Here is the next part of Seanna's story. We're almost to Christmas in this part.

**********

Just after 10 AM that same Tuesday morning that Seanna and Jackie were in court, Thaddeus found himself with a few free minutes, pulled out the card with the PI's info on it and called the number. It went to voicemail, Thaddeus left a message and hung up the phone.

About 45 minutes later, Thaddeus's receptionist took a call. Once she discovered that it was the PI returning Thaddeus' call, she transferred him through to Thaddeus. "Thaddeus Savmo speaking, how may I help you?"

"Hello, Mr. Savmo, this is Jac Petroski returning your call," the man replied. Thaddeus recognized the man's accent as being Polish, it was one of several he'd heard since he was a baby, the community where he was raised had many people from Central and Eastern Europe.

"Mr. Petroski, thank you for returning my call. I know that you have recently worked with the former CEO of my company and an accountant here regarding the actions of the eldest surviving members of the Ramsay family, which resulted in their arrests a week ago. I have no idea if the matter I want you to investigate is related or not, or if an actual crime has been committed; the man I want you to investigate has not, as far as I know, been in the offices here for nearly three months, he was supposed to be at a meeting here yesterday and never showed up."

"Hmmm... I'll need his name, home address and phone number, cell number(s) if known, bank accounts, any other known properties. That will give me several places to start looking, if anything else is needed, I'll be sure to inform you."

Thaddeus gave him the information, they talked for another minute or two, then Jac hung up to start the investigation.

**********

Seanna and Jackie headed back down to the cafeteria, where they met Shonelle and the two girls. They spent half an hour relaxing over various drinks, then Seanna helped the two girls into their coats. Jackie said she would get a ride to the office from Shonelle.

Seanna took Leilani and Asemba back to Sue's apartment, after Seanna obtained a large number of boxes at a place that produced them and offered them for sale to the public. Once they were in the apartment, Seanna worked on packing up most of their clothing, leaving a few options for each of them to wear over the next several days. It was a slow process, with the amount of clothing in the apartment.

**********

Thaddeus was in the midst of a meeting with some of his junior staff people when he was interrupted by his receptionist. The one phone in the small boardroom had been turned off while they were meeting, which forced the receptionist to come to him in person. Thaddeus turned the phone back on and waited for the receptionist to transfer the call. It must be pretty serious if he needed to be interrupted.

"Hello, Mr. Savmo, it's Jac Petroski here. You need to come to Mr. Lundt's home now, bring your boss if you can, it's business related."

"Hello, Mr. Petroski, just why do I, let alone my boss, need to come there?"

"Mr. Savmo, I found the body of your Mr. Lundt slumped on the desk in his home office, a combined signed confession/suicide note underneath him. The reason I asked you and possibly your boss to come here is because it's related to the court case involving the elder Ramsays. By the time you get here, county and city police will likely be here, as well as the medical examiner."

"Oh, sh... I'll call my boss, we'll meet you there within an hour. Talk to you then," he said, then hung up the phone.

Thaddeus turned to his staff people. "I have to leave, reschedule this meeting to 11:00 AM tomorrow."

**********

Once Thaddeus was back in his own office, he called Seanna, then waited as the phone rang three times before she answered it.

"Hello, Seanna speaking, oh, it's you, Thaddeus, what's up?"

"I hired Jac this morning, he just found Bertrand Lundt in his home office, he also found a signed confession and suicide note."

"Oh, my, well, that would explain why he hasn't been in to work. So why did you call me?"

"Jac wants us both there as soon as possible. I'll pick you up in thirty minutes, Seanna."

"Both of us, huh? Okay, I'll ask the women here if they can watch the girls for me for a few hours."

**********

Seanna ran down the stairs, then knocked on the door of the apartment at the front of the house, JJ opened it a moment later.

"Hi, JJ, I have to go out soon and deal with something important that just came up, can you and Pat please watch the girls for me?"

"How soon are you leaving, Seanna?"

"About 25 minutes from now, JJ."

"So no time to really get anyone else. Well, your luck is good, Pat and I will be here all day, bring the girls down when you leave."

"Thank you, JJ, you and Pat have been a huge help since Sue was attacked," Seanna said as she turned to head back up the stairs.

**********

Just over twenty minutes later, Seanna handed Leilani and Asemba over to JJ and Pat, saying she would be back as soon as possible. A few minutes later, she could hear the low rumble of Thaddeus' '65 Corvette Sting Ray's 396 cubic inch "Big Block" engine.

