat up a little and said, “Is this okay?”
“Yeah. I mean, I thought you said not until I decided to stay.”
“Yeah. I did say that. But now I’m kind of afraid you’re never gonna decide it, and I’ll have missed my one and only chance to be with you.” And then she pulled her blouse off over her head, and there were a pair of perfect boobs in a pretty pink bra in front of his face.
“Uh-huh.” He put his hands on them, bra and all.
She arched her back a little, pressing closer. She said something else, but his brain’s language centers were no longer functioning. He pulled her closer and kissed her again. They undressed each other, trying not to part their bodies while they did so, mashing them back together immediately if they had to separate at all. And then they were skin against skin, and he was in heaven, and trying to go slow and savor every second. His forearm supported the curve of her back while he threaded his fingers through her glorious copper curls.
She was everything, his entire world in those moments. Every other thought was banished from his mind, and there was only her, her brown eyes, her soft lips, her warm skin, the sounds of her breaths, the pulse in her neck thrumming faster as he nibbled there. She moved with him, over him, taking him into her, and moaning when she did, and he wouldn’t have known or cared if the plane had crashed. They moved together in wordless synchronicity. She lifted her mouth from his to look into his eyes as sensation crashed through her, and then she snapped her arms around him and held tight. He responded in kind, and he swore it felt, in those moments, as if they’d melded entirely.
Maria put herself back together in the restroom and got stuck in the mirror. Her eyes were round and full of something new. She wasn’t sure what it was, but it was big. It was huge.
She knew, as she’d never known before, that Harry Hyde was meant for her. He was her other half. The one. This wasn’t rebound from her failed wedding; this was the real deal. That hadn’t even been close.
How had her family seen so clearly something entirely invisible to her? Billy Bob had never been the one. As Harry had told her, that never would have or could have worked.
Because it was Harry. It would always be Harry. She just had to be patient long enough for him to realize it, too.
When she returned, Harry had lowered the TV volume— at some point, he’d cranked it up to cover the sounds of their lovemaking. Hers, anyway. She’d really tried to be quiet, but…
She smoothed her blouse, returned to her seat.
“Touchdown in twenty minutes,” the pilot said from a speaker nearby.
The hatch lowered, built-in steps gliding into place. Harrison looked out. There was a runway, a rolling meadow, and a man standing between two cars with his hands folded in front of him.
The pilot, who had opened the cockpit partition said, “That’s your rental car. That fellow will have your keys. Mr. Brand arranged it.”
Harrison didn’t bother asking which Mr. Brand. Maria could tell him who to thank later. Thinking of her, he turned. She was hauling her bag out of the little compartment in the back, where she’d stowed it. It was a big, soft-sided suitcase. He reached for it as she got close, and she shook her head. “You’re injured. I’ve got it,” she said. “What, you think your lovin’ made me too weak to carry my own bag?”
“Your uncles and your dad would expect me to carry your bag,” he said. They had not discussed what had happened between them. And they probably should, at some point. He didn’t want her to think he’d taken it lightly. He didn’t want her to think he didn’t care. And he didn’t want her to think it had changed anything. Even though it felt like it had changed everything all the way to the cellular level.
“My uncles and my dad are not you or me,” she said.
All the same, he backed up to let her exit first, grabbing his own bag before he followed her down to the pavement. He came up beside her as they walked toward the two cars. They were both the same hybrid model, one green, one black.
The man in between said, “Mr. Hyde, Miss Brand,” and offered a key to Harrison.
“Which one?” he asked.
The fellow nodded at the black car. Harrison looked at the key fob, popped the trunk, took Maria’s bag and put them both in. When he closed the trunk, Harrison said, “Makes sense for me to drive. I know my way around.”
The pilot got into the other car with the other dude, and they were already pulling away.
Maria said, “But is your shoulder up to it?”
“I’ll steer left-handed.”
He drove from the private air strip onto the nearest road, and then he stopped and looked at the GPS to figure out where they were, and to enter his dad’s address.
“You don’t want to go to your sister’s first?” Maria asked.
“I do,” he said. “I want to check things out, but then I figured, if whoever is after me already knows about her, they might be watching her place. Even if they already took her?—”
“Don’t think that,” she said quickly. “But I think you’re right. If someone is watching, they could follow us straight to your dad’s. Good call.”
He nodded and drove faster once they were on the road. They had a twenty-five-minute drive. And he ought to say something about what had happened between them, right?
He rolled his eyes at his inner turmoil. “That was some airplane, right?”
“Who needs something like that?” she asked.
“Well, today, we did.”
“I s’pose that’s a solid point.” She made a face, and said, “I wish I’d taken a few snacks from the galley for the road.”
“Dad always has food, and he gets his feelings hurt if people don’t eat. He was a short order cook for twenty years, before he took over as manager of the same diner. But he wanted to be a real chef and started taking classes late in life. He even spent a month training in Paris while I was still an undergrad.”
