Total pages in book: 108
Estimated words: 100853 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 504(@200wpm)___ 403(@250wpm)___ 336(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 100853 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 504(@200wpm)___ 403(@250wpm)___ 336(@300wpm)
“He never said who she stormed out with?” I asked, suddenly seeing all the holes in the story.
Harvey shook his head slowly. “Just that a man was driving the car. If he knew it was Paul, he never said.” Harvey glanced at Edgar, who shook his head. “There were those postcards,” Harvey said to Griffen and me. “You got postcards from Sarah for years.”
Griffen glanced at me, and I nodded.
“We did,” Griffen agreed, “but we compared them to the letters, which we’re very sure were written by our mother, and the handwriting isn’t the same.”
“What are you saying?” Edgar challenged, looking from Paige to Griffen.
I knew exactly what she was going to say. I could tell she’d gotten there, too.
“I don’t know,” Paige said, “but it’s occurred to me that no one’s found a sign of Sarah since the day she left this house.”
“Cooper Sinclair has had people looking,” I added, “but so far there’s no sign of Paul Williams either. So—”
“Are you implying that they didn’t run off together?” Edgar demanded.
“Maybe,” Paige said. She let out a long sigh, leaning into my side enough to send Edgar’s eyebrows up as he noticed. “I don’t know. It just seems odd that there’s nothing. All I’ve ever heard about Sarah Sawyer is how much she loved her kids, and yet she just left? Not a word, but those postcards that she didn’t send. So, who sent the postcards? And my father…” Her shoulders slumped. “I can see him leaving my mother. And I could see leaving her when she was pregnant with me. He’d never even held me. It wasn’t real to him the way Ford and Griffen would have been to Sarah. But I don’t know…”
She shook her head again.
“All my life, I’ve had this idea in my head of him living a second life without me or my mother. But wouldn’t he have left a footprint of some kind? He was doing business with Prentice Sawyer. He had real estate investments. I don’t know if my mother was aware of any of that, or, if she was, why she didn’t try to get control of assets that should have gone to her as his wife. I know she looked. And she never found anything. So where is he? How could someone just disappear?”
It was a great question. I had the same one, despite what we’d said earlier about Sarah being smart and completely erasing herself to get away from my father. Back then, you could do that much more easily. But Paige was right. Real estate investments had paperwork.
Harvey and Edgar shared a glance I couldn’t read.
“I don’t know how many records I have that go that far back,” Edgar said. “It’s ancient history. But I’ll look through my files to see if I can find out what might have happened to your father’s property. As for the rest—” He shook his head, regret heavy in his eyes as he glanced at Hope. “I wish I had more answers for you. But my guess is that Griffen’s connections with the Sinclairs will get you more information than anything I could turn up. I can promise you I’ve not laid eyes on Sarah Sawyer since before the day Prentice said she walked out of this house. And aside from Prentice telling me about those postcards she was supposedly sending, I’ve never heard of anyone having any contact with her since that day.”
Harvey let out a long, gusty sigh, his eyes sadder than I’d ever seen them. “Me either,” he said. “I was always sorry she left you boys. She was such a good mother, but there was a part of me that was glad she was out there somewhere, living a better life.”
“Well, was that it?” Edgar asked, bracing his palms on his knees as if getting ready to stand.
“I guess,” Hope said. “If you two think of anything, you’ll let us know?”
“Of course, of course,” Edgar said, pushing himself to his feet. “I’m going to make my way to the dining room, help myself to a cocktail. Sad memories,” he said. “A little whiskey will do the trick.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
FORD
We watched in silence as Harvey followed Edgar out, neither of them speaking in words, though the looks they shared did plenty of talking.
“What do you think they know?” I asked Griffen.
He gave Hope a squeeze before he shifted his weight and stood, bringing her to her feet along with him. “My guess is they know more than they’re saying, but I don’t think they know where Sarah and Paul are.”
“That’s the read I got too,” I agreed.
“Paige,” Hope asked, “do you think something happened to them?”
Paige gave a helpless shrug. “I don’t want to, but I’m starting to wonder if that’s the only sensible answer.”
“I don’t like it,” I said. “But I agree.”