“What about your father, your stepmother, and your sister? You didn’t have any grandparents or anything? And you guys never talk about your mother.”
For some reason it was easier asking all of these questions she’d always wondered about while they were laboring together toward the same task, all alone in the middle of nowhere. It was like they were in their own little world and the rest of their lives seemed distant—the real world, the past, none of it seemed to matter as much. Even the situation with Nigel and Mia seemed more like a bad dream. She didn’t even know them anymore.
“Our mother left one day and never came back. For a few years Will and I had a theory our father murdered her and covered it up.”
Whoa! If they’d believed that, it said a lot about their father.
“One of the first things we did after Catacombs started making money was hire a private investigator to find her.”
“And? Did you get answers?” she asked, feeling vaguely ill. What a thing to have to wonder about for years.
“She lives in Washington with her husband and new family and doesn’t want anything to do with us.”
Oh . . . shit. No wonder they never talked about her. How hurtful would that be? Her heart ached for both brothers. No kid deserved that, even if they were grown. Her mother’s death had been brutally hard for her, but at least her mother had no choice about leaving her. Even now, thinking about her brought feelings of warmth and love with the regret. Grant didn’t get anything but . . . what? Betrayal? Hell, he probably felt abandoned—maybe that it was somehow his fault she left?
“We hadn’t wanted to go charging back into her life or anything, if that wasn’t what she wanted. We just wanted to know she was okay, or have our father charged if she wasn’t. She told us that she’d found out our father was sleeping with Kim and she just . . .” He shrugged. “Packed a bag and left us three kids behind without looking back.”
“Were you close to her before that?”
“No. She was busy keeping up appearances. Tennis, golf, charity functions. We rarely saw her. Will has a theory she
was pressured into having us and never really liked parenting. I can’t say I blame her. I am an asshole.”
Well, sometimes he was, but not moreso than a lot of other men she knew.
“What about your father? Were you close to him?” She assumed no, considering their first guess when their mother had disappeared had been that their father had killed her.
“He was always busy with work,” he said simply. “We were mostly raised by nannies. Then he married Kim and moved her into the house, and the next thing you know I was at Greystone during the year and at camp during the summer. Kim couldn’t stand me, so our father—who’d never been very fond of me anyway—basically got rid of me.”
“That’s awful!” she said so vehemently that the canoe shook.
“It’s ancient history, pixie. No need to get your little wings in a bunch.” He said it flippantly, but there was an undercurrent of resignation that broke her heart. Like being thrown away was just normal for him. How did someone become such a cocky, well-adjusted guy after that?
The far shore was already looming. Although it was improbable, the entire area gave Dex the impression that no one had ever been here before. There were no signs of human activity anywhere.
“So you loved summer camp. Did you love Greystone too? At least it got you out of the situation at home.”
There was a protracted period of silence where she thought he’d tell her to mind her own business. How bad could it be? It was ancient history, and compared to what she’d told him about Mia and Nigel, surely it wasn’t asking something too personal.
“It’s not a fun secret,” he warned.
“I want to know,” she pressed, and she did. It seemed really wrong that she didn’t know everything about him.
“It was . . . shitty,” he finally said. She waited for him to say more, but he didn’t.
“In my head I always thought of it like Hogwarts.” She wondered if turning around to look at him would make him less comfortable talking. It would probably just tip them both into the lake.
He sighed, sounding resigned since she wasn’t dropping the subject. “No, not like Hogwarts. Not like summer camp either. At least I had Will at summer camp.”
“Will wasn’t in the same part of Greystone?”
“He wasn’t there at all. Only pain in the ass Grant got sent away. Will was our father’s favorite back then—he never would have put up with Kim shipping Will off for the entire school year. For a few years I only saw Will on holidays, and that was if I was allowed to come home. I always got to leave school in the summer though. Then there was summer camp so I wasn’t underfoot.” He paused for a moment as though he was on the verge of saying something important. Instead, he got quiet again.
Dex’s stomach rolled. Part of her wanted to drop the subject, but she didn’t want him to think she couldn’t handle hearing whatever was going on behind all of his silence. It sounded like he’d spent his entire childhood everywhere except home. He’d been raised by strangers—like the rich kid version of foster care.
“It was . . . bad?” She glanced back, needing to see his face.
A muscle in his jaw ticked. “Not bad enough for them to stop sending me. I went for a few years until I managed to get expelled.”