CHAPTER TWO
3089 Words
CHAPTER TWO
Shivering in the brisk November air outside Logan Airport, Harley watched the cars arriving at the Delta terminals with a sense of unease. She hadn’t seen Rob in nearly three weeks, and she knew her long absences were taking a toll on their marriage, which was a problem she didn’t know how to solve. Being put on leave for breaking the rules was just the icing on the cake.
Rob, a branch manager at a local credit union, believed in paying your dues, climbing the corporate ladder, doing as you were told even when you knew a better way. Harley believed in getting results. His methods might have helped to keep a stable income and advance his career, but Harley’s job involved dealing with those who had no use for the rulebook, solitary sharks that only entered the stream of society when they were on the hunt.
Still, facing the prospect of an internal investigation, Harley couldn’t help but wonder if there was some value to Rob’s approach.
A nearby car horn pulled Harley from her thoughts. Recognizing the silver Camry stopped on the far side of the median, she wove through several lanes of sporadic traffic, dragging her suitcase behind her. She tossed the suitcase in the back seat.
“Wasn’t expecting you back so early,” Rob said, smiling faintly as she climbed into the car. His dark hair was combed neatly to the side in a style Harley hadn’t seen him wear before. The scent of his cologne was different, too.
Looking for something familiar to hold onto, Harley leaned across for a quick kiss, a ritual of theirs. He met her halfway. Harley thought she detected a moment’s hesitation.
You’re just imagining things, she chided herself. Besides, considering how your last conversation went, should it really come as a surprise if he’s a bit cool? You’ll have plenty of time to smooth things out.
Settling into her seat, her mind returned to what he’d said. “Thought I’d take a little vacation after closing the case,” she answered, deciding he didn’t need the full truth right out of the gate. She would take her time, decide the best moment to share the difficult news. She didn’t want to start the week on a low note.
Rob nodded but didn’t say anything. The lights of the dashboard gleamed in the corners of his glasses. It wasn’t like him, this silence. He was usually much more talkative when she came home, even if she had been spending less and less time home as the cases progressed.
“Everything alright?” she said, trying to draw him out. The tunnel lights strobed across the car.
Rob leaned back against the headrest and gave a tired sigh. “Yeah, everything’s good. Long day at work.” He paused.
“Want to tell me about it?”
He shrugged, as if there wasn’t much to say. “This marketing campaign is just giving me fits. Thought it would help us hit our quarterly target, but right now we’re not attracting enough new clients to compensate for the expenditure, so it’s starting to look like a sinkhole.”
“I’m sure you’ll get it sorted out,” she answered with an optimistic smile. “You always do.”
“We’ll see.”
The silence dripped and pooled.
“Cologne smells nice,” Harley said, trying a new angle. “Where’d you get it?”
“You bought it for me last Christmas.”
“Oh.” The words stung. She had forgotten. “Well, apparently I have good taste.”
He was silent for several moments. Then he said, “So, how long are you back for?”
She paused, deciding how best to answer this. “I’m not sure.”
He looked at her, his face puzzled. “I think that’s the first time in six years I’ve heard you use those words. ‘I’m not sure.’ Who are you and what’d you do with Harley Cole?”
His boyish grin reminded Harley of the first time she’d met him, at a pickup game of volleyball back in their Harvard days. They had dated briefly in college and kept in touch off and on for the next decade, but it wasn’t until they later reconnected over a burglary case Harley was working that the magic happened. A conversation about the case led to late-night drinks, then to a conversation about all the failed relationships they’d both been through since college, then finally – two months later – to Rob kneeling in the surf off Nantucket with a ring that had been in his family for three generations.
It was everything she’d wanted when she left her small hometown way out in New Mexico: a new life where nobody felt sorry for her because of her past, a beautiful house, a devoted husband, and a career capable of absorbing her relentless energy. Everything had been going well until she transferred to the BAU. They’d had a number of fights about the time she was away…but maybe now, with her conduct under investigation, she and Rob could get on the same page about their future.
That wasn’t too much to hope for, was it?
Rob’s smile faded as he waited for her answer.
“The truth is,” she began tentatively, “I was put on leave. There were some questions about how we acquired the evidence we used to arrest Kavers, and—”
“You got him?” Rob said, his face suddenly animated. Harley realized with a sense of embarrassment that she hadn’t told him she’d caught the killer. It was a sign of just how disconnected they’d become.
“It’s probably on the news by now,” she answered. “I would have told you, but…”
“But we don’t really talk much, do we? Not even on the few occasions you’re actually here.” There was an edge to his voice. The sudden shift was jarring to Harley.
