It Happened One Night (15 page)

Eli kept his face blank. She was right. Lana broke hearts. She’d broken his. He couldn’t bear to go through that again.

“Don’t break up with me just yet,” Kelly begged. “Let’s just… let’s not do anything until I come back from vacation. Things
could look very different in a week.”

The rain began to fall so hard that he had to shout to be heard. He felt it flattening his hair and soaking his clothes. He
suddenly understood how little he knew her—that her reasons for wanting to keep him may or may not have had anything to do
with him at all. “I’m sorry. This has already gone on too long.”

Thunder boomed. He walked down the gangway toward the grass.

Maybe it was the romance of the old steamship, maybe it was the excitement of the storm, but for a split second, Eli had a
vision of watching himself from another angle—and it was as if the old ship wasn’t a landlocked, impractical relic of some
other time, but a bustling, working vessel of ages past, just come into port on a rainy day.

How long had he been lying to himself? It was amazing what the mind was capable of believing sometimes.

August 6

Karin sat in her parked minivan for a moment to collect herself and quiet her nerves.

For the last ten minutes, she’d watched the Vermont landscape passing beyond the windows of her car. She saw its pastures
full of classic Holsteins, its small houses worn down by hard winters, its sprinklings of cheerful yellow trefoil and pink
crown vetch crowding in at the roadsides. Her mother had made her life here, her mother’s people had made a life here, and
now Karin was forging her way, preparing to raise a family of her own. That was why she’d snuck off to the police station
today—to protect what was hers.

She opened the door of her minivan and headed inside.

The front office was small but quiet. She told a woman with dark, gel-flattened hair that she was here to speak with Officer
Gervais. The woman picked up a phone, dialed an extension, and a few moments later Andy was shaking her hand. His smile was
wide and genuine.

“Karin, what a surprise. Everything okay?”

“I was hoping I could talk to you for a minute. Privately, if you have time.”

Andy glanced back toward the receptionist—a look Karin couldn’t quite read—then crossed his arms and frowned. “Let’s take
a walk.”

He held the door, and Karin adjusted her purse on her shoulder as she stepped outside. She’d known Andy for years. He was
older, with a graying military-style buzz cut and a heavyset face. She’d chatted with him and his wife countless times at
countless church functions. But she’d never had much interaction with him outside coffee hour, and she’d never spoken to him
alone.

They sat together on a bench in front of the station. The traffic rumbled past and a collection of cigarette butts littered
the ground. They made small talk for a moment before the conversation changed.

“So what can I do you for?” Andy asked.

“I need advice.”

“Well, usually the wife’s in the advice department. But as long as you don’t mind second rate, I’ll do what I can.”

“Do you mind if we keep this between us?”

“Does it involve a bank robbery?”

“I didn’t rob a bank,” she said, laughing. She set her purse down at her side. She wasn’t sure how to approach the situation,
how best to get what she wanted. It had taken some time to come up with this plan, and then it had taken a little bit more
time to find the courage to go through with it. She picked at the cuticles of her fingernails. “My father’s come back to town.”

He reacted: the slightest downturn at the corner of his mouth. “Sure. I remember Calvert. How could I forget? Used to terrorize
the girls who worked over at Penny’s.”

“Well, he’s back.”

“How long’s he been here?”

“Just a couple weeks.”

“Hmm. He hasn’t caused any real problems yet.”

“
Yet
is the key word.” Karin felt a flutter of excitement in her chest. Just a few more well-placed hints should inspire Andy
to come up with the right idea. “You know where he’s staying?”

“Should I?”

“The Madison.”

Andy twisted his torso toward her. He put his hand on the back of the bench, so his arm was almost around her. She didn’t
like it, but she couldn’t move without being rude.

“He wouldn’t hurt you, would he? He hasn’t threatened you?”

Karin let her eyelids lower—her best impression of a damsel-in-distress. “No. But he wasn’t in town more than two minutes
before they had him here at the station.”

“I hadn’t heard that.”

“And I’m worried about Lana,” Karin went on. “She’s always been fragile, you understand. But having Calvert around is too
much for her. She’s been acting so weird. I don’t know what to do.”

