Page 34 of Echoes at Driftwood Cottage

“Nothing. Daniel showed up with groceries. A neighborly thing to do since I only met him last December when I was in town.”

“Okay then, Saturday. What happened Saturday?”

“After Daniel sent over a team of high schoolers to unload the van for me, I went to the Pump N Go to return the moving truck. While I was there, I spotted what looked like my grandfather’s old pickup. Sure enough, Wally says he found it in some farmer’s old barn. He fixed it up because Gran asked him to hold onto it for me. So I bought it—even wrote Wally a check. That doesn’t happen in San Diego.”

Brent smiled. “Standard operating procedure here. Wally knew your grandparents.”

“He did. And after I got in the truck, I was feeling nostalgic. So, I drove over to the florist, picked up two sets of flowers, and took them out to the cemetery.”

“And this is when you spotted the headstone with your name on it?” Brent supplied.

After learning from her mistakes, she left Scott out of the frame. “That’s right. A few rows away from my grandparents, I was shocked to see Rowan Avery Eaton carved in granite on another marker, especially with an August 31, 1995, date of birth that matched mine. But it also had the date that I died—November 27th, 1999. It freaked me out. But I had the presence of mind to take a photo.” She swiped through her pictures until she found the right one and held her phone out to Brent.

“That is extremely odd,” he agreed, studying the image. “And your grandmother never mentioned anything about this?”

“Not a word.”

“What about your mother?”

She explained about Gwynn’s condition and the nursing home. “Gwynn hasn’t been verbal for almost eight years now. I get weekly updates from the doctor or the staff, but I’m not sure which or that it matters who sends them out. I only know that her condition has gone downhill since I was here in December. I know she’s in bad shape. Before you ask, I haven’t been to see her since Christmas.”

“I’m sorry.”

Rowan shrugged off the sentiment. “No need. It’s the way things are. Any thoughts on who could be buried in that plot? Because it isn’t me.”

“And asking Gwynn about it—?”

“Is a waste of time,” she provided. “She couldn’t answer even if she wanted to. But you’re more than welcome to go out to the nursing home and see for yourself.”

Rowan took back her phone and swiped through her contacts. “Here’s the name of the place and the number for Gwynn’s doctor.”

Brent jotted down the information. “And Lynette Dewhurst had no other relatives that you’re aware of?”

“Nope. A few weeks after my grandfather died, I came to live here with Gran. I was almost ten. I’ll be twenty-eight at the end of August. It was always just the two of us—Gran and me—even before my mother ended up overdosing. By the time she went into the nursing home, I hadn’t seen Gwynn in maybe three years. She hung around San Francisco a lot back then. Twenty-five miles south of there is Half Moon Bay. She loved that place. I might have been sixteen or seventeen the last time I spoke to her. That was probably my last chance at a lucid conversation. And, even then, she was high as a kite and not making any sense, rambling on about wicked people cheating her out of something or other. She had a habit of complaining. If I’d known about the headstone, I would’ve asked Gran about it, not Gwynn.”

“What do you think it means?”

“Does it matter what I think? Theo Woodsong believed I was a twin. But then my birth certificate says single birth. And why would a mother give her twins the same name?”

“But you’ve had time since Saturday to come up with a theory,” Brent pressed.

She felt like this guy was trying to back her into a corner. So she mulled over what Scott had told her before taking the bait. “Okay. Okay. Here it is. But label me a nutcase and the rumors will fly.”

“I won’t do that.”

“If you say so,” she mumbled, uncrossing her arms and leaning forward. “This is what I think. The woman I thought was my mother, Gwynn, had a child. That child died around the age of four. I don’t know what her cause of death might’ve been, but she and Gran buried that little girl in the cemetery. At some point, they ordered a headstone for her. Maybe a month or two later, in her grief, Gwynn decided in her drunken-addicted state to snatch another child to replace her. That was me. The problem is I don’t have any proof. I don’t know fact from fiction. I’d need DNA to point me in some sort of direction. You should know that I took a DNA test this morning to see if I’m related to Lynette Dewhurst. If the results come back that I am a blood relative, then fine. End of story. I’ll accept the headstone as a fluke. But if the test proves I’m not related, then I have no idea who I am or what to do next.”

“I’ll look into the death of a child, find out a cause of death, and go from there. Anything else you want to tell me?”

Rowan shoved off the couch and headed for the dining table where she’d left the newspaper articles spread out. She let Brent take the time to catch up before showing off Lynette’s collection of stories about the Celestial Moon. “I found all of these in Gran’s safe deposit box. Why would she hold onto these if she didn’t suspect I was the little girl who was on that boat? The timing of that shipwreck is approximately four weeks after my date of death on the headstone. You convince me that there’s no connection, and I’ll shut up. Otherwise, my imagination will continue running wild until I stumble onto something that makes sense. Maybe I’m Hallie Snelling.”

Brent took a seat before picking up each article and reading it. He then organized them into chronological order.

“Well?” Rowan prompted.

“You’ve made a compelling point. I agree there are lots of puzzle pieces here beginning with the headstone. I’m just not certain they add up to anything yet. Give me time to do some digging, starting with the birth of a daughter on August 31, 1995. I’ll verify as much as I can with what I have. Running down records from vital statistics should be a no-brainer. I’ll let you know when I’m able to verify a birth and a date of death. How does that sound for starters?”

“Then you don’t think I’m nuts?”

---