The Truth About Tara

by Darlene Gardner

  “I’d love that,” he said.

  The next five minutes were interminable. He nodded at all the right places, but only half listened to Danny’s chatter about how he and Carrie were going to start spending a lot more time at the B and B.

  Mrs. Jorgenson finally rejoined them, waving a photo. “I think it’s sweet that you want to see what Tara used to look like. I ran across this photo just the other day when my daughter was visiting. It brought back such memories.”

  Jack clutched at his pant leg so he wouldn’t rip the photo from her hand.

  “I took this the week Tara and Carrie moved here

  in 1984,” she said. “I invited them to my daughter’s high school graduation party. Wait till you see what Tara did.”

  She presented the photo to him with a flourish. In it, a little girl stood beside a cake marred by a hand-shaped crater. Her right hand was covered in chocolate crumbs and golden-brown bangs fell into her eyes.

  He held back a gasp.

  The girl was a ringer for the three-year-old Hayley Cooper he’d seen pictured on the missing-persons website.

  “Wasn’t Tara precious?” Mrs. Jorgenson asked. “Even with that cake all over her?”

  Jack nodded mutely while his mind churned. If Tara was Hayley, it made sense that she wouldn’t want to meet his sister. It was logical that she’d dump him to keep her secret safe.

  But maybe his memory was playing tricks on him. Jack couldn’t be absolutely sure the photos were of the same girl until he compared them side by side.

  “Can I have this photo for a couple days?” Jack asked. “I promise I’ll give it back to you.”

  “Oh, yes!” Mrs. Jorgenson winked at him. “I think you must be sweet on Tara, too.”

  Shortly afterward, Jack invented an excuse about why he needed to leave. He drove straight to his beach house, booted up his computer and navigated to the missing-persons website.

  He clicked through until he had the photo of Hayley Cooper as a three-year-old on his screen. He looked down at the photo of Tara at the birthday party and then up at the one of Hayley.

  The breath left his body.

  There was no question. They were the same child.

  * * *

  JACK WAS LEANING AGAINST the outside of the fitness club when Tara left the building on Sunday evening.

  Even though she’d spent her spinning class with an uneasy feeling in the pit of her stomach, his presence came as a surprise.

  Jack straightened to his full height, managing to look impressive even in faded jeans and a T-shirt. A rush of joy shot through her. She determinedly tamped it down. Jack’s very presence meant she hadn’t done enough to drive him away.

  But how could she summon the nerve to alienate him a second time when her first attempt had been so hard on her heart?

  “Hello, Tara,” he said, stepping from the shadows into the light of a streetlamp. He was unsmiling, his handsome face more serious than she’d ever seen it.

  Her heart felt as if it would jump out of her chest. Had he figured out her secret?

  She nodded in acknowledgment, not trusting herself to speak.

  “Do you have a minute?” He pointed across the street to a city park that came alive in the daylight but looked forlorn in the darkness. “There’s a bench over there where we can sit and talk.”

  She swallowed, shoring up her defenses against him. “I don’t have anything to say to you.”

  “Then do me the courtesy of listening,” he said. “You need to hear this.”

  She couldn’t refuse him, not when he asked like that. She nodded. With a sweep of his hand he indicated that she should precede him. The side street where the fitness club was located got a fair amount of traffic during the day, but quieted down at night. It was deserted now, the only person in sight a lone man walking his spirited cocker spaniel.

  “Beautiful night,” the man remarked, as if there could be no dissenting opinion.

  Then again, the man couldn’t see the storm gathering inside Tara. She walked to the nearest bench on shaky legs she couldn’t blame on her recent spinning class and sank onto it. Clasping her hands together, she tried to look composed.

  He sat down beside her, withdrew a piece of paper from his back pocket and unfolded it. Without speaking, he handed it to her.

  Darkness had already fallen, but the night was moonlit and the bench was under a streetlamp, providing ample light for Tara to clearly see the image on the piece of paper. Dread crept up on her with icy fingers.

