Page 94 of Is Anyone Listening?
"Yes. He was too smart to just do carpentry at the Boatworks. I saw a bigger future for him, and I wanted to make sure he had it. But…"
"But?" I prodded.
"I had to walk a fine line. I needed Richard's support to buy the inn, so sometimes I didn't speak up the way David wanted me to. I thought it would all work out in the end. The inn deal was happening while David was still in high school. Once that was done, I could turn my attention to David's situation."
Her story cleared up a few things in my mind but also raised more questions. Before I could ask, she handed me the other photo in the folder. "This was taken at the church right after your father's first communion."
I looked at a slightly older version of my grandparents standing on either side of my father, who had a smile on his face that I had never seen. "He looks like a happy kid."
"He was happy when he was young. As he got older, not so much."
"Why? You have to tell me what happened. You can't take me this far and then stop."
"It's not my story, Cassidy." She gave a questioning look. "And would you even believe me if I did? You don't trust me. At times, I believe you think I'm a monster."
"Persuade me otherwise," I said, not denying that I had mixed feelings about her.
"I don't think I could," she said.
"I don't think you want to. Something is going on here."
"Sometimes it's safer not to know everything, Cassidy. Sometimes silence protects you."
"I don't believe that's true."
"Well, I do. The photos are yours to keep if you want to take them home with you."
"I would like to keep them. But I'm not leaving until tomorrow. That's when Tessa is being released from the hospital. I'd like to stay here one more night. Unless you don't think I'll be safe here?"
Ellen met my gaze head-on. "You'll be safe here, but I don't know about anywhere else. I watched your podcast this morning. I read the comments. Some were threatening. You're stirring up a hornet's nest. That's a mistake."
"I'm not going to let anonymous threats drive me away. That just means I'm getting closer to finding out what happened to Natalie and Jessica. You should want to help me so that you can clear up the inn's reputation, put the rumors away for good. If you have nothing to hide, why are you acting like you do?"
"If I could help you, I would, but I can't," she said with an unmistakable finality. Then she got up and walked away.
I watched her leave the dining room, her posture always straight, proud, confident, unbending. But I couldn’t help thinking that can't wasn't a word my grandmother used often.
If she wanted something, she went out and got it, just like she'd gotten this inn. She could help me if she wanted to; she just didn't want to, and I still didn't know why. But I was going to keep asking questions until I found out.
Three hours later, my initial optimism had completely faded. No one in town would talk to me. Finn had gone to Cork Harbor to see Nathan. Tyler wasn't answering my texts. My allies were definitely not helping me, and neither was anyone else.
I grabbed a quick salad for lunch and took it down to the beach to eat, needing time away from the suspicious looks that seemed to follow me wherever I went. It was a Thursday afternoon, and the beach was fairly empty, but there were a couple of kids with their mother, making sandcastles and running back and forth to the ocean to fill their buckets with water. An older couple sat in chairs under a shaded tree, the woman reading, the man stretched out on a lounger.
It was a pretty, peaceful day, completely opposite to the turmoil in my head.
As I watched the young boy, I thought of my dad. He'd probably played on this very beach, Ellen watching over him. But maybe her gaze hadn't been on him. Maybe she'd looked up the coast to the impressive Victorian, the one she hoped to turn into a bed-and-breakfast.
She'd married so young. And while she'd spoken of instant love, she'd also mentioned troubles in her marriage. That was probably typical of all long-term relationships, but I couldn't tell just how happy she and my grandfather had actually been when they got farther away from the idyllic photo taken on their wedding day.
But I shouldn't be thinking about my grandparents and their wedding day when I had a limited amount of time to find out what happened to Natalie or Jessica before I had to leave town.
Picking up my phone, I tried Tyler again, relieved when he answered. "Hi," I said. "Where have you been? I texted you a few times."
"I know. I'm sorry. I've been trying to chase down a lead on Jessica."
"What kind of lead? The security footage?"
"Yes, I think I might have spotted the truck that picked her up."
