So they were conducting the same test—to see how far outside the county line they could get while her surveillance teams thought she was home. Interesting. The gears of Ian’s mind turned. Was he merely a means to an end? An unwitting accomplice in her attempt to run? It shouldn’t bother him—especially given he was using her the same way—but it still did.
“What did you major in at Michigan?” he asked, going for something nonthreatening to open routes of communication.
“Child development. Thought I might like teaching. What branch of the military were you with?”
“Army,” he said, even though there was no right answer to that question. The Manhunters were an entity unto themselves. Men and women recruited and trained for extraction and elimination and funded by the classified black-ops budget. Most likely the same budget that funded Roman’s team. “Why aren’t you teaching school here?”
“I didn’t finish my degree. Hank was a couple of years ahead of me. He was going to find a job in Ann Arbor after he graduated so I could finish, but his mom came down with early Alzheimer’s. He moved back to be with her and support his dad. I thought I’d transfer to a college here and finish up with some online classes or outreach programs.”
“What happened?” he asked.
She shrugged and stared out at the pavement illuminated by the headlights. “I got caught up in taking care of his mother. Hank got caught up in the job. I got pregnant.”
“So, life.”
She smiled. “Yeah. Life. I still want to go back to college at some point. If I return to Michigan, I’ll only need a year to finish. If I go somewhere else, I’ll probably need two years. Not sure if I still want to be a teacher, but I want to get my degree.”
“You’d make a good teacher.”
“What makes you say that?”
He shrugged. “The way you are with Jamison. The way you treat your customers. You’re patient, good-natured, positive. Kids need that.”
She thought for a moment. “You’re great with Jamison.” She hesitated, then asked, “Do you have kids?”
“Me?” He laughed and shook his head. Kids meant having a woman. Women required maintenance, security, trust, an emotional investment. None of that suited his lifestyle. “No. No kids.”
“I guess it would be hard to have a family when you’re in the military.”
“Takes special people to make that work.”
“Why did you leave? You can’t be old enough to have retired.”
“The military has special programs for certain branches and units. When they’re downsizing, they allow retirement with fifteen years in. My mom got sick, and I took leave
to care for her. When it was time to go back to work, my job had been given to one of the kids coming in at eighteen and nineteen.”
“That’s not right.”
He laughed at her indignant tone. “It’s a young man’s game, but I miss it. They offered me a job as an instructor, but after being in the field so long…” He shrugged. “I don’t know. It doesn’t exactly suit me.”
As the county line approached, Ian checked his rearview mirror. No other lights shone on the highway, and a smile curved his lips. He might just get a decent date out of the night after all. “What happened between you and your mom?”
“Oh…” She drew out the word with a whimsical smile. “That’s a little bizarre.”
“I’ve seen bizarre. Try me.”
She exhaled. “She’s part of the Church of Scientology.”
“Really.” He hoped he sounded as surprised as when he’d heard it the first time.
Savannah nodded. “I actually grew up in the movement. I don’t know how familiar you are with Scientology, but when adults enter the church, they give up their children to be raised by others. They brainwash you from the very beginning. Feed you lies, make you fearful of outsiders, and raise children to serve the congregation and spread the message. The day we walked into that compound in Los Angeles, I lost my mom. I was only six. I rarely saw her, and every time I did, we didn’t act like mother and daughter. It’s really strange. Not something many people can even believe let alone understand.”
“What a bizarre way to grow up. When did you leave?”
“When I was eighteen. To make a long story short, I had to pretend I was devout up till the very day I escaped. If I wasn’t, they would have stopped me.”
She shook her head, her gaze distant, her voice soft, as if she were reliving those years. “I still wonder how I missed this coming with Hank. It’s humiliating, really. I escaped one cult just to land in another. I fell in love with the idea of the opportunity to make his family my own. I was starving to belong. The ironic thing is that, looking back, I think my experience in Scientology made me more susceptible to Hank’s manipulation and Lyle’s intimidation.”