  She tamped down her panic. “That’s the picture of Hayley Cooper from the website.”

  “It is,” he said.

  Without another word he handed her something else—a photo this time. With her heart in her throat, she gazed down at what was indisputably the same little girl. This one was at a graduation party, her hand covered in chocolate cake.

  She felt her body sway. The rush of blood in her ears sounded loud enough that it drowned out the sound of the cocker spaniel. She tried to muster the words to convince him she wasn’t Hayley. They wouldn’t come. It would be pointless, anyway.

  Lengthy moments passed.

  “How long have you known?” he finally asked, his voice soft.

  She closed her eyes, wishing she’d never heard of Hayley. But then she’d never have met Jack.

  “Since Saturday morning.” She wouldn’t tell him about the DNA evidence, not when she didn’t know what he’d do with the information.

  “You didn’t want to meet Maria because you were afraid she’d put it together.” It was a statement, not a question. “My guess is that’s why you broke up with me, too.”

  “My mother...” She stopped, unsure how to finish the statement. She wasn’t even sure if she should be referring to Carrie Greer as her mother.

  “Have you talked to her about this?” he asked.

  “No.” She’d been dodging Carrie’s phone calls and visits, not ready to face her.

  “You must have suspected who you were, even before Saturday,” he said. “Why didn’t you just ask her?”

  Tara didn’t have to think about the answer. “I didn’t suspect before you came to town, not really, although maybe I should have. Carrie’s loving and kind. But all my life I’ve been dreaming of this cruel woman who yells at me and shakes me. If that woman is my real mother, I guess I didn’t want to know.”

  He nodded slowly, as though he could relate. And maybe he could. Earlier this morning she’d accused Jack of not wanting to face the truth about his shoulder injury.

  She took a ragged breath. “All those things I said to you this morning—”

  “We don’t have to talk about that now,” he interrupted. “You have something more important to do.”

  She didn’t pretend to misunderstand him, although she could barely breathe at the prospect. “I have to talk to my mother.”

  She’d done it again. She’d called Carrie her mother.

  “Would you like me to go with you?” he asked.

  She shook her head. “This is something I have to do for myself. I do have a favor to ask, though.”

  “Name it,” he said.

  “Don’t do anything until I talk to her.” She held her breath as she waited for his answer. She was asking a lot of him. He knew of a terrible crime that had been committed, one his sister was trying to solve.

  “You’ve got it,” he said.

  * * *

  CARRIE STARED AT THE images on the television screen, aware that the actors were speaking, but not processing their dialogue. She’d switched on the program after Gustavo and Susie had left and she’d put Danny to bed, because she was afraid to be alone with her thoughts.

  The distraction wasn’t working.

  Canned laughter erupted from the television. Carrie couldn’t even say for sure which sitcom was playing.

  She felt a tear drip down her face and then another and another. For twenty-eight years she’d managed to be happy and not think about what she’d done. Now
that she’d admitted her transgression to Gustavo, she could think of nothing else.

  Somehow she needed to make things right with Tara. However, Tara was avoiding her, almost as though her daughter was aware of Carrie’s misdeed and deemed it unforgivable.

  More tears fell until Carrie was crying in earnest.

  What if, once she knew the whole truth, Tara never forgave her?

  “Mom? What’s wrong?”

  As though Carrie had conjured her up, Tara stood by her recliner in her workout clothes. She must have come from one of her exercise classes.

  Carrie composed herself and wiped at the tears on her face with her hand. “Don’t mind me. Everything’s just fine.”

  Tara didn’t look convinced. “The door was open. I called, but didn’t get an answer.”

  “I must not have heard you over that darn TV.” Carrie switched it off, plunging the room into silence. She tried to smile and didn’t succeed. “I’ve been trying to track you down since yesterday.”

  “I know.” Tara seemed about to say something else, then lapsed into an uncharacteristic silence.

