Speaking of going places, where should I go now? Two directions are out of the question. I’m not going back south and I can’t physically go west unless I take a plane. So, it’s either north or east for me.

It doesn’t take long for my thoughts to drift back to Olive.

Whenever I relax or don’t have anything pressing to think about, they always come back to her.

When I see a sign to go east, I take that road and it takes me away from the ocean. I know where she is and now that there are less than two hours separating us, I feel her gravitational pull.

I can’t get there fast enough.

I don’t want to speed but at seventy miles an hour, I feel like I’m driving through molasses.

Finally, an hour later, I start seeing signs for desert cities. A little bit later, I pass Cabazon Outlets and I finally see the windmills that separate Palm Springs from the rest of Southern California.

The windmills are tall and numerous. At night, they are practically invisible except for the bright red blinking lights at the top. They are positioned in a valley between two desert mountain ranges, an optimal place for the great winds to gather and sweep through.

It’s a particularly windy day and my car starts to shake from the pressure.

I grab on to the steering wheel a little harder to keep it in its place.

I’ve been to LA a number of times but I have never been to Palm Springs. How can anyone live here with all of this wind? I wonder to myself.

But everything changes when I get onto Palm Canyon Drive. Here, the palm trees barely sway in the breeze and people are happily enjoying their food outside.

Behind the restaurants and the parking lots, there’s a huge mountain towering over the canyon. The same mountain that funnels the wind up north is now the one that’s blocking all of it.

I put in the address that I remember belonged to Olive’s mother.

It’s the only address I have.

I can’t very well reach out to my own investigator.

He’s a little bit too good at finding people and that’s the last person I want on my trail right now.

I pull up a long driveway and drive past her gate without stopping. At the top of the hill, there’s a little turn out.

I park right up front, a little bit on the road, if I were telling the truth. But from this vantage point I can see people coming in and out of her house.

Then I wait.

An hour later, I feel like a total fool.