Andy put his hand on her knee. She told herself he meant to be comforting. “Listen, if you think Cal’s going to cause trouble,
I believe you. But I can’t just go and boot him out of town, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“Of course not! I would never ask you to do that!”

Andy stared at his own hand on her knee. She felt her neck flush with discomfort, but she didn’t move. “What I can do,” he
went on, “is keep an eye on him—”

“That would be great—”

“Let me finish. What I can do is keep an eye on him in a very visible way, if you know what I’m saying. I can have one of
my guys hang around the Madison, maybe even make some inquiries with Mr. Delucca about his new tenant. You and I both know
he doesn’t want any attention from the police. I’ll bet my Glock that Calvert will be outta there the moment his next rent
check is due.”

Karin repressed a smile. “Do you think it would work?”

“Might. But in the meantime…” He inched closer. “If there’s anything else I can do for you, if you need someone to talk to
or you just want to get out of the house, you know where to find me.”

Karin gathered her purse. Was Andy making a move on her? It didn’t seem possible. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d
been hit on. She detangled herself from Andy’s arm and stood up.

“Thanks so much, Andy. You’re a really great friend. And your wife’s a lucky woman.”

He stood. She hadn’t realized how tall he was. She felt a slight tingling at the base of her neck, as if she was doing something
wrong.

“It’s been a long time since my wife thought she was lucky,” he said, a tinge of sadness in his voice. “In any case, I’m just
glad to help.”

Her heart softened toward him. When she looked into his eyes, she saw a loneliness there that surprised her, a loneliness
that she recognized in herself.

“Keep me posted,” she said. “I mean, stay in touch.”

“You bet,” he said. “Karin.”

August 8

Eli sat with his friend Moe at the café of the lakeside aquarium. Fries, hot dogs, and soft drinks in paper cups were arranged
on plastic brown trays before them. Children ran circles around tables, their squeals bouncing off the high ceilings.

“Here’s something.” Moe leaned over his laptop and refreshed the slowly loading page. “A list of the races he’s competed in.”

“Not exactly Lance Armstrong,” Eli said.

Moe was a ticket sales assistant at the museum, but his résumé was diverse. Like Eli, he was a meteorite hunter and he made
regular trips to the Mojave Desert, where meteorites could be seen somewhat easily against the cracked earth of a dried-up
lake. Over the years he’d had a number of jobs to fund his amateur expeditions—auto mechanic, aquatics store assistant manager,
junkyard night watchman, summertime security guard at a ski slope, and, at one point, he was an assistant private eye.

“How did you find him?” Eli asked.

Moe gave a self-deprecating smile. “Well, the hardest part was figuring out his last name. But I used what we know about him—the
bike racing stuff—to figure it out. The trouble was, I had all kinds of false starts because there was no professional racer
named Ron that I saw who lived out west.”

“What do you mean?”

“Maybe this guy still thinks he’s a mountain biker, but he hasn’t raced seriously in years. See that? His competitions just
drop off. Did he get hurt or something?”

“Not that I know of. Can we find out where he’s living now?”

“Already done, my friend. I called in a favor from the old agency I used to work for in Reno. The owner owed me one.”

“What’d you get?”

Moe pulled up a program, typed in an address, and Eli watched as the screen showed an image of a globe as if from a satellite.
The view zoomed in on America, then Vermont, then, when Eli thought it couldn’t possibly get any more precise, it zoomed in
on a small house with a large yard and a long driveway.

“Voilà!” With a magician’s exuberance, Moe turned the laptop to fully face Eli. “Our quarry’s house.”

Eli frowned. “In Vermont?”

“Near Rutland.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me.”

Moe handed him an envelope, no doubt filled with Ron’s basic information. “The house belongs to Jean-René Ashley, Ron’s brother.
They’re from Canada.”

Heat crept up Eli’s neck. “He lives with his brother?”

“They run an Internet bike supply store out of the house.”

Eli leaned back in his seat and forced himself to breathe out.

“Are you okay, man? You look like you’re going to kill someone.”

“I’m fine.”

“Who is this guy, anyway?”