“That’s amazing,” she said.
“He was always putting some experimental new dish on the menu, only to have his heart broken when the locals just wanted their burgers and fries.” He shook a finger her way. “But he didn’t give up. He had to go slow. Keep all the stuff they were used to on the menu, and just introduce one new dish every couple of weeks. The ones that worked, he would keep in the rotation, the ones that didn’t, he’d leave out. By the time he sold the place and retired, he had twenty-one different dishes taking turns on the menu.”
“He found a way,” Maria said.
“He still loves to cook.” Harrison thought it was a good start at conversation. He should keep it going. “So, about what happened?—”
“I chose to make love with you, Harry. It didn’t come with strings.”
“I know. I just want you to know that it… it meant something to me.”
“Yeah?”
He nodded. This was going well.
“What?” she asked.
“Huh?”
“You said it meant something to you. So, what did it mean?”
“I…” He looked across at her, then back at the road. “I don’t know, it just meant something.”
She nodded, heaved a sigh. “It meant somethin’ to me, too,” she said.
He had the feeling that if he asked her “What?” she’d have a well-thought out and compelling answer. So he didn’t ask her.
Instead, he glanced at the in-dash system and said, “Want to try to find us some music?”
She did, hitting the voice control, and saying, “Contemporary Country.”
A smooth female twang came from the speakers with a catchy guitar riff behind it. It wasn’t what he would have picked, but he liked it.
It kind of made him want to put that cowboy hat back on.
There was a security gate, with a round, smiling guard in a booth at the entrance to the apartment complex. He wore navy-blue trousers with an impressive crease, shiny black shoes, a white button-down shirt. Harry showed his ID, and Maria handed hers over, too. The guard checked them against their faces, handed them back, then walked away while speaking on a walkie-talkie. All Maria could hear was murmurs and static. He returned to his booth, hit a button, and the gate opened. Harry drove them through.
A pretty wooden sign said, “Elmwood,” but did not elaborate.
As they drove over a paved lane, they passed dozens of duplex units, all sided in cream with brown trim. Each unit had a small driveway and two-car garage. Similar lanes, all with tree names, split off in many directions, and she lost track of how many times they’d turned. There’d been Pine Street, Spruce Avenue, Willow Lane, and Oak Terrace. Harry didn’t seem to look at the signs at all. He must know the way by heart. Eventually, he pulled alongside the curb in front of one of the units. “Not allowed to block the driveways,” he said by way of explanation.
“I can wait here,” Maria said, “if you want some time with him, before?—”
“No, it’s fine. I saw him a week ago, and we talk daily, up until all this, at least.” He shrugged. “I didn’t think it was safe to tell him we were coming.”
“Just what everybody loves. Unexpected company.”
He held her gaze for a minute, then he said, “I think you’re right,” and then he called his father on speaker. His father answered on the third ring.
“Hey, Dad.”
“Harrison! It’s great to hear from you.”
“I can do better. Are you up for a visit?”
“You’re here?”
“Right outside.” Harry looked toward the house and Maria, following his gaze, saw curtains move.
“Who’s that with you?”
The older man’s tone had changed entirely. It was deep and, Maria thought, suspicious.
“Maria,” he said. “It’s her family who took me in down in Texas. I trust her.”
“You sure?”
He frowned at the phone then at Maria. She shook her head, as lost as he was. As far as he knew, his dad had no idea about the intrigue and danger unfolding in his son’s life, beyond that his car had been stolen and the solar tile with it. Then Harry said, “I’m sure, Dad. Listen, are you… um… alone?”
“If you’re sure, bring her on in. I just put mixed berry tarts in the oven.”
The man left the window then appeared in the open front door. He had hair that was fading to gray from a reddish brown, in a horseshoe pattern around a bald center, and a warm smile for his son. He wore loose gray warmup pants and a red polo shirt with an alligator logo on the breast.
Harry hit the lock on the car and walked with Maria right up to the door. His father hugged him, slapping his back hard. “Good to see you, son. Good to see you. Come on, come inside.” He kind of herded them in then looked outside behind them before closing the door and locking it. Then he turned, smiling.
“Dad, Maria Brand Monroe. You met on a phone call. I’ve been staying with her family since the car was stolen.”
“Hyram Hyde,” he said. “A pleasure to meet you face to face at last.”
“It sure is.”
“Dad,” Harry said. “I… I’m worried about Lily.”
“Yes, I knew you would be by now. Sit, sit. Ah, my tarts!” He hurried to the kitchen, but then he started coughing when he got there.
Harry went to help, but his dad waved him away and reached for a prescription bottle from amid a line of them on the kitchen counter. “Get the tarts,” he managed between hacking.