“I’m here now.” She smiled, offering an olive branch. “I hate that they put me on leave – it makes me want to tear my hair out, not having a case to work on – but at least now we have some time to talk, time to figure out…” She paused, treating the subject delicately. “How to make this work better.”
Rob stared hard through the windshield. “And what happens when they reinstate you? Everything goes back to the way it was?”
“Rob,” she said, baffled by his intensity, “that’s my job. I put killers away. I’d like to spend more time with you, but one of the sacrifices of my line of work—”
“Sacrifice?” He smiled at her, but it was an ugly, wounded smile. “Whose sacrifice, yours or mine?”
She frowned. “Ours.”
“Oh, yeah? Are you the one having to explain to your parents why your spouse is never around? Are you the one spending the weekend in front of the TV, furious because your spouse promised to fly back but broke that promise—again?”
“I apologized for that.” She shifted, turning her body toward him. “What is this really about, Rob? Is it about starting a family? I told you I’m not ready to be a housewife.”
It was one of the points of contention between them. When they married, they had made a vague agreement on starting a family in the near future. The problem was, neither was willing to give up their career to stay home, despite Rob’s intimations – usually after a few beers – that it was a woman’s “role” to tend the house and raise children. With Harley’s biological clock winding down, the chance of them ever having kids of their own was becoming increasingly unlikely, a fact that had caused Rob to express a good deal of resentment.
The resignation in Rob’s voice chilled her. “And you never will be, Harley.” He sighed. “I spent years being angry with you for putting this off, for prioritizing your job over our family. But that’s not fair, is it?”
She waited, watching him.
“You haven’t changed,” he continued. “You were the same way when we started dating, so if I couldn’t make peace with that, I shouldn’t have married you.”
They pulled into the driveway. Rob turned off the engine and sat there, staring at the house.
“Go on,” he said gently.
“Aren’t you going to get out?” Harley said, growing more troubled with every passing second.
Rob did not answer.
A sense of unknown dread, like an approaching drumbeat, began to pulse in Harley’s mind. Obeying her intuition, she decided to leave the suitcase and enter the house empty-handed.
When she opened the door, the first thing that greeted her was a wall of cardboard boxes, all marked in Rob’s neat handwriting: “dress shirts,” “electronics,” “paralegal books,” “shoes.” All neatly taped and ready to be loaded into the back of a truck.
Harley heard the scuff of a shoe and turned to see Rob leaning in the doorway, arms folded. “I didn’t want to do it this way. I wanted to have my things out by the time you returned, maybe leave a letter on the table for you. But then your case ended…” He trailed off.
Harley rested her hand on one of the boxes, desperate for something to ground her. “Rob, I don’t understand.” She blinked, feeling as if she had just been hit by a train.
“Come on, Harley. This has been a long time coming. I can’t be your glorified roommate any more—I won’t do it.”
“That’s not fair,” Harley answered, still absorbing the shock of what was happening.
“No? I take care of the house while you’re gone. I pay the bills, wash your dirty laundry—all while working my own job to pay for a huge house in a fancy neighborhood, a house you insisted we buy.”
“I seem to recall your signature on the purchase,” Harley retorted, feeling the first stirring of anger.
He stepped back, shaking his head. “Everything is a means to an end with you—your house, your money, your marriage. They’re a life support system for your work.”
The words struck Harley like an arrow. She decided to make one last, desperate attempt to get through to him. She reached for his hands, and to her surprise, he let her take them.
“We can still have the life we dreamed about,” she said, staring earnestly into his eyes. “If the distance is too much, we’ll move.” She was assuming the investigation wouldn’t find anything damning, which was far from certain. Still, she was trying to be optimistic.
“You know the credit union is local. I can’t transfer.”
She sighed, frustrated at his inflexibility. “Then we’ll figure it out. We can sit down and make a five-year plan. What’s one thing I could do to convince you not to give up on us?”
He was silent for several heartbeats. Then he said, “Leave the Bureau.”
“What?” The words hit her like cold water.
“Leave the Bureau. You do that, and I’ll stay.”
She was at a loss for words. It seemed crazy at first, but was it really? They might not even want her back anyway. Maybe it was time to begin a new chapter, start fresh.
“You’ve proven you can’t juggle both,” Rob continued. “So stop juggling. Stay home, raise my children. Hang up your gloves.” For the first time that night, there was a note of hope in his voice—it was faint and desperate, more spark than flame, but it was there.
“Rob…” She felt like the floor had begun to sway beneath her feet. It was too much to process. She was staring down into that black hole again, an abyss that would swallow her whole if she let it. Joining the Bureau had given her a chance to do something with her life, to be proactive instead of reactive for once. She couldn’t imagine a life beyond it.
