Thanksgiving by the Sea

by Kathi Daley

“Do you know where Ms. Rosewood was when you spoke to her? Was she at her office or in her car?”

  Aspen frowned. “I think when I first called, she might have been driving, but then she got to where she was going. I’m not sure if it was home or somewhere else. She said she’d call me back after she got inside. I didn’t want her to hang up until she promised to come and get me, but then she asked someone what they were doing there. The next thing I knew, she hung up. She never even said goodbye.”

  “Did she say anything else? Do you know who she was talking to?”

  “No. She didn’t say. She just asked someone what they were doing there and then she hung up.”

  “So do you think she was still in the car when she spoke to this other person?” I asked.

  “I think she was just getting out.” Aspen paused as if trying to remember her conversation. “We were talking, and she told me she would call me back when she got inside. I heard her moving stuff around, and then I heard the door ding when she opened it.”

  “Ding?’ I asked.

  “That sound a car makes if you leave the keys in it or the lights on. My dad’s car is too old to make a sound, but my friend, Evette’s, mom has a car that dings all the time.”

  “Okay, so Ms. Rosewood was driving somewhere when you called. She spoke to you until she reached her destination and wanted to call you back. You didn’t want her to hang up, so you kept talking. While this was going on, based on what you heard, it sounds like she gathered her belongings and opened her door, causing a warning to sound. I think you might have been right that she left her lights on or left the keys in the ignition. Then what?”

  “Then she said, ‘what are you doing here?’ I heard a loud noise, and then the phone went dead. I thought she might have dropped the phone and would call me back, but she never did.”

  “Did you speak to Ms. Rosewood earlier in the day as well?” I remembered that Woody mentioned a call from the house phone where Aspen was staying about three hours before Trinity ended up in the hospital.

  “No. Just one time.”

  So maybe the foster mother had called and spoken to Trinity. I’d have Woody check it out. “Did Ms. Rosewood visit with you before you were taken from your parents and put in foster care?”

  “She came by sometimes. She was supposed to check up on us, and she had things to give to my parents. Letters and stuff.”

  “And what did you think of her? Did you like her? Not like her?”

  Aspen shrugged.

  “You can tell me how you really felt. No one else has to know.”

  “I liked her. Billy said she was trouble and that we shouldn’t be nice to her, but she was always nice to me. She even helped me with my homework sometimes when she came by. My dad said she should mind her own business, and my mom seemed scared of her. I guess I was the only one who didn’t mind when she visited.” Aspen looked toward the kitchen. “Your mom is baking something for dessert. Can I go and help her?”

  “Absolutely. And thank you for sharing your thoughts with me.”

  After Aspen went into the kitchen, I poked my head into the den to check on Trevor and the other three children. Trevor and Billy were shooting zombies while Willow and Henry looked on. Henry sat on the sofa next to Billy and Willow was in Trevor’s lap. Suddenly, I could totally imagine Trevor being a father. I had to admit that startled me. He’d always been somewhat of an overgrown kid himself, but as he’d been trying to tell me, and I’d observed for myself, he’d grown up during the years I’d been away.”

  “Do you want to play?” Trevor asked me.

  “No, thanks. I just wanted to see how everyone was doing. Do you think you can pause the game just for a minute? I need to tell you something in private.”

  Billy scowled at me and Willow let out a little cry when Trevor put her down, but I promised the entire gang that Uncle Trevor, as they had been calling him, would be right back.

  “So what’s up?” Trevor asked after we were in the hallway.

  I told him what Aspen had shared with me.

  “Billy said something as well. I tried to slip in a few well-placed questions about Trinity and her time at their home, and he told me that she came by about a couple weeks ago to speak to his dad. He’d been outside playing in the backyard when she stopped by. He didn’t want to get in the middle of an argument, so he decided to stay there until the social worker left. He was hiding behind a bush, looking through the window to keep an eye on things when Trinity got a call. She looked at her phone, said something to his dad, and then came outside to speak to whoever had called. Billy said she looked upset. She walked back and forth across the patio while she spoke to whoever was on the phone. He said she looked angry or maybe scared. He wasn’t sure which, but she wasn’t smiling.”