She was out the door and running down the walk to the street, arriving there just as he stopped the car in front of the house. She opened the door, sat down, buckled herself in and they were off, it would take them about fifteen minutes to get to Bertrand Lundt's house.

**********

As they approached Bertrand's house, they could see close to a dozen police vehicles, split fairly evenly between city and county. They could also see the medical examiner's car parked halfway down the block due to all of the police cars on the scene.

Thaddeus pulled up in front of the medical examiner's car, then carefully backed the car up a bit before turning off the engine. He and Seanna released themselves, then stepped out of the car, locking the doors as they closed them, before they walked toward the house.

A female deputy sheriff stopped them when they were about fifty feet from the walk leading to Bertrand's front door. The deputy, who looked to be in her mid to late thirties, asked them who they were and why they were there.

Thaddeus quickly filled her in, she then used her cell phone to call someone; she listened for a minute or two, then said, "Okay, boss, I'll let them through," before waving her arm at the two of them. "Old Jac's helping out again, I hear, you two can go in now."

**********

Thaddeus and Seanna slowly walked up to the front door, finding it unlocked, they opened it and entered the house.

Another deputy stopped them for a moment, before a city police officer informed him that these two were allowed to be present. "Hi, folks, I'm Detective Pieter Krasnokow, one of Jac's friends on the city force. He called me as soon as he found the body. I'm one of the two officers he worked with to gather the info in the case that resulted in the arrests of the seven Ramsay kids from Papa Ramsay's first marriage last week.

"What Jac found here is directly related to that case. I can't go into detail, but it is enough to make the case open-and-shut."

"So why did Jac ask for both of us to be here, Detective?"

"Because what we've found here falls under RICO, anything gained as a result of certain crimes. This house was bought, as were both of his cars, with money Mr. Lundt was paid after he was "hired" to divert funds from your corporation to banks outside of the US. He would then move the money through two or three other banks before sending it to one of seven accounts at a bank in the Cayman Islands.

"Those seven accounts are in the names of the seven Ramsays currently being held in the courthouse. They were supposed to go in front of a judge at some time today, but with the evidence we've found here, that will probably be delayed for a while now.

"Over the last 6.5 years, since they hired him for this purpose, he has been given just over $19.3 million US total. We also learned that a beach house on the Jersey shore was bought using money they paid him. His offshore account that we found has $17.5 million US in it.

"From what we have discovered through the evidence found here, there are eighteen other properties, eleven cars and five boats that can be claimed under the RICO statutes; these people ordered him to steal and transfer money across state or federal borders for their benefit.

"He left a confession of his activities, listing them on paper, and provided the password to his computer here. The information we found on it goes into extreme detail, listing every movement of money after it was initially "taken" from the corporation.

"Other bits and pieces in there are even nastier, including a payment sent through Mr. Lundt to ensure Suzanne Kealoah's severe injury or death, and another payment through Mr. Lundt to hire the lawyer they intended to use in their defence."

"So those nasty excuses for human beings did give the order to have her harmed. Grrrrr!!!!!!" Seanna growled. "Sue Kealoah was my aunt, she left behind a four year old girl. That girl has been in my care for the last week, I've been with her as much as possible since Sue was hurt. Leilani, Sue's daughter, seems okay now, but I'm quite sure that she is going to need a lot of help and love to get through this."

Thaddeus waited for Seanna to finish, then asked, "They actually had him hire a lawyer using funds stolen from the corporation?" When the detective nodded, Thaddeus continued, "That lawyer is going to be really ticked off when he finds out about that, I'm sure."

Detective Krasnokow replied, "Doesn't matter now, that money will be reclaimed as well, likely within 48 hours. The simple fact is, the seven of them haven't got a snowball's chance in hell now, not with all of the evidence here, the court will have copies by tomorrow afternoon."

**********

Judge Ravena Adamowicz looked out over her courtroom. She'd just been informed that there was new evidence relevant to the case. The ADA continued, "I've been told that we will have copies of the new evidence by the end of the day tomorrow at the latest."

The Judge looked over at the defence table, the seven older people all sitting nervously in their chairs and the lawyer who it seemed was representing them. She wondered how they had hired him, Stephen P. Brandenburg's services didn't come cheap.

