“Thanks, Tara, but I have another call to make. I’ll just wash up in the rec center if that’s okay.”
Tara had been dying to view the CCTV footage, and she had imagined seeing the face of the mysterious horse tamperer. She held her breath as she logged into the system and rewound the video. She was about to give up when there it was. She paused the picture. A man came around the corner. “Fuck it!” she said out loud. He was wearing a black Dickies overall with a ski mask and cap pulled low over his face.
She printed still pictures of him and sent a copy of the video footage to Detective Moore, and to Jared.
The answering machine’s light on the landline was flickering when Tara went into the house. It was probably Cory, she surmised. He was the only person who used the home phone number to call her.
She was about to hit the ‘play’ button when her cell phone buzzed.
Chapter 26
“I can come around tonight if you want to start putting our heads together,” Jared said. “We can rule out some people with that CCTV image even if we can’t identify him. Like Randall. He’s skinnier than that dude. Garcia called me and said they haven’t been able to locate him. Seems like Randall’s done an effective disappearing act.”
“What if he’s working with the killer? He’s familiar with the horses and the layout of the barns.” She had texted Jared and told him about Button—and about Kaitlyn being there again.
“We can go through my spreadsheet together and try to figure out where Randall could have gone, and who this dude with the tat on his throat is.”
Tara smiled at the tingling sensation that ran through her in anticipation of seeing Jared. His kisses, his touch, all of it had sparked a flame. She wasn’t sure where it would lead, where she wanted it to go.
She went into the office, heard laughter outside, and spotted the therapists sitting at one of the tables outside the rec room. The two military patients were with them.
“Hey, Tara. Come over and meet Merrick and Shawn.” Jules beckoned with her hand.
The two guys stood up when she approached them and Jules did the formal introductions. Merrick was tall and lanky with green eyes and blond hair and a sexy smile, although his face was a little drawn. He was wearing a brown T-shirt and jeans and short brown leather boots. Tara held out her hand for a handshake and then felt foolish because his right arm was a prosthetic. She knew that because she had seen him riding, and she mentally kicked herself for being such a fool. He reached out with his left hand and shook hands firmly, and it made her feel a little better, but she knew she had gone red.
Shawn had the skin to go with his bright red hair—countless freckles on his face. He was a little shorter and stockier than Merrick, but also very pleasing to the eye. She had seen his artificial leg when he was riding, and he wore loose cargo pants, cut off above the knee on that leg. His sea-green Polo shirt matched his eyes. He had a nervous tic on one side of his face.
She pulled up a chair and dropped into it.
“So are you all settled in?” Merrick asked. “This must be a big change for you.”
“Yeah. I grew up here, but I’ve been away a long time. I don’t really like small towns.”
“Hey, I heard you almost got run down,” Christy said. “I’m glad you’re okay.”
Tara grimaced. “That’s why I have no affection for places like this. Nothing’s private.”
“So it wasn’t deliberate, right?” Shawn asked.
“Yes. It all happened so fast. The driver apologized and said it was an accident, but then he decked Deputy Tim Bowen and took off.”
“Hey, Jules, do you know what’s happened to Randall? Any forwarding address or phone number?”
“No clue. It’s like he disappeared off the face of the earth. I tried his cell phone when I heard you were coming, but it’s been disconnected.”
Shawn smiled. “I could probably help if you need to find him.”
Christy laughed out loud. “Yeah, Shawn’s a hacker. He’s like—awesome at it. That’s how he got into the military. He got caught hacking into a US government site, and they gave him the option—join the military and use his skills for the good of the country or serve ten years in prison.”
Tara raised an eyebrow. Shawn’s face had gone red. “She’s right. That dude Randall will be easy to find. He isn’t the type of person who would be able to truly disappear.”
“You’d better believe this guy—he’s something when it comes to finding information,” Merrick added.
“I might just take you up on that,” Tara said. “But I don’t want to get you in trouble.”
Shawn laughed. “No trouble. It’s not like I’d be hacking into government sites again,” he said with a grin. “I wish I could take a look right now, but I have an appointment.”
They heard a vehicle approaching and the van from Mrs. Pocket’s Boarding House came around the corner. The guys stood up. “There’s our ride,” said Merrick. He looked at Tara. “Hey, did you hear this one? Hacking is like sex. You get in, you get out, and hope that you didn’t leave anything that can be traced back to you.”
Shawn cracked up. “How about this,” he said. “Failure is not an option. It comes bundled with your Microsoft Product.”
After they had left, Christy went to prepare for her afternoon session with the children. “Funny guys,” Tara said to Jules.
She smiled. “Hot, right? They both had bad PTSD, but you wouldn’t think it now.”
“Hot for sure. You been out with either of them?” PTSD. She knew that it never went away. You might look normal and act normal, but the change of mood could take over at any time. It just took one little trigger.
“Yeah. Merrick. And I think Shawn took a liking to you, too.”
