Adam left for Haven Shores thirty minutes late, but he figured he’d still have plenty of time to check in at the county offices and then get back to Candle Beach in time for his meeting with the local landowner.

When he arrived at the county offices, the parking lot outside was full—a good sign. Unlike last time, the office was open. He stood outside the door, pausing a moment before pushing it in. A blast of warm air hit him and he removed his jacket. From prior visits, he knew the records office was down the hall on the first floor.

“Hi.” He smiled at the older woman sitting behind the records counter.

“Hello. What are you looking for today?” She smiled up at him pleasantly, her mouth covered with a ruby-red lipstick that matched her blouse.

“I’d like to find out the previous owners of a house in Candle Beach.” He leaned on the counter while she plucked a form off a stack on her desk.

She stood to hand it to him. “I need you to complete the first half of this.”

“Thanks.” He accepted it and grabbed the pen that hung on a chain attached to the counter. He filled out the information Angel had given him and returned it to the woman.

She entered it into the computer with a few taps of her manicured nails.

A printer behind her came to life, spitting out a single sheet of paper. She pushed her glasses up on her nose and scanned the document before handing it to him.

“Here are the owners from the time it was built. That’s an old house.”

He nodded. “It is. Thanks for your help.”

In the hallway, he turned the paper over to read the information. This was it, he was going to find out who Angel’s grandparents were. Please don’t let them have moved out of town, or worse—be dead.

From Angel’s photograph, he’d guess that he was looking for whoever owned the house in the 1980s. Bingo. A Wade and Mary Thomason owned the house from 1970 to 2015. That should be enough information to go on.

When he returned to Candle Beach, he stopped at Agnes Barnes’s house. He may know the most about what was going on in town, but Agnes knew more about its residents and their personal lives.

She answered her door even before he had a chance to knock.

“Adam, hello.” She eyed him through her wiry spectacles.

“Hello.” He shifted from foot to foot on the wide wooden porch. Next to him, a pot of fake flowers provided a burst of color on the otherwise dreary day.

“Well, don’t just stand there heating my front porch. Come in.” She motioned for him to enter, then closed the door tightly behind him.

The air inside smelled like cinnamon potpourri and every surface was spotless. There were few knickknacks to clutter the space, causing the house to look as unfriendly as its owner. But, for all her prickly exterior, Adam knew Agnes had kindness inside of her.

She gestured to the sofa. “Have a seat.” She regarded him shrewdly. “I assume you need information about something.”

Heat spread across his face. She was correct. The last time he’d paid a visit to her had been to obtain information as well.

He sat ramrod straight on the edge of the sofa cushion. “I’m hoping you can help me find the family of a friend.”

“Who is it that you’re looking for?”

“Mary and Wade Thomason. They used to live at 511 Elm Street, here in Candle Beach.”

Agnes nodded. “Mary and Wade lived there for a long time. They moved into that house in the late seventies, if I’m not mistaken. Before that, the Winstons lived there.”

“Right.” He smiled at her. “Do you know Mary and Wade? Do they still live around here?”

“Wade passed a number of years ago, but Mary lives in an apartment off Cedar Street, not too far from her old house. You know that six-plex just down the street from the grocery store?”

Adam nodded.

“Well, she lives in the bottom unit, closest to the corner. She moved soon after her husband died. Probably was too much for her to keep the place up by herself.”

He marveled to himself about Agnes’s ability to remember the smallest of details about the town’s inhabitants. Who else would know exactly where each person in town lived?

She looked around her own house. “I’m able to take care of mine, but even when my husband was alive, I was responsible for most of the household management. Mary’s daughter and son-in-law live there now.” She peered at him. “Why did you say you wanted to know about Mary Thomason?”

“A relative of hers wants to reconnect with her.”

“Erin Thomason?”

His eyes met hers. She knew of Angel’s mother. But he didn’t want to divulge anything to the most gossipy woman in all of Candle Beach before he knew how Angel wanted to handle the information about her grandmother.

