by Kathi Daley
He also restated that he really felt bad about dropping the ball and not following up to make sure that Avery and I were okay. He said that Marilee seemed like a decent person, and he had no reason to believe she was anyone other than who she presented herself to be. I guessed I understood that. Warren was a busy man with his own life and his own family. When his cousin had died prematurely, he’d done as was expected of him and took over the financial reins of his estate. Marilee had seemed willing to raise the girls, and as far as Warren knew, that was exactly what she was doing.
Warren had expressed a similar sentiment when we’d spoken during our video chat. Part of me wanted to blame him for not making sure Avery and I were okay, and part of me understood why he would have assumed we were. Warren also told me that he planned to initiate his own search for Avery. Maybe with all his money and resources, he could actually find her. I planned to continue looking, but the more people who were committed to a problem, the more likely the problem would be solved.
Taking a necklace from one of the boxes, I ran a finger over the modest diamond. It was a delicate piece with a small stone and didn’t look like the sort of thing my father, who’d had a lot of money his entire life, would give to the woman he loved, but perhaps the necklace had been given to Adora before she met and married my father. The boxes of keepsakes Warren had sent contained several pieces of jewelry with larger stones that I’m sure were of greater financial value, but this tiny diamond on the delicate chain seemed to speak to me. Slipping it around my neck, I worked the clasp. Once it had settled on my chest, I fingered it, trying to conjure up a memory of the woman who’d given birth to me. I was sure there were memories stored somewhere in my mind from before her death, but no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t seem to access them. Maybe I was trying too hard. Perhaps I just needed to let my memories come to me when they were ready to be felt and experienced. Maybe, if I just sat with my thoughts, the quiet of a spring night would take me where I wanted to go.
Chapter 3
I headed into my office the following day. Part of me wanted to lie around the cottage and torture myself with thoughts of the sister I so wanted to find, but another part of me knew it was best to stay busy. There didn’t seem to be a lot I could do at this point. I didn’t have any new leads to follow up on, and after having been home for several months, Adam was away on business. I knew this was going to be an extended trip, so I didn’t expect him to return for another week or two at the very earliest. I figured that when he got home, we’d jump back into the investigation. In the meantime, I supposed that spending some time and having a presence in my new office was a good idea.
I’d decided to bring Kai and Kallie with me today, so I settled them onto the dog beds I kept on-site for their use, and then I sat down at my desk to go over the notes I’d jotted down regarding the upcoming holiday weekend and my commitment to Hope to help out with the planned activities. Hope seemed to chair most of the events the town sponsored, but I knew that she couldn’t do what she did without a massive number of volunteers to help out.
“Are you Ainsley Holloway?” A young woman with curly dark hair who looked to be about my age came into the office through the front door. Kai and Kallie looked up, but they’d been trained not to approach until invited, so they stayed put for the time being.
“I am,” I answered, standing up behind my desk. “How can I help you?”
“I was next door at the antique shop, and they suggested that you might be able to help me with my project.”
I motioned toward the chair across from my desk. “Have a seat.”
She did as I suggested.
“So, what’s your name?”
“Ellery. Ellery Adams.”
“Nice to meet you, Ellery. Now, what sort of project do you have?”
She held out her hand, palm side up, and presented a charm bracelet.
“A charm bracelet. It’s lovely. May I?” I asked before taking it from her hand.
“I hoped you could help me track down the owner of this bracelet.”
I looked up at the woman, who seemed hesitant and obviously uncomfortable with the situation. “Why don’t you start at the beginning and tell me how you came to have this and why you want to find the owner. Once we get that out of the way, I should be able to tell you whether or not I can help you.”
“Okay.” She swallowed hard. I could see that she was nervous, and to be honest, I wasn’t sure why. Tracking down the owner of a lost bracelet didn’t seem the sort of thing that would cause a person a lot of anxiety. “I was adopted when I was an infant,” she began in a soft voice. “My adoptive parents were wonderful people who I loved with all my heart, but they were killed in an auto accident last summer.”
“I’m so very sorry.” I knew how hard it was to lose a parent.
She offered me a look of thanks and then continued. “After I got over the shock of losing them, I decided to look for my biological parents. I’d asked my adoptive parents about them when I was a teenager, and all they could tell me was that I’d been abandoned in a church when I was less than a day old. The blanket my naked body was wrapped in and this charm bracelet that was found wrapped inside the blanket are the only clues they had as to my identity. I know it’s not a lot to go on, but it is something. A starting point, if you will.”
I looked down at the bracelet I still held. “It’s a lovely bracelet.” I looked at the charms, which featured a book, a ship, an ice cream cone, a tennis shoe, a movie reel, a rose, and a Ferris wheel. “Do you have reason to believe that the bracelet is in some way linked to Gooseberry Bay? The charms are pretty common.”
“I’m actually not certain that the charms are linked to Gooseberry Bay, but I did notice that the tennis shoe charm has an inscription.”
I looked at it more closely. “B2B with the number ninety-six under it.” I looked toward the woman. “Is that significant?”
