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Jay chuckled and nodded, tossing a twenty on the table.
“I bet you do. That’s cool, but I’ll leave a tip for the server. Hey, it was good to see you, man. Don’t be a stranger from now on. This was fun. It would be nice to do it more often.”
As weird as it had felt, Zack didn’t want to let go of the past either.
“I promise,” he said. “We’ll do it again.”
Maybe Jay was right. Zack couldn’t pretend to know Sarah’s life. While they’d been “friends”, they hadn’t confided in each other or anything. They’d run in the same big crowd, but that didn’t mean they were close. It simply meant that they went to the same parties.
He had more than enough unanswered questions regarding his own mother’s disappearance. He didn’t need to borrow more. It would be best if he just stepped back and let Finn worry about it.
In a few days, he’d probably be gone.
13
“I’ve never been to this place,” Zack said. “But it smells good.”
Lucy and Zack were going to have dinner at one of the local Italian restaurants in the downtown area. It was one of her favorite eateries, and she was excited to share it with him.
“It opened a few years ago,” she replied as they were seated at a table near the front window. “I recommend the chicken parmesan and the lasagna. Both are awesome. And save room for dessert. You’re not going to want to miss the tiramisu.”
If Zack didn’t like a woman with a hearty appetite, he wasn’t going to like her. Lucy enjoyed her food with gusto. She didn’t live to eat, but a good meal was something to be savored.
A server brought them their drinks and took their order before disappearing into the kitchen in the back. From the moment they’d met up tonight, Lucy had noticed an uneasiness with Zack. There was a tension that hadn’t been there this morning. A part of her was saying to leave it alone, but a bigger part was telling her to at least ask about it. He just might want or need to talk.
“You seem…pensive. I’m not sure that’s the right word, but you have something on your mind. Do you want to talk about it? If not, I’ll drop the subject. I just wanted you to know that the offer was out there.”
“I do have something on my mind,” Zack admitted, playing with the fork on the table, his gaze somewhere else.
“You don’t have to—”
“I do want to talk about it,” he replied quickly. “It’s been quite a day in a weird way. Not much happened but for some reason I feel exhausted.”
“Finding Sarah has to have brought up a lot of emotions in you. I think that’s only natural.”
“I suppose it is,” he said, slowly nodding in agreement. “I met Cooper and Piper for lunch. They want to hire our own private investigator to look into Mom’s disappearance. I agree that I think we should. Apparently, news got around fast. I’m not sure how, but is anything a secret in this town? My dad showed up at the apartment for the first time ever, according to Cooper, to try and talk us out of it. He said it was a terrible idea, and that we’d all end up getting hurt. He’s just trying to protect us, you see.”
Lucy didn’t dislike Joel Winslow, but she wasn’t his biggest fan either. To be honest, she didn’t quite trust him after everything that had happened with his wife. He’d been questioned at the time as a suspect, but nothing more had ever come of it. She was all about guilty until proven innocent, but even his own kids didn’t believe him.
“He came to see you? That’s…shocking. Cooper has said several times that his dad has never come to see him since he moved back to town. He’s always trying to get Cooper to come to the house or the office.”
“That’s Dad’s power play,” Zack explained. “He likes to have the upper hand in any sort of dealings, and he equates his children with his business rivals. He wants to be sitting behind the big oak desk or standing in his huge mansion. Because everything to him is about winning and losing. Nothing else exists.”
“That sounds like a sad way to live.”
“It is,” Zack agreed readily. “He came to the apartment, tried to convince us that we were on the road to heartache and betrayal, and that we’ll all just end up crying in the corner when the investigator doesn’t find anything. Dad says there are no new trails to follow, and that we’re wasting time and money. Yes, he mentioned money. Then he poked at Cooper for not having any. I told him that I’d pay for it happily, and that we were all adults who could decide what was a waste and what wasn’t. He insists that he knows best which isn’t a surprise at all. No one can convince him he’s wrong about anything. Can you imagine living like that? Thinking you’re right about everything in the universe, and everyone else are just idiots crowding up your world?”
“I’ve met a few people like that back in corporate America when I lived in California. It was their world. We were just living in it. I think they call it main character syndrome.”
“He’s definitely the hero in his own movie,” Zack laughed. “I should ask him who would play him if it were ever made. Probably DeNiro.”
“Who would play you?”
“I don’t know,” he teased. “Who do you think should play me?”
“Hmmm,” she said, tapping her chin. “How about a younger George Clooney?”
“He’s probably a little too suave and debonair, but I like the way you think.”
