Maybe it’s easier to be mad at her than it is to be mad at yourself.
Katrina
TWO DAYS BEFORE
I sat back down on the bench after the black car pulled away. At least there, in front of the Met, I could keep an eye on my surroundings. And I needed to get my bearings. Did Carmichael have someone following me? Maybe, but Darden was a more likely possibility, trying to monitor me close-up. I’d need to call Mark—he’d put a stop to it.
My phone buzzed then. Lauren.
“Why haven’t you answered any of my calls or texts?” She sounded out of breath, like she was walking. “I’ve been worried about you and this Doug thing. I know it’s weird because you guys just started dating. But I also know you really liked him.”
“It is weird, you’re right. And I’m sorry I’ve been MIA. But everything kind of exploded at once. Work’s been … complicated.” Of course I couldn’t get into any details with Lauren, not about Doug or Darden. I’d never told her about my role at the firm, though I’d always wanted to. But she was a U.S. attorney, a highly ethical one. I didn’t want to put her in a bad position of knowing more than she wanted to. “Plus, Aidan’s been all over me for another loan.”
Lauren was always my very best audience for Aidan complaints.
“Aidan.” She huffed predictably. “I hope you told him to fuck off.”
“Easier said than done, given the state of affairs between me and Cleo.”
“You cannot let him extort you,” she said. “It’s sick.”
“Cleo is seeing Kyle again.” It felt even worse than I’d imagined saying it out loud.
“Oh, I’m sorry … I’m sure that’s …” She sounded sympathetic, but I could only imagine her appalled expression. “Well, I’m not sure what that feels like. My girls are ten. But Cleo is twenty and she’s making scary choices that you can’t control, and that must be so hard. Even though as your friend I know that you’ve been doing everything you can.”
“Have I, though?” I asked. “Everything?”
Lauren didn’t know what I really meant. That I could easily have found someone in my bag of tricks capable of taking care of Kyle. I wasn’t that person, though. I wasn’t. Also, on a practical level, I knew how terribly those kinds of plans could go awry. What if Cleo somehow got hurt? Kyle’s phone, on the other hand? I suspected I could do something about that.
“What mother ever feels like they’ve doneeverything?” Lauren said, just when I’d forgotten I was on the phone with her. “Being a mother is a rigged game, Kat—you know that. There’s no way to win. And from what I can tell, it only gets harder the older they get. But I mean, it could be worse: I’m older than you are, and myfifth-gradeparent-teacher conferences start in ten minutes. What was I thinking? Twins at forty-three. Twins! Ilovedmy life, Kat. I wasfulfilled.”
“Come on, you adore the girls,” I said. Lauren wasn’t pretending to be fed up, though. She was always brutally honest about everything, but especially how hard she found motherhood.
“I do love them, of course I do. But I do also kind of hate being a mom. Why doesn’t anyone ever mention that’s a possibility! That you can love your kids and still hate the role.” She was laughing now even though I could tell she didn’t really think it was funny.
Every mother I knew learned how to laugh at so many unfunny things. Like the realization I’d faced as the parent of a teen, and then a young adult: that you were expected to have endless empathy—but no vulnerabilities of your own.
“You’re sure you’re okay?” Lauren asked. “I feel like there’s something you’re not telling me, Kat. You know I can’t stand it when you get squirrelly like this.”
“I’m okay,” I said, lying. “I’m trying to figure out when, exactly, my life became this much of a mess.”
“Everybody’s life is a mess, Kat. Absolutely everybody’s,” Lauren said softly. “I promise. And youarea good mom. No, you’re agreatmom. Especially considering where you came from. I don’t say that often because I worry it will make you feel bad. But itistrue. Not having your own mom must make it even harder to figure out what the hell to do. And yet you’re so good at it. Anyway, these kids aren’t cakes—you can put in all the right ingredients, watch the timer like a hawk, but all sorts of other shit actually happensinthe oven. Things over which you have zero control.”
This was true; there was only so much control I had over anything to do with Cleo. But this mess with Darden and Doug? This was the kind of situation I could and did fix all the time. But I needed to be methodical about it.
I called Mark as soon as Lauren and I finished talking. “There’s a chance I can get Doug Sinclair’s phone records, at least from the last few days,” I said after I’d given him a quick summary of what I’d learned from Brian Carmichael, that whatever blackmail had been going on was under false pretenses. That Doug hadn’t bribed anyone, and thatwasan important point Darden would need to acknowledge. “If I can, I’ll go through his texts and see if I can find anything about the blackmail.”
“That doesn’t sound especially …”
