“Meaning, it doesn’t just happen accidentally. You have to actually focus on it?”
“Exactly,” he said. “When you think about it, if they don’t like this lifestyle, just identifying that is the start of getting out of it.”
She nodded. “I know. That’s one of the reasons why my job is shifting,” she said. “I’ve been doing a lot of traveling around, but I’m trying to stay home more because I’m just tired of the damn airport.”
“If a lot of the work you do is cyberstuff, can’t you just stay home and do most of it?”
“I’m more of a liaison for one of the companies,” she said. “I don’t do any of the cyberhacking myself. I do the marketing, and I’m kind of a goodwill ambassador. I go to all these countries that we need cooperation from, in order to keep finding all these predators,” she murmured.
“Are you dealing with pornography and child trafficking?”
She nodded but didn’t look at him.
“That’s tough,” Garret said. “Really tough. That’s the kind of thing most people don’t want to deal with because it’s so ugly.”
“Which is why it’s so important that somebody does deal with it,” she said quietly. “A lot of children and young women have grown up in that abusive scenario, who don’t know anything else.”
“True enough,” he said, “but, then again, you’re making a difference, and that changes how you view your job too.”
“It’s what keeps me in it,” she said, “but again, as far as making a change, I’m trying to scale back from a lot of the traveling.”
“What brought that on?”
“Finding out my sister was pregnant, wondering if she would be a single mom,” she admitted.
He winced at that. “God, I would hope not.”
“We don’t even know if Gregg’s alive,” she said.
“He’s alive,” Garret said. “We can’t entertain any other answer.”
She nodded and sank deeper into her seat, pausing to look out the car window. “If we find her at the cabin, what will you say to her?” she asked.
“That I’ll be there for her,” he said simply.
“That would be you, wouldn’t it?” she said, with a nod. “You can’t do any less, can you?”
“No,” he said. “Hell no. She needs support, love, and understanding, regardless of all the things that happened in the past. The child deserves nothing less than the best efforts from all of us.”
“That child needs a family,” she said, studying him.
“I know,” he said. “I know.”
Yet he didn’t offer to be there, but then why would he? Astra didn’t know if he was upset that the child was his brother’s and not his. Either way, that had to bite. “The crazy webs we weave,” she muttered to herself but didn’t think he heard.
He looked at her and said, “Often it’s a simple case of lies and deceit.”
“But she didn’t have to stay on that same track,” she said.
“No, she didn’t,” he said. “I’m more than ready to get off it.”
“You should have been off it a long time ago,” she said.
He chuckled. “You’re right, and I have been in many ways. Something about all this brought it all back.”
“And it’s a test,” she said, “to see if you’re really over her.”
“I’m over her,” he said, “but I’m still angry.”
“But we’re never angry for the reason we think we are,” she murmured, repeating something she’d read somewhere.
“Sounds like New Age mumbo jumbo to me,” he said. “I know why I’m angry, but that doesn’t mean I’ve shared the reason.”
“What the hell?” she said, looking at him in surprise. “What’s this? You’ve actually done some deep soul-searching?”
“Of course,” he said. “I won’t repeat that mistake.”
“Ah,” she said. “So have you been single ever since?”
“No,” he said. “Just very much unattached.”
“There is a difference, isn’t there?” she said, with a nod.
“What about you?”
“No relationships that have mattered in quite a while,” she said.
“How come?”
“Because,” she said, with an easy laugh.
“Meaning, if I’m not sharing more, you’re not sharing more?”
She shrugged. “Hardly the time or place.”
This time, Kano popped into the conversation from the driver’s seat. “Which usually means that, when it does happen, it’s real.”
“I don’t know about that,” she said. “Nothing about any of this feels for real.”
“Just makes it all that much more important,” Kano said. “Whatever you find at this level, that you survive at this stage in your life,” he said, “it’ll be there for a lot longer than you suspect.”
“Doesn’t mean I want to embrace it though,” she said.
“I’m pretty sure it’s already too late for that,” he said, and he caught her gaze in the rearview mirror.
She realized, with a shock, that Kano already understood how she felt about Garret. She didn’t know how Kano possibly could know, but he already instinctively knew. And, if he did, did Garret? Because that’s not what she wanted. She shuffled back and stared out the window, her mind in a whirl.
Now what would she do? This was all just BS, if that was the case. She gave herself a stern talking to, straightened up as they slowed down, coming into the little seaside village. “If you head forward,” she said, “and take that left up there”—pointing ahead—“it’s about ten miles out.”
“Interesting location.”
“It’s where my parents used to come all the time over the years, whenever they got the chance. Also, whenever they were having major difficulties, they’d come here, until they worked it out.”
Garret looked at her, surprised, and said, “I kind of like that idea.”
“It worked for them,” she agreed.
“What happened to them?” Garret asked.
“My mom had breast cancer, pretty advanced, and she died. After that, my dad pretty well just drank himself to death,” she said. “It wasn’t cirrhosis of the liver or anything, but it might as well have been. He fell down the stairs stone cold drunk and cracked his head. He never regained consciousness and died four days later,” she said.
“That must have been really tough on you guys. I’m sorry.”
“It was,” she said. “What’s also tough is when parents just walk away because life is too hard. If it’s too hard for them, imagine what it’s like for the kids,” she murmured.
“I don’t think parents, when they’re in that state, actually have the clarity to think things through. They’re so bound by grief and every other emotion that’s tearing them apart that all they can do is react.”