again.” A lot hung on whether Guy Parsons would write a review. The jury was still out on whether he would, and if it would be a curse or a much-needed blessing. “Believe me, everything feels easier the minute you admit you might have been wrong. I’ve been there and done that, so maybe just let me help you?”
It didn’t matter that the moon was long gone, the sky blue instead of last night’s inky, Rob still looked at Jude as though he was star-struck.
They were met with delight, this time, rather than shock. Trevor pulled his front door wide open, his hand a welcoming weight on Jude’s shoulder as he drew him inside. “Good to see you again,” he murmured when Jude offered him a hug as if he was an uncle instead of a man he’d only met once. “Breakfast’s ready in the courtyard,” he got out, holding on to Jude just as tightly. “Come on through,” he said once Jude’s grip loosened.
Trevor showed them the way, walking through the living room with its low ceiling and wood stove that they’d visited yesterday, and through a study housing several PC monitors, maps on their screens covered in red and green dots, tracking shipping movements.
“You still work?” Jude lingered there instead of heading out into a courtyard where breakfast was visible, spread out on a table.
“A little. Needs must, you know?” Trevor said, still holding the door to the outside open. “I don’t have much of a pension and my husband was all about living rather than saving.” His smile was smaller in a way Jude had recently come to read well. “I wouldn’t have changed a single minute.” His gaze drifted to a wall full of photos similar to ones in Jude’s father’s study, only these featured the man Trevor had married. “Besides, it’s better to keep busy.”
Loneliness wouldn’t be a neat fit, Jude imagined, for someone like Trevor, living alone after sharing decades with a partner. He glanced at Rob who met his gaze and nodded like he knew what Jude was thinking. “You should come to visit us.” Trevor’s smile of surprise encouraged Jude to insist. “Soon. Next week, maybe? Come and meet Lou. Stay. We’ve got space.” Lord knew those empty rooms might as well see some use.
Trevor came back to where Jude stood, Rob right behind him. “At the Anchor? I’d... I’d love to visit. Heard a lot about it. It would be quite something to finally see it.”
“You really haven’t been there before?” Rob tapped one of the PC screens showing the Cornish coast in craggy detail. He spread his thumb and finger between St Ives and Porthperrin. The distance was nothing compared to that between the Far East ports shown on the other monitors. “It’s hardly far from here.”
“I wouldn’t go where I wasn’t invited.” Trevor studied the screen rather than look at either of them.
Jude had some new insight into that reticence, as well. “Once I left for London, I never wanted to go back. Not if I couldn’t feel….” Accepted wasn’t exactly the right word. He said, “Wanted,” and that fit much better. What this man had shown him yesterday had been life-changing, transformative in a way that flayed him. “I wanted to meet you when I was a kid,” he admitted. “I always wondered about you. While I have anything to do with the Anchor, you’ll always be welcome.”
If Rob noticed their damp eyes he ignored it, a blessing when speaking again right then was beyond Jude. “Are all of these dots ships?” His eyes widened as Trevor nodded and touched the mouse, zooming in over a shipping lane that suddenly looked cluttered. “How the hell do they not hit each other? There’s so many of them. Can you see every ship that’s at sea, this way?”
“If they use AIS. That’s real-time tracking, although to be true, that’s a bit of a misnomer. Not all systems are accurate.”
Jude knew that much already, satellite records showing that the dot charting the One for Luck’s direction had blinked its last well before the typhoon, leaving them no way to pinpoint her last location.
Maybe Trevor heard the sigh he couldn’t keep in. “I’m guessing you know a bit about this, Jude.” He moved the mouse again to zoom out, and then asked, “Yesterday, you said you been crewing out there while searching? Where were you, exactly?”
“All around here,” Jude pointed, then rattled off the Aphrodite’s details only to watch Trevor type them.