“Thank you,” I said. She seemed to have meant the remark as a compliment. “When exactly did this happen?”
“Sometime between five thirty and six.”
“In the morning?”
“I like mornings,” Avery said with a shrug.
Charlotte and I exchanged a look. Avery had to be the only teenager in town who willingly got up at five thirty during the summer.
“I like to get up and make a smoothie and sit in the elm tree in the front yard. I like it there. I saw Mrs. Cameron and Reece’s dad go by a bunch of times—at least five or six. When she had to stop, she’d be all bent over like she couldn’t get her breath and he’d rub her back. Seemed kind of personal to me.” She looked up at Rose, who had walked over to the stairs. “I’m sorry. If I’d known it was important I would have said something sooner.”
Rose leaned down and put her arm around Avery’s shoulders. “It’s enough that you said something now.”
“What’s Reece’s last name?” I asked.
Avery turned to look at me. “Vega.”
I nodded. The name, Vega, soundly vaguely familiar, but I couldn’t figure out why.
My cell phone rang in my pocket. I held up a finger. “Hang on a second.” I pulled out the phone. It was Dad.
“I need to take this,” I said. “Excuse me.” I walked over to stand by the front door to the shop.
“Hi, Dad,” I said.
“How’s my favorite daughter?” he said. I could hear his smile.
“I’m your only daughter.”
He laughed. “Well, didn’t that work out well for everyone?” He and my mom had gotten married when Liam and I were both in second grade. Dad had always treated me as though I was his biological child. I’d heard someone ask him once if he had any children of his own. He’d given the woman a blank look and said, “But Sarah is my child.”
I hadn’t just gotten a father. I’d also gotten a big brother. There was a month between Liam and me, him being the elder. He could be a pain-in-the-butt, overprotective big brother when I wanted to date someone he thought was a scuzzbag, but he could also be my biggest ally.
“Your mom gave me your message,” Dad said.
“What did you find out?” I asked, leaning both elbows on the counter.
“I prowled around the archives at the paper. They’re online now. I couldn’t find any obituary for a Catherine Cameron. Not with a ‘C’ or a ‘K’ or several other spellings I tried. I went back a year and forward a year.”
“Crap!” I said.
“I did find a death notice for a Catherine Hennessy. It was three years ago and she was survived by her two grandchildren, Jeff and Nicole Hennessy.”
“That’s a weird coincidence,” I said.
“I don’t think it’s a coincidence, Sarah,” Dad said. “Are you sure the woman’s last name was Cameron?”
I shook my head even though he couldn’t see me. “No. But Cameron is the last name the grandchildren are using.”
“This has something to do with what happened to Rose, doesn’t it?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Jeff Cameron—or whatever his name really is—bought a pair of candlesticks for his wife. Now no one can find him.”
“Maybe you should start looking for Jeff Hennessy instead.”
“Maybe we should,” I said.
I thanked him for his help and said good-bye. Rose and Charlotte were in deep discussion about something, probably the trip Mr. P. and I had made to the library. We’d discovered a lot of information, but I had no idea how it fit together.
I went out to the sunporch to find Alfred. I explained what Dad had discovered and what Avery had told us about Leesa Cameron and her running partner.
“Interesting,” he said. “I’ll see what I can discover about the Hennessys and about Mr. Vega.”
“Let me know what you find,” I said, heading back outside.
The paint sprayer was being temperamental, and it took me the better part of the next hour to get it working properly. I went inside for a cup of coffee before starting on the chairs. I had just come down the stairs with a mug in my hand when Mr. P. came in from the back.
Rose took one look at him and immediately said, “You found something.” She glanced at me. “Alfred told me what your father discovered.”
Mr. P. had a satisfied smile on his face. “I did,” he said. “Jeff Cameron changed his name. I couldn’t find much about him beyond about three years ago, so I did a little digging into his sister. Nicole Cameron got her RN as Nicole Hennessy. Northeastern Medical Center issues her paychecks in that name. Although she goes by Cameron, she didn’t actually change her name.”
Mr. P. looked at me. “Don’t worry, Sarah,” he said. “I didn’t do anything illegal.”
“I appreciate that,” I said.
“Both of the Camerons were raised by their grandmother,” Mr. P. continued. “Their parents were killed in a car accident.”
“That’s awful,” Charlotte said, shaking her head.
“Jeff left New Hampshire when his grandmother died and moved to California. He changed his name from Jeffery Cameron Hennessy to Jeff Cameron—no middle name.”
“Why would he do that?” Rose asked.
“Maybe he was running away from his old life,” Avery offered from across the room. She was still sitting cross-legged on the floor and didn’t even look up from the box she was investigating.
“That’s as good an explanation as any,” I said. “And if he walked away from a life before . . .”
“Maybe he was going to do it again,” Rose finished.
Chapter 12
I went back out to the garage to work on my chairs. I was just getting the paint sprayer adjusted when my cell rang again. This was why I usually left it in my office. I pulled it out to see who was calling.
Glenn McNamara. Glenn owned McNamara’s, a sandwich shop and bakery that was popular with both the locals and tourists. I wasn’t sure why he’d be calling.
“Hi, Sarah, did I catch you at a bad time?” he asked.
“Hi, Glenn,” I said. “No, you didn’t.”
“I need a favor.”
“Sure.”
“You’re supposed to ask what it is first,” he said.
“Oh darn,” I said. “Does that mean I’ve been doing it wrong all this time?”
Glenn laughed. “You’re funny.”
“Seriously,” I said, walking over to the main door to the garage so I could stand in the sunshine. “What do you need?”
“What’s your cat like when it comes to catching mice and other furry things?”
“Good,” I said. “I use him as an advance crew in most of the old places we clear out.”
“Could I borrow him?”
“You have mice down there?”
“Here? Good Lord, no. I have a pest-control company that checks the place regularly. It’s my uncle Clayton’s place where there’s a problem. At least I think there is. Did Mac show you the accordions?”
The sun was warm on my bare arms. “He did,” I said. “One of them is a Hohner. It’s worth a bit of money.”
“Good for Mac, then,” Glenn said. “If either one of you is thinking of returning it, please don’t. We’re trying to get things out of that house, not vice versa.”
“So you saw a mouse, or mice, or evidence of them?”
“Not me. My cousin, Beth. She’s petrified of mice. If it’s small and furry, you can pretty much be sure she’ll be up on the table.”
“You think the cat is a better idea than your pest-control people?” I asked.
He laughed. “Definitely. Beth is also the back-to-nature type. She doesn’t want to share the house with any little critters, but she doesn’t like the idea of any kind of chemicals or poison being used, either. And I don’t want to have to keep checking if we set traps.”
I blew out a breath. “Okay,” I said. “The problem is Elvis isn’t going to take whatever he finds by the paw and escort it outside, if you get my meaning.”