She shrugged. “I’m not sure, but I’m a runner, and my adoptive mom was a runner, and I know there is a run in Gooseberry Bay every summer called the Bay to Boardwalk Run. I suppose there are other runs that might work with B2B.”
“Bay to Breakers,” I said, mentioning a famous run that takes place each year in San Francisco.”
“Yeah,” Ellery sighed. “I did think of that. And there are others that would fit as well. A lot of them, in fact. I know it’s a longshot, but I noticed the book was also inscribed.”
I looked at the back of the book. “Brewster’s.”
“There was a bookstore named Brewster’s Books here in Gooseberry Bay back in the nineteen nineties. I was born in nineteen ninety-seven, so Brewster’s Books would have been around during that same time frame.”
I looked down at the bracelet again. “So why do you think this bracelet was left with you, and how do you think it can help you find your biological parents?”
She hesitated.
“It’s okay. Whatever you’re thinking is fine. I just need to get a better feel for things.”
She lowered her head and then raised it again. “I’ve been to Gooseberry Bay before. Five years ago with my adoptive mom. I know this is going to sound crazy, but when I arrived in this town, I felt this connection. I can’t explain it, but it was just so strong. I asked my mom if I’d been here before, and she said no. I commented that it seemed familiar, and she just answered back that a lot of these little beach towns all look the same. I suppose that’s true in a way, but even after we went home, I could feel the pull of this place. It was really odd. But then I went off to college, and life settled into a normal routine, and Gooseberry Bay became nothing more than a memory.”
“Then your adoptive parents died, and you decided to look for your biological parents.”
She nodded.
“I’m not sure why I’m so focused on Gooseberry Bay, but for some reason, when I began trying to identify the charms, Gooseberry Bay was on my mind, and it occurred to me that the tennis shoe could represent some sort of fun run
or marathon. When I found out about the Bay to Boardwalk Run, I felt like I was one step closer to solving my mystery.” She took a breath and continued. “Then I managed to match the book to Brewster’s Books, but that was as far as I got. I came to the area to see if anyone could tell me anything else about the charms that might help me in my quest. I went to Then and Again because those who deal in antiques seem to know a lot about items from the past. The women who own the shop couldn’t really help me, so they sent me to you.”
I looked at the bracelet again and then handed it back to the woman. “I’m afraid that I’m new to Gooseberry Bay, so these charms won’t mean anything to me, but I have friends who’ve been in the area longer, so I’m willing to pitch in and help you figure out as much as you can. I have to be honest, I’m not sure that even if we identify every single charm on the bracelet, doing so will help you find your biological parents. Although I do agree that it does seem like a good place to start.”
“I would like to have help with my project, but I can’t afford a lot, and the women next door didn’t say what you charge.”
I smiled. “Actually, I’m not planning to charge you anything. Your project seems important, and I, too, am looking for answers to my own past, so I understand your drive to solve this huge question in your life. I have time, so I’m happy to help see what we can figure out.”
“Are you sure? I don’t know how much time this might take.”
“I’m sure. As I said, I’m not busy right now, and your project seems interesting.”
She blew out a breath. “Thank you. I really appreciate this.”
I drummed my fingers on the desk as I thought over the situation a bit. “I need to show the charms to some people I know. I don’t want to take the bracelet, but I would like to take close-up photos of each charm.”
“Okay.”
“After we do that, I’ll take down your contact information. I’ll check in with you each day, and we can assess the situation. Are you staying in the area?”
“I’ll be here through the weekend. I live in Seattle and need to be back to work next Monday, so I plan to take the ferry back Sunday.”
“Okay, then. Let’s see what we can figure out between now and Sunday.” I held out my hand for the bracelet so I could take the photos. “Is there anything else you can tell me that might help us?”
“Like what?” she asked.
“You said you were found in a church. Which church?”
“It was a small community church about an hour north of Seattle. It’s no longer there. I checked.”
“So you were abandoned near Seattle, but you think your biological parents lived here?”
“Either lived here or visited here. I’m not sure. I realize that I don’t have much of a starting place, and my quest is most likely going to end in disappointment, but I need to try.”
“I get it,” I said. And I did. I’d started my quest to learn about my biological parents with nothing more than a photo, and look how far I’d gotten. Maybe we could pull off the same miracle for Ellery. “Tell me about the blanket you were found wrapped up in.”
“It’s white with these little red roses stitched along the hem. The stitch work is really intricate. It looks to be hand-stitched to me.”
“Do you have the blanket with you?”
She nodded. “It’s back in my hotel room. I can bring it the next time we meet.”
“Okay. I don’t know if the blanket holds a clue, but we don’t have a lot to go on, so every little detail helps. Is there anything else you know?”
She slowly shook her head. “I don’t think so.”
I finished photographing the charms and handed the bracelet back to her. “Okay. Give me a day to look into things, and then I’ll call you, and we can reevaluate. If all the charms relate to a place or event as we suspect the shoe and the book do, then it shouldn’t be all that hard to track down the rest.”
