Cottage on Gooseberry Bay: Charmed Summer by Kathi Daley (big screen ebook reader txt) 📗

that video game console as well as that computer.” Parker grabbed her purse. “I’ll bring dinner back with me. Will Josie be here?”

“Yes,” Jemma answered. “She’ll be home in about an hour.”

“Is Chinese food okay?” Parker asked.

“Chinese sounds good,” Jemma commented. She glanced at the computer on the table. “I don’t suppose you know either Kalen’s mother or one of Trevor’s parents.”

“Not well,” Parker asked. “Why do you ask?”

“If we had the video game consoles of the other two missing teens, it would give us a lot more information than having just one will.”

“I’ll get them,” Parker said. “I’ll go and talk to the guy at the comic book and video game store, and then I’ll see if I can get the other two video game consoles. I’ll pick up dinner and then be back. I guess it might be a couple hours, so go ahead and have a snack if you’re hungry.”

After Parker left, Jemma continued to work, and I put a cheese and fruit tray together. I figured Josie would be hungry when she got home, so it seemed like a good idea to have something ready.

“It looks like Zane first entered the game four months ago,” Jemma informed me. “It took about two and a half months to get past the first fourteen levels. Once he managed to do that, he joined Hadron and Raith, forming an alliance of sorts. While it looks as if Zane played the game fairly often while working on the first fourteen levels, I don’t notice a real push until after he teamed up with the others.”

“Do we know if Hadron and Raith started at the same time?” I asked.

Jemma shook her head. “I don’t know when they started playing the game or how many hours they spent on the game until they joined forces with Zane. Zane’s video game console only shows me his playing history. It appears that the quest is more of a solo pursuit until level fifteen is reached.”

“So the three have only been working together for a little over a month.” I stated.

“About five and a half weeks based on what I can figure out from Zane’s gaming history.” She navigated through a few pages of the log. “It looks like they’ve been logging some serious hours. If their grades are falling or other interests have been ignored, I can see why.”

“Does it appear that anyone else is on the team? Is it always just the three of them?”

“It looks like it’s just the three of them on the same team, although there are messages between Zane and members of other teams.”

Josie showed up a short time later. She ran upstairs to change out of her work clothes while I set the fruit and cheese tray out on the counter. Jemma was still surfing around in the video game console’s memory, but she had made the comment that she wasn’t coming up with a lot, so perhaps she’d turn her attention to the computer.

“You’ll never believe who came into the restaurant today,” Josie said once she had changed clothes and joined us downstairs.

“Who?” Jemma asked as she tried to figure out a way into Zane’s computer.

“Prentice Caldwell.” Josie looked at me. “Prentice Caldwell used to live in Gooseberry Bay, but she left town after creating a huge scandal a couple years ago.”

“Huge scandal?” I asked.

“She was using her skills with the computer to hack into the email accounts of some of the local big wigs in order to find dirt that she could then use to blackmail them.”

“Shouldn’t she be in jail?” I asked.

“She should be,” Josie agreed. “The thing is that while what she was doing seemed obvious, the men she blackmailed refused to admit to the blackmail or testify in court. I guess they didn’t want to have their dirty laundry aired during the trial, so they all made statements about the money they’d been paying her being compensation for services rendered. Everyone knew what was really going on. Everyone knew that these men had decided to cover for her in order to save their own skin, but the DA didn’t have a case if the victims of the blackmail wouldn’t agree to file a complaint, so when Prentice decided to move away, the district attorney decided to drop it.”

“So why’d she come back?” I asked.

“She said she came back to talk to some people who she felt might be able to help figure out what had happened to Kalen.”

“She knows Kalen?” Jemma asked.

“I guess that Kalen’s father was one of her blackmail victims with whom she eventually entered into a physical relationship. According to Prentice, she continued to stay in contact with Kalen’s father after she left, and once Kalen’s parents split up, they even moved in together.”

I remembered hearing that Kalen’s father had had an affair. I guess Prentice was the one he’d had it with. “It seems odd to me that this man would enter into a romantic relationship with the woman who’d been blackmailing him,” I said.

“I totally agree,” Josie responded. “But that’s what happened, and when Kalen went missing, Prentice decided to see if she could find something out from one of her contacts.”

“And did she find something out?” Jemma asked.

“Actually, she did. Prentice told me that one of the men she knew from when she’d lived here before had seen Zane, Kalen, and Trevor together Sunday evening.”

“Where?” Jemma asked.

“Down at the marina. It was late. The marina staff had gone home, and the boat rental place was closed. This person told Prentice that the boys were sitting on the dock at the very south end of the harbor, talking. He’d come in late on his boat, so he didn’t talk to them. He just tied up and left. But he’s sure it was them since the dock