So Harry grabbed a potholder and took a baking sheet full of golden brown, perfectly folded, triangular tarts from the oven. Each had red berry juice oozing and bubbling from teardrop-shaped cuts in the dough.
Hyram swallowed his pill and half a glass of water.
Harry said, “Jeeze, Dad, what’s with the cough?”
“Bah.” Hyram waved his hands. “I’m old. Deal with it.” He nodded Maria’s way. “There’s fresh coffee made, cups in the cabinet above. My gosh, your hair is spectacular. Isn’t it spectacular, Harrison?” Then he shuffled into the living room and sank onto the sofa. “Bring us each a serving and a cuppa Joe, will you?”
Maria met Harry’s eyes, grinning. He mouthed the word “spectacular,” and touched her hair, and the look in his eyes made her heart beat faster.
She found the coffee mugs and took down three.
Harry put a tart onto each of three dessert plates, and said, “Three tarts coming up.”
“Four,” his father called back. “You’re not my only guests.”
The two of them turned slowly.
The twenty-something woman with the platinum blond curls who stood beside Hyram, giving a finger wave, could only have been…
“Lily!” Harry dropped the plates onto the counter and was hugging her in two strides. “God, Lily, you don’t know how scared I’ve been.”
“I know. I’m sorry. I wasn’t sure if it was safe to call.” She broke the hug and clasped her brother’s shoulders, smiling into his face, and then finally, she looked past him at her.
Maria smiled into sky-blue eyes just like Harry’s. In person, the girl was the mirror image of the photo that had been hanging in Harry’s car, the one of their mother.
“Hi, Lily.”
“Maria!” Lily went in for a hug and said, “So good to finally meet you.”
“What happened?” Harry was asking. “Why are you ignoring your phone and hiding out at Dad’s?”
“Tarts, first.” His father hadn’t even got up. He was still sitting in a worn-out recliner.
“I’ve got this,” Maria said. She headed back to the kitchen for one more cup and one more plate, filled them and delivered all four of each, using the baking sheet as a tray.
“Resourceful,” Hyram said.
Since he was in his easy chair and Lily had taken the rocker, Maria had to sit beside Harry on the brown, microfiber sofa.
Everywhere, there were photos of them as a family, at every stage of life, with their mom, brilliant smile, sky-blue eyes, and fine, silver-blond hair falling in long waves. She was beautiful in every shot, at every age. She nearly always had one, skinny, beaded braid in her hair. Her face was makeup-free. She was always smiling. She seemed like the embodiment of light.
“So, Lily,” Harry said. “Tell me what’s going on?”
His sister nodded, sipped her coffee, and began. “I kept seeing this car, parked outside the apartment. Never in the same spot, but my place seemed to be the focal point. And then one night, this guy got out and came to the door. Rang the bell, smiled right into the ring cam. I called the police. They got there in under two minutes, but my visitor took off, soon as he saw the squad car turn onto my road. Knowing about Solomon, and that Carrie was missing, I thought I should get out of there.”
Hyram picked up the tale from there. “She drove her car to the bus station parking garage, took an Uber here. And nobody is any the wiser. You didn’t even know, until now.”
“I think we should keep it that way,” Harry said.
“I agree,” his father said. “Did you notice my little ruse on the way in?”
Harry frowned. “What little ruse?”
“The road signs. I switched about six of them. You know, just in case. How did you not notice?”
“I know the way by heart, never look at them,” Harry said.
“Well, the bad guys will. Ha!” Hyram slapped his knee, laughing. Then he started coughing again.
Harry’s face went serious. “What’s going on with the cough, Dad? I know you know. You have a prescription for it in the kitchen.”
“Ahh.” He waved a dismissive hand. “Same as always, just my asthma acting up.”
“COPD,” Lily said.
And her father’s eyes went wide. “How do you—? What did you?—?”
“I’m an RN now,” she said. “And I can read labels. How long have you known?”
He shrugged. “It’s not too bad unless I exert myself. It’s complicated by my asthma and seasonal allergies right now, so that makes it worse.”
“That’s terrible,” Harry said. “And you’ve been keeping it to yourself?”
“Trying to. Didn’t want to be a burden on anyone. It is what it is.”
“For Pete’s sake, Dad.”
“All those years smoking,” he said. “But that’s neither here nor there. What are we going to do about all this with Harrison’s solar tile? Who do you think is behind this, Harrison?”
“It was Robert,” Lily said to Harry. “The guy who stole your car looked like him, you said.”
“That’s what I thought, too,” Maria put in, with a look Harry’s way. The others looked at him, too.
Harry said, “Robert was found dead in Texas. He was shot in the head.” His father and sister gasped in unison.
Then Lily reached across the coffee table and grabbed Harry by his wrist. “Are Dad and I safe here? Even with dad’s… precautions?”
Harry met Maria’s eyes, and she knew he wanted to say yes, but he couldn’t.