The Truth About Tara

by Darlene Gardner

  “It’s about when you and your mother moved here to Wawpaney,” Mrs. Jorgenson said. “I told you it was 1983.”

  Tara nodded, remembering the elation that had coursed through her when the elderly woman verified that fact, which proved Tara couldn’t be Hayley Cooper.

  “Well, that’s what I got wrong.” Mrs. Jorgenson smiled as she talked, as though she weren’t about to turn Tara’s world upside down. “It was 1984.”

  The year Hayley had been kidnapped.

  The meager breakfast Tara had eaten rose in her stomach as though she was going to be physically ill. She swallowed, telling herself she was overreacting. Mrs. Jorgenson didn’t seem really sure of her dates. The elderly woman could just as likely be wrong about this date as the other.

  “It was a long time ago,” Tara said. “I don’t see how you can be sure.”

  “Oh, I’m positive,” she said, still beaming. “My daughter graduated from high school in 1984. We had a big party and you and your mother were there.”

  “That doesn’t mean we didn’t move to Wawpaney in 1983,” Tara said, which was a perfectly logical statement.

  “You didn’t move to Wawpaney in 1983.” Mrs. Jorgenson clasped her hands together, looking proud of herself. “You and your mother moved in the week of the party.”

  Don’t panic, Tara told herself. Not yet. “You remembered all that between yesterday and today?”

  “I didn’t remember,” Mrs. Jorgenson said. “My daughter did. She was visiting yesterday afternoon and asked about you. She didn’t always like you, but she said she’s developed a soft spot for you over the years.”

  Tara was almost afraid to ask the obvious question. “Why didn’t she like me?”

  Mrs. Jorgenson laughed. “Because of something that happened at her party. I’ll tell you this. Lizzie wasn’t too happy with me for inviting you and your mother, especially because you were like strangers to her.”

  Tara wasn’t sure whether she was frustrated or glad that Mrs. Jorgenson had a rambling way of getting to the point. It flashed through her mind that she’d be better off without hearing what the other woman had to say.

  “Don’t you want to know what happened at the party?” Mrs. Jorgenson didn’t wait for her to respond. “It wasn’t funny then, but it certainly is now. I don’t know how I could have forgotten it. Lizzie certainly never did. You stuck your hand in her graduation cake!”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  LATER THAT WEDNESDAY, Carrie edged her chair closer to a table covered in brown paper, within reach of a mallet, a knife and a roll of paper towels. Good thing she’d looked out the window and glimpsed Gustavo coming to pick her up dressed in jeans and a casual shirt. The little black dress she’d changed out of was not the best choice for a meal eaten with fingers.

  “I hope it’s okay that I brought you to a crab house,” Gustavo said. Painted on the wall behind him was a cartoon image of a crab. Carrie didn’t have a clue how the man managed to look so handsome with that image as a backdrop. “I love these places.”

  Carrie usually did, too. She couldn’t say for sure why she’d had a vague sense of disappointment when she’d discovered where they were going.

  “I can see why.” Carrie eyed the plate of blue crabs in the middle of the table that Gustavo had ordered for them to share. “What could be better than crabs when you’re on the Eastern Shore?”

  Champagne. Caviar. Duck à l’orange. The answers popped into her head one after the other.

  “Now you’re talking.” Gustavo grinned and plucked a crab from the plate. He twisted off the claws and legs, then flipped the crab to reveal its underside. In seconds he’d removed the shell and the gills and snapped the crab body in half. He pulled out some meat with his fingers, put it into his mouth and chewed. “Mmm. Heavenly.”

  His enjoyment made up for their casual surroundings and a clientele that included families and one very noisy group that was celebrating a birthday. Carrie knew that because the guest of honor, who was probably in his sixties, was wearing a paper party hat. Oh, well. She shouldn’t have expected candlelight and a table with a view of the water, anyway.

  “Didn’t you say you were from Baltimore?” Carrie reached for her own crab. “The way you’re acting, I’d swear you hadn’t had crab in forever.”

