Page 88 of Echoes at Driftwood Cottage

“Most definitely. Remember the winding road getting to the commune?” Brent asked. “My team and I spent a week up there trying to re-create what likely happened that Saturday night after Jim and Lynette left the party with Henry and Olive and maybe the child.”

“The winding road,” Daniel muttered. “It would take a long time to make that drive in the dark, especially with two adults ready to fight for their kid at any moment.”

“Not to mention the little girl screaming her head off,” Rowan added. “You don’t think they tied them up, do you? Or stuffed rags in their mouths to keep them quiet?”

The questions broke Brent’s stoic demeanor as he visibly swallowed hard and paused. When he was able to recover, he chose his words carefully. “The forensic team recovered as much tattered fabric as they could from the earth. Some remnants were from obvious clothing like jeans, part of a sweater, and one deformed male tennis shoe.” He cleared his throat before going on. “The rest found in the dirt was probably from towels used as gags around their mouths and ligatures to bind their hands behind their backs.”

Rowan made a gasping sound and covered her mouth so she wouldn’t scream. On her right, Daniel put his arm around her shoulders while Eastlyn did so from the left.

“I’m sorry,” Brent managed. “I know hearing these kinds of details is difficult.”

“I want to know what happened,” Rowan whispered. “I want to hear all of it.”

“Okay. If you’re sure, here goes. During our version of events we asked a forensic psychologist to participate. Here’s what we believe went down. After leaving the party house, Lynette is probably behind the wheel of the pickup while Jim sits in the bed holding the rifle on the couple. By this time they’ve been bound and gagged. Jim directs his wife to head for the commune. They start out on the winding, bumpy road heading west out of Redwood City. But before long Jim realizes the situation is not gonna work. It will take too long to reach the farm and Henry keeps looking like he could attack him at any moment. Even tied up, Henry is not in a cooperative mood. That’s when Jim sees the first set of deep woods to his right. Afraid the situation could escalate at any moment, Jim decides to end it there. He yells for Lynette to pull over. She follows the truck’s headlights until she comes to a dirt road where she spots a clearing.”

“You actually found the spot where this happened?” Rowan questioned, her voice rough and raw.

“Yes. Colt and I searched the area until we stumbled across a remote dirt road in the middle of nowhere.”

“We decided—the three of us including the psychologist—that this was as good a spot as any for a double homicide,” Colt put in. “Jim needed a location where if anyone heard gunshots, they might assume it came from a hunter in the area and wouldn’t arouse suspicion. It’s remote, pitch black except for the headlights on the pickup, and damn spooky.”

Rowan wiped away her tears. “That’s cold and calculating.”

“Double murder usually is,” Colt said. “We walked through a re-enactment. Jim was the first to fire the rifle into Henry’s chest. It was the biggest target in the dark. We think Lynette pulled out the small pistol from her handbag and shot Olive immediately after Jim’s first shot. Jim probably stood over Henry’s body, shooting him in the head. Lynette followed his lead and did the same thing to Olive. It happened quick, within seconds they were both dead. Now, Jim and Lynette need to handle the bodies. They couldn’t very well leave them out there for hunters to find. They devised a plan that included storing the bodies somewhere until they could transport them to the cemetery. We think that location was probably on the grounds of the commune, maybe in a working freezer or refrigerated unit.”

Theo twisted in his chair. “The commune did own such appliances in their commercial-grade kitchen where they made jam and canned all kinds of vegetables. The process of how the commune made money wasn’t a secret. Rowan provided news articles from that reporter saying as much. And one article mentioned a barn that no one entered without permission. This would’ve been an ideal place to put the bodies until Jim and Lynette could come up with their next step.”

Brent chewed his jaw, his eyes scanning the room. “Without getting too gory there was probably a massive amount of blood. And while trying to conceal what they’d done, some of the blood got on their clothing, which in turn, rubbed off into the vehicle’s fabric seats. We all know there’s no longer a farmhouse or any trace of the commune left on the property once owned by Dodge Nichols. But when you capture a fugitive who’s been on the run for almost twenty years because of the drug enterprise he ran, he might want to talk instead of facing a charge of accessory to commit first-degree murder.”

“You found Dodge Nichols?” Daniel asked in awe.

“We did. Thanks to those deeds Rowan gave us a few weeks back, we did a property records search, then executed a warrant last night at a remote residence east of here in the rolling hills near Scott’s Valley. Nichols admitted that he’d been living there since 2007 under another name, at a house his sister bought for him in 2005.”

That information rocked Rowan to the core. “Lynette bought him a house?”

“According to him they shared access to an offshore account worth about twenty million dollars.”

“Where is Nichols now?” Rowan asked.

“The sheriff’s office transferred him to county lockup in a holding facility while awaiting the feds. He’s their problem now. But he did provide details to some of our questions.”

“In other words, he knew that Jim and Lynette had murdered my parents,” Rowan blurted out.

“Nichols knew about it after the fact or so he claims. He certainly helped them with the burial details at Eternal Gardens. He knew about the mix-up with the headstone and suggested that nobody would care about what name was on the marker. His exact words were: ‘No one ever reads those names or pays attention to who’s buried there.’ When Lynette ordered the headstone, it was right after the murders. She assumed that she would change your name down the road. According to Nichols, you refused to answer to any other name they threw at you. You were Rowan Eaton. Whenever Lynette tried to get you to write out your name, you’d print in bold letters R-O-W-A-N no matter what name they gave you. Jim was so furious he wanted to ship you off as soon as possible somewhere else. But Nichols and Lynette told him how that would be a mistake. That if you ever started to remember things, they all might be in serious trouble. It was better to keep you close so they could keep an eye on you.”

“So they pawned me off on Gwynn.”

Brent nodded. “They hoped Gwynn would eventually straighten herself out. Later, Gwynn became the one who threatened to take them all down.”

“And Lynette had to overdose her own daughter to keep the woman quiet,” Daniel finished.

“That about sums it up. If you’re ever in doubt about anything,” Brent began, finally taking a seat in a chair. “Your family in Port Alberni took DNA tests. Familial matches all around. The DNA extracted from Henry and Olive prove you are their daughter.”

Brent paused and narrowed his gaze on Rowan. “There’s a two hundred-and-fifty-thousand-dollar reward for information leading to the arrest of Dodge Nichols. Because you provided the information that led to his arrest, I’ve made the FBI aware that it’s you who should receive that money.”

Theo got to his feet. “You should know we’re trying to track down all the children who were illegally adopted from the commune.”

“We’ve been trying to do that already,” Will said. “We haven’t found a single person because the records were all sealed. The Freedom of Information Act doesn’t seem to matter. We can’t find anyone willing to let us see those records.”

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