by Beth Rinyu
Once again I tapped around on my phone and entered my online banking app, scrolling back to previous transactions. There it was, Nordstrom, $31.99, October 5, which would have meant I wore it on October 7. “That was taken October seventh in the parking lot of the school where I work,” I said without hesitation. All three of them looked at each other in astonishment. Little did they know that a woman with a minor shopping addiction could help them with their case.
“That’s good to know. That really gives us something to go by.” Detective Mathis once again scribbled on his notepad. “Which school do you work for and which town is it in?” I creased my eyebrows in confusion. “We’ll need to pull the camera footage from the parking lot that day,” he explained. Great. Now my work would be involved in this, which was the last thing I wanted. I sighed and reluctantly gave him all of my work details.
The last photo he had placed in front of me was perhaps the most eerie. It was the day before the incident had occurred. I’d just arrived at the beach house and the rain had begun to fall. It had been a long day at work, and I wanted to clear my head, so I ventured out to the beach with my rain boots on and umbrella in hand to take a walk along the ocean.
I remembered looking up and down the beach, comparing the complete desolation to the summer months where people were elbow to elbow. There wasn’t another soul around, but obviously there was. Was I really that naïve? I always tried to be aware of my surroundings and constantly hammered it into Kara’s head to be too. How could I not have known someone was watching me from afar? And who was this someone? Was it the man in the ocean or, worse yet, some hitman he hired who was going to finish the job when I least expected it? There was no doubt in my mind that Jack was thinking the same thing, he had already made arrangements to have Kara followed.
“I want to see the pictures of my daughter,” I blurted.
Detective Mathis nodded. “Okay, but first can you tell me when that particular photo was taken?” He pointed to the picture in front of me on the beach.
“It was the day before the man killed himself, and there was absolutely no one else on the beach. At least I thought there was no one,” I mumbled.
“Okay, good.” He scribbled on his notepad once again. My patience was getting the best of me. I wanted to be home with Kara. I needed to know she was okay.
“The photos of my daughter, please?” I reiterated.
Detective Mathis put down his pen and placed two photographs in front of me. The first was Kara with one of those fancy coffee drinks she liked, laughing with one of her roommates at what appeared to be an outdoor café. The other with her backpack slung over her shoulder, walking out of one of the large buildings on her campus. My blood boiled just thinking that whoever this was not only had easy access to me but to my daughter. My daughter who was miles away at school by herself without neither Jack nor me to protect her. That scared me more than anything.
“You need to get Kara in here and find out when those were taken.” I demanded of Jack. “She needs to know what’s going on.”
“I know.” Jack nodded in agreement.
I wanted to rush home and tell Kara she couldn’t return back to school until we figured out what was going on. She needed to stay home where I could watch every move she made, but I knew that wasn’t possible. Kara was fiercely independent. It was a trait in her that I admired and sometimes abhorred when it didn’t work in my favor. She would never allow something like this to stop her from living her life. In fact she’d more than likely embrace it. She was going to school to become a teacher like me, but she was more suited to follow in her father’s career path. She wasn’t afraid of anything, which in turn scared me to death—especially now.
Chapter 9
“WHAT? DAD, NO way am I being followed by one of your flunkies!” Kara took the news exactly how I had expected. “Besides, the guy is dead now. What do you think, he’s gonna come back and haunt me?”
I didn’t like her tone, and when Jack began to reply, I held up my hand to stop him.
“Kara, first of all, don’t speak to your father in that disrespectful manner.”
She rolled her eyes and let out a huff. Now she was pushing my buttons, and I was trying my best to remain calm and not add any more drama to an already tense situation.
“Second of all, we don’t know if he was that man who was taking the pictures or if he had someone else take them for a reason.”
“Well, what’s the reason?” She threw her hands up in the air.
“I don’t know,” Jack chimed in. “It may be related to one of the cases I worked on. We’re trying to figure it out.”
“Oh great, because you decided to be a stupid FBI agent, my whole life has to be disrupted! This really sucks!” Kara shouted and ran up the stairs with Max right behind her.
“Kara, really? Stop acting like a childish brat!” I shouted just before her bedroom door slammed.
Jack shook his head, still seeming like he was a million miles away. “She’s gonna have to get used to it until we get it figured out.”
“What about when she goes back to school?” I asked.
“If we don’t know any more at that point, then yes, she’ll have an agent on her there as well.”
I didn’t know what was worse, still not knowing what the deal was by then or Kara having another hissy fit at the prospect of being babysat as she referred to it.
“Well, let’s not break that news to her yet.”
“Agreed.” Jack nodded. “I’m gonna head into the office and go over some of my old cases to see if there are any possible connections to this Cavlan guy.” He looked exhausted both physically and mentally. “Great!” he muttered as he looked at the text message that just signaled on his phone. “That’s after I swing by my parents’ house to check out the tree that came down in front of it. My mother’s neighbor texted them in Florida to let them know.”
“Your parents are in Florida? I thought they usually go after Christmas.”
