“What’s the matter?” he asked softly.
“Nothing,” she said, turning her head away as if embarrassed.
“Tell me.”
“It’s just I haven’t felt anything like that since, well, since we were first together.” Eve stood up and pulled on her underwear. “I’d better check on the spaghetti.”
Harlan stretched out naked on the rug, his body suffused with an almost floating sense of relaxation. It was as though, for a brief time at least, Eve had drawn all the guilt out of him and absorbed it somewhere deep inside her. She returned with a tray loaded with two bowls of pasta and crusty bread. They ate on the rug, Harlan pounding his food back as if there was no tomorrow. Eve laughed when he asked if there was anymore, and fetched him a second helping. When he was finished, he rested back against the sofa and sighed contentedly. He would’ve liked nothing better at that moment than to curl up in bed with Eve and drift off to sleep. “God, I’ve missed this,” he said. “I’ve missed you.”
“I’ve missed you too, Harlan. More than I ever thought I could.” The tears were back in Eve’s eyes. She swiped them away and cast him a glance, half hopeful, half fearful. “So what happens now?”
What happens now? It was a question that tore away Harlan’s thin layer of contentment, gripped him by either hand and pulled in opposite directions. On the one hand, he desperately wanted to be with Eve. On the other, he didn’t know whether he could allow himself to be with her. It wasn’t simply that he was an infertile ex-con with zero career prospects — although that was a big part of it. It was the guilt. Already he could feel it creeping back over him like a vine. Soon the weight of it would be enough to drag him, and maybe Eve too if she was with him, back down into a pit of self-loathing and despair. He would’ve rather swallowed the tumbler of sleeping-pills than do that to her again. He had to climb out from under the guilt. But he couldn’t do it by himself. He needed help. And the only person who could help him was the person who hated him most in the world — Susan Reed. He didn’t expect forgiveness, but he hoped that if he helped get her son back, she would ease his burden enough to let him have a life.
Harlan was reluctant to explain the way he felt to Eve, knowing his words would cut deep. Bitter experience had taught him that concealing his feelings wasn’t an option either, though. He sat trying to work up the nerve to put his thoughts into words, but when he eventually opened his mouth all that came out was a lame, “I don’t know.” He dropped his gaze. Suddenly conscious of his nakedness, he started pulling on his clothes.
“Why don’t we go to bed?”
Harlan looked at Eve uncertainly. A few minutes earlier, he wouldn’t have hesitated to go along with her suggestion, but with so many conflicting thoughts and feelings battling for space inside him he knew he wouldn’t be able to sleep. “We don’t have to talk,” she continued. “We can just hold each other and forget the world for a while.”
“Forget.” Harlan said the word with a sigh of longing. “Okay.”
Eve took Harlan’s hand and led him to bed. He nestled into the soft, clean-smelling sheets with her head on his shoulder and her leg crooked over his, feeling the heat of her breath against his skin. At first, her breathing was a little shallow and her body occasionally spasmed — she’d always suffered from hypnic jerks when tense. After a while, though, he felt the heaviness of sleep overtake her. He watched her and tried to exist only in that moment, but it wasn’t possible. In the end, he gently disentangled himself from her, gathered up his clothes, went into the living-room and switched on the television to check for any breaking news. There was none. The promised press conference hadn’t yet occurred.
Harlan’s phone rang. It was Jim. Heart thumping, wondering if this was going to be the call that changed everything, he answered his phone. “What’s happened?” he asked, his voice eager but apprehensive.
“Our man came out of his coma last night,” Jim said. “His name’s Carl Gallagher. He’s thirty-two years old and a real piece of work. He’s got a record for breaking and entering, GBH, and, get this, the statutory rape of a fifteen-year old girl. He also has warrants out on him for a string of armed robberies in the city.”
“So it was him. He took Ethan.”
“He’s denying any involvement.”
“Of course he is. They always do. But he did it, right? I mean, what other reason could a scumbag like him have for cruising Ethan’s street in the middle of the night?”
“He says he was visiting a girlfriend, a married woman. He cruised the street several times to make sure her husband wasn’t home.”
“Does his story check out?”
“Yes.”
“What about forensics?”
“We’ve searched Gallagher’s car, and we’re still searching his last known address, but so far we haven’t turned up one scrap of physical evidence to connect him to Ethan.”
Harlan rested his head against his clenched fist, disappointment coursing through him. “Where’s Gallagher been hiding out these past few weeks?”
“He’s been sleeping in his car, moving from place to place to avoid detection.”
“What was he doing at the church?”
“He was going to rob the donation box.”
It was the answer Harlan had expected. As far as he could see, there were no holes in Gallagher’s story, no unanswered questions. The lead was a dead end, which meant his life remained a dead end. He ground his knuckles into his forehead in frustration. “Thanks for letting me know, Jim.”
“No problem. I don’t give a toss what Garrett says, you deserve it after what you did.”
“Have you got any other leads?”
“You know I can’t tell you that, Harlan.”
There was a weariness in Jim’s voice that answered Harlan’s question well enough. “You haven’t, have you?”
Jim was silent a moment, then he admitted, “We’ve got shit-all. Unless we get a lucky break, I can see this one going on and on.”
On and on. Harlan grimaced as the words echoed like a bell inside his head. On and on, like being trapped in waking nightmare. Without knowing what happened to Ethan, there could be no funeral for him, no closure for his family, no time to grieve or heal. All there could be was uncertainty and pain. The thought of it was almost too much to bear.
Harlan tried to say goodbye to Jim, but his throat was closed up so tight the words wouldn’t come. He hung up and lay back on the sofa, eyes closed. He wasn’t floating anymore, he was falling, plunging helplessly into darkness. He jerked upright at the sound of Eve calling to him from the bedroom. He couldn’t let her see him in this state. He had to get out of there. Pulling his clothes on as he went, he rushed out the front door.
Chapter 7
For days Harlan hermited himself away in his flat, ignoring phone calls and knocks at his door, venturing outside only when he ran out of food and to report to his case officer. He didn’t watch the news anymore — hearing about the police’s continued lack of progress only made him feel his helplessness with an even more oppressive weight. He spent most of his time in bed seeking the blankness of sleep, or sitting staring out the living-room window at a world he was in, but wasn’t part of. He could see no way forward, no way back. He was at a dead end, stuck in a morass of confused thoughts and emotions. What to do? What to do? Sometimes he’d jerk awake clutching his head as if to keep it from exploding.
After maybe a week — he’d started to lose track of time — Eve came knocking. It wasn’t the first time she’d tried to contact him. His phone was full of messages from her, asking and then pleading with him to ring her back. “Harlan, are you in there?” she called.
Harlan approached the door, but made no reply.
“Please speak to me, Harlan. You don’t have to open the door. Just let me know you’re okay.”
Harlan’s face creased into lines of distress. It hurt him to hear Eve sounding so worried. But still he said nothing.