  The first few months Tara had lived with Carrie, she’d been shy and withdrawn. That hadn’t lasted long. Once Tara became accustomed to her new situation, she’d blossomed. By the first or second grade, Tara had had trouble with the concept of not speaking until she was called upon. Carrie even used to have to shush her in church.

  Carrie took a deep breath, trying to fortify herself with courage. It was in short supply. However, she had to do this. “I have something I need to get off my chest.”

  “Me, first.” Tara narrowed her eyes and set her features, a determined look Carrie had seen hundreds of times during Tara’s childhood. She perched on the edge of the sturdy coffee table directly across from Carrie. “I know you’re not my mother.”

  Carrie closed her eyes. She felt her lips tremble. She hadn’t envisioned the moment unfolding this way. She was supposed to break the news to Tara.

  “How?” she asked, her throat feeling parched.

  “I didn’t tell you the whole story about how I met Jack,” she said. “His sister Maria’s a private investigator.”

  Carrie’s heart constricted. Even though she knew about Jack’s sister, she’d convinced herself she had nothing to worry about. This was her worst nightmare come to life. She’d never imagined anybody would come looking for Tara.

  “Hayley Cooper’s mother hired her,” Tara said, answering Carrie’s unspoken question.

  The statement didn’t compute. “Who’s Hayley Cooper?”

  Tara’s mouth twisted. “I am.”

  Carrie shook her head. “No. Your name was Tina Freeman.”

  “Freeman? Isn’t that your maiden name?”

  “That’s right.” Carrie nodded. Her shoulders rose and fell with her deep breath. “I’m not your mama. I’m your aunt.”

  “I don’t understand,” Tara said.

  Carrie leaned forward, desperate to tell her side of the story now that she was finally coming clean. “You’ve heard me talk about my sister, Jenny, right?”

  “The one who overdosed when I was a kid?”

  “Yes. What you don’t know is I tracked down Jenny after Scott and Sunny died. We hadn’t talked in years, but I could barely deal with the grief.” Carrie remembered how vulnerable she’d been, how desperate she was for support. “I begged her to come visit me. When she did, she had you with her.”

  Tara shook her head, as though the story didn’t add up. It was a lot to take in. Carrie needed to tell Tara the rest for it to make sense.

  “Jenny and I were so out of touch, I no idea she had a child. Jenny said she didn’t know who your daddy was.” Carrie almost smiled, recalling the way her heart had swelled when Tara came into her life. “You were such a sweet, quiet little girl. I fell in love at first sight.”

  Tara was still shaking her head. “You thought your sister was my mother?”

  “Jenny was your mother,” Carrie said. “But she was sick, an addict. She was high when she showed up with you. She really didn’t understand what she was doing—as a mother—and she knew it.” Carrie cleared her throat. “I never did see her alive again.”

  Tara’s face had gone deathly pale. She reached into the athletic bag she had with her, pulled out a photograph that looked as if it had been crumpled and handed it to Carrie.

  “I found this in the rolltop desk,” Tara said. “Is that woman your sister, Jenny?”

  “Yes,” Carrie said. “That’s Jenny.”

  Tara covered her face with both hands. “Oh, no.”

  “I know it’s a lot to take in,” Carrie said, aching as much as Tara, “but there’s more. Understand, I already loved you. I was so darn afraid someone would take you away from me that, well, I didn’t do things by the letter.”

  Tara took her hands from her face. “What does that mean?”

  This was the worst part, perhaps the unforgivable part. She had to tell Tara, though. She had to tell her everything.

  “I started calling you Tara and moved with you here to Wawpaney because it’s off the beaten track. I changed your age, too. From three to four.” Carrie took a deep breath. Unshed tears pricked at the backs of her eyes. “I did it so I could use Sunny’s birth certificate to get a social security number for you. Her given name was Tara. I know it was terrible. But we never did call her Tara, always Sunny. Please believe me that I never tried to pretend you were her. I knew she was gone. But you were alive.”

  “So you thought for all these years that I was your niece?” Tara asked, an odd note in her voice. “You’ve actually never heard of Hayley Cooper?”

