“That’s none of your fucking business,” Aiden growls menacingly. “Why don’t you run back to Daddy?”
The blonde rolls her eyes. “I’d much rather do something fun.” She takes a hip flask and a pack of cigarettes from her purse. “Is there somewhere we can sneak off to? These events are so dull.”
“Sarah!” Another girl’s voice floats toward us. “Where are you? Dad’s looking for you.”
Sarah freezes. “Shit.”
Aiden seizes the opportunity to snatch the cigarettes from her hands and tuck them into his pocket.
She glowers at him but doesn’t argue. Instead, she calls back, “I’ll be right there, Erin.”
“Sarah!” Acacia’s voice booms, making the three of us shrink away, pressing our backs against the wall. “What are you doing back here?”
She catches my eye, and I put one finger to my lips. She grins and swipes her hand across her mouth in a zipping motion.
“Sorry, Dad,” she says. “I got lost.”
She winks before sauntering away, leaving us to retreat into the safety of the storage closet.
Acacia’s voice is full of rage when he speaks to her. “Next time you get lost, you’ll end up staying here.”
PART TWO
POOR LITTLE RICH GIRL
PRESENT DAY
CHAPTER
ONE
ERIN
One year.
That’s how long it’s been since Sarah disappeared.
I’m stupid for expecting she’d come home today. In my daydreams, her rebellious eyes sparkle as she stumbles in with messy hair, swinging an empty liquor bottle, like no time has passed. She wouldn’t understand our concern. She and Dad would argue, like always. But, for once, I’d be happy to hear them fight.
Yet, there’s nothing. Only the same stifling silence that has consumed our table since she vanished. Mom lays the table, as she does every morning, with more food than we can eat. She puts out a selection of fruit, cereals, pancakes, sausages, juice, and a pot of coffee. No matter how early I wake, food is always waiting at the perfect temperature. It’s always the same, even though nothing else is.
Mom’s fork scrapes against her plate as she slices a banana into tiny pieces, setting my jaw on edge. She cuts her food up so small that it turns to nothing, then pushes it around until she declares she’s full after three bites. She’d rather starve than gain a pound.
“My book club is holding a fundraiser at the weekend,” she declares brightly.
Mom lives for social occasions and loves any excuse to buy new designer clothes. At fifty, she’s beautiful and still turns heads wherever we go. She’s the perfect trophy wife, befitting my famous psychiatrist father. People say we look alike, but I don’t see the resemblance. Unlike my boring brown straight hair, Mom has blonde waves that naturally fall in all the right places, and wide blue eyes compared to my brown ones. Sarah used to dye her hair to look more like her.
Dad grunts in acknowledgement and keeps leafing through the newspaper. He’s an imposing man at six feet tall with a sullen expression. In his youth, he was handsome with his angular jawline, dark hair and eyes. Now, wiry gray strands pepper his temples, and his lined forehead makes him look in a permanent foul mood. It’s not helped by the fact he rarely smiles, and a perpetual cloud of negativity surrounds him. Nothing, and no one, is ever good enough or up to his exacting standards.
I pick at my food and look up at the faded spot on the wall where our family portrait used to hang. Mom put it up soon after we moved in, but Dad tore it down and declared Sarah a disgrace. We moved to the town of Pasturesville for a fresh start shortly after she vanished, and all of Sarah’s belongings were left behind. He wants to erase her from our lives. We don’t talk about her. Occasionally, Mom looks like she wants to say something when it’s just the two of us, but she always thinks better of it. It’s not worth invoking my father’s wrath.
Dad slaps the paper down, and his shrewd gaze sweeps over me. “How was your math test yesterday, Erin?”
I cower under his scrutiny, wanting to blend into the fabric seat covers.
“We’re still waiting for the results,” I lie.
He nods curtly, letting me breathe easily once more. When he finds out I got a B+, he’ll go crazy, but that’s a problem for future Erin. I studied hard for the test, but I got distracted. All I could think about was Sarah. For the millionth time, I combed my memories for any clues that might tell me what happened to her.