She shook her head, then spoke, "I have no choice but to remand the seven of you so the ADA there can get the evidence and examine it in detail. You will return to this court on Friday, January 6th at 9:30 AM. I expect Mr. Brandenburg will have all the files by then?"

The ADA looked up for a moment. "Yes, Your Honour, I'm sure we can transfer copies of all the files to him by that time."

"Then this court is adjourned."

**********

Thaddeus took Seanna to a cafe where they relaxed for an hour over coffees, Thaddeus had chocolate cake, Seanna a blueberry muffin. They talked for a while about what they had just heard. As they were finishing, Thaddeus stated, "You know we can't mention this at all. We need to stay out of it if we can, let the police and the courts do their jobs, the outcome seems to be pretty clear, I'd think."

Seanna nodded, then replied, "Yes, I think so, too, that detective said it couldn't be any easier, open-and-shut he said."

"Yeah, he did say that. Okay, I'm going to take you back to Sue's place so you can continue whatever you were doing earlier."

"Thaddeus, when you said we can't mention this, and that we should stay out of it, you were right."

**********

Thaddeus dropped her off in front of the house, Seanna ran to the front door, unlocked it and knocked on JJ and Pat's door. In the background, she could hear the low rumble of Thaddeus' car slowly fading into the distance as he drove away.

JJ opened the door, "Hi, Seanna, back already, I see. I'll get the girls for you. Leilani! Asemba!"

The two girls came running from the kitchen, when they saw Seanna, they ran up and hugged her, yelling, "Seanna back! Seanna back!"

Seanna giggled took the two girls by the hand and led them up the stairs to Sue's apartment. Once they were inside the apartment, Seanna sat them down for a moment. "I'm going to be buying furniture for the new house, do you two want separate bedrooms or to share one? Asemba, I also need to go to where you and your momma lived to get any clothing and personal items you might have there."

Both girls shouted that they wanted to share a room, so Seanna took them over to her laptop, opened it up, started it, typed in her password when the password screen came up, then navigated to a website, showing pictures of custom made bedroom furniture to the girls. After looking at the various options available, they finally chose a set that was princess themed, and Seanna placed an order, adding a second dresser.

She then told the girls that they could go and play, or watch TV, so long as they were fairly quiet.

Seanna then returned to her laptop, looking through the other bedroom sets, picked one she liked and ordered it. She then picked out furniture sets for the living room, the study and the library, asking when they could be delivered.

She figured that she could turn the study into her new home office, and use the library as a combination library & second office space.

Several minutes passed before she received a reply that most of it could be delivered on Friday, the rest by the next Tuesday.

She then typed in a different website that offered a wider variety of furniture, and placed an order to get pieces for the parlours, the remaining bedrooms, and padded benches for the balcony and the library. She also ordered two pool tables, one for snooker, one for eight ball, as well as a small bar and a dozen high backed, high seat wooden chairs which could be scattered around the billiard room.

Switching to a different department of that store, she also ordered a brand new high end washer and dryer set. Those would go in the laundry area, along with a large, deep sink that would be shared with the mudroom space. The only item that would be in the mudroom would be a large heavy duty washable floor cover, so that people could drop their dirty boots and shoes there instead of bringing them into the house.

Last but not least, Seanna looked through what was available in the kitchen department. She picked out a dishwasher, a nice eight burner stove with two ovens underneath, then a large double door refrigerator and a large chest freezer. She also picked out an island with two chairs for the kitchen. After looking through a wide variety of tables, she picked one out that could seat six people that would match the other items.

Then she saw a nice looking combined buffet & hutch, and a table that could seat up to eight people, both came in a mahogany stain. She decided that it wouldn't hurt to have plenty of table seating, so she ordered two of the eight seat tables, the 16' by 15' dining room was big enough to fit both tables and the hutch, and still have enough space to easily move around all the furniture.

After her order was processed, she had a quick chat with a manager who said they should be able to deliver it all on Friday.

Seanna chuckled to herself, it looked like Friday would be a busy day with two different furniture deliveries for the new house.

**********

Once she had finished picking out furniture for the new house, Seanna turned on the oven, letting it preheat, then pulled out some chicken thighs and dropped them in a baking pan, sprinkling a few spices on them. While she waited for the oven, she chopped up two large potatoes and set them aside for a while. When the oven was ready, she set the chicken on the lower rack and closed the oven door.