Tara felt herself get red—again. The last thing she needed in her life right now was another hot male. Jared had her insides all tied up in knots already. After that kiss the other night, she knew she wanted him, but there was so much between them that still held her back.
Randall was hiding something. Could he be an accomplice? If Shawn really was as good as he said at hacking, could he find him? And also dig up something on Cassie?
Chapter 27
Jared held up two packages. “Burgers,” he said. “And fries.”
He kissed her on her cheek. His hair was still damp and combed, he had shaved, and he smelled of soap and aftershave. He looked good enough to eat, making her stomach tangle up and her breaths quicken.
She indicated a chair at the kitchen table. “Want a beer?” she asked.
“Sure.”
They were silent for a while, busy eating the food. “Oh, my God, that was wonderful,” she said as she popped the last fry into her mouth. “I didn’t realize how hungry I was.” She balled up the packaging and tossed it into the bin.
Jared did the same, and for a moment, there was one of those silences that seemed to happen when they were together. Tara gave up trying not to think about the kiss they’d shared last time they were together. She wondered if he was also thinking about it.
“Kaitlyn was here again. I took her home and met Lou. I can’t come to terms with the fact that she has no control over that kid. Something awful could happen to her. I told Timmy Bowen about it and he said no matter where Kaitlyn goes, she will always run away, so it seems and Lou and Skunk can offer her a better home than another stranger might.”
“I worry about her, too, but I don’t know what the answer is.”
“Oh, and I meant to tell you―I found someone who might be able to find Randall,” Tara said. “One of the military guys who are working with Jules.”
“Which one?”
“Shawn. The carrot top. Apparently, he was caught hacking in a major way and was given the option of using his talents to help our governme
nt or going to prison.”
“Geez. I wish I’d been given a choice like that.”
“He was about to go home when we were talking, but I’ll take him up on his offer tomorrow. Meanwhile, let’s go through the spreadsheet again. I’ll make notes if we find anything.” She opened one of the drawers and pulled out a yellow writing pad and pencil.
Jared grabbed his laptop from where he had left it on the kitchen counter and booted it up. They sat together at the kitchen table and Tara wrote Jerry Lundgren at the top of the empty page. “That was the name that idiot who tried to run me down gave. I’ve Googled it and I came up with no one who looks anything like him, but he has to be the number one suspect now. Maybe if we go through all the people in the database, we’ll recognize a physical appearance that could match his.”
Jared typed his name into the database and Tara waited while he entered what information they had about him. If only they knew his real name.
She wrote Randall Grant on the next line of the pad. When she looked up, Jared was staring at her in that hungry way. She felt herself go red. “Who else?”
“They—Moore and Evinrude—interviewed Peter Sanders. He didn’t like me because I punched him in the face when he was beating up Cathy Price, but that was almost a year before the attack.”
“Yeah. If I remember correctly, he had an airtight alibi for the time of the murders.”
“He was at work at the Sunbeam Café. Surveillance video confirmed it and so did the other workers. He would have been a good candidate—he was quite short and had dark hair.”
“Then there was Abraham Poundsley. He was an asshole, but he didn’t even know my parents. Remember?”
“Yeah. He didn’t like you.”
She smiled. “That was his own fault. I don’t feel bad at all for pulling that trick on him. He deserved it for telling Mr. Killarney on me in my ninth grade math class.”
Jared shook his head. “Remind me never to piss you off. Putting that snake into his school bag was crazy.”
She burst into a loud laugh. “A rat snake. It wouldn’t hurt him. He fell onto his back and screamed like a girl.”
Her laughter was infectious. “And he peed himself, too.”
Tears streamed from Tara’s eyes. One look at Jared and she couldn’t contain the laughter again. This is so crazy. Never in my wildest dreams would I have imagined I’d be sitting here with Jared. “He was tall and thin. Not at all like our suspect.”
“Come on,” Jared said. “Let’s move on. Zach Landrey never liked me. He was always dissing me to other people. I never found out why. But he also had an alibi—and he was blond.”
“He didn’t like the fact that I preferred you to him.” She drained her bottle.
Jared got up and opened the fridge door. “Another beer for you?” he asked, almost as if he had slipped back into those days when he was her best friend and lover.
She chuckled as he handed it to her. “Last time we had a drink together, I wasn’t old enough to drink and you were barely twenty-one.”
“Cheers,” he said and tapped her bottle with his. His gaze lingered for a few seconds. “What about that dude who invited you to the prom? Remember? I couldn’t take you ’cause I was too old. He wouldn’t take no for an answer and brought flowers here to the house for you, and your mom chased him away. What was his name?”
“Oh yeah, Roderick someone. Passmore, that was it.”
Jared looked at his computer screen. “He was staying at Mrs. P’s at the time of the murders because his parents had moved to California, and she said he had been with her watching an old fifties cowboy movie until two-thirty in the morning.”
“I haven’t thought about him for years. What an asshole. He never bothered me again, so where did he go?”
