Page 9 of Sunset Cove
Chapter Five
Things weren’t adding up. As much as Claire didn’t want to further annoy Chip, she had to get away from the hotel and find a quiet place. She needed to call the DNA company, or the FBI, or anyone who could get to the bottom of this misunderstanding.
Claire was already in her car and halfway down the road from the hotel when she realized that she’d forgotten her overnight bag. She slammed on the brakes.
Wait. Did she even need the bag? She closed her eyes and told herself to stop being flustered. It was hard for her. Occasionally when someone yelled at her, especially with so much anger, it threw her back into being a young, clueless paralegal.
At her first job, Claire would get screamed at for everything – using the wrong font on a document, scheduling meetings for too long of a time, scheduling meetings for too short of a time…
The job was a nightmare, but Claire had needed it, and she had needed the paycheck to keep her and the girls from being evicted. The abuse worked just as intended, too. For far too long, she was convinced that she couldn’t hack it at another job, so she stayed and suffered.
It sounded like her daughter Lucy was having a similar experience. She’d just called from the bathroom at her job, near tears, telling Claire that she’d been yelled at in front of the entire staff.
Poor Lucy. Claire’s stomach tightened. It didn’t matter how old her kids were, she still wanted to rescue them, swooping in with a Band-Aid and a kiss. If only it were that easy.
More and more these days, she was finding it impossible to help her kids. Their problems were too big and, further, they didn’t ask for her help.
Even Lucy hadn’t really needed her just then. Claire had hardly said a word. Lucy made up her mind to go back and fight for herself on her own.
It made Claire feel...lost. She was proud of her girls, of course, but it felt like her purpose was slipping away.
She opened her eyes and let out a deep breath. No one was chasing her now. Everything was fine. She didn’t need that bag unless she was planning to flee the island and never come back.
Claire smiled. That would be silly. And it would look suspicious to the FBI.
Not that she needed to worry about looking suspicious to the FBI. She’d done nothing wrong. More concerning was the criminal who was convinced she was his mother.
One problem at a time, though. Claire took her foot off the brake and continued her drive.
It was quite a journey to her rental cabin. Perhaps it wasn’t the best place to stay, but Claire hadn’t realized just how long it took to get from one side of the horseshoe-shaped island to the other – in her case, over half an hour, door-to-door.
It was her own fault. In all of her excitement over buying the hotel, Claire hadn’t put much thought into where she’d be living. Her friend Margie, who lived on nearby San Juan Island, had helped her secure a place just a few weeks prior.
There weren’t many rentals on the island, but Margie knew someone – Margiealwaysknew someone – who was happy to rent her the little cabin at an extremely reasonable price.
“Any friend of Margie’s is a friend of mine,” the guy had said. “Besides, we hardly ever use the cabin anymore. We built a little house on Lopez Island, a place without stairs or ladders. Easier on the knees.”
Claire loved the cabin. It was rustic, but cozy. She didn’t mind the ladder that led up to the loft; she didn’t mind that the heat didn’t quite work. It felt private. Serene.
The drive gave her more time to calm down and sort her thoughts. She’d never been in any trouble before, and surely if the FBI was looking into her now, they’d see that she’d never had a kid. If not, how could she prove that something hadn’t happened?
Claire stopped at the base of the private road to collect her mail. There was an impressive pile, though most of it looked like junk.
Before continuing, she peered over her shoulder. No one had followed her. That was good.
The driveway was a quarter mile to the cabin, and the road was so long and winding that she was sure she was alone. As she rolled along, the gravel pinging her car, her mind calmed even more.
The little cabin sat on sixteen acres of land, all trees and dense brush and ancient-looking ferns. When she got inside, she did a cursory check of the spaces – the loft, the open kitchen and living room, the bedroom and bathroom. It was so small that there was nowhere for a criminal would-be son to hide.
Good. Claire put on some water for tea and pulled out her phone, plugging it in to charge before making a call to the company who had mishandled her DNA. After a frustrating seven minutes of pressing buttons and speaking to a robot, she finally reached a person.
Unfortunately, the person wasn’t much more helpful than the robot. The company representative kept repeating that she couldn’t disclose any information related to an ongoing investigation.
“Even if it’smyalleged DNA that’s been implicated in the investigation?” asked Claire.
“I’m sorry, ma’am, but I’m not at liberty to say one way or the other. By sending us your sample, you consented to having your genetic makeup put into a database and made available to law enforcement.”
Claire let out a sigh. “But there’s been some sort of mistake. I’d like you to take my name out of this database – and my DNA.”