A little while later, she could just begin to smell the chicken as it cooked; she rinsed the potatoes briefly, then added some water to a pot, dropped the potatoes in and set them on the stove, turning the burner on to slightly higher than medium. She checked the chicken and potatoes from time to time, then pulled some frozen mixed vegetables from the freezer compartment of the fridge, placed them in a pot, added some water and set that on a second burner, turning it midway between medium and high before checking the children in the living room.

They'd been watching afternoon cartoons pretty much since she had said they could do what they wanted, they seemed happy enough.

Seanna periodically checked the various items, eventually pulling the potatoes off the burner, turning that one off. She placed a wooden board on the counter, set the pot with the potatoes on it, took some butter and milk from the fridge, then started mashing the potatoes.

Once the potatoes were mashed, she pulled the other pot from the stove, turned that burner off, ran the vegetables through a colander, then put them in a bowl, placing the bowl on the table. She then transferred the mashed potatoes to another bowl, setting it on the table.

She noticed two little faces peeking around the corner of the kitchen next to the living room and giggled. "I guess you two are ready to eat?" At their eager nods, Seanna told them to go wash their hands, then put on an oven mitt, pulled the chicken out and turned the oven off. She reached into a cupboard for three plates, set them on the table, then using the oven mitt to hold the baking pan, she placed a thigh on each plate. She grabbed a serving spoon and placed a scoop of potatoes on each plate, followed by a scoop of the mixed vegetables.

Seanna opened a drawer, pulled out some silverware and set it by each plate, then opened a different cupboard, taking out three glasses, setting one by each plate before she opened the fridge, pulled out the milk and filled the three glasses. Salt, pepper, they were set.

She then took a brief moment to wash her hands in the kitchen sink, turned around and found both girls already seated at the table.

**********

The three of them enjoyed the meal, chattering about their day, Seanna finished off the small amount of potatoes and vegetables that had been left in the bowls, then sent the girls to the living room while she cleared the table, rinsed dishes and placed them in the dishwasher.

She put some water in the pot that was used to cook the potatoes, then left it to soak along with the baking pan, she'd finish them later.

**********

Seanna called the two girls and told them to put on their coats, they would be going out for a while. As was often the case, she had to help them put their coats on, then she zipped them both up before reaching into the closet for her own coat, which was soon on and zipped.

She led them out to the car, secured them in their seats, then closed the back door, got in her own seat and started the car. She closed the driver's side door, waited for the engine to warm up, then backed up before turning to follow the laneway to the street.

There was no traffic, so she turned and followed the directions she had been given for the place where Asemba and her mother Annalise used to live before Annalise was killed. Nearly half an hour passed before she found the right street and then the correct building.

Seanna released the two girls, letting them out of the car, then closed the doors and used the remote to lock the car.

With one of the girls holding on to each hand, she walked toward the building, letting Asemba go for a moment so she could ring the bell. Just as she was about to ring it again, the door opened, revealing a woman around 40 years old. Seanna explained why she was there.

The woman left the doorway for a moment, the sound of a TV could be heard from the living room nearby. The woman returned a few minutes later, smiled down at the two little girls, handed Seanna two keys on a ring, telling her "Unit 5, on the second floor. Don't leave it a mess."

Seanna thanked her and turned to use one of the keys to unlock the door that opened to a set of stairs to the second floor. Seanna climbed the stairs, taking her time so the girls wouldn't fall behind, then used the second key to unlock Unit 5. The apartment behind the door turned out to be a small bachelor, about 25' by 10', including kitchen, bathroom and one fair sized closet.

In the main area of the apartment, Seanna saw a double bed lying on the floor by the back wall, a dresser to one side of the lone window, a four seat table in the middle of the apartment and a shabby couch, chair, coffee table and TV just inside the front door.

Opening the closet, there didn't seem to be much in the way of clothes, and most of it was either cheap stuff or obvious hooker outfits. At the very left end of the closet, there were three rather worn outfits and a shabby jacket that looked to be Asemba's size.

Most of the clothes in the dresser were Annalise's, about two thirds of it matching the hooker clothes, the rest t-shirts, jeans and shorts. Like the closet, there were only a few pieces of clothing that would fit Asemba, most of it being at least moderately worn.

Seanna asked Asemba if she wanted any of her clothing that was here, the girl shook her head, saying "No," at the same time. When asked if there was anything that she did want, Asemba pointed to the two stuffed animals on the bed, a pink bear and a grey cat.