“I can’t say.” Adam rose from his seat. “I’d better be going. Thank you so much for your help.”

She nodded curtly and saw him to the door, closing it behind him without another word.

He got into his car and drove back to the newspaper, passing the address of Mary Thomason’s small apartment building on the way. He paused in front of it, eyeing the door. It was only one o’clock. He wasn’t due to his interview with the local landowner for another hour. Should he stop and talk to her about her daughter Erin and granddaughter Angel?

Although Angel’s family wasn’t really any of his business, he couldn’t help but feel protective of her. Erin had left her family for a reason, and whatever it had been, there hadn’t been any contact between her and her parents for most of Angel’s life. What if they didn’t want anything to do with Angel? She’d be devastated.

But he’d come this far and he needed to know. He couldn’t come back to Angel empty-handed again.

* * *

Adam took a deep breath and, using Agnes’s description of Mary’s apartment location, rapped on the door of a bottom unit in the apartment six-plex. He waited, but nobody came to the door. He knocked again.

“Coming. You better not be a solicitor.” He heard footsteps heading toward the door.

A woman in her late sixties with short-cropped brown hair streaked with gray opened the door. “Yes? Can I help you?” She peeked through a six-inch opening between the doorframe and the door.

“Are you Mary Thomason?”

She took a step back, not letting go of her firm grip on the door. “I am.” She stared at him.

She was probably starting to wonder why he was there. He held out his hand and gave her what he hoped was a disarming smile. “Hi, I’m Adam Rigg.”

“I’m sorry, I don’t want any.” She began to slowly close the door on him.

“No, wait. I came here to talk to you about your daughter.”

She opened the door wider. “Rilla?” Her voice was tinged with fear. “Did something happen to Rilla?”

“Oh, no. I’m sorry, I’m not here about Rilla. I came to talk with you about Erin.”

The woman’s face blanched and she looked as though she’d seen a ghost. She grasped the edge of the door for stability. “Excuse me? Did you say Erin?”

“Yes. Actually, I’m here in regard to her daughter—your granddaughter, Angel. She’s here in Candle Beach and she hopes to make contact with some of her mother’s family.”

“Oh.” A far-off look came into her eyes and she pressed her lips together. She motioned for him to enter. “Please, come in. Would you like some tea? I find it helps me to think. I wasn’t expecting anyone today.”

“Um, sure.” He followed her inside to a small living room and sat down on the couch while she disappeared into the kitchen, presumably to make the tea that she’d mentioned.

A few minutes later, she came back into the living room, holding two cups of tea. “My daughter Rilla bought me a hot water dispenser for Christmas last year, because she knows how much I love my tea. I thought it was frivolous at first, but I must admit it comes in handy.” She offered him a teacup, which he took from her, then sat down across from him.

“Mrs. Thomason? I hope this isn’t news to you, but Angel is up here because her mother passed away.”

She placed her cup of tea down on the coffee table and seemed to shrink into the couch cushions. “I did hear of her passing.”

Tears sprang from the corners of her eyes, and she reached for a Kleenex from a box on an end table. “Erin sent me a letter from the hospital when she was very ill,” she said, dabbing her eyes. “By the time it reached me, she was gone. I’d had no idea she was so sick.” She wrung her hands in her lap. “You have to believe me. If I’d known, I would have come to her.” Fresh tears appeared in her eyes. “I still can’t believe she’s gone.”

Adam stared down at his drink. So she had known that Angel’s mother had died. Why hadn’t she made contact with Angel?

“You’re probably wondering why my daughter and I weren’t close.” She took a deep breath. “Or why I don’t have a relationship with my granddaughter.”

“Well, yes.” He couldn’t imagine having a family as broken as Angel’s. Hardly a day went by that he didn’t speak with someone in his family.

“Well, Angel’s probably told you that she and her mother moved to California when she was quite young. Did she tell you why they moved?”

