Thanksgiving Past

by Kathi Daley

  “But you don’t know for certain that he ever formally adopted me?” I asked.

  “No, I don’t know for certain. If you’re thinking that you somehow got lost in the shuffle after being found alone on Christmas Eve and that your dad decided to skip the formalities and give you a home, I think you could be right. Now keep in mind that I don’t know for a fact if he legally adopted you or not. I never asked, and he never said as much. But it did occur to me that it was odd that there never seemed to be any sort of a process. I don’t remember social workers coming around, and I don’t remember any sort of court hearing. Your dad was a good man and a good cop. I’m not saying that he intentionally set out to break the law. What I am saying is that he felt something for you that Christmas Eve, so instead of dropping you at social services, he took you home. I’m saying that it’s possible that once the holidays passed and everyone went back to work, somehow the fact that Patrick had you staying with him was overlooked and forgotten. Your dad never was one for paperwork and process. He was the sort who believed that what was right was right and what was wrong was wrong and the technicalities be damned. It wouldn’t have been out of character for him to have simply done what he thought was best for you whether the courts agreed or not.”

  “So once he realized no one was missing me, he simply kept me rather than stirring up the beehive and taking the risk of losing me.”

  “That would be my guess.” He took a breath and blew it out. “I want you to know that if for one minute I thought you’d be better off without Patrick, I would have said something. But the two of you were bonded in a way that was truly special. It would have killed you both if the courts decided a single cop wasn’t the best match for a traumatized three-year-old.”

  “I’m glad you didn’t say anything. I love my dad. He was the best dad anyone could ever want. If he had to cut corners in order to keep us together, I’m happy about that. But I do have to wonder how he happened to have the photo.”

  “Yeah,” Gil sighed. “I’ve been noodling on that the whole time we’ve been talking. If he truly did find you in the middle of a burning building on Christmas Eve, and he really had no idea who you were or how you came to be there, then how did he happen to have a photo of you taken months before? That part makes no sense at all.”

  “Do you remember him looking for my identity?” I asked. “He told me later when I’d asked that he’d looked and looked but never could figure out who I was or where I’d come from. Do you remember him doing that? Searching?”

  “No,” Gil admitted. “Not really. I remember he told me that he couldn’t figure out who you were, so he named you after his mother.”

  My name is Arial. The voice of the child I’d met this morning echoed through my mind.

  Suddenly it hit me. I was three years old when my dad found me. When I’d asked three-year-old Arial her name, she’d replied without even having to think about it. It was true that I’d spent very little time around three-year-olds, which probably is why I’d never questioned my father’s story before this, but apparently, three-year-olds knew their name.

  “I was three years old when Dad found me,” I voiced the thought I’d just had.

  “Yeah. So?”

  “You have children. How old were they when they first learned their name?”

  Gil didn’t answer. I wished I could see his face since I was certain he was frowning.

  “By the time I was three, I would have known my name,” I finally said when he still hadn’t answered after quite a few seconds. “I’m not sure why I never realized that before.”

  “Yeah,” Gil agreed, almost reluctantly. “You would have known your name, but maybe you were traumatized and wouldn’t talk, or maybe the trauma caused you to forget.”

  “My dad never once mentioned that I had amnesia and couldn’t remember who I was. He simply said he didn’t know who I was and named me after his mother. I know my dad’s last name was Holloway, so that part fits. Was his mother even named Ainsley?”

  He blew out a breath. “I don’t know. I never met anyone from Patrick’s family. I think he mentioned that they’d been dead for a long time when we first met.”

  “He told me that his mother had recently died when he found me, which is why he named me after her.” I paused to think about it. “When I was at the house, I remembered that my sister was named Avery. I haven’t been able to confirm this, but I know it to be true. My memory is really fragmented, but I don’t remember ever being called anything other than Ainsley.” I closed my eyes and tried to remember back to the time I spent at the house on the bluff. I remembered the woman who I think I called Mama. Although, there were times when I tried to remember Mommy, and the woman who flashed into my mind was a different woman than the one in the photo. I remembered a man, but I didn’t remember much about him. The only people I could clearly connect with were the baby, Avery, and Mr. Johnson, the groundskeeper, who had shown me where to hide my baby birds.

  “So, do you think that Ainsley is your real name?” Gil asked.

  “I think it might be. I have to admit I don’t feel a sense of certainty about that, however. And if Ainsley is my real name, why would Dad tell me I was named after his mother? It would be easy enough for me to check, although I have to admit I never have.”

  “Yeah, it doesn’t track that your dad would make that part up. Maybe you did know your name, but your dad had a reason for not wanting anyone to know that you were with him, so he changed it. You were three, so you most likely would have accepted the new name rather easily.”

  Okay, this entire conversation was freaking me out. If my dad had changed my name to protect me, then he must have known who I really was all along. “I’m beginning to think the story about the fire was made up.”

  “I will admit that something odd seems to have occurred, and there do seem to be a few holes in the story your father told both of us, but I know there was a fire,” Gil countered. “On that exact Christmas Eve. Your dad and I had been working a case for months and getting nowhere. I know for a fact that your dad did follow up on a tip to check out the warehouse, and he did pick up a lead that led to the arrest of the man we’d been after. I don’t know without a reasonable doubt that he found you at that warehouse. The best I can tell, if he did find you in the building, he simply took you home, and that was that.”

  “He told me he had a friend in social services who he called at the time. She told him I would go to a shelter over the holidays, and since he was willing to look after me, she allowed him to take me home that night.”

  “I suppose he might have been talking about Sherry.”

  “Sherry?” I asked.

  “Sherry Young. She was a nice woman. A friend of both your dad and me. She worked for social services and was the sort of person who really cared about people. I think if your dad had called her and she had no way to process you that night, she would have allowed him to take you home until after the holidays.”

  “Maybe I should talk to her.”

  “You can’t. Sherry died in a car accident two days after Christmas that same year.”

  I frowned. “Car accident? Single car?”

  “Yes, she swerved off the road and hit a lamppost. She died due to blunt force trauma to the head.”

  Okay, now I was really freaking out. My dad told me a story about finding me in a fire. He’d told me he’d called a friend in social services who’d allowed him to take me home on Christmas Eve rather than taking me to a shelter. She died three days later, so she would have already been dead by the time everyone went back to work after New Year’s. If my dad and Sherry were the only ones who knew he’d taken me in and she died, it would have been easy for him to keep me. But why had a single cop with a commitment phobia made the decision to take on the responsibility for a three-year-old girl? And even more importantly in my mind, had Sherry’s accident been an accident, or had someone caused her to crash and had her death been murder?

  Chapter 3

&nb
sp; By the time the dogs and I made it back to the cottage, it was time to meet with Jemma, Josie, and Parker. The minute I opened the front door to Jemma and Josie’s cottage, Damon and Stefan attacked me. It seemed my neighbors were huge fans of The Vampire Diaries, so when they named the new kittens in their lives, they’d decided on Damon for the black kitten and Stefan for the orange one.

  I scooped up Damon while Stefan attacked Kai and Kallie. Luckily, neither dog seemed to mind a bit.

  “Oh, good, you’re here,” Josie greeted. “Jemma’s upstairs finishing up some work, and Parker just called, and she’s on her way.”

  “Something smells wonderful.”

  “Lasagna.”

  “I thought we were doing takeout. Parker mentioned Chinese food.”

  “I decided that lasagna sounded better, and I had all the ingredients, so I called Parker and told her that I’d just cook. I hope that’s okay. You do like lasagna, don’t you?”

  “I love lasagna,” I answered. “I’m not sure I’ve ever had any that didn’t come from a restaurant. It seems like it would be a lot of work.”

  “It is, but it’s one of my favorites. If you like lasagna, you’ll love mine. I use my grandmother’s recipe, which in my opinion, is better than you can get at any restaurant.”

  “I can’t wait to try it.”

  Josie automatically poured me a glass of wine, which I accepted.

  “Is there anything I can do to help?” I asked.

  “Actually, there is. I’m preparing a fruit and cheese tray since the lasagna won’t be ready for a while. There are grapes soaking in the sink that can be dried and cut into small bunches. I washed the apples, but they need to be sliced. If you want to do that, I’ll grab the cheese.”

  I grabbed the carving board from behind the canisters that were lined up by size on the counter and began slicing the apples. The only person I’d ever lived with other than my dad and my college roommate was my best friend, Keni, when we lived in New York. Neither she nor I cooked, so we mostly went out to eat. When I’d lived with Dad, it was mostly sandwiches and mac and cheese, and when I was in college, I mostly ate in the cafeteria.

  “I’m anxious to hear what Parker has to say about the case she told us about last night,” I said.

  “Me too,” Josie agreed as she began slicing cheese. “I remember the case from five years ago, but to be honest, I really didn’t know the family and didn’t pay a lot of attention to the whole thing. Of course, everyone was talking about it in the weeks after the family disappeared, but I didn’t take a lot of time to think about it.”

  “I drove by the Hamish house today,” I informed her. “I guess Parker’s story really captured my imagination. What I found to be the oddest was the fact that the house is still empty. It seems odd that after so much time has passed that someone wouldn’t have done something with the property.”

  “Yeah, I guess that is odd. I’m not sure why no one has ever sold the house,” Josie said. “I guess it might be tied up in some sort of a probate situation.” She paused. “I never heard if they found any next of kin. I guess they must have figured that all out by now.” She gave both dogs a treat she’d had ready for them after they’d finished playing with the kittens and wandered into the kitchen to see what we were doing. “I guess we can ask Parker when she gets here. I’m sure she knows.”

  “Parker mentioned having notes,” I agreed.

  Josie nodded. “She told me that she has files and files of information. She really tried to figure this whole thing out five years ago, but she wasn’t able to pull it all together. I didn’t know Parker well back then, but I do know that she did a lot of digging at the time. She spoke to neighbors, co-workers, and friends of the children who were allowed to speak to her, although I also remember parents who were scared and kept their children reined in. She interviewed Deputy Todd. Parker really didn’t know Jemma yet, so she didn’t have access to her master hacking skills, and she didn’t know you, so she didn’t have access to your PI know-how. I think she’s hoping that with the new team she has access to, she can figure out now what she couldn’t figure out then.”