Seanna wanted to be absolutely sure about it. "You don't want anything else in here at all?" Another no was the response from Asemba.

"Okay, then, grab the stuffed animals." Asemba picked them up and passed the pink bear over to Leilani.

Seanna led the girls out of the apartment, locked it again, then headed down the stairs, letting that door lock behind them. She knocked on the manager's door again, returned the keys and informed the woman that whatever was left up there was disposable.

**********

Seanna decided that since they were already in that area of the city, she might as well grab what she wanted from her own shabby apartment. After securing the girls in their seats and closing the door, she climbed into the driver's seat, buckled in and started the car.

A few minutes later, she backed out of the parking space, then seeing there was no traffic, entered the street, turning toward her old apartment. The drive didn't take very long, her old place was less than seven blocks away from the building they had just left.

After getting the two girls out of their seats once they arrived there, she locked the car and led them to the entry of her old building. She had had one of six small apartments on the third floor, even smaller than the one Annalise and Asemba had shared.

Using a set of keys she hadn't even looked at in over a week, she unlocked the entry door, then led the girls to a small elevator. She pressed the button to go up, but had to wait as someone was getting on it from the fourth floor, then the darn thing went up to the sixth floor. The building had six floors above ground plus the basement, which had three apartments along with the furnace and a small open space that most of the tenants in the building used as a recreation room. A ping pong table was at one end, three couches around a TV filled the other end.

Eventually, the elevator arrived at the ground floor, four people stepped out of it, all of them heading toward the building's front door. Seanna waited until they were out the door, then hit the up button again; the elevator opened and Seanna and the girls entered.

Seanna pressed three, and the elevator slowly climbed to the third floor; when it opened, Seanna led the two girls out, then down the hall to her old apartment, the one at the very back of the building on the right hand side, unlocked the door and waved the two girls into the room.

The space wasn't much to talk about, maybe 15' by 12', but it had three windows compared to one in Annalise's apartment. There was an old wardrobe instead of a closet, a dresser, a double bed, and a couch with coffee table and TV, with a small two seat table beside a window.

Seanna told the two girls to watch some TV, then spent the next hour sorting out her clothes. Two bags were filled with clothes she intended to keep, another four bags were filled with clothes she would donate to the nearest Goodwill or Salvation Army store she could find.

One last bag was filled with items that would be going into the trash bins at the side of the building.

She told the girls not to open the door at all, then she hauled the bags down to her car, putting the two with clothes she wanted in the footwells of the back seat of the car, then took two more trips to bring down the items she would donate before returning to the third floor one last time. She picked up the last bag, called the girls, locked the apartment, and headed down to the first floor, then out the door and over to the garbage bins, dropping the single bag in one of them, before turning around to enter the building again.

She led the girls down a small flight of steps, down the basement hall to the one door on the right side and knocked. When the door opened, she handed the keys to the apartment to the landlord and told him to do what he wanted with the contents of the apartment.

He asked if she was okay, she told him she had a much better place now, said goodbye to him and led the girls back up the stairs.

Seanna unlocked the car, secured the girls in their seats, closed the door, then opened the driver's door, climbed in and put on her seat belt. She waited a few minutes, then turned toward the street. She had to wait as a couple of cars went by, then turned into the street.

She had remembered, while she was sorting everything out, that there was a store that sold second hand items and clothing a few blocks away, and that it had a donation bin. When she reached the store, she grabbed the bags from the trunk and threw them in the bin.

Back at the car, she transferred the bags in the footwells of the back seat to the trunk, closed the trunk and the door, then got in the front seat again. She buckled herself in, then looked behind her; there wasn't any traffic, so she backed into the street and headed for Sue's building.

**********

Half an hour later, they arrived back at Sue's, Seanna taking the car through the laneway to the back of the house. She turned off the engine once she had stopped, then opened the door, grabbed her purse and closed the driver's door. Opening the back door, she released the girls, then popped the trunk open, grabbed the two bags, closed the trunk and followed the girls to the back door, unlocking it.

The girls headed into the house, scampering up the stairs to wait by the door to Sue's apartment. Seanna took her time carrying the two bags, then dropped them to unlock the apartment door, ordering the girls to take off their coats and leave them by the hall closet.