  He paused in the act of extracting more crabmeat. “Not crab I’ve cracked myself. Usually when I go out, Susie’s with me. Crab houses frustrate her.”

  Carrie nodded, understanding without explanation that most children with Down syndrome had poor manual dexterity. Danny certainly did. He’d never have the patience to extract his own crab meat.

  “Not much frustrates that girl,” Carrie said. “She’s always the first one to give me a holler when it’s time to try something new.”

  This afternoon, the new experience had been the maracas Tara had used in a musical activity. Susie was the first to grab one. She shook hers with gusto, giggling in delight. Before long, all the children had followed suit. Even Danny.

  “I’m impressed, too. I love her so much.” He grinned at her. “But I’m glad we didn’t have to bring her along tonight. I owe Jack.”

  Gustavo’s babysitter had canceled at the last minute. When Jack found out, he’d offered to watch Susie, too, if Gustavo brought her over to Carrie’s house.

  “Jack’s a fine young man,” Carrie said.

  “It took me a while before I figured out where I’d heard his name before,” Gustavo said. “Turns out I was at the game where he broke his collarbone. It was last year, when the Stars were playing in Baltimore.”

  “That sure is a coincidence,” Carrie said, shaking her head. “But what’s this about Jack breaking a collarbone? I thought his problems were with his shoulder.”

  “He has injury problems is how I understand it,” Gustavo said. “It’s too bad.”

  “Jack sure seems motivated to pitch again.” She dug some crab out of a shell with her fingers. “Let me ask you something, Gustavo. Did you notice anything going on between Jack and Tara today?”

  He didn’t answer until he’d finished chewing a mouthful of crab. “Like what?’

  “Oh, I don’t know,” Carrie hedged. “I thought Tara had been more cordial to him until today.”

  “Sounds like you want them to get together,” Gustavo said.

  “I sure do.” Carrie sighed. “Sometimes I think it’s my fault Tara’s thirty-two and still single.”

  He stopped picking the crab and directed all his attention her way. Even in the crowded room, he made her feel as if she was the only one present. “How could it be your fault?”

  “Tara’s always been so particular,” she said. “That’s a real problem when you live on the road less traveled like we do. There aren’t very many eligible men here who are the right age to begin with.”

  “I don’t see how it’s your fault that she’s picky.”

  “I worry she won’t settle for anything less than what I had with Scott,” Carrie said. “Once I met him, that was it for me.”

  “How old were you?”

  “Seventeen. He was, too.” She shook her head. “It seemed like we’d have forever together. It turned out we only had seven years.”

  “Must have been seven good years,” Gustavo said.

  “Not all of them.” Carrie pursed her lips. “Wow, I can’t believe I just admitted that. But it’s plain true. We broke up and got back together a half dozen times, both before and after we got married.”

  “My marriage was the opposite. Sometimes I think Victoria and I got married because it was expected of us,” he said. “We never argued, not even after we had Susie. By then, I knew what kind of person Victoria was. It wasn’t as though anything I said would change her.”

  “Scott and I went at it all the time,” Carrie said. “I used to wish we didn’t argue so much. But as low as our lows were, our highs were pretty darn high.”

  “Is that why you don’t think you’ll fall in love again?”

&nb
sp; “I won’t,” she said. “I’ve accepted I’ll only ever love one man.”

  “Even though he died almost thirty years ago?”

  Carrie pursed her lips. “Who told you how long ago it was?”

  “Tara. She told me Sunny was gone, too.” He didn’t look upset that she’d led him to believe Sunny was alive, only puzzled. “Why didn’t you want me to know?”

  It was easier to pretend he was only asking her about Scott. “I don’t like to have to explain why I don’t date.”

  “You mean because most men would think it was time to move on after thirty years?” Gustavo asked.

  “Exactly,” Carrie said. “It’s darn near impossible for them to understand I don’t need another man in my life.”

  “Fair enough.” Gustavo regarded her for long moments. “I can accept that as long as you don’t set your feet in stone. One of these days you might feel differently.”

  “I won’t,” she said quickly.

