Page 41 of Sunset Cove
He frowned. He felt sorry for his mother. Giving him up must’ve been hard on her. Or at least, that’s what he’d like to believe – that he wasn’t easy to leave behind.
Lucy proceeded to tell him about the rest of her life. She and her sisters went to public school, and true to what Claire had said, it didn’t seem like they’d ever had much money.
Lucy got into college “by the skin of her teeth,” as she put it, and was open about her struggles.
“I changed majors three times, usually after I failed one of the core classes. After a while, an advisor sat me down and told me that if I couldn’t figure out what I wanted, then I should stop wasting everyone’s time.”
Marty pulled back. “Whoa. That’s not nice or helpful.”
Lucy shrugged. “It worked. I left college after that. He’d told me there was no hope of recovering my GPA, and that my degree wouldn’t be worth anything.”
“That’s just not true,” Marty said, shaking his head. He, too, had wished he’d finished his degree, but no one had sabotaged him but himself. “That advisor lied to you.”
“Yeah, well, I was young and easily discouraged. Tale as old as time.” She picked out a half-popped kernel from the bottom of the bowl and crushed it in her teeth. “It doesn’t matter. Even if I went back today, I don’t know what I’d go for.”
“Too many possible lives?”
She pointed a finger at him. “Exactly. Why would I want to limit myself like that?”
There was no longer any doubt in Marty’s mind about Lucy not working with the FBI. She spoke freely and without pretense, which was quite different from Claire, who had a sort of quiet reserve. There was nothing quiet or reserved about Lucy, and while Marty usually found people like that to be off-putting, he didn’t feel that way now.
He wasn’t sure why. He should be more suspicious, since he was in a vulnerable position, seemingly without a friend in the world. Except Claire, of course.
Claire’s words kept echoing in his mind. “We’re still family.”
“I can’t believe your job,” Lucy said, ripping him out of his thoughts.
“Oh, you mean the CEO?”
She nodded. “Him, and what he did to you. As much as I didn’t like my old boss, at least he didn’t try to frame me for espionage.”
Marty laughed. “Yeah, that was a new one for me too.”
“You said someone warned you? That the police were waiting at your car?”
“Oh. That was one of my old coworkers, David Marilyn.”
“David Marilyn,” Lucy repeated. “Could you get evidence that you’re innocent if he could get you back in the system?”
He thought on this for a moment. “Probably.”
“Maybe he’ll help you, then.”
“I don’t think so, and I’m too afraid to ask.” Marty said with a frown.
“Why? Who cares?”
Marty laughed. “Dave wouldn’t want to help. Even if someone did, I’m considered a spy now, so it’s too dangerous for them to even talk to me.”
Really, if anyone knew how bad things were with SureFired, it was the CEO’s secretary. She had been in the meeting where Marty first spoke up, and she had surely seen all of the emails and memos showing that testing had failed.
But she was a single mom with two kids. She couldn’t speak up even if she wanted to. The CEO had threatened to fire her over minor inconveniences, and had her in a broad non-compete agreement. Sure, the agreement saying she couldn’t work basically anywhere in a hundred-mile radius wouldn’t hold up in court, but Marty knew she couldn’t afford an attorney. The CEO knew that too. He wouldn’t show her any mercy if she talked.
Marty wouldn’t put that on her, or on anyone.
Lucy frowned. “That’s unfortunate for your situation, then.”
“I’m pretty sure that if I even approached Dave, a bunch of helicopters would drop out of the sky and come after me.”
