AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“He has no family.” Dad had read every detail he could find about Archie Kasper’s life. He had shared with us that he’d inherited an old resort in the mountains of Colorado with his sister, and that against all odds, they’d managed to rejuvenate it and turn it into a sought-after destination.
That’s what I’d pitched my editor to help pay for my travel to the conference: A Down-to-Earth Alternative to Aspen. He’d suggested something a little different, but had still been enthusiastic. In fact, he’d told me if I could dig up the story he wanted, he’d put it on the cover, and that would be a career-maker. My ticket to bigger trips, more exotic destinations.
“Your brother’s at the bottom of the sea somewhere, and that guy’s living in the lap of luxury, swimming in his inherited fortune, going on like nothing ever happened,” Dad said, his plate forgotten in front of him now.
I did wonder about Archie Kasper. Had he really been able to move on so easily? “Maybe I can go up there and find out if that’s true,” I suggested. “I’m sure it’s not.”
“I made a lovely almond torte,” Mom said, clearly desperate to move on from this conversation. I smiled at my mother, wishing she wasn’t always trapped by Dad’s emotions.
“None for me,” Dad said, standing. He shuffled back into the house, no doubt to pick up where he left off in his ongoing mourning of my brother’s short life.
“I’m sorry, Mom.” I sank back against the chair back, exhausted, emotional. My mother sat perfectly still, staring at the spot my father had left. But where I expected to see her crumple, maybe even begin to cry, she straightened.
“No,” she said, and then her gaze snapped to mine. “You go there. I think it’s a good idea. Meet this boy. Find out the truth.”
Surprise had me leaning toward her, something like pride at her strength buoying me suddenly. “The truth? Mom, there was an investigation. What am I going to find out that the navy didn’t already?”
“Not about the crash. Find out the truth about him.”
“What do you mean?”
“Emily, your father’s life ended the day Jake’s did. Our lives together ended that day. All because there is a man running free who your father’s been able to point all his anger at. He has someone to blame, but he can do nothing about it. Find out if that blame is deserved.”
“And if it is? If he’s a horrible person and he’s just blithely going on with his life and never thinks of Jake at all?” I asked.
“I don’t know. But at least we’ll be certain that these years we’ve spent on hating him haven’t been wasted.”
I dropped her gaze as tears threatened, exasperated. “Of course they’ve been wasted, Mom.”
Now she slumped. “I know.”
“What could I possibly find out? Would it make you guys happy if I discover that he’s a shell of a person like Dad? How would that help us?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know.” Her voice was a spindly thread.
“Or what if I find that he’s somehow managed to move forward and make a real life for himself? Would that be any better?”
“I just don’t know.”
I stood and picked up my father’s plate and my own. “I’m going to Colorado. But not because of him. I’m going because I pitched an article about the resort that could make my career. And maybe I’ll finally get the inspiration I need to write a novel. It’s a coincidence that this all popped up together and happens to be at Kasper Ridge.”
“Or maybe it’s some kind of fate,” Mom said, standing and collecting her own plate.
“I don’t believe in fate.”
I went inside, the lie sitting heavy on my tongue.
Of course it had felt like fate intervening when I’d learned where the conference was being held. I just wasn’t sure what fate intended by sending me there.
But it didn’t matter. I had a good reason for going. And if fate was kind, maybe my going to Kasper Ridge would be the thing to win me the cover story the editor had proposed, and maybe it would be the thing my family needed to break free from the chains we’d worn all these years.
Chapter Two
Post-It Peril
ARCHIE – AKA: GHOST
“Say it again, I dare you.” Aubrey stood next to me, glaring up at me with her hands clenched into fists at her side. She was like a feral house cat—unpredictable and violent. “I dare you, Archie. Don’t think for one second that this basketball I’m smuggling under my shirt is gonna keep me from tackling you and beating you into submission.”