“This year they decided to go earlier. Who knows?” He shrugged.
“So are you going to Florida to spend Thanksgiving with them?”
“No, I wasn’t planning on it.”
“Oh.” I nodded, following him to the front door. “So what are you doing for Thanksgiving?” I asked as he placed his hand on the doorknob to leave.
“No clue. Probably going through the last two years’ worth of files, trying to figure out where the connection is with this guy.” He was nonchalant, as if the prospect of spending Thanksgiving alone at work was no big deal.
“Well, you can eat here…if you’d like. It’s just going to be Kara, my dad, and me.” I was wishing I could take back my words, certain he really did have plans with someone he didn’t wish to mention to me. He must’ve thought I was really stupid for buying into his working-on-Thanksgiving excuse.
“Oh…okay. That sounds good.” He seemed to be taken a little off guard by the invite. This was the first time I ever entertained spending a holiday with him since our divorce.
“Okay, great.” I flashed an uneasy smile as he opened up the door, taking a backward step onto the porch. “Keep me posted if you figure anything out.”
“You’ll be the first to know,” he shouted from the driveway.
I closed the door and walked back into the kitchen. “Mom.” I jumped at the sound of Kara’s voice. I was so deep in thought, staring out the kitchen window while filling up the tea kettle, I hadn’t even heard her come down the stairs. “Sorry for acting like such a jerk.” She took a few wary steps closer.
“I think it’s Dad you need to apologize to.”
She nodded and took a seat at the island. “Do you really think this has something to do with one of his old cases?”
“I don’t know. The whole thing is just so bizarre.”
“What if that man was just some crazed stalker who was obsessed with you?”
I was willing to accept that, and I was actually hoping that was true. Because tha
t would mean he was dead and we had nothing more to worry about, and it would also mean that Kara wasn’t in any danger. But in the back of my mind it just wasn’t adding up.
“Then why would he have photos of you too?”
“I don’t know.” Kara expelled a defeated sigh.
“Let Dad do his work and figure this out, but in the meantime, don’t get on his case about what he needs to do to keep you safe. He loves you, Kara, and if anything were to ever happen to you because of his job, he’d never forgive himself.”
“Fine,” she grumbled, then stood up.
“Where are you going?” I asked when she pulled her hoodie over her head.
“For a run.”
“Is that really necessary to do today?”
“Mom, I run every single day.”
She was impossible, but I knew nothing I said was going to make her change her mind. “Fine, but take Max with you.”
“What? I can’t run with him. We’re still working on walking. He’s a total spaz on the leash.”
“Then at least take this with you.” I reached into my purse and grabbed the bottle of pepper spray I always carried.
“Oh my God! The man who took those pictures is dead. Remember, you watched him walk into the ocean? But to put your mind at ease, I will take the spray in case some other psychopath is roaming the neighborhood.” She reluctantly took it from me and stuffed it in the pocket of her hoodie.
“Do you have your phone?” I shouted as she was almost out the door.
“Yes, Mother! I’ll be back in an hour,” she shouted back. As I heard the door close behind her, I wondered how on earth I was going to watch her drive off to school in a week if this was still unresolved. I hated that my life had changed so drastically in a matter of twenty-four hours, and I hated that this man who I knew nothing about seemed to have had such a keen interest in my daughter and me.
Chapter 10
JACK WAS STILL unable to come up with any leads in the days that followed, making me more on edge than ever. “Come in!” I shouted at the top of my lungs at the knock on the front door as I hoisted the twenty-two-pound beast of a turkey from the oven.
“Where’s Kara?” Jack demanded when he entered the kitchen.
“Happy Thanksgiving to you too!” I joked.
“I’m sorry, happy Thanksgiving. Is she here?” His agitation with Kara was evident.
“She’s in the backyard with my dad and Max. What’s up?”
“The agent I have following her said she decided to take him on a little goose chase through the woods when she went on her run this morning.”
“On purpose?” I asked.
“What do you think?”
I sighed heavily and looked out the sliding glass door at Kara, sitting next to my father as he threw the tennis ball to Max, who would dutifully retrieve it. As much as I hated to admit it, that dog was growing on me. “We knew she wasn’t going to go down without a fight.”
“Well, this has to stop. I’m lucky they’re even letting me use one of my guys to do this.”
“Excuse me, but it may be because of them that we’re in the situation we’re in.”
“I don’t know, Steph. I’ve spent the last four days combing through files, and I can’t make a connection.”
My stomach clenched a little with that reminder. I was hoping this would all be resolved by the time Kara went back to school. “Have you heard any more from the detectives on the case?”
“Nothing really solid. They’re trying to get some information from the family, but they’re refusing to say much.”
“Of course they are,” I mumbled.
“What we do know is he was sixty-eight years old. He was from California, divorced over thirty years ago, and had no kids.”
“He was a long way from home.”
Jack nodded and raked his hand through his hair, appearing to be deep in thought.
“Hey, Jack,” my father greeted as he came in from the backyard.
“Walter, how are you?” Jack extended his hand to my father.
