The Homecoming. Anne Marie Winston

But he was the one who had found her, and ever since she’d looked at him with those wide blue eyes, he’d wanted to talk to her more.

      “Okay,” said the chief. “I’ll let the hotel know where she is. The manager was pretty worried when she was gone all night.”

      “Mahalo,” said Danny formally. Thank you.

      “You’re welcome,” said the chief in return. “And thank you for your help. Keep me posted.”

      Danny hung up the phone and headed for his room to shower and shave. Leilani had taken charge of the guest when he and Johnny had brought her in, and he knew she was in good hands.

      Sydney, he thought. Sydney was in good hands.

      An hour later Johnny’s cousin Eddie came up the path from the dock on one of the ATVs kept for that purpose. Dr. Eddie Atada was a native Hawaiian success story. He’d gotten a scholarship to Stanford and then gone to medical school before coming back to Hawaii and establishing a practice on his home island of Kauai.

      “Howzit?” he inquired when Danny met him at the door, shaking Danny’s hand with such vigor that Danny wondered if he’d need a cast when Eddie was done. Eddie was nearly as tall as Johnny and only slightly less stocky in build. He could easily have been a lineman for any pro football team due to his size alone.

      “It’s going well,” Danny said, “except for finding strange women washed up on the beach.”

      Eddie laughed, a booming sound that echoed through the wide hallway. “Not such a bad thing, yeah?”

      Danny grinned, but made no answer. “She’s back here,” he said, leading the way to the room to which Sydney Aston had been taken.

      When he knocked on the door, Leilani’s voice said, “Come in.”

      “The doctor’s here,” Danny said, stepping aside so Eddie could enter the room.

      Leilani apparently had helped their guest shower, because she looked clean and fresh and her shoulder-length brown hair was shiny and nearly dry. She wore a flowered housecoat-type garment that must have belonged to one of Leilani’s grandchildren, because it was only slightly too large through the shoulders.

      “Hello,” she said.

      “I’ll wait out here while you examine her,” Danny said to Eddie, suiting action to his words.

      He waited in the hallway, hearing the rise and fall of lighter female tones interspersed with Eddie’s rumbling chuckles. Finally, the door opened and Eddie came back into the hallway.

      “How is she?” Danny asked.

      “Let’s sit down.” Eddie walked back along the hallway until he came to the living room, where he proceeded to park his bulk in one of the comfortable overstuffed chairs.

      “Are you going to give me bad news?” Danny tried for flippancy but it didn’t quite come off. Bad news was his middle name.

      Eddie regarded him soberly, no teasing glint in his eye now. “You didn’t tell me she can’t remember her name,” he said.

      “I thought maybe it would come to her once she was calm and settled.” Danny regarded the doctor anxiously. “You don’t think it’s permanent, do you?”

      “I doubt it. Long-term amnesia is very rare. But often after head injuries patients lose chunks of time surrounding the accident that they never recall. She may never be able to tell you how she got on your beach.”

      “She’s already remembered bits and pieces of that.”

      “That’s a good sign,” Eddie said. “All she really needs is peace and quiet. She’d be better off here than at a hotel. And I really wouldn’t recommend she fly home right away. The whole traveling thing is stressful enough when you’re well, much less when you’ve just landed headfirst on a piece of prime Hawaiian real estate.”

      Danny smiled because the other man seemed to require it.

      “Don’t worry,” Eddie said. “I’ll bet that after a few restful days here her memory will return and your mystery guest will be able to tell you everything.”

      Everett Baker entered the law offices of Gantler & Abernathie hesitantly. The waiting area was expensively appointed, with leather chairs, some kind of pretty tables with inlaid marquetry on the tops, and rugs thicker than his mattress. He could never afford a lawyer like this. But Terrence Logan could, and he’d insisted on getting Everett the best criminal defense lawyer in Portland. The sharp edge of guilt’s knife twisted in his stomach as he thought of his biological father’s generosity.

      There were two other people in the reception area and as he gave his name to the woman at the large desk he wondered if either one of them was an arrested criminal out on bail.

      Bail. When he’d stood in that Portland courtroom and heard the hefty sum that guaranteed he wouldn’t take off for Timbuktu at the first chance, he’d felt another load of despair land squarely on his shoulders. He’d never be able to raise that kind of money.

      But then Terrence Logan—his father—had whispered in the bailiff’s ear, the bailiff had approached the judge, and the next thing Everett knew he was walking out into the warm Oregon air, a temporarily free man. He’d looked at the man who had signed his bail bond and said, “Why?” although it barely squeaked out past the lump in his throat.

      Terrence Logan had smiled, and the warmth in his eyes made Everett feel even worse than he already did. “Because you’re my son,” he’d said.

      But I tried to ruin your adoption foundation! Everett wanted to say. I’m not worthy to be called your son. But the words wouldn’t come. He couldn’t fathom how the Logans could bear to look at him after the damage he’d helped to cause to Children’s Connection. He’d been so stupid! So…gullible, lapping up Charlie’s pretended friendship like a starving dog. He was pathetic. There was no way he could ever be associated with the Logans now, even if he did have that biological connection. Too much time had passed.

      “Mr. Baker? Mr. Abernathie will see you now.” The receptionist smiled as she stood and led him into the lawyer’s office.

      “Everett.” Bernard Abernathie crossed the room to shake his hand and guide him toward a chair before his desk. “I bet it feels good to be a free man again.”

      Everett nodded. “But I shouldn’t be.”

      “And you probably wouldn’t be,” the man said sharply, “if you’d continued on with that harebrained notion of representing yourself. I’m glad you’ve decided to accept your parents’ offer.”

      Everett shrugged. “I didn’t want to hurt their feelings.”

      The lawyer nodded, clasping his hands together. “Whatever your reasons, it seems your parents are most interested in doing whatever they can to help you refute these charges. They’ve offered to pay for your legal defense.”

      “I can’t refute the charges,” Everett said dully. “I did everything they say I did.”

      “Yes, but it’s why you did it that’s important,” Abernathie told him. “Charlie Prescott manipulated you right from the very beginning.” He leaned forward and placed his hands flat on his desk, pinning Everett with his gaze. “This morning I talked with the prosecutor. Since Prescott’s dead, they’ve come to the end of what they can accomplish in terms of recovering any of the children he stole. That Russian idiot is useless. If you’ll agree to give the cops all the information you have, and if it leads to the recovery of at least some of them, you’ll receive a suspended sentence during which you’ll be required to attend court-appointed psychiatric counseling.”

      A suspended sentence. The words echoed in his head. Everett hesitated. It wasn’t right, was it, that he got off unpunished? “But—”

      “But nothing,” his counsel said. “There’s no room for