whatever we can to keep her safe and not get sidetracked with other issues.”
“Even if those other issues look really promising?”
She gave him a ghost of a smile. “Especially then.”
*
Galen hated to leave Gemma, and, if he hadn’t had a quiet conversation outside with Tim, Galen wouldn’t have left. He was confident that Tim would keep an eye on her. He understood the man’s mind-set about staying away from society and about avoiding all the ugliness that came with it. But Galen also understood that Tim had a previous military career and had seen the worst of the worst. If he said that he would look out for Gemma and Becky, then he would. Galen was still a little concerned about the heavy artillery on site, but, considering what he would want for himself, if he lived out in a place like this, maybe not so much.
As he drove back along the pathway, he called Zack. “Have they sent out any demands?”
“I don’t know,” he said, his voice tired. “I don’t have any way to tell. I couldn’t hear any conversations now, but it could have been done through email, text, or even a notice to the newspaper. I just don’t know.”
“And who would they send it to?”
“Presumably the newspaper, the brewery, or Joe’s family. I’m not sure.”
“Are you sure Gemma didn’t get a notice?”
“I just spoke to Gemma, and she didn’t say anything.”
“It could still be coming,” Zack said. “Even for instant delivery, out here, with the sparse internet connectivity, any email could be delayed. However, any email can be sent later, to seemingly shift the time zone.”
“Well, it’s something you and I would do,” Galen said. “But them?”
“I’m not sure,” he said. “It’s obvious we’ve got some sort of family dynamic going on here.”
“And some kind of a lost-lovers’ reunion,” Galen said sadly. “I don’t even know if Rebecca understands what she’s wrought on her sister and her own daughter, not to mention all the men involved with her constant lover-on-a-string scenarios.”
Zack answered, “I doubt it. She’s very good at keeping us on a string.”
Zack’s voice got to Galen. And how Zack had used the word us in his comment too. “Did you cut that string yet?”
“Oh, yeah,” Zack said. “Now I’m just sitting here, wondering how I could have been such a fool for all those years.”
“But not recently though, right?”
“No, not recently. I hadn’t really seen the Rebecca effect until now, as I look at these other men and realize how much chaos she’s put them through.”
“All from a woman who was supposedly married till death do us part.”
“Which is where the problem comes in because Joe is, of course, dead now,” Zack said.
“Did you know him?”
“Yes. Not well, but I did. I hated him at the beginning because she had the affair with him to get away from me.”
“Not to get away from,” Galen corrected. “Just to move up a rung.”
Zack laughed. “Yeah, she’s definitely a social climber, isn’t she?”
“Absolutely,” Galen said. “And she’s using her body to get there. You’ve seen women like that the world over. It’s the oldest game in the book, and it won’t change anytime soon. Well, until the inevitable aging takes over.”
“Right, but she’s brought her daughter into this mess, and that’s not okay. She can go screw all the men she likes,” Zack said forcibly, “but she has no damn business bringing that little girl into it.”
“The only constant sanity in Becky’s life appears to be Gemma. Joe too, while he was alive.”
“You’ve got to wonder how two women could be so different,” Zack said.
“Gemma started looking after her sister by herself at what age? Like seventeen or something?”
“Yeah,” Zack replied. “And Rebecca was already well versed in playing the love game by then.”
“How old was she when you came on the scene?”
“Eighteen,” Zack said. “Joe was the same year.”
“And Joe was quite a bit older than you, correct?”
“Depends on what you call quite a bit. I’m twenty-eight now, and he was like thirty-four or so. And Rebecca is now twenty-six or twenty-seven, I think,” Zack said. “Definitely old enough to know better.”
“And old enough to play the odds and to think that she has time left in her life to move up, if something doesn’t work out here soon enough,” Galen said slowly.
“True, but she’s also had plenty of time to get enough data on her target to see if it’s worthwhile or not. And to tweak it so that it’s perfect.”
Galen almost laughed at that. As