“I’m still breathing, able to walk, and everything seems to still be working upstairs.” My father tapped his index finger to his temple. “So I guess I’m pretty good for an old man.”
Jack chuckled with his smile quickly fading when Kara entered with Max right behind her.
“Hey, Daddy! Happy Thanksgiving!” Kara exclaimed.
“Kara, can you please explain to me why you decided to go for a run in the woods today?” Jack demanded.
“Umm…because I sometimes like to change things up when I’m running.”
I smacked her hand out the way when she began to pick at the marshmallows of my sweet potato casserole. I glanced at my father, who seemed puzzled by the conversation. I had told him about what had happened that day on the beach, but I didn’t fill him in on the rest of it to avoid him unnecessary worry. I was wishing I could steer the conversation in a different direction just so he wouldn’t find out, but Jack’s annoyance with Kara wasn’t going to allow for that to happen.
“Kara, all I’m asking is that you cooperate for now. It’s not going to be for the rest of your life.”
My father took a seat at the kitchen table. “Did you want something to drink, Dad?” I asked, hoping to take him out of Kara and Jack’s conversation.
He held up his hand and shook his head. “What’s this all about?”
I glanced at Jack, unsure of how to respond, but Kara beat me to it.
“Oh, they found photos of Mom and me in the hotel room of the man who drowned. So now Dad is freaking out because he thinks some psychopath is after us. When clearly, the psychopath is dead.” Leave it to Kara to put it all out there and not try and sugarcoat it even a little. Sometimes—actually, a lot of times, she could be brutally honest. Most of the time, I admired her for that. This was not one of those times, especially when I saw the fear that shrouded my father’s face.
“What the hell is going on, Jack?” my father asked.
“We don’t know yet. I’m trying to find out if this guy could be connected to one of my old cases, but so far it doesn’t appear that way. So, for the time being I have someone making sure Kara is okay when she goes for a run in the woods.” Jack’s explanation seemed to do very little to calm my father’s fears.
“Do you think there may be someone else involved besides this person who drowned?” My father continued with his quest for answers.
“I really don’t know.” Jack seemed defeated in his reply, and with that, so did I. If he couldn’t find a connection to this man, would we ever know why he had those photos? Was Kara right? Did it end with the man in the ocean or would we constantly be needing to look over our shoulders? My mind was reeling in a million different directions. In a way I envied Kara for being so lackadaisical over the whole thing, but with age came wisdom, and my forty-something self was more aware than my twenty-something self would’ve ever been. Kara was still so young, and as much as I hated to admit it, naïve. I saw so much of myself in her when I was that age. She hadn’t experienced enough in life to become cynical or even distressed about certain things. She still had the world at her feet, and in her world, nothing could ever affect that. I was hoping that to be true and that nothing would change, but as someone who had a whole lifetime of experience, I couldn’t help but worry over the situation. And as a mother, that worry catapulted to a whole new level of fear.
Chapter 11
KARA HAD BEEN back at school for an entire week, and I had managed to survive. That didn’t mean I wasn’t blowing up her phone with texts asking where she was, if she was okay, and to please check in with me each time she’d head out someplace. She was being a good sport and keeping me abreast on her whereabouts for the most part, but I was certain there were times she’d blow me off.
In addition to that, Jack had the agent who was keeping an eye on her while she was home now at her school. She grumbled about it for the first few days, but then I was assuming she came to te
rms with it after not hearing her discuss it anymore. I was wondering if she and Jack had another heart-to-heart talk that maybe calmed her down.
Jack still couldn’t make any connections, and each time I’d speak to him, I’d hear the frustration in his voice growing over it. It was as if it was all some big mystery, and with each passing day, I was becoming more hopeful that it all ended the day that man decided to take his life in the ocean. I had done an Internet search on the Cavlan family and everything that came up was about his brother and his political career. I was certain they had some family skeletons in the closet due to that fact alone, but those skeletons had nothing to do with me.
I was trying to carry on with my life as normal. I’d go to work every day and found myself bonding a little more with my four-legged houseguest. I’d never admit it to Kara, but I liked going for walks with him and having him there at night when I was trying to fall asleep when all the crazy thoughts started running rampant in my head. I felt safer and not so alone. They say people come into your life for a reason, but I was starting to believe that was true with dogs too.
I had just pulled into the driveway of the brick colonial that was my childhood home. So many happy memories took place in that house. Looking back now, I guess you could say I was spoiled. I was the only child of Sandy and Walter Walsh. My father, now a retired surgeon, worked hard his entire life to give us the best life possible. My mother was a stay-at-home mom who doted on me constantly. They were the best parents in the world. I never lost sight of that, not even as a teenager when you’re supposed to think your parents are the worst. I sat in my car for a few moments, trying to prep myself for the emotional morning ahead. It had been a year since my mother passed away, and my father was finally ready to start tackling the task of going through some of her things. Knowing it wasn’t going to be easy for him, I agreed to help. I pulled my phone from my purse to check out the text that had come through while I was driving.