Free Time Thieves by Dale Mayer Page B

days later, she sat back in her plane seat and waited for the hubbub around her to die down. She’d finished her business in England and should be at her mother’s in time for dinner. She patted her oversized purse in her lap. Business had gone well. Very well, actually. She grinned. In fact, it had gone excellent, if her new purchases turned out to be half as good as she thought they would. Now if only her mother’s visit went half as well.
    After stowing away her bag, she leaned back and closed her eyes. To her surprise, she slept. She came awake at the sound of the Fasten seatbelts signs coming on and the captain’s voice pouring through the cabin.
    She blinked several times to reorient herself. Straightening her seat, she buckled up. Looking out the window, she saw the bright lights below. Sunlight twinkled and caught on the glass surfaces.
    A beautiful sight, and still nothing inside called to her. For her entire life, she’d been trying to get back home. The home she’d grown up in. The home she’d been forced to leave. The home she’d loved.
    She’d always be just a visitor here.
    And a reluctant one at that.
    Hours later, one of the reasons for her reluctance was in full force.
    “I’ve changed my mind. It’s my right,” her mother pouted. Her lips literally curled and her voice became childlike. Sari stared, and in spite of her mother’s words, humor crinkled her insides. The older her mother got, the more obstinate and manipulative she became.
    A part of her hated it. Another part recognized it for what it was – an attempt to bind her to her mother. Her father’s possessions were one more thing she could hold over Sari’s head.
    And she loved to play mind games like that. Sari hated them. And with every passing year, she hated it a little more.
    “It’s not yours anymore. You gave them to me. Therefore you can’t change your mind. I will take the items home with me. If you continue to try to stop me, you can bet it will be a long time before I return.” Sari kept her voice even and flat, letting her voice show how she really felt over her mother’s tricks.
    “But I didn’t hand them over. So you can’t take them.” Coolly, her mother walked over to the side table and refilled her wine glass then walked out onto the patio. Cool evening air wafted across Sari’s face as she joined her.
    “I’m sorry you feel that you have to do things like this in order to keep control over me. It’s not going to work. My father’s items are not yours, and I will not allow you to play games with them. You know how important they are to me.”
    “And I know that you won’t ever visit unless I have something to give you.”
    Considering she’d only been gone from France for six weeks, that was hardly fair. But it was so typical of her drama queen mother. “I would have come to visit, but it would be on my time, not by you jerking the family strings just because you can.”
    Lisbeth sniffed. “I didn’t do that.”
    Sari laughed. “Yes, you did. You always do. You’re very generous, but you like to keep dragging me back. I need to be home and get my house in order. It won’t be long, a couple of months, but with my business trips already taking me away, I can’t afford the time.”
    This time, it was Lisbeth’s turn to laugh and it was much colder. In an icy voice, she said, “What you mean is that it’s almost the anniversary of your father’s disappearance, and you want his things to once again try to figure out what happened.”
    Sari’s gaze sharpened. She studied her mother’s face before turning away abruptly. She walked to the edge of the patio and stared out into the blackness of the evening, the lights of the neighbors the only illumination in the sky. After a long moment she tried to explain, knowing her mother had yet to listen. “I have to. I need to know what happened.”
    “Nothing happened,” her mother cried. “Your father walked out the door one day and never came