a lucky girl,” Kiki announced. “I’d pump you for information about him, but I’ve got to get home. JoJo needs the car.”
KiKi gave a wave and hurried off. Tara packed up her things and rushed out of the room. The health club didn’t get a lot of traffic in the warm-weather months, but the weight room was never empty. A half dozen men worked out on the machines, but Jack wasn’t among them. Neither was his pickup in the parking lot.
Tara left the club and headed toward her car at a jog, thinking about her claim that she’d seen baby photos of herself. She was in front of the pale blue two-story house where she’d grown up before she consciously knew that was where she was headed.
Bright yellow flowers that matched the shutters on the windows spilled out of pots flanking the front door. Not bothering to ring the doorbell, Tara walked in through the unlocked front door, her tennis shoes making soft thudding sounds on the weathered wood floor.
“Mom!” she called. “It’s Tara.”
Her mother appeared from the back of the house almost instantly, a finger resting against her lips. She was dressed in another of her flowing dresses, this one in pale pink. “Shh. I just this minute got Danny to sleep. He is so excited about camp tomorrow he can hardly stand it.”
“Sorry,” Tara said, but her attention was only half on what her mother had said. In the hall, pictures were everywhere. Of her sister and father, their heads close together, their smiles almost identical. Of her parents with her sister at a carnival, at a park and in front of a Christmas tree.
There were a few photos of Tara, too, but none of her as an infant or a toddler. In the images, she was either alone or with her mother. Why had Tara never noticed that there were no photos of her with her father or sister?
“Is everything okay, honey?” Her mother’s question jarred Tara back to the present. She was gazing at Tara with her forehead furrowed. “You’re so darn busy on Sundays, I usually don’t get to see your pretty face.”
“Everything is fine,” Tara said, although suddenly she wasn’t at all sure of that. She thought about coming straight out and asking her mother about Hayley Cooper, but rejected the notion. Tara couldn’t just blurt out something like that. She searched her brain for an excuse to explain why she’d stopped by. “I’m just making sure we were still carpooling tomorrow.”
“Why wouldn’t we be?” her mother asked.
“No reason,” Tara said and fell silent. