In 1967, newlyweds Phil and Eavan Sidle purchased a run-down B&B in Tamales Bay, California from an elderly gentleman who had neither the strength nor the funds to continue to support such a grand estate. The B&B was named Sara's Place, after the elderly gentleman's late wife. He informed the Sidles of his plans to move in with his daughter in Florida and the sooner he sold, the better.
It was a colonial-style mansion on three acres of land that included eight guest bedrooms. The Sidles spent two years and a half years and an ungodly amount of money restoring the manor, inside and out, doing most of the work themselves.
When the work was done and Phil and Eavan were ready to open up to their first slew of guests, Eavan discovered she was pregnant. Seeing it as a good omen, she not only insisted on keeping the original name of the B&B, but also bestowing the same name on their only daughter.
Now, thirty-three years later, the daughter that Phil and Eavan so lovingly referred to as their lucky star was returning home, if only for a week.
Sara Sidle wasn't sure about returning home at first, even if it was for her half-brother's wedding. When she obtained the invitation, she was certain she wasn't going to go. She hadn't attended Wiley's first three weddings, why should this be any different? But as Sara read the invitation and saw that the ceremony and reception was to be held at her parents' B&B, she began to toy with the idea that going home and seeing Mom and Dad might be, well, fun. The component that finally convinced her to go was the phone call she received while at work from Wiley himself,
"It would mean the universe to me if you came this time, Sara," he said, piling on the syrupy charm. "My dazzling bride-to-be is even willing to make my knockout of a baby sister a bridesmaid."
She blushed over the telephone. Now how could she say no? As long as the dresses weren't pink, she accepted. Wiley was the king of ultimate flattery and had always been so damn persuasive. So, Sara took a week out of the seventy personal days she had acquired, packed two suitcases and her laptop and made the six-hour drive in her Denali to Tamales Bay.
She didn't tell Grissom where she was going, just said she was finally taking some time off.
"This is quite sudden. What's the occasion?" Grissom asked.
Sara was cool, "Oh, just some 'me' time, is all. Maybe I'll visit my parents. You were right, Grissom. I need a break."
The look on Grissom's face was somewhat pitiful, like a devoted dog who was watching his owner leave the house for the day, tail tucked between its legs. Sara wiped that image from her mind as she packed her suitcase that night. However, she did see it in her dreams that night, which annoyed her to no end.
More than once, Sara felt like she should turn back and decline Wiley and his fiancée's offer to make her a bridesmaid and retreat to her apartment and flannel pajamas. But something in her heart kept telling her to press on. So she did. She wouldn't let Grissom win, not this time.
To distract herself, she thought about Wiley a lot during her drive. He was ten years older than she, a product of her father Phil's first marriage to a Seattle socialite named Cecilia. They married three months before Wiley was born and divorced five years later. From what Sara had heard, they had had a daughter too, a sickly little girl that had been named Elizabeth. She had died of a heart valve defect at the age of two. Phil had always pinpointed Elizabeth's death as the start of the decline of his marriage to Cecilia.
Sara did not see Cecilia as much as she would see Wiley, who spent every other month in Tamales Bay, a child of joint custody. But once Wiley turned eighteen, he stopped coming on a regular basis and eventually not at all. Too infrequently he would make phone calls to his younger half-sister, but they would never last more than an hour or so.
The last time she'd seen him was at least five years ago at Christmastime. He had grown to look very much like her father—broad shouldered, sandy-haired and a handsomely sculpted face. He was extremely bright but not science-oriented like Sara was. He had what Sara's mother Eavan called a renaissance spirit—full of creativity and resourcefulness. Wiley had chosen to throw his intelligence into majoring in both art history and European literature, and spent a great amount of time traveling, which was how he had met his first three wives.
Wiley was infamous for his many marriages, especially since he favored women much younger than he and developed a taste for blondes. Sara couldn't recall a time when he didn't have a blonde piece of arm candy attached to his sleeve.
