Page 66 of Little Last Words

He returned to his seat and said, “Oh?”

“What can you tell me about Zachary Sandler?”

He leaned back in the chair, crossing his arms over his chest. “Zachary’s good people. My daughter seemed happy when she was dating him.”

“What made her so happy?”

“Zachary doted on her. He made her feel valued and loved. We liked him too. Comes from a respected family. The way we saw it, she couldn’t get much better than him. He seemed perfect for her. His parents agreed.”

“If they were such a good match, why didn’t they end up together?” I asked.

“I think they would have if … well, if things were different.”

“What things?”

“If my wife hadn’t … now, please understand, this is not me talking bad about her. This is me speaking the truth.”

I leaned forward.

Tea was about to be spilled.

I couldn’t wait.

“What did Angelica do?” I asked.

“You’ve met my wife and no doubt noticed she gets a bittooinvolved at times. It upset Penelope. She was a teenager at the time in her senior year, and she did what teenagers do. She asked Angelica not to meddle in their relationship.”

“I can’t imagine Angelica took it well.”

“She didn’t. Instead of backing off, Angelica made things even worse by inviting Zachary to have lunch with her one day. She learned Zachary had been offered a scholarship he didn’t expect to receive, you see. He was thinking about accepting it, but the school was in Texas, and he didn’t want to leave Penelope behind. Turns out it didn’t matter. She had other plans she hadn’t told us about.”

“What were her plans postgraduation?”

“We thought she’d decided to stay in California and go to school here. That was the plan she’d made at the start of her senior year. Right before graduation, she came to us and said she was leaving for a while. Had some crazy notion that she was going to backpack her way through Canada.”

“What brought the travel plans on, do you think?”

He blinked at me but said nothing, and I got the distinct impression he was trying to decide whether to share anything more on the subject.

“Is there something more to the story, Sergio?” I asked.

“Maybe. First, I need to finish the conversation about Angelica’s lunch with Zachary.”

I nodded. “Go on.”

“You can imagine how Angelica must have felt knowing her daughter was about to throw everything away after she’d worked so hard to get into a good college. Nothing either of us said seemed to dissuade Penelope from her plans for Canada once she’d made them, so Angelica took Zachary to lunch. She hoped to talk him into convincing Penelope to stick with the original plan to attend college.”

“And did he talk to her?”

Sergio nodded. “It didn’t go well. She suspected her mother was behind it all, and Zachary admitted as much. It caused Penelope to view him as the kind of person who could be swayed by Angelica. Neither of us imagined the fallout to come from such a misstep.”

“What happened?”

“Everything blew up, and Penelope told Zachary she needed a break.”

The idea to drop her plans and go to Canada couldn’t have come out of nowhere. Something or someone must have triggered it.

“Do you have any idea why your daughter’s plans changed?” I asked.