  “I don’t know about that,” he said. “Life is full of surprises. Look at Jack and Tara. They’d never have met if his sister wasn’t a private investigator.”

  “Jack’s sister is a private eye?” Carrie asked. Why hadn’t she known that?

  “Yeah,” Gus said. “He mentioned it in passing the other day. He wouldn’t have stopped in Wawpaney if he hadn’t been checking out a lead for her.”

  Carrie felt the blood rush to her head and heard the pulsing sound of her heartbeat in her ears. She forced herself to calm down. This was paranoia at work. Years had passed with no hint of anyone suspecting what she’d done.

  “What kind of lead?” She was amazed that her voice was steady.

  “I’m not sure,” Gus said. “I just know it didn’t pan out.”

  Carrie schooled her features. Her heartbeat returned to normal. She’d overreacted, just as she suspected. There was no reason to believe anyone would come after her, not after all this time. Besides, Gustavo said the lead had gone nowhere. Carrie had absolutely nothing to worry about.

  Gustavo went back to eating his crab, taking time out between bites to charm her with stories about life with Susie and the cats he’d inherited from his grandmother along with the B and B.

  She wondered what Gustavo would think of her if he knew her secret, then she shoved that out of her mind, too.

  Nobody would ever know.

  * * *

  SWEAT DAMPENED TARA’S brow and dripped down the vee of her Dri-Fit shirt on Wednesday night. Her heart beat too fast even now, after the cool-down and stretching portion of the spinning class. For the moment, her mind was mercifully empty. She clapped. “Great class today,” she said. “You ladies worked really hard.”

  Kiki, her most die-hard pupil, slumped over her bike, her chest heaving, the hair around her face dampened with sweat so it appeared a darker shade of blond. “I don’t think I can stand up.”

  “Me, either.”

  “My legs don’t just feel like jelly. They’ve turned into jelly!”

  Some of the other women chimed in with their thoughts. Since there had been only eight women present tonight, Tara was starting to think she might have gone overboard.

  She took a step and almost collapsed. Yeah, she’d definitely overdone it. The upshot was that exercising had only temporarily helped her mental state. Now that the class was over, she was once again consumed with the possibility she might be Hayley Cooper. She locked her knees, waiting for her legs to regain their strength.

  The women stretched, then started gathering their things. Kiki walked up to Tara without the usual bounce in her step. “What was with you tonight, Tar? I thought I was gonna die.”

  Tara had to pause and process what Kiki had said. She needed to do a better job of focusing on the here and now rather than what might have happened in the past. “I doubt that. You’re nineteen years old and in the best shape of anybody in the class.”

  “And you’re avoiding the question. What’s going on with you?” Kiki narrowed her eyes, then snapped her fingers and pointed at Tara. “You’re having guy trouble, aren’t you?”

  Tara wasn’t sure how to answer. If Jack had never set foot in Wawpaney, she’d never have known about Hayley Cooper. Did hiding her suspicion from him that she was the abducted girl constitute guy trouble?

  “You are!” Kiki cried. “I’m an expert at recognizing the signs, and you’ve got ’em, girl. Dark circles under your eyes. Frown lines on your forehead.”

  “Maybe I have dark circles because I stayed up most of the night having sex,” Tara said, hoping to shock the younger woman. She should have known better.

  “Then what’s with the frown lines and the exercising to exhaustion?” Kiki asked. “Hello? A lot of sex is a good thing.”

  Tara cracked a smile for the first time since discovering she’d been the most memorable guest at Mrs. Jorgenson’s daughter’s graduation party. In 1984, not 1983. “You make it sound so simple.”

  “It is simple,” Kiki said. “Give yourself permission to enjoy yourself. No reason for things to get heavy. It’s not like you have to marry the guy.”

  “Tara’s getting married?” Art Goodnight appeared behind them. Tara hadn’t even noticed him enter the room where they held the spinning classes. “To who?”

  “I’m not marrying anybody.” Tara figured she might as well explain so she wouldn’t have to field more questions. “Kiki was just saying you don’t have to marry someone just because you’re dating them.”

