The Rivals of Casper Road by Roan Parrish

Author:Roan Parrish
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2022-07-14T16:09:40+00:00

* * *

Zachary called his mom for the first time in two months. She’d left him several messages over the last few weeks, which he’d ignored. But seeing Bram’s family, so close and so joyful at one another’s company, had made him pick up the phone.

“Zacky!” she answered. The sound of her voice wound his stomach like spaghetti on a fork.

“Hi, Mom.”

He didn’t say “How are you?” because that was always an invitation for her to start talking about the case.

Not that not asking usually avoided it.

“Your father’s been having terrible reflux lately,” she said. “So he’s taking a new medication.”

She talked for several minutes about his father’s health and her friend Joanie, whom Zachary had never met and wasn’t entirely convinced actually existed since his mother’s relationship with her seemed to revolve entirely around Zumba and smoothies.

“I’m up for a promotion at work,” Zachary said. “I fly to Denver for the interview next week. If I get it, I’ll be the youngest person ever to hold the position.”

“That’s wonderful,” his mother said. “Congratulations.”

“Well, I didn’t get it yet,” he said.

“I’m sure you will, sweetie.”

Zachary began to sweat.

“No, it’s not guaranteed. It will be competitive,” he said. That wasn’t quite right, but he didn’t know how else to say it. She was congratulating him like it was nothing—a done deal, a guarantee—and it was notable, significant, a standout. Making it sound guaranteed stripped the achievement from it.

“Well, if they’re smart, they’ll pick you,” she repeated.

Zachary sighed.

“Listen, I need your help with something,” his mother said. In the space of one sentence, she’d shifted completely into the intensity that Zachary knew so well.

Suddenly he wished he’d never called.

“There’s movement with your sister’s case. I’ve been contacted by someone who worked as a waitress in a diner sixty miles east of here. She guarantees that your sister came in three days in a row and was meeting someone. So I need you to go to the diner and ask for Sharon Barklee. Barklee—with two Es. And then put up flyers all around Riverton. You can design them, right, honey? Like you did before? You’re so much better at it than me.”

“Mom, Mom. I can’t go to Riverton. I work. I have a job. I’m going to Denver.”

“You can go after work. It’s a 24-hour diner.”

A familiar tornado of exhaustion and frustration swept Zachary up. This was the fifth or sixth person in the last ten years who had claimed to see Sarah. And of course they did, because his mother kept advertising a reward for a sighting of her.

The first time it had happened had only been a year after they moved to Garnet Run, and even Zachary had gotten his hopes up, despite thinking he’d resigned himself to Sarah’s permanent absence.

Things happened. People left and came back. You never knew. Sarah was young and maybe she’d changed her mind. He’d gotten caught up in it all, just like his parents had. When it proved to be nothing, he’d felt like he was grieving all over again.

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