I’d just pulled into the parking area for the cottages when my phone rang. Once I’d started forwarding my calls from Ainsley Holloway Investigations to my cell when I wasn’t in my office, I’d begun answering my phone whether or not I’d recognized the caller ID.
“This is Ainsley Holloway,” I answered.
“Hi, Ainsley. My name is Caroline Brolin. I used to be Caroline Grant before I married. I spoke to Valerie, and she briefly filled me in on your quest to find the owner of a charm bracelet from the nineties. She suggested I call you.”
My heart rate increased just a bit. Caroline had to be the one I was looking for. She checked almost all the boxes. I just hoped she’d be willing to tell her story so I could confirm what I was sure I already knew.
“I’m afraid I’m not the person you’re looking for, nor do I know who is,” she continued.
Talk about having the wind knocked out of your sails. I was so sure that Caroline would be the owner of the bracelet.
“Yes, it is true that I participated in the Bay to Boardwalk Run in nineteen ninety-six, and I also completed the Brewster’s Books Reading Challenge,” she continued. “I did date a man who showed up on a yacht, and I did volunteer at both the carnival and on movie nights. Based on the charms displayed, that particular bracelet really could have belonged to me, but it didn’t. I’m so sorry. You must really want to find this woman to go to so much trouble.”
“I really appreciate you calling me and letting me know,” I said. “I will admit that I felt fairly certain that you were the one.”
“I understand. Like I said, given the clues you have to work with, it really could have been mine.”
“Are you sure you don’t have any idea who the bracelet might have belonged to? It’s possible you might have run into the person who did own the bracelet since you ran in the run, participated in the reading challenge, and volunteered for the carnival and movie nights.”
She paused before she answered. “I have to admit I was pretty absorbed with Justin that summer, so I wasn’t paying a lot of attention to anyone else. Valerie said you had a list of names. If you want to read them to me, maybe I’ll recognize someone.”
I took my sheet of paper with the seven names out. “So far, I’ve spoken to everyone from the original list with the exception of Rosalie Watts and Naomi Potter.”
“I’m sorry, but neither name rings a bell. If you’d like, I can think on it a bit, and if I come up with a name, I can call you back.”
“I’d appreciate that. Thank you for offering.”
After I hung up, I took the lists we’d come up with out again. It looked like I was running out of names. Perhaps we’d missed something, and the owner of the bracelet was someone other than one of the seven people who’d participated in both the run and the reading challenge. It was possible Naomi was the person we were looking for. One of the charms was an ice cream cone, and someone named Naomi had worked at an ice cream shop that summer. I planned to talk to Troy Trauner tomorrow after the kiddie carnival. Maybe he’d be able to shine a light on things. Ellery was leaving town Sunday. I supposed I could continue to dig around after she left, but I really wanted to put this mystery to bed before she drove onto the ferry.
I’d just hung up with Caroline when Parker pulled into the lot. She informed me that she was there to see Jemma and ask a favor of her, so I explained about the computer and video game console, and she suggested we head over to the roommates’ cottage together. I agreed that might be a good idea, but I wanted to let Kai and Kalie out for a bathroom break before bringing them over, so Parker agreed to take possession of the computer and video game console and deliver them to Jemma while I took care of the dogs.
Jemma logged on and was able to navigate the video game console. She confirmed that the messages we’d found weren’t the only messages associated with the account and was able to pull up the activity log that I hadn’t been able to find.
Jemma began to speak. “Based on the message history, it looks as if Zane, who as we already know, went by the username Trident, began sending messages to and receiving messages from Raith, Hadron, and Reaper, as well as a handful of others a few months ago.”
“The guy from the video game store mentioned that Halo, Zork, and Nomad were another team currently participating in the quest,” I reminded her. “He said that he wasn’t sure who any of them really were.”
“The message sent Sunday relating to a meeting involved Raith, Hadron, Trident, and Reaper,” Jemma informed us.
“If we’re right about the usernames, and Kalen actually is Raith, then at least we know that Kalen was alive and well Sunday even though he hadn’t been seen since Saturday,” Parker pointed out.
“That’s a good point,” I said. I thought about the man at the comic book and video game store. “When we spoke to the man in the comic book and video game store, I felt like he might know more than he admitted. Perhaps we should talk to him again. If nothing else, it would really be helpful to know who this Reaper is.”
“I’ll go and talk to him,” Parker offered. “The two of you stay here and work on getting any useful information you can out of
