Page 27 of Echoes at Driftwood Cottage

After brushing his teeth, he undressed, plugged his phone into the charger on the nightstand, and crawled into bed next to Rowan, her red hair splayed across the pillow, her chest rising and falling in a steady rhythm.

But sleep wouldn’t come.

He lay there, staring at the ceiling, his mind racing with a dozen possibilities of what might’ve happened. None of them good. What if the intruder had succeeded in breaking in? What if Rowan or he had been hurt or worse? His heart rate spiked at the thought. He couldn’t shake off the vulnerable feeling that settled in his gut.

He glanced at Rowan, fast asleep, oblivious to the events of the night. Her usually peaceful expression looked different under the dim light of the room. It was the face of someone who’d had a long day, and he didn’t want to wake her up with his paranoia.

Instead, Daniel reached for his phone and started browsing for security cameras. He needed to do something to feel safe again. His search led him to a website with a variety of options. There were cameras designed for inside and outside installation with night vision features and high-definition image quality.

As he browsed through the different models, it dawned on him then. What if the intruder had made this his house the second stop? What if the first stop had been Rowan’s place on Cape Geneva?

With a determination that hadn’t been there earlier, he got out of bed, grabbed his phone, and went into the living room, where he dialed 911.

“This is Daniel Cardiff at 1802 Seagrass Lane. There was an attempted burglary here. But when I scared him off, I think the guy moved on to a house at 1821 Cape Geneva Drive.” Not exactly the order of events, but close enough, Daniel muttered to himself. “Could you check out the Cape Geneva address? It belongs to a Rowan Eaton, who only moved in a couple of days ago.”

“I’m on my way,” a voice on the other end of the phone vowed.

If he’d made a mistake, he’d apologize, Daniel contemplated as he walked back into the bedroom to wake up Rowan.

Daniel and Rowan arrived back at her house just as a police cruiser pulled up at the curb. Still not fully awake, Rowan followed behind Daniel, who entered the house first. As soon as he flipped on the lights, they both knew someone had been inside. The living room was in complete disarray. Someone had removed drawers and emptied the contents, then tossed them on the floor. They’d tossed books into a pile for meanness and flung the sofa cushions into the dining room.

“They must’ve been looking for something to steal,” Rowan muttered.

“Then why not take the TV? Or the laptop?” the responding officer replied, his dark, serious eyes scanning the mess before pointing toward the shiny MacBook Pro left in plain sight on the dining table. Standing just inside the doorway, he looked younger than his thirty-eight years as the dim light hit his bronze skin. He had straight black hair cropped at his collar and worn tucked behind his ears. Wearing a pair of light-colored jeans and a dark blue uniform shirt with a gold PPPD insignia on the long sleeves, his sidearm of choice was a Glock 17.

“Theo Woodsong,” he added, introducing himself before sidestepping an overturned lamp near the sofa. “You should’ve let me come in first.”

“Sorry,” Daniel murmured. “No idea why I rushed inside like that. They didn’t make it inside my place. I suppose I was in a hurry to see if I was right.”

“About the break-in?”

“Yeah.”

“When was that?” Theo asked.

“About thirty minutes ago. I don’t remember seeing you in the Vanilla Bean Machine before.”

“Near the pier? Not much for ice cream,” Theo countered, checking the lock on the front door. “There’s no forced entry here that I can tell. Did you lock up when you left?”

Rowan winced. “I’m not sure. I used the back door to get to Daniel’s house via the alleyway. He had invited me over for lunch. And I was in a hurry. I might’ve left the front door unlocked.”

She wandered across the room and was about to start tidying up until Theo stopped her. “Let’s at least document this for the record. Do you see anything at all that is missing?”

She glanced around, then without answering, Rowan dashed into the bedroom.

Daniel traded looks with Theo and followed her down the hallway. He found her on her knees going through the pile of paper on the floor.

“The box of Gran’s stuff I dumped here this afternoon when I found the photos. See? This is the mess I left. There are mortgage papers and deed documents still here.”

Theo scowled at both of them. “I feel like I’m not getting the whole picture here. Mind telling me what’s really going on?”

Rowan plopped down on the bed and covered her face with her hands. Her breath hitched and her voice cracked. “I don’t understand any of this. I only arrived Friday night, barely forty-eight hours ago. Less than twenty-four hours after I got here, I found out there’s this headstone in the town cemetery with my name and birthdate on it, along with my date of death back in 1999 when I was four years old. Then I found a box Gran had stashed away with photos in it of another child. None were of me.”

Theo’s eyes darted around the room as he tried to grasp the situation. He thought he’d seen everything back in Seattle. But now it seemed he’d walked into a funhouse with a distraught female worrying about photos. “And you’re upset because your grandmother thought more of that child than she thought of you?”

Rowan’s head snapped up. “What? No. I’m upset because I didn’t even know the child existed, let alone that she died in November 1999. Don’t you understand? The child had my name. How is it possible that two girls from the same family have the same name with the same birthdate? I’m not dead. I’m sitting right here.”

“Mind if I ask how much you’ve had to drink tonight?”

---