  “What do you think happened?” I asked.

  Josie paused, holding the tip of the knife she was using in the air. “I’m not sure. I guess it feels like the family simply fled. I suppose they might have been kidnapped and forcefully removed from the property, but it seems that if that happened, there would have been some sort of evidence left behind.”

  I thought about bringing up my conversation with Vanessa Hudson about the blue sedan but decided to wait until everyone was here. “I had a similar thought,” I replied instead. “I ran into Hope today while I was out at the Hamish place, and she mentioned that Gooseberry Bay is a good place to disappear if you really need to. After thinking about it, I realized that the place really is isolated. It must be a good thirty miles from the main highway that serves the peninsula, and it’s a long drive or a ferry ride to reach any large cities. I have to wonder if perhaps the Hamish family wasn’t hiding from someone who finally caught up to them.”

  “Perhaps. Hope is right about Gooseberry Bay being the sort of place where someone on the run might finally decide to settle,” Josie agreed. “There’s a cook at the bar and grill. Emily Brown. She showed up about a year ago with her daughter, Ashley, in tow. It was early in the day, before opening, so she knocked on the kitchen door that leads out to the alley. Tegan had shown up early to do breakfast prep, and I’d stopped by to have coffee and chat, so we let her in. Emily told Tegan that she was passing through town and had run out of money. She said she needed to find work for a few days and wondered if Tegan needed anyone to help out in the kitchen. She assured Tegan that she was a good cook, but also assured her that she’d be willing to do anything that needed to be done.”

  “It seems odd that she’d be passing through a town on a dead-end road leading to nowhere.”

  “Exactly,” Josie said. “It seemed obvious to me that the passing through town thing was a ruse from the beginning. Everyone knows there is no passing through once you get this far south along Gooseberry Bay. Anyway, I remember watching Ashley as her mother spoke to Tegan. She was staring intently at some day-old pastries Tegan had left on the counter and planned to donate to the local church for their bible study. I could see that she was hungry, so I asked her mother if she could have one. Emily seemed relieved that I’d offered. I gave one to Ashley along with a glass of milk, and then I offered one to Emily along with a cup of coffee. Both mother and daughter ate those down as if they were starving. I think Tegan noticed as well because she asked Emily if she would be willing to make an omelet as a trial for a part-time cook position. She agreed. The omelet really was perfect, and after Tegan cut off a small bite and declared it as such, she cut what was left in half and offered it to Emily and Ashley, claiming she’d already eaten.”

  “I take it Tegan gave her a job,” I said.

  “She did. Emily asked to be paid in cash. She told Tegan that since she didn’t have a bank account, she had no way to cash a check. Tegan is the sort who normally follows the dictates of the law when it comes to her employees, and she’s meticulous about the payroll records she keeps, so I honestly thought she might turn her down. But she must have realized the woman was in real trouble since not only did she agree to pay Emily in cash, but she offered her three meals a day for both her and Ashley as part of her compensation package. She also gave her the use of the small apartment over the main dining room.”

  I raised a brow. “There’s a second story?” I hadn’t noticed when I’d been there.

  “Yes. The man who used to own the building lived upstairs. Tegan was already settled here on the peninsula when she purchased the property, so she’d been using the space for storage. She cleaned it out, and Emily and Ashley have lived there ever since.”

  “What does Emily look like?” I asked. “I’m not sure I’ve ever seen her.”

  “She has short hair. Dark. Almost black
. Her skin is fair, and her eyes are blue. Based on her skin tone, it seemed to me as if her hair had been dyed, although Ashley has the same color hair, so in the beginning, I wasn’t sure. Then Emily was sick for a week over the summer, so I went upstairs to check on her, and I noticed a thin line of blond at the roots. Emily does a good job of keeping both her roots as well as Ashley’s touched up, but I guess she went a few days longer for a touch up than normal due to being ill. I didn’t say anything, but she must have seen me notice her hair because she became flustered, and when she showed up for work the following day, her roots were dark.”

  “Does Ashley go to school?” I wondered. Talking someone into paying you under the table was one thing, but registering a child for school using a fake name was something else.

  “No, but Emily makes sure she does her lessons. Tegan has a booth in the rear of the kitchen area where the staff can take a break. Whenever Emily is working, Ashley sits in the booth and either reads, works out math problems, or sometimes draws. She really is quite the artist even at her age. Everyone who works at the Rambling Rose loves Ashley, so we all stop and sit with her during our breaks. Harry, the bartender, tells her stories relating to local history. Sharlene, the hostess who works the breakfast shift, has been teaching her to do easy science experiments. Jemma has her working on the computer a couple days a week, and Tegan is teaching her to create new recipes that the two of them then try out. If the weather is nice, someone will volunteer to take her outside for a walk. All in all, I’d say she is getting an adequate education.”