“You don’t know what you’re asking,” she whispered, eyes closed.
“Yes, I think I do. And if you love me, if you want to be with me, you’ll recognize this is best for us.”
Her hands trembled in his. She felt cornered, crushed between two worlds she could not reconcile.
“Please don’t ask me to do that, Rob,” she whispered. “I can’t do that.”
He held her hands a few seconds longer before dropping them with a snort. “Have it your way. The papers are on the table—I already signed them.”
“Divorce?” Harley said in that same breathless voice. The room seemed to spin around her.
Rob paused with his hand on the door latch. “You spend all this time seeing the world through the eyes of killers,” he said. “I just wish that, once in a while, you’d taken a moment to see the world through mine.”
With that, he closed the door and stepped out of Harley’s life, leaving her to pick up the pieces.
* * *
Where did it all go wrong? Harley wondered as she uncorked a bottle of Merlot. After Rob left, she had spent the next fifteen minutes wandering the house, which was nearly empty now since most of the furnishings had been Rob’s. She had sat on the edge of the bed and cried, and now she simply felt numb.
Was he right? Had she really treated him as a glorified roommate? Was she selfish to refuse to throw away her career for the sake of their marriage?
She was on her second glass of wine, and still pondering these questions, when her phone buzzed. She was surprised to see her brother’s number—she hadn’t spoken with Greg in months. She was tempted to ignore the call, but if there was ever a time when she needed a friend, this was it.
“Hey, Greg,” she said, trying to keep her voice even. “To what do I owe the honor?”
“How’s it going, Harley? Everything alright?” Greg’s voice had the usual cheer, but there was a note of weariness beneath it.
“Hanging in there,” she answered, tipping the bottle of wine and watching the dark liquid slosh about.
“Listen, you know I’ve been keeping tabs on Dad.”
She nodded, forgetting he couldn’t see her. “Okay,” she added.
“Well, there’s been a…development.” He paused. “There’s really no good way to say this. Dad…” He trailed off.
She frowned, her worry rising. “What is it, Greg? Did something happen?”
Greg cleared his throat. “He has lung cancer, Harley. It’s terminal.”
The words hit her like a physical blow. She set the wine down and sank into the bed, covering her mouth with a trembling hand. She must have misheard him. There was no way he could be telling her their father was dying.
“What are you saying, Greg?” she asked in a low, detached voice.
“I’m saying he wants to see you.”
She took a long breath. “See me? I just got back. I’m in Boston.”
“There’s not much time left, Harley. The doctor’s hoping he’ll last the month, but between you and me, it sounds like he could clock out any day now. You don’t want to live the rest of your life wishing you’d said something.”
Harley smiled weakly. “Has that ever been my problem?”
“Most of the time? No. But in this case…” He sighed. “Look, I know you two haven’t always seen eye-to-eye, but if you don’t come now, you might not get another chance. Things can change quickly.”
Yes, they can, Harley thought, cradling her forehead in her hand. Her whole life, it seemed, had changed in the blink of an eye: her career, her marriage, and now her family. What was next?
“Harley?”
She swallowed hard, dreading what was to come. The last time she’d talked with her dad had been on his birthday, a month earlier. He’d asked why she didn’t reach out more often, she’d said something about how she didn’t appreciate his tendency to offer his opinion on every facet of her life, and they’d been off to the races, the argument escalating to a shouting match until Harley finally hung up on him.
Now, faced with the prospect of talking with him again, she was afraid they might pick up where they’d left off. Still, if he was dying…
“Okay, Greg,” she said. “I’ll see what I can do.”
Greg sounded relieved. “Thank you. Sure you’re okay?”
She felt like she had just gone twelve rounds in a boxing ring. The news about her father was another body blow, leaving her breathless and unsteady on her feet. Still, she tried to be optimistic.
“Just tired,” she answered. “Got back from the airport less than an hour ago.”
“That’ll do it,” he said, but he didn’t sound convinced. “Please, get here as soon as you can.”
“Okay.”
Now there was a smile in his voice. “I’m looking forward to seeing you, sis. It’s been too long.”
Harley ended the call, then immediately began looking at flights. She still wasn’t sure how she was going to face her father again, but it wasn’t like she had any reason to stay in Massachusetts. If she’d had any doubts about how serious Rob was, the divorce papers on the table had dispelled them.
She set the glass of wine aside, rose, and took a quick look around, preparing to let go of the house she had shared with Rob for the past six years.
At least I don’t have to unpack, she thought.
- Writer