He was also the father of four sandy-haired, pink cheeked daughters—one from his first marriage, two from his second and one from his third.
Elizabeth was sixteen, the oldest and prettiest, tall and slender with pouty rosebud lips and eyes the color of the ocean. She shared her aunt Sara's love of science and attended a prestigious private school in Georgia. Sophie was twelve and a musical prodigy. At a special performing arts school, she played piano and violin like a pro and already had a guaranteed scholarship to Julliard. Megan, age ten, was a junior Olympic equestrienne with a vast collection of blue ribbons and trophies. She was known as the clumsy sister, but somehow managed to have complete dexterity and grace while on the back of a horse. Kirya was five and the clear favorite of Wiley's. A Shirley Temple look-alike and the only sister with crystal-clear blue eyes, her mother's hobby was entering Kirya in one child beauty pageant after another. The child had already won forty-six trophies, twenty titles and over a hundred and seventy-five thousand dollars.
Thinking about her nieces made Sara a little more anxious to get to Tamales Bay. It was very rare all four girls were together. Elizabeth practically lived at her school in Georgia (Sara swore the girl was developing an accent), only returning for holidays and special occasions. Kirya stayed with her mother on nearly a permanent basis, seeing her father on Saturdays, unless she wasn't in a pageant that weekend. Sophie and Megan were the only girls regularly trafficked between their parents every other month and the ones that Sara saw the most.
Sara turned up the volume of the CD Nick had burned for her, not sure if she liked it or not—Nickelback's The Long Road. It was Nick's idea of a joke; he'd also made her a mix CD of traveling songs: "Ramblin' Man", "Ticket To Ride", "Traveling Soldier", "Hitchin' A Ride", "Horse With No Name", "Callin' Baton Rouge", "I Woke Up In A Car" and, as the grand finale, Sheryl Crow's "Leaving Las Vegas" followed by Pink's "Going To California".
"In honor of your first road trip since you started working here," he said, when he presented her with the CD's.
Sara made a face but accepted Nick's gift graciously. She hated to admit he was right. She hadn't had a road trip since she was seventeen—she and her best friend Roxanne had sneaked out and borrowed Roxanne's brother's car to go to the Halloween gay pride parade and a Rocky Horror Picture Show midnight screening in San Francisco. They hadn't returned home until 4 AM.
"I appreciate it, Nick," Sara said, giving her friend a smile. Their brother-sister relationship over the years was a great comfort to her, especially since Wiley didn't stay in touch as much as he should. "Promise me I can call you if it gets to crazy at the Sidle house and you'll be my knight in shining armor." Only Nick knew the real reason she was taking time off.
"Crazy? At the Sidle residence? Is there such thing?" Nick gave a grin.
"Of course there is. I grew up there, didn't I?"
"You're pretty normal."
You have no idea
, Sara thought. "You wanna go for a beer later? I'll buy and tell you what's so crazy about the Sidle residence.""Ooh, blackmail. I like it. Unfortunately, I have a date."
Sara hid her disappointment well. "That's okay. I still have some packing to do." She had been packed for three days. In all honestly, she was itching to cross the state line.
Ever since she announced she was taking time off, Grissom had avoided her like the plague, not speaking to her unless it was to bark an order. Sara didn't care. He'd been dropping hints for weeks that she should take some time off, and when she does, he gets an attitude? Fuck off. Well, she had been giving him the cold shoulder for going on months now, ever since her dinner date was rejected. And just when she was beginning to thaw, he decides to recommend Nick for the promotion? No matter that the position was cut, the fact was that she felt so incredibly snubbed by—
Ooh, that man just made her so angry sometimes, she could hardly finish a train of thought. Sara's eyes began to droop at this point, and glanced at her dashboard clock. Nearly ten PM. Sighing, she pulled into the first hotel she came across—a Holiday Inn, of course.
Don't worry
, Sara thought to herself as she crawled into bed half an hour later. By this time tomorrow, you'll have one week of Grissom-free days head of you.That night, she never slept better.