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Club? Lucy didn’t know what he was talking about.
“I’m not sure what club you’re referring to. Like a school club?”
Had the chess club been getting involved in hijinks that she hadn’t heard about? The French club had always seemed edgy.
“I was told that there was a club on campus that didn’t card, so underage kids could get in and drink.”
Oh…. that.
“I heard that rumor too, but I have to say I don’t think it was true. A few friends and I tried to go to that so-called club, but they did card us, and we didn’t get in. The bouncer at the door told us to go home to mommy and daddy. It was mortifying, absolutely mortifying.”
She and her friends had tried to dress up and look “older,” but of course, they’d probably looked ridiculous. A gaggle of giggling teenage girls wearing too much makeup, trying to pretend they were twenty-one to score cheap drinks and meet older guys. The only thing they’d done was make themselves look silly. It had been a painful lesson at seventeen.
And if her parents had ever found out? She would have been grounded for a decade.
Mr. Hayes appeared relieved that she’d been rebuffed at the door of the bar, however.
“That’s good to hear. As a teacher, we hear a lot of rumors, but we often don’t know if they’re true or not. It’s good to know that Sarah wasn’t hanging out at clubs when she was so young.”
“It is,” Lucy agreed. “It’s good that she was found. Her family finally has answers, although I’m sure they’re not happy about how it all turned out.”
“Yes, they don’t have any hope that she’s out there somewhere okay and living her life. That has to be difficult.”
“I hope this brings some peace and closure to her family. Now, I think I’ll take these two along with my S.S. Cooper. That should hold me for a little while.”
Mr. Hayes paid for his books and went home, leaving Lucy thinking about what he’d said. Had Sarah had that much trouble at home? They’d all known she didn’t get on with her stepdad but had there been any more to that? And had Sarah partied instead of studying? Lucy had been a year younger, and she hadn’t been privy to everything that was going on. It was disturbing to think that Sarah might have fallen in with the wrong crowd and that it could be why she was now dead.
Finding her remains after all of this time was supposed to feel like they finally had answers, but it simply brought up more questions.
Just what had been going on in Sarah’s life before her disappearance and death?
* * *
“He’s never come here before,” Cooper said, his smile grim. “I liked it that way. He says he wants to talk to both of us, but I’m thinking he’s here to talk to you. And no, I didn’t offer him a seat because I don’t want him to make himself at home and stay awhile.”
Zack had been almost ready to leave Cooper’s apartment to go to the tavern to meet some of his friends from high school when he’d heard a knock on the door. Joel Winslow was making one of his rare in-person appearances. Apparently, he wanted to “talk” to his sons. That meant that he wanted to talk and for them to just listen. Ideally, they’d then agree with whatever he said.
I guess more far-fetched things have happened in history.
Joel was standing in the middle of the living room, his gaze roaming the small space.
“This reminds me of the apartment I had in college,” he said when Zack joined him. “I have some good memories of those years.”
Zack wasn’t in the mood for a stroll down memory lane with his dad. From what he remembered of those stories from when he was a kid, Joel had been a real asshole to people he thought were inferior. In other words…everyone. The funny thing was that he didn’t see it. He’d tell horrifying stories from his youth thinking they were amusing, innocuous tales when all it did was show what a snobbish bully Joel was.
To this day, Zack wondered what his mother had seen in his dad. He’d asked her once in a roundabout way, and she’d said something about how charming he’d been, sweeping her off her feet with flowers and romance.
“What’s up, Dad? Why are you here?”
Zack wasn’t going to beat around the bush, playing games. He didn’t have the patience.
“Can’t a man come visit his sons?”
“He can but he never has,” Cooper pointed out. “The question stands. Why are you here? And why aren’t you on your honeymoon? I thought you had a cruise booked.”
“We’ve postponed the cruise to next month. We thought it might be in bad taste to leave on a vacation after what happened.”
What happened. That’s how Joel was describing finding Sarah’s remains.