  “Did he hear anything she said?”

  Trevor shook his head. “Not really. Or at least not for sure. He thought he heard her say something about Dyson or Tyson, but he wasn’t sure. He said when she hung up, she hugged her phone to her chest and bowed her head. He thought she was crying, but then she looked up, took a breath, and went back inside.”

  “Could she have said Bryson?”

  Trevor shrugged. “Maybe. Like I said, he wasn’t really sure. I suppose it would make sense based on everything else that was going on that she’d said Bryson.”

  “I agree. Although I think we should bring up the names Dyson or Tyson to Woody as well.”

  Trevor looked back toward the den. “I’d better get back. Maybe we can talk about it some more after we get the kids off to bed.”

  After Trevor returned to the game, I headed upstairs to call Woody. I figured that he would be interested in both the chat I’d had with Aspen and the information Trevor had gotten from Billy. If Trinity had been shot as she’d gotten out of the car, and it had been the shooter she’d spoken to when she asked why they were there, then it sounded as if she knew her shooter. That wasn’t a huge clue, but it was something. I also brought up the Dyson, Tyson, Bryson discussion Trevor and I’d had.

  “I agree that she most likely said Bryson, but I do remember seeing a file for someone named Dyson in the case files I requested,” Woody said. “Hang on, and I’ll look for it.”

  I agreed to wait on the line while he shuffled through the paperwork on his desk.

  After a few minutes, he came on the line. “Trinity was working with a woman named Rita Dyson. The Dyson children were taken from their parents following a report filed by the teacher of one of the children stating that her student frequently came to school with bruises on his arms and legs. Initially, both parents denied the allegation that abuse of any sort was taking place. An investigation was conducted, and after it was determined that the other two children in the family also suffered a larger than statistically average number of bumps and bruises, the case was assigned to Trinity and eventually the children were removed from the home. After her children were taken, Mrs. Dyson decided to admit that it was her husband, who as it turned out was not the biological father of the children, who had been doling out the harsh treatment. The woman wanted to have her children returned to her, so she agreed to enter a shelter for abused women. She received both counseling and legal aid, and Trinity was working with the court to have the woman reunited with her children in a location away from the stepfather.”

  “So maybe she received news regarding this case the day Billy overheard the conversation,” I suggested. “News that appeared to have saddened or angered her.”

  “I’ll look into it and call you back. It does sound like a volatile situation with the potential to have led to violence.”

  After I hung up with Woody, I walked over to the window and looked out. The sky was dark, but it wasn’t raining. Maybe I’d take the dogs out for a quick walk. I’d just turned away from the window when I had a flash. In my mind, a man was standing on the edge of the forest watching the house. I turned back around, but couldn’t see anyone standing there. Of course, the distance from the house t
o the forest was quite a ways.

  “Alyson,” I called.

  She appeared. “Hey. What’s up?”

  “I had another flash. This time I saw a man standing at the edge of the woods, looking toward the house. Can you pop over and check it out?”

  “On it,” she said and then disappeared. A few minutes later, she reappeared. “There is a man. Dark hair, dark pants, tan-colored jacket.”

  “What’s he doing?”

  “Nothing. He’s just standing there. I guess he might be watching you or he might be watching the kids.”

  “Either way, I’m going to call Woody back and ask him to check it out. Someone watching the house is not a situation I’m at all comfortable with.”

  Chapter 10

  Monday, November 19

  By the time Woody had arrived the previous evening to look around, the man was gone. We all had a theory as to who the man might have been and why he might have been lurking. The most logical explanation was that he had heard that the children were staying with us and had been here to confirm the fact for one reason or another. He might have been a hiker who ended up at the edge of our property line, or he could have been watching the house for an entirely different reason.