  A chill ran from Carrie’s head to her feet. Tara had mentioned that name when the conversation began. “Why do you keep asking me about her?”

  Tara didn’t answer for a long while. Carrie could hear the tick of the wall clock and the beat of her racing heart.

  “Hayley Cooper was abducted from a shopping mall in Kentucky when she was three years old,” Tara said. “I’m pretty sure your sister abducted her. I’m Hayley Cooper.”

  * * *

  TARA LEANED BACK IN THE uncomfortable plastic chair on the screen porch of Jack’s beach house, gazing out at the beautiful morning.

  The bright sun shone out of a cloudless azure sky and the gentle waves of the Chesapeake Bay lapped at the shore. Gulls soared through the air and the wind gently whistled.

  Everything seemed perfectly in order—ironic considering that for Tara nothing would ever be the same again.

  After she’d phoned Jack last night and told him the whole story, she’d slept in the bedroom that had been hers as a child. Carrie had been so upset once they’d pieced together what must have happened that Tara hadn’t wanted to leave her. Carrie was especially distraught that her sister had mistreated Tara and caused those years of nightmares.

  It had been difficult leaving Carrie this morning, too, but Tara had something she needed to say to Jack. Something that couldn’t wait.

  She spotted him in the distance slowing from a run to a walk, and a wave of intense feeling swept through her. He balanced his hands on his hips, his head slightly bowed. She imagined he was catching his breath.

  She loved the way he moved, with the casual grace of an athlete. His injured shoulder, however, seemed to dip. He walked a bit longer. When he was roughly even with the house, he stripped off his shirt, bent and slipped off his shoes and socks. Then he turned and headed into the bay, diving into the water when it was waist-deep.

  His dark head emerged in seconds. She expected him to cut through the water with powerful strokes, but he immediately headed for shore. Again it seemed to her that he was holding one of his shoulders lower than the other.

  He picked up his shirt and shoes and headed through the sand to the house, his steps faltering when he was almost to the porch. He raised a hand in greeting. Her heartbeat accelerated, emotion rising in her like high tide. She waved back and waited.

  “He
y,” he said, talking as he came through the screen door. “I didn’t expect to see you here. I was about to take a shower and go to your house.”

  He reached for a beach towel that was draped over the second plastic chair and dried off. Her throat was dry, she wasn’t sure whether it was from nerves or how very good he looked. She cleared it.

  “I came to apologize in person,” she said.

  He paused in the act of drying his hair. “You don’t have anything to be sorry for.”

  “Yes, I do,” she said. “I said some terrible things to you.”

  “Not so terrible,” he said. “Some of them, like what you said about me never pitching in the majors again, were true.”

  She scooted forward in the chair. “What? I thought you didn’t accept that. Did something happen to change your mind?”

  “You happened,” he said.

  Tara felt sick to her stomach. She couldn’t bear to be the one to wreck his dreams. “What if I was wrong?”

  “You’re not wrong,” he said. “I threw some pitches yesterday afternoon. I’m not close to the level I once was. I have to accept that I never will be.”

  “I’m sorry.” She shook her head. “I’m sorry about so many things.”

  “You’ve been under a lot of stress,” he said.

  “Not as much stress as my mother is under now.” Tara took a ragged breath. Their phone conversation last night had been brief, focusing on what had happened in the past and not the consequences that would result in the future. “What did your sister say when you told her you’d found Hayley?”

  He cocked his head. “I didn’t tell my sister.”

  “You mean you haven’t told your sister yet.” She’d requested he wait to take action until she’d spoken to her mother, and that time had passed.

  “I meant I’m not going to tell her at all,” he said. “Your aunt was the truly guilty party and she’s dead.”

  He was right. Jenny Freeman had abducted Tara and treated her cruelly, although they’d never know why. “While your mom shouldn’t have done what she did,” Jack continued, “from what you told me, she really thought you were her niece.”

  “But...but...” Tara stopped, trying to get her thoughts in order. “But you can help your sister solve the case.”