It only took a minute for the girls to get out of and then drop their coats, then they ran into Leilani's bedroom, each holding a stuffed toy from Annalise's old place. Seanna could hear the two girls giggling as she took off her own jacket, then hung all three of them up in the closet.

She stuffed the two bags into the bottom of the hall closet, figuring she wouldn't need them before the weekend.

She checked the TV listings and found a movie the girls might want to watch; she called them out as it was just starting. They sprawled on the couch as she went into the kitchen to get some chips and some water, then brought paper plates and plastic cups out as well.

When the movie ended, Seanna sent the two girls to Leilani's room to put on nighties and hop into bed. She cleaned up the remains of the chips, put the rest of the water in the fridge, then went in and read a bedtime story to the girls who soon drifted off to sleep.

Seanna watched TV for a couple of hours, then made her own way to bed, falling asleep within minutes of going under the covers.

**********

The next two days were spent packing up most of the clothes in the apartment, and deciding which of Sue's clothes she wanted to keep. In the end, about half of Sue's clothing would end up in a donation bin somewhere, some would go in the garbage, Seanna would keep the rest.

Since she knew that she would be fairly busy getting furniture into the new house, Seanna made an arrangement with JJ to keep the girls on Friday. She then drove over to the new house, being sure to arrive earlier than the first delivery was scheduled to show up.

The first delivery truck actually arrived about ten or fifteen minutes late. Seanna spent the next 3.5 hours showing the men where she wanted each piece to be placed. Several pieces were still in the back of the large truck when the second delivery vehicle showed up.

Now Seanna was even busier; thankfully, the second truck didn't have quite as much as the first, both were fully unloaded by 4:30 PM.

Once the second truck had disappeared down the road, Seanna moaned, leaning against the doorframe, she was worn out. She had been running all over the place, in and out of the house, up and down stairs all day; if she took another step right now, she would collapse.

She had stuffed her cell phone in one of the pockets of her jacket so she could answer if anyone called, but no one had. Still sagging against the doorframe, Seanna called her mother, who said that she would catch a cab and be over there in a few minutes.

Ten minutes later, Seanna's Momma hopped out of a cab, paid her fare and half-carried, half-dragged Seanna into the house.

**********

An hour later, after being able to stay off her feet and just relax, Seanna felt much better. They left the house, Seanna drove her Momma to her house, then headed into a mall for some quick Xmas shopping, picking up gifts for Momma, Tamara, Uncle Tony and his family, the two girls, JJ, Pat and the rest of the women in that house, then paid for the gifts to be wrapped in the various stores where she had been shopping.

Once her shopping was done and everything was stuffed in the trunk, Seanna drove across the city to Sue's building, she had missed not being with the girls all day. She managed to get the gifts up to Sue's apartment, then shoved them in Sue' bedroom closet for now.

After the gifts were out of sight, she wandered down the stairs, knocked on JJ's door and was mobbed by the two little girls.

**********

Early Saturday morning, which happened to be December 24th, Seanna grabbed most of the presents she had hidden in Sue's apartment and carried them down to her car. She asked JJ to just keep an eye on the children, she would be back in about an hour.

Seanna drove over to her Momma's house, then carried all the gifts into the front parlour. The furniture had been moved aside so a nine foot tall Norway spruce could be placed in a pot to one side of the small fireplace. Gifts were scattered in piles all around the tree.

Seanna informed her Momma that she would be back either late in the afternoon or early in the evening with the girls.

**********

Seanna decided it was a perfect day for the girls to be out having fun in the park. She called Mark and Kate to enquire if they could by chance meet at the park and give Toby a chance to run around with the three girls. Mark and Kate had seen the newscasts about Seanna's rescue of Asemba the week before and were all too happy to have a chance to go out and have some fun.

Seanna told Leilani that she would be able to play with Sally and the dog Toby, but that Asemba would need to be included. Leilani immediately began jumping up and down, she hadn't seen Sally or the dog for over a week, and she finally convinced Asemba to go along.

Seanna then had to get the two girls into their coats, both had decided on overalls, a t-shirt and a sweater for playing in the park. Seanna also made them put on a pair of boots, as there had been a bit of rain at some point during the night and the ground was still damp.

Once they were ready, Seanna put on her own coat and boots, locked the door, then led the girls down the stairs and out the front door. The park was a bit over two blocks away; it was a fair sized park, about four square blocks, so lots of room to run around.