  The person who had sent me the threatening texts a while back still hadn’t been nailed down, and while Donovan suspected the person who sent the texts didn’t realize I wasn’t in New York, we really didn’t know that. I supposed it had been in the back of my mind that the person behind the texts was eventually going to figure out where I was. If he was serious about getting payback for Clay and Mario’s deaths, as the texts seemed to indicate, then it was only a matter of time until he found me. Still, I didn’t want to worry anyone by bringing up the idea that the man watching the house might not have been here to confirm the presence of the children, and since everyone seemed to assume that was true, I decided not to offer the alternate theory.

  Trevor didn’t want to leave my mom, the kids, and me alone in the house, so he volunteered to stay overnight again. Since the four children were using both guest rooms, Trevor had offered to sleep on the sofa. I wasn’t sure what was going to happen in the long run, but I supposed we’d just take each hour and each day as they came.

  When Woody and I had spoken the previous evening, he’d indicated that he planned to contact social services about a longer-term plan for the four children currently in our care. He hoped to find a responsible relative willing to take all four at least until something could be worked out with the parents. He also planned to continue to follow up on the leads we’d dug up related to the shootings. I really hoped we’d be able to get everything tied up before Thanksgiving, but it wasn’t looking that way.

  Pirates Pizza, the restaurant Trevor owned, was closed on Mondays, so he planned to spend the day helping us to do whatever we needed help doing. I wasn’t sure if Mac and Ty were returning today or tomorrow, but I supposed we’d hear from them one way or another in the next day or two. According to Mom, Donovan planned to arrive in Cutter’s Cove on Tuesday evening. He was going to fly into Portland and rent a car. I knew he’d booked a room at one of the inns along the coast, so I doubted we’d see him until Wednesday. I was really looking forward to catching up with him.

  The kids were out of school for the holiday this week and seemed content to watch cartoons this morning, while Mom seemed happy to tackle the pies she planned to bake in anticipation of Thanksgiving, so Trevor and I decided to take the dogs for a walk. The storm had blown through, and the sky was blue this morning, although, according to the weather forecast, there was another storm due to blow in by Wednesday.

  “I never get tired of this,” I said, as we strolled along the bluff with the dogs. I found that the rhythm of the waves crashing on the rocks below created a serene atmosphere that instantly drove away any residual stress I might be hanging onto.

  “So what is your plan for today?” Trevor asked.

  “I’m going to start by calling Woody to see if he has any updates, and then I thought I’d talk to Mom about what she needs to have done in preparation for Thursday. I know she is all over the baking and whatnot, but I thought I’d offer to tackle the grocery shopping. It’s a real challenge each year. I figured I’d go tomorrow unless something comes up between now and then.” I slowed to let Tucker, who had begun to lag, catch up. “I also wanted to explore these flashes I’ve been having. I don’t know where they come from or what they mean. At this point, I can’t really control them, and I don’t even know what they are. I guess seeing Bryson being shot before it happened was a premonition of some sort, but then seeing the man in the forest last night was an insight that felt like it came to me in real-time.”

  “What do you mean by ‘explore these flashes?’” Trevor asked.

  I shrugged. “I’m not exactly sure. I guess I want to see if I can conjure up an image by focusing on someone or something. I really have no idea how it works or why it is happening now, but if I could conjure up an image on demand, I think that would come in pretty darn useful.”

  Trevor wove his fingers through mine. “I suppose it would be useful, but it also seems that having these flashes popping into your head on any sort of a regular basis would be extremely stressful as well.”

  “I suppose that’s true. Still, if I could conjure up an image of Trinity being shot, I would be able to know who shot her.”

  “I suppose.” Trevor frowned.