“That’s what I’m hoping.” She stood up with the bracelet clutched in her hand. “And thank you. I might have eventually been able to figure all this out on my own, but I welcome the help. I figure even if I don’t find the woman who’d given birth to me, taking this journey might still help me to know her.”
“I agree that if nothing else, tracing the charms back to the relevant event they represent should help you know the woman who owned the bracelet.”
After Ellery left, I decided to take a break and take the dogs for a walk down the boardwalk. It was a gorgeous sunny day with only the hint of a breeze to ripple the water. I had to admit that Ellery’s quest was an interesting one. I could understand her logic, but I really wasn’t sure that finding someone who clearly didn’t want to be found was going to be possible even with the clues we had. Of course, I had even fewer clues in my search for Avery, but I knew that even without a single clue to work from, I was never going to give up. I felt like I understood Ellery. We were after similar things. I almost felt as if fate had sent Ellery to me and that maybe her search for her past would somehow end up bringing me closer in my search for mine.
Chapter 4
After I got home, I headed to Jemma and Josie’s place with my phone in hand. I figured they might be able to help me identify some of the charms, so I’d called earlier, and Jemma had told me to come on over with the photos. When I arrived, both roommates were on their large deck overlooking the water with a bottle of wine and tray full of snacks.
“I guess you heard that Zane Maddox isn’t the only missing teenager,” Josie commented as soon as I sat down.
“No. I hadn’t heard. I was down by the harbor yesterday with Jemma when Deputy Todd was there talking to the group who found Zane’s paddleboard, but I haven’t heard anything since.”
Josie tucked her tan legs up under her body. “It turns out that another boy, Kalen West, was last seen by his mother on Saturday, although she waited to contact the police until after she’d heard about Zane.”
“Why’d she wait?” I asked.
Josie shrugged. “I heard that there’d been friction in the family since Kalen’s parents decided to divorce, so she may have thought Kalen simply took off. I don’t know this to be true with any degree of certainty, but one of my waitresses at the Rambling Rose mentioned that Kalen might not actually be missing but may have simply needed a break from things at home.”
“Do you know if Kalen and Zane were together Sunday?” I asked.
“No one I’ve spoken to knows one way or another,” Josie provided. “I suppose Parker might know more about the whole thing than we do. Maybe I’ll call and invite her to come over.”
“If you want to be sure she shows, tell her that we’re making margaritas,” Jemma suggested.
As it turned out, Parker had found out additional information about the missing boys and was happy to come by and share what she knew in exchange for an ice-cold margarita. She indicated that she needed to finish up a few things and would be by in an hour. Josie decided we should have food to go with our margaritas, so she went inside to figure out what she could make with the ingredients she had on hand.
“I hate to say it, but two missing boys feels like foul play,” I said to Jemma. “One missing teen who seemed to have been separated from his paddleboard could very well indicate an accident of some sort, but if the two boys were together, it seems unlikely they both fell off.”
“I suppose they could have been knocked off,” Jemma suggested. “Maybe they encountered a shark or even a whale. Shark attacks don’t happen very often in the bay, but we have had pods of Orcas stop by from time to time.”
“Do you think that’s what happened?” I asked.
She slowly lifted a shoulder. “I really don’t know. It was just a guess as to how two teens could have been killed on the water without foul play being involved.”
By the time Parker arrived, Josie had a pot of spicy chili verde ready to serve, with warm tortillas, cheese, and sour cream. She also had tortilla chips and salsa to go with the margaritas. I r
eally admired the way Josie could just whip something together even if she hadn’t planned to have company. She really was an amazing chef, and she seemed to have a knack for the perfect combinations.
“Something smells wonderful, and I’m starving,” Parker said the minute she walked in through the front door.
“It’s ready, so let’s serve ourselves, and we can talk while we eat.”
“That sounds good to me.” Parker grabbed a bowl and served herself a generous helping.
“So you said there’s another missing boy,” Jemma said once we’d all served ourselves and had taken seats at the table.
“Two, actually.” Parker took a sip of her margarita and then continued. “When Kalen West left home Saturday morning, he told his mother that he was meeting up with some friends and would most likely just crash with one of them since it was the weekend. Kalen and his mother haven’t been getting along since his parents decided to divorce. Kalen was close to his father, and he blames his mother for him leaving even though most of the people I’ve spoken to who are close to the situation all agree that the breakup of the marriage was the result of multiple counts of Kalen’s father’s infidelity.”
“So Kalen’s mother didn’t have reason to worry when he didn’t come home Saturday evening,” I surmised.
“She did not. She’s currently working two jobs to make ends meet, and from what I understand, she’s pretty much at the end of her rope physically and emotionally. Kalen’s anger with her and the punishment he’s been doling out has caused a bad situation to be even worse. When she spoke to Deputy Todd, she said she was actually relieved he was going to be away for the weekend.”
“Didn’t she start to worry when he didn’t come home Sunday evening?” I asked.
Parker shook her head. “She told Todd that Kalen sometimes crashes with a friend Sunday nights, but until this week, he’s always managed to get himself to school Monday.”
