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could accomplish more by working together. You know, pooling our collective wisdom.” She reached into her purse and pulled out her iPad.
    “Sounds like a good idea, although I seem to have more or less hit the dead end of having found most everything there is on the Internet.”
    “I’ve got the same problem, that’s why I came over.”
    “Aren’t you supposed to be at work?”
    “I called in sick.”
    “Why?”
    “So I can help you figure this out. I’m not leaving you out here all alone to suffer like this. We are best friends, and this is what friends do for each other.”
    “I doubt seriously your boss would agree.”
    Denice grinned. “He won’t be my boss for much longer. Three more months and then I am free of that man forever. I’ll be in charge of my own destiny.”
    “ You’ll be in charge, huh? What about your partners?” Kelli smiled.
    “Eh, they’re pushovers. I’ll rule the place as a kind, humble, yet firm queen.”
    That made Kelli actually laugh out loud. “I don’t know that I’ve ever heard Jones’s name and pushover in the same sentence before.” Jones had a heart of gold, there was no denying that, but he also had a mile-wide stubborn streak.
    “Well, that’s because Jones isn’t crazy about everyone else the way he is about me. Basically, he’ll do whatever I tell him.” It was a joke, yet at least half true at the same time.
    “Well, I, for one, have not fallen into your evil little spell. I’m not a pushover. I’m a stickler, even if you are a queen.”
    “But, just like my husband, you love me to your own detriment. Yep, I’m planning to kick back and relax and enjoy the fruits of your labor soon enough. But first”—she opened her iPad case—“I’ve got to help my best friend figure out what exactly is going on here. What’s your story, so far as you’ve found?”
    “Best I can figure, we lived in a small town in Tennessee. We were supposed to take a family trip to a coastal cabin in South Carolina. Dad and I went a couple of days earlier than the rest of the family—something about looking over a cabin he was thinking about buying. The day before everyone else was due to arrive, Dad rented a little boat, the two of us went for a ride, and the boat washed ashore twelve hours later in a storm. He must have planned it all pretty carefully. The timing, the boat. His car was left at the dock. All our things were still in the hotel room. He must have hidden another car somewhere up the coast, I don’t know, then somehow set the boat adrift, knowing a storm was coming.”
    “It seems pretty farfetched.”
    “Yes, it does, but everything about this seems farfetched.”
    “Okay, so what have you found about your family in recent years? I haven’t seen much other than a notice in the local newspaper that your sister got married about four years ago.”
    “You did? Where’d you find that?”
    “The Shoal Creek Tribune . Here, I copied it.” She shuffled through her papers until she found the right one, then slid it across the table. “The two of you favor each other a fair amount.”
    Kelli looked at the wedding picture of the sister she’d believed dead for the past twenty-four years. Her smile was huge as she stood beside her groom, a lake in the background. What had her wedding day been like?
    Kelli handed the picture back to Denice. “I don’t see a resemblance at all.”
    “That’s because she’s got a fancy wedding updo and makeup. Take all that away, and I’m saying there are several similarities.” Denice didn’t bother to look as she put the article back into her file. “Your brother has been a little harder to track down.”
    “For me, too. You know what? I think I’m going to need to take a trip back there and see a few things for myself.”
    “Go back there? Absolutely not. Nothing good would come of that.”
    “Maybe. Maybe not. You’re the one who keeps telling me I have to work forward and get some closure. Maybe my father had