  My phone dinged. I pulled it out of my pocket. “It’s a text from Mac. She says they are having a fabulous time and will be home tomorrow. Ty will be coming to Cutter’s Cove with her and plans to stay through the Thanksgiving weekend.”

  “I’m glad things are working out for the two of them. They seem really good together.”

  “I agree. Although I’m really going to miss Mac if she moves to Portland to be closer to Ty.”

  Trevor tightened his fingers around mine. “If I know Mac, and I do, she will take her time in making a decision like that. I’ve no doubt that the two will be back and forth pretty much every weekend so they can spend time together, but Mac isn’t the sort to rush into things.”

  “Yeah. I guess you’re right.”

  “We should head back,” Trevor suggested. “I hate to leave your mom with all the kids for too long.”

  “I doubt she minds, but I think Tucker is getting tired.” I stopped and called to Sunny, who’d run ahead a bit. She turned and headed toward us. Once she arrived, Trevor and I turned around and headed back toward the house. “I’ve been thinking about something Billy said when we were looking for Aspen. He said that they had a place they’d go to when they needed to hide. I’ve wondered ever since then what, or more likely who, the children felt they needed to hide from.”

  “Yeah, I’ve been wondering the same thing,” Trevor said. “My immediate thought was that they needed to hide from one or both of their parents at times. The thing is that all the kids seem to be missing their mother and father, and I’m not picking up a fear or abuse vibe at all. Sure, the parents were negligent in that they left the kids alone without adult supervision, but no one has mentioned them being drunk, angry, or violent in any way. It makes me wonder if it wasn’t someone else they felt that had to hide from.”

  “If there is someone else, I wonder who it is?”

  “I don’t know. Perhaps a friend or neighbor with abusive tendencies. I’m going to try gently broaching the subject with Billy during the video game session I promised him when I get back to the house. Maybe he’ll let something slip.”

  “That’s a good idea. I can see that all the kids adore you. Maybe if they get comfortable enough, they will be willing to share what they know.”

  By the time we returned, all the kids were waiting for Trevor in the den. He went to play with them while I went upstairs to speak to Woody. He’d had a lot of leads to follow up on, and I wondered if he’d made progress on any of them.

  “I do have a few things to share,” Woody said after I calle
d and asked him for an update. “First of all, Bryson’s wife has been formally cleared of all suspicion in the death of her husband. I guess the detective assigned to the case has looked into the situation extensively and is convinced that she is not the person we are looking for.”

  “I guess that is one less person on the suspect list.”

  “Actually, there are several fewer people on the list. In addition to Bryson’s wife being removed, Devon Long’s mother has been cleared as well. I guess she was meeting with her parole officer at the time Bryson was shot.”

  “Devon Long is the fifteen-year-old in foster care.”

  “Yes, that is correct. Apparently, before he died, Bryson had negotiated a deal between the mother and the foster parents where she would legally allow the foster parents to adopt Devon in return for visitation. The paperwork hadn’t been submitted as of the time of Bryson’s death, but the detective in charge of the case has spoken to all the involved parties, and everyone seems to want what is best for the boy.”

  “So it is unlikely that anyone involved in the case had anything to do with Trinity’s shooting either.”

  “Very unlikely,” Woody confirmed.

  “You said there were several suspects eliminated.”

  “We spoke about a case involving a woman who had three children fathered by three different men. The grandmother of the oldest child has been raising all three for the past three years, but in those three years, the mother has gotten her act together and has a job and a place to live. The grandmother was balking about returning the children to their mother, but it seems that, with Bryson’s help, the mother and grandmother worked out a compromise for a shared custody arrangement. The children will continue to live with the grandmother when school is in session, and the mother will be allowed to have the children with her on alternate weekends and during summer vacation. It’s really a lot like a custody arrangement between divorced parents. I will admit that this is a bit more complicated, but it seems that everyone is happy, at least for the time being. I spoke to both the mother and grandmother, and they seemed to feel that Bryson had done a good job finding a solution they could both live with.”