CHAPTER 21Emma
Laurel lived in Mendocino County, in an old, two-story house that had belonged to her grandparents. As a young man, her grandfather had logged the redwoods in the forest around the house; the woods there now were mostly second-growth, but a few of the ancient trees remained. A logging road, now little more than a trail, still snaked its way up through the woods, but after about a mile both road and woods came to an end.
Emma never stopped being surprised by this: how one minute she could be standing in the cool shade of the redwoods, the forest lush around her, and the next she would be looking out on miles of sun-bleached hills, dotted with the stubby shapes of bay laurels. Laurel’s grandfather had named the place Baymont after those trees. And many years later, his daugh