**********

Seanna and the girls met Mark, Kate, Sally and Toby at a fountain a few hundred feet inside the park. The fountain was turned off at this time of year, but it was still used as a gathering spot that was easily recognizable by anyone coming into the park.

As soon as Toby saw and smelled Leilani, he was all over her, licking her face and anywhere else he could reach. Then Toby noticed that there was another girl with Leilani, but this one seemed a bit scared. He turned to face Asemba, sat down and then offered her a paw.

Asemba stood there for a minute, the dog lowered his paw, then raised it again. Leilani whispered to Asemba, "He won't hurt you."

Finally, Asemba reached out and grasped the paw when Toby offered it for the third time, then sank to her knees and hugged the dog.

**********

A few minutes later, after Mark had let Toby off the leash, then handed rubber balls to the girls, the three girls and the dog ran off to play. It surely couldn't have been more than ten minutes after that when Seanna looked over that way and saw a crowd of children playing there.

Seanna pointed it out to Mark and Kate, Mark laughed, saying, "Every time we bring the dog here, he becomes an instant child magnet!"

Like the first time, some children were tossing the balls around, Toby would chase first one, then another. Today, some of the kids were tossing sticks too and Toby thought it was a perfect time to play fetch. Between the balls and the sticks, Toby was all over the place.

Every now and then, the kids and Toby would fall to the ground and rest for a while before playing again.

The day was a bit warmer than usual for the time of year, the adults were content to watch as long as things appeared to be okay. If anything did happen, they would be able to get over to the children in about fifteen or twenty seconds if they ran the whole way.

At one point, Mark checked his watch and was surprised to discover that it was already 12:45 PM. "The children have been running around for the last few hours, how about we take them to Tom and Jack's for some lunch? Hot dogs, hamburgers, ice cream..."

Seanna thought for a moment. "That sounds good, it's warm enough the kids could likely eat at the picnic tables under the tree there."

"Yup, and if they do eat there, we'll be able to keep an eye on them easily enough," Mark replied.

**********

When the adults wandered over to make the suggestion about going to Tom and Jack's for lunch, they noticed pairs or small groups of adults approaching the children from several different directions. They all met in a loose group around the children.

There was a bit of discussion. In the end, all but one family decided to go to Tom and Jack's; the whole group, including eleven adults and seventeen children aged from three to eight, started walking across the park toward the popular restaurant.

They had to wait for a minute or so at the stoplight/crossing at the edge of the park; when it changed to green, the group crossed, then turned up the street toward the restaurant, arriving there a minute or two later. The horde then invaded the restaurant.

Tom, an older gentleman, noticed the group as they walked in the door and laughed, business would be good today.

The children were brought to the counter one by one to pick out what they wanted; most chose a hot dog and fries along with a pop, a few decided to have a hamburger and fries instead. The adults placed their orders, the bill was added up and the adults all helped to pay it.

Tom informed them that they would haul two more picnic tables out from the shed behind the restaurant so they could all sit down. Jack, who actually was Jackie, Tom's wife, sent their two sons Paul and James out to carry the extra tables over to the tree, then set the food orders on an assortment of trays, with a bit of paper with a name on it placed on each tray to identify who would be getting the meals.

The group wandered out to the tree, arriving just as Paul and James placed the last table under the tree. The boys then headed into the restaurant, returning a moment later carrying two trays each, called out names and set them down by the child responding to the name.

The boys needed to make a couple more trips before everyone had their meals in hand, then they all dug in. It was a late but great lunch.

**********

Once Leilani and Asemba had finished eating, or had eaten as much as they could, Seanna took the trays into the restaurant. Kate had been right behind her, carrying the trays that she, Mark and Sally had used. Both women returned to the table to collect their child(ren).

Leilani thanked Mark, Kate and Sally for being able to play wth Toby again; it took a few minutes, but Asemba eventually thanked them. Seanna and the girls walked along the sidewalk beside the park, then turned at the corner to head for home. At that point, Mark, Kate, and Sally said goodbye, Toby giving lots of free licks to one and all in the process, as they needed to go the opposite direction.

Seanna said that she would give them a call some time soon about going to the park again, then the girls turned toward home.

**********

Seanna and the girls hadn't been in the door for five minutes before both girls crawled into bed for a well-earned nap.

She let them sleep for a while, she wanted them to be able to have some fun this evening, Christmas would be spent with Momma.