“He left Hardship when he graduated from high school. That’s all I have. He was quite short and dark-haired.”
They went through the database together until they got to the end.
“I think you’ve covered every possibility. Can you think of anyone else? Anyone at all?” Tara asked.
“No,” Jared said. “I honestly can’t. And you know I’ve had a heck of a lot of time to think about it. I can’t think how it could have been any of those dudes. We’re missing something, but what?”
“Let’s go sit on the porch. I’ll see if Shawn can spend some time on the computer and find out where all those guys are now. That would be a start, right? I especially want to know where Randall is. I’m also gonna ask him to see what he can dig up on Jerry Lundgren. He may find something on the dark web.”
“You still think you saw Cassie in his truck?” He ran his hand through his hair. The familiar gesture pulled at her.
“I know what I saw but . . . I don’t understand it. I want to ask Shawn to search for anything that could lead to Cassie.” She stood up, saw that look in his eyes. He didn’t believe she was alive.
Jared grabbed her beer along with his before she had a chance to do so.
“I love sitting out here listening to the rain on the porch’s metal roof, but the rain’s stopped and it’s so cool and fresh now—such a beautiful evening.” She slid onto the swing seat.
The last tinges of pink lit up the fluffy clouds against a pale-blue sky. Cicadas and crickets chirped and a whip-poor-will called, barely discernible above the frogs making their cacophony of sound.
“Remember how Aunt Lacey loved sitting out here?”
Jared leaned back against the low wall and stood with his legs crossed at the ankles. “I wish you had visited her more often. She was real sad about you—said she must have done something to offend you.”
Tara took a long pull at her beer. “I don’t know why. It was always so painful for me to come back and be in this house, and I had some problems—horrible nightmares—and my shrink told me it was better to stay away for a while until I could get my emotions under control.”
“Yeah. I know it’s been tough for you. It wasn’t easy for me either after all those years being locked up. You couldn’t possibly understand how it feels to be on death row, thinking you’re gonna die.”
She didn’t miss the coldness that had suddenly crept into his voice. “I still don’t know what to do with this place. Mom and Aunt Lacey worked so hard to make the Center successful, but I have a life—a home in Arizona.”
“And a boyfriend?”
“No. No boyfriends.”
“So what’s holding you there? Why can’t you move to Hardship? Is it really so bad here? Do I mean nothing to you?”
She didn’t answer.
Jared drained his beer and said, “I should go home.”
Chapter 28
Tara watched him leave. Just like that. He didn’t like her telling him she wanted to go home to Arizona. That had pissed him off. Or was it just the memories of prison that their reminiscences had invoked? Or Aunt Lacey? He cared a lot about her.
She had seen the change on his face—coldness creep into his eyes. Do I mean nothing to you?
What did he mean to her? A hot male body to engage in the pleasures of sex with? She knew with him, that would be beyond awesome, and she was almost anticipating the night would end that way. He still had it—that magnetism that pulled her toward him. So why had she told him she still wanted to leave Hardship? She stared after the taillights of his truck as it disappeared behind the trees.
She sat in the twilight and finished her beer, swinging gently, her mind playing back stilted memories of the life she had known here before everything went to shit.
Darkness had fallen by the time she stood up, stretched her stiff legs, and headed back into the kitchen, locking up the glass sliders behind her.
The blinking message light greeted her when she entered the darkened kitchen. She had forgotten to check it. She presse
d the button, still wondering why Jared had been so pissed.
“Tara-Tay, help me please.”
She stood in shocked silence for a long time. Her head throbbed and she felt shaky all over. Cassie may have been gone for ten years, but the voice was unmistakable—and she still had her Texas twang. She sounded scared and desperate. “Holy shit. Cassie really is alive.”
Chapter 29
Tara stood in the kitchen staring at the phone, her pulse racing. Afraid her shaking legs wouldn’t hold her up, she slid onto a stool, and with a trembling hand, she played the message again, and then again. Frantic, she scrolled through the recent call information, hoping against hope there would be a phone number.
“Un-fucking-known.” What should she do now? Call Deputy Tim? Detective Moore? He would know how to contact the federal agents who had handled Cassie’s case.
She called Cory.
“Cassie’s alive.”
“What? You called me at this hour to tell me that? What’s going on? You okay?”
“She called here and left a message. She’s alive, Cory.”
Cory was silent then, “Are you sure it was her? Very sure? It could have been a hoax. You know that, right?”
“Of course I’m sure. I would know her voice anywhere, and besides, she called me Tara-Tay. No one else would call me that. She needs help. We have to help her.”
“Where is she?”
“I don’t know.”
“What phone number did she call from? Have you tried calling her back?”
“Unknown. I couldn’t get it.”
Cory sighed loudly. “There’s nothing we can do now. We’ll talk in the morning. Maybe you should call the sheriff’s office or—how about those detectives in Groover?”
Tempestuous Taurus Page 11