  “Absolutely right.” Kiki picked up her empty water bottle and gave a fluttering wave. “See you next class, Tara.”

  “I wish your mom thought like that. I’ve been trying to get her to go out with me for years,” he said. “Every time I ask, she tells me she doesn’t date.”

  So that was the reason Art had sought her out. He was fishing for information about her mother, the woman who may have taken Tara from a shopping mall when she was three years old. Tara’s stomach pitched and rolled.

  “Any chance you know if that’s still true?” Art asked.

  Tara brought her mind back to the conversation. She supposed there was no reason not to tell him what he wanted to know. “My mother’s out with Gus Miller tonight.”

  Art swore under his breath. “Then they are dating. I half thought she and that flamenco guy were pulling my leg.”

  “Doesn’t seem that way.”

  “Let me know if they break up,” Art said. “It’s the least you can do for your old volleyball coach.”

  Tara reached down and grabbed her gym bag, almost desperate to get away from him in order to have some time alone to think. Except it was also crucial that she act normally and not let anyone know what was going on inside her head.

  “You mean the guy who’s been telling Jack DiMarco stories about me?” she asked, making her voice light. “That coach?”

  “Hey, Jack asked about you,” Art said, the words sending a chill up Tara’s spine. She reminded herself that Jack didn’t suspect anything. “If you want, I’ll tell you stories about Jack.”

  On another day, Tara would have laughed at his response. Despite his faults, which included having a

  really big mouth, Art wasn’t a bad guy.

  “I already know Jack is rehabbing his shoulder so he can pitch in the majors again,” Tara said.

  “He told you that?” Art shook his head. “Guess he must still believe it.”

  Tara stopped thinking about herself. “What do you mean?”

  “Jack will never pitch in the big leagues again,” Art said. “He’s got too much damage to his pitching shoulder.”

  A few minutes later Tara walked to her car as though in a trance, her mind ping-ponging between her own predicament and Jack’s. If she hadn’t been distracted, she would have picked up the impossibility of Jack’s situation before now. She’d witnessed the pain his shoulder was causing him and heard about how the doctors had said another surgery wouldn’t help. Why, then, did he persist in believing he could again reach the very
best level of baseball?

  She settled into the driver’s seat, jumping at a noise that shattered the quiet. She groaned when she realized it was only the text tone on her cell phone. She picked up the phone. The message was from Jack. Her heart gave a happy leap. She clicked through and opened it.

  Help! Your mom and Gus went to bingo after dinner. Kids wearing me out.

  She sat in the darkening twilight staring at the text, wishing she could control how she felt about him. At camp this afternoon she’d made a halfhearted attempt to put distance between them. He’d wrecked her already weak resolve when he’d taken her aside and whispered he could keep what was between them a secret as long as she liked.

  She wanted to confide in him then and there, but she couldn’t risk it, not with his sister investigating the Hayley Cooper case. Besides, discovering she and her mother had moved to the Eastern Shore in 1984 wasn’t definitive proof of anything.

  Tara put the key in the ignition and started her car, her destination clear. She would have headed over to her mother’s tonight even if Jack hadn’t sent the text, if only to distract him from noticing there were no photos of herself as a young child in the house.

  Jack had given her no reason to believe he suspected she was anyone other than Tara Greer, which was probably who she was. Even now she’d put her chances at better than even that Carrie hadn’t abducted her. But what if she had? And what if the woman in Tara’s nightmares was real?

  She took a deep breath. She couldn’t avoid Jack, not when she saw him every day. Two days of camp remained, including Friday’s field trip to Chincoteague Island that they were both chaperoning.

  It went without saying that she needed to maintain a working relationship with Jack. The wild card was whether she could continue to be as close to him as she craved to be.

  Before she pulled out of the parking space, she opened a message prompt on her cell phone and typed, On my way.

  Although she had no clue what she’d do or say when she got there.

  * * *

  YELLOW LIGHTS FLASHED low to the ground in Carrie Greer’s backyard, giving away the ever-changing location of the fireflies that had emerged at dusk.