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“You are right, but did it occur to you that investigating Mom’s disappearance might be dangerous? You could get yourself disappeared.” Zack’s attention turned to his brother who had yet to speak. “Did you know about this?”
“That Piper had been looking into the case? Not until I moved back here. But I went with her to talk to Finn this morning. I told him that if he doesn’t have the budget or resources, I’ll pay for a private investigator.”
“You’ll pay? With what? You don’t have a job, brother.”
Zack hadn’t meant for it to come out of his mouth like that, but Cooper didn’t appear offended. His little brother simply grinned and chuckled as if finances were hilarious. Had Cooper planned on asking Zack for the money? He would absolutely give it, but it would have been nice if there was a discussion about it. Or was that what this meal was about?
“I have some money saved,” Cooper replied. “And no, I wasn’t planning on asking you for it, if that’s what you were thinking. I can swing this. Don’t worry.”
“I’m the oldest. It’s my job to worry.”
“We’re all grown up, Zack,” Piper said softly. “You’re not responsible for us anymore. But it’s sweet that you still think that you are. You need to be thinking about your own life, not worrying about ours.”
“What do you mean by that?”
Zack sounded defensive to his own ears, but that was because…he was defensive. He’d thought he was hiding his inner turmoil well.
“I can feel your troubled vibrations,” Piper replied. “I’ve been picking up on some very agitated emotions and feelings whenever you’re around. Your aura is giving off signals that you’re in a flux state of your existence.”
Zack loved his sister deeply. Piper was a wonderful person with a great big heart. Funny, smart, and sweet, she was just a lovely human being in a world filled with a hell of a lot of assholes - many that he’d worked with.
But since she was a little kid, she’d always believed that she was a bit psychic. She thought that she could “read” people, and not in the sense that she was sensitive to their moods. She thought that she could sometimes see flashes of the future, too. Zack and his siblings had eventually decided that it was simply a charming and unique part of her personality, and they didn’t say much about it. As far as he knew, Piper had never predicted anything that had turned out to be true, but then he’d been gone a long time.
It didn’t matter either way because he didn’t believe in psychics, or auras, or crystals, or tarot cards. He believed in facts. That’s what he had dealt with every day in New York, and it had served him well. He’d learned that on Wall Street emotions could get him in trouble fast. Facts and numbers rarely did.
“A flux state of my existence? I’m not even sure what that means.”
“We both think that,” Cooper replied with a smirk. “And it means that your existence on the planet is in flux. You need to make decisions, and you’re not wanting to do it.”
They’d managed to nail it, but this wasn’t a topic that Zack was eager to discuss. At least not yet.
“I’m fine. Maybe you’re picking up on your own vibrations. Now are you going to show me what you brought?”
Piper slid the papers over to Zack.
“You can look through them yourself. This is what I’ve found out so far. I know it’s not much, but I think it might be useful if we really dig in and look.”
One document was a contract for a caterer. It appeared that Lily Winslow had been planning a party for Piper’s graduation.
Then there were travel brochures to beach destinations, plus one for a cruise.
There was also a receipt from the local department store for a thousand-dollar designer dress.
“Help me out here. What am I looking at? What do you see that I don’t?”
Piper sighed and shook her head.
“I swear you have no imagination. Look at the contract. Mom was planning a huge party for my graduation.”
“She did that for all of us.”
“And she was around for all of them,” Piper pointed out. “She didn’t plan your party and then run off with the mailman like Dad wants us to believe. Also, look at these brochures. She was planning a vacation. A vacation for the family. I called the local travel agent about it, and that’s what they told me. And the dress was for a fancy function that she and Dad were going to go to in the summer. People who are planning to run away from their lives and disappear don’t plan things out for the future like this. Mom did not go of her own accord. She was taken against her will, and I’m sure that she’s gone now. We need to find her so she can rest in peace.”
The last part was spoken soft and low, slightly shaky with emotion. Piper, as the youngest, had been hit the hardest when Lily Winslow disappeared without a trace. The rest of them had been off to college or living on their own.
“I want to do that, too,” Zack replied, placing an arm around Piper’s shoulders in comfort. It was easy to see the pain etched in his sister’s features. “And I’m not against hiring a private investigator, although Dad already did that. Plus, just because they found Sarah’s body doesn’t mean they’ll find Mom’s. Their deaths aren’t linked in any way.”
Maybe.