Eli stood. “Someone who’s got big problems. What do I owe you?”

“I’m thinking of getting a crew together next year, do a little digging in Greenland.”

“I’m in,” Eli said. “Thanks again.”

“Just be careful.”

“
I’m
not the one who should be careful,” he said. Then he pushed through the glass doors of the museum into the blazing sun.

•  •  •

Lana took a deep breath, as deep as her lungs could hold. The store was momentarily empty—the tourists having gone off to
their various destinations for lunch or afternoon naps—and Karin was standing beside her, leaning over the drafting board
that she used to help customers plan their gardens. Her hair fell around her face in short red-brown waves and her posture
spoke of deep concentration. Of the two of them, Karin had always been the more gifted at design, and she could turn the unruliest
acres into careful works of art.

Lana put a hand to her belly and let her breath go. Six weeks had passed since she’d confirmed she was pregnant. Six weeks,
and she couldn’t bear one more moment of secrecy. This wasn’t going to be easy, but she had to tell Karin what had happened.
It would hurt them both, but it had to be done.

“It looks like we’ve finally got a second of peace,” Lana said lightly, looking around the empty store.

“Good. I’ve been meaning to talk to you,” Karin said.

“Oh?” Lana was taken aback; Karin had spoken her line.

“I did something for us, for both of us. I got in touch with a friend—a cop—who’s going to help me get Calvert out of town.”

Lana didn’t speak for a moment, taking the information in. Thinking about Calvert required her brain to switch gears since
he was the last thing on her mind. “You don’t just want to ignore him?”

“This is better,” Karin said. “Do you think it was wrong?”

“No,” Lana said. “I mean, if you think that’s what we need to do…”

Karin nodded and Lana saw there were tears in her eyes. “Oh, good. I’ve been so, so stressed out, I can’t tell if I’m going
crazy or not. I mean, Calvert is stressing me out. And Gene isn’t acting like himself. And we’re barely even trying to have
a baby anymore… I just wasn’t sure if I was doing the right thing. I’m at the end of my rope, you know? I don’t think I can
take any more.”

Lana sighed and put her hands on her hips, feeling the way her body had changed. Her secret was no longer on the tip of her
tongue; it was choking her. And it would have to keep choking her for another day. “No, I don’t think I could either.”

Karin looked up. “But don’t worry. I’ve got the Calvert situation under control. Just you wait. He’ll be out of our hair in
no time and then everything will be okay.”

“I hope so,” Lana said.

Karin’s smile was full of reassurance. Then she leaned down over her designs of cardinal flowers and lupine, trying to bring
some order to her world with her work.

Ron’s house was a shabby, white-sided ranch set atop a steep hill. The porch was held up by visible cinder blocks and the
aluminum awning over the side window sagged in the middle. A rusted, dull blue muscle car sat with its top down in the driveway,
as if someone was making a halfhearted attempt at restoring it. From the looks of the round splotches of yellow grass in the
lawn, at least one resident of the house was a dog.

A red pickup drove past, sending white dust into the air, and Eli gripped the wheel. He’d never been the confrontational type.
The first and only fight he’d ever had ended with one of the playground supervisors ushering him off to the nurse’s office
with a bloody nose and tear-streaked face. After that, he’d learned to hold on to a measure of his dignity by either agreeing
with or ignoring bullies.

But now he was furious. And even though he suspected that he had much less experience with fighting than Ron, he was prepared
to take action if it came to that. The difference between those fights in middle school and the rage that roiled in him now
was that in school, the arguing had been about him. But this was about Lana, a cause worth fighting for.

The driveway leading to Ron’s house was steep, and Eli took it on long strides that made his jeans tighten against his thighs.
To keep from losing courage, he focused on the most infuriating things he could think of: Ron touching Lana’s hair, lying
next to her. He bruised his knuckles banging on the front door. He knew he could have just told Lana where Ron was living.
But he wanted to see the guy for himself.

“Yeah?” Ron was wearing a white tank top and blue nylon shorts. The top half of his hair was pulled back in some kind of elastic
or clip. “Can I help you?”

The guy had no idea who Eli was. “Ron. We’ve met.”