“No. She doesn’t know much about her mother or why they left Candle Beach. It sounded like her mother never really talked about it.”

“I’m not surprised. Angel’s grandfather, Wade, was a very strict man. Some might say he was controlling.” She glanced at a photo of a solemn-looking man that hung on the wall near the door. “When Erin became pregnant with Angel when she was only sixteen, he wasn’t happy. When she refused to tell us who the father was, it became even worse. He was extremely religious, and to have a pregnant and unwed daughter in his house was difficult for him. After Angel was born, she and Erin lived with us until she was about three, but by then the rift between my husband and Erin had become too great. She took Angel and left for California. We never saw either of them again.”

“Okay.” He processed the information. “But after your husband passed, why didn’t you make contact with them?”

She hunched over her tea. “I was ashamed. So many years had passed and Angel was a full-grown woman, not the little girl who’d left here.” She peered at him. “What would they think of me? I allowed my husband to shun our daughter.” She stared at his portrait again. “He wasn’t all bad.” She looked Adam straight in the eyes and said fiercely, “but I shouldn’t have let him keep me from Erin and Angel. I should have been there for them. It’s my deepest regret.”

“I’m sure they would have understood,” he said. “And Angel wants a relationship with you now. You may not be able to regain the years you lost with your daughter, but you have an opportunity to right some of what happened in the past.”

She began to actively cry and he stared down at his tea.

“I can’t,” she said through the tears.

His head shot up. “What do you mean, you can’t?”

“I can’t meet Angel. She’ll hate me for what I’ve done.”

“No, she won’t. Angel has grown into a wonderful, kind woman. She’ll forgive you.” He crossed over to stand next to her, crouching by her chair to look into her eyes. “Look, she doesn’t have any other family and is completely alone. She wants to meet you more than anything. Well, she doesn’t know I’m here or that you are still here in town, but if she did, she’d be thrilled.”

She sobbed and he handed her another Kleenex. After wiping her face, she said, “I can’t do it. Please tell her I’m sorry.”

“You need to meet her,” he said firmly. He knew if she met Angel, she wouldn’t regret her decision. “What if I set something up between the two of you?”

She sat up. “No, please don’t tell her about me. It’s better this way.”

He eyed her. “Respectfully, it’s not. She’ll be crushed that you don’t want to meet with her.”

She looked out the window at the far side of the living room. “You don’t have to tell her about me.”

“I do,” he said gently. “I can’t keep this from her forever. I really think you two should meet. Please. I can help arrange a meeting if you’d like.”

“No. I’ll contact her myself. But not yet. I need some time to think.”

He sat back down on the couch. “How much time?” He didn’t know how long he could keep the secret from Angel.

“I don’t know.”

“Mary, I’m going to need to tell her soon. I’ll give you two weeks, but then I’m going to tell her about you and the rest of her family here. She knows I’m looking for her family, and I can’t keep it from her for much longer than that.”

“Alright. I’ll tell her myself.” She glanced at a calendar on the wall and took a deep breath. “Two weeks.”

He rose from the couch and walked over to her, laying his hand on her shoulder. “You will love her and she will forgive you, I promise.”

She nodded. “I hope so,” she said tearfully.

“I’ll let myself out.” He motioned to the door.

She nodded again and he exited the apartment. It wasn’t until he was outside that he remembered his appointment with the local landowner. With a sinking feeling, he checked his watch. He’d been with Mary much longer than he’d anticipated and it was now two-thirty, half an hour past the time he was supposed to conduct the interview.

He closed his eyes briefly. There wasn’t much of a chance that John Nichols would reschedule, given his busy schedule. Had all that research about the logging industry been for naught? And now he didn’t have the big story he needed. He drove back to the newspaper office to call him, but he wasn’t holding out much hope for a miracle. If things worked out for Angel and her grandmother, though, it would all be worth it.