Page 86 of Echoes at Driftwood Cottage

“Yeah. But we’re not nearly done yet, guys,” Brent emphasized. “We have seven other missing people unaccounted for from Celestial Moon Commune. Seven. Think about that when you go home tonight. We’re not stopping until we learn what happened to each one of them.”

Theo got up to toss his containers in the trash. “Any chance Interpol will ever capture Dodge Nichols?”

“Interpol never gives up and neither we will,” Eastlyn tossed out.

Brent glanced around the room, studying each face. “News flash. My gut tells me that we won’t need Interpol to nab Nichols. I think he’s a lot closer than anyone thinks.”

Chapter Twenty-Four

By the time Rowan heard from Brent, June had turned to July, a month that saw temperatures rise to a balmy eighty degrees. She’d met with her one and only client, a book publisher start-up located in Los Angeles with a talented list of twenty-five authors that promised to keep her busy through the end of the year.

The new job meant she needed to hit the ground running. She spent her days trying to impress the editors, the authors, and the agents, wowing them with her creativity and sassy book cover ideas.

That first week of July, with no air conditioning in the house, she couldn’t have been more bored with the entire process.

She missed working alongside Daniel at the ice cream shop, interacting with the customers, dishing up bizarre concoctions, experimenting with different fruits to create exotic flavors. She had gotten to know the town’s residents through their weird orders. She knew who liked their banana splits with pineapple and orange sherbet and a glob of chocolate fudge in the middle. She knew which ones preferred their chocolate sundaes dripping in butterscotch sauce, and recognized the staunch advocates who believed plain old strawberry was the answer to everything. She’d met the funny tourists who cracked jokes and the grumpy ones who came in to complain about the weather.

She missed the local vibe and the touristy atmosphere. No two days were alike, depending on the stream of customers who made the job challenging, yet fulfilling.

She missed the kids the most, the rush of scooping up ice cream and the satisfaction of watching a child’s face light up when they tasted her latest creation. She missed the overall sense of community that came with feeling part of something she couldn’t name.

“I should be grateful for the one client,” Rowan had told Daniel one night after dinner. But it seemed he already understood her predicament.

“The place isn’t the same without you,” Daniel had replied. “People keep asking me where you are. I keep telling them you’ll be back. But it’s not that cut and dried, is it?”

“I feel out of sorts, as though I’m faking my enthusiasm, which I guess is true. I can’t keep my mind on my work. I keep thinking about what flavors to make. When I worked at the shop, it kept me so busy that I didn’t have time to dwell on everything that’s happened. But now, all I do is think about how I spent my formative years in this house with Lynette. I know now that I never really knew the woman.”

“Jim dying must’ve changed her. Something did. We may never know. She didn’t have to fetch you that night from Gwynn. But she did.”

“I find it strange that as long as Jim was alive, he never suggested I come live with them. But almost from the minute he died, Lynette took more of an interest in my situation. It’s like she knew Gwynn was never going to change. When I called her that rainy night and told her Gwynn had passed out, she showed up and got me out of there. It changed my life. Who knows what might’ve happened if she’d left me with Gwynn.”

“But she didn’t.”

“No. But she also took away my chance to have parents. It’s a vicious circle. Seeing the good in Lynette in my head. All the great times we spent together—grandmother and granddaughter moments—making doll clothes in her sewing room, mixing up cake batter from scratch, and then watching reruns on TV. Accepting her dark side might be the most difficult thing I’ve ever had to do. On top of all that, I feel that somehow, I’ve let Will down.”

“It’s not your fault we couldn’t find Hallie. Did you turn everything you found in the safe deposit box over to Brent?”

“Every scrap of paper in there. He had Theo pick that stuff up a week ago. But the weirdest thing was when Eastlyn brought cadaver dogs into the house. It creeped me out.”

“But the dogs didn’t get a hit,” Daniel reminded her.

“Thankfully, no. I hate this waiting game, Daniel. Eastlyn was as closed mouth as ever. I still don’t understand how Jim and Lynette led such double lives.”

“I know it’s been hard waiting. But Brent promised answers. You need to believe the system will work.”

It was all a bit too much for Will Snelling. The past weeks had been a disappointment, yielding dead end after dead end.

It wasn’t all a failure. One good thing had come out of it. In trying to help Will find Hallie, the three of them had bonded as thick as any friends they’d had since high school. Will didn’t seem to want to leave Pelican Pointe and go back to his apartment in downtown Portland.

“You could stay here and write your book,” Rowan had prompted. “I’ll design the cover for it.”

“I need an ending,” Will had pointed out. “It should be about the journey to find Hallie. No other ending works. Besides, I’d need to find an affordable place to live.”

“You could move into Driftwood Cottage after Rowan moves in with me,” Daniel had suggested with a grin. “Stay here and meet your own woman.”

“There is this one very attractive brunette who works at the animal clinic. Her name’s Jessica. I met her at The Perky Pelican after Chloe mixed up our coffee orders.”

“Listen to you, talking like a local already. Pretty soon you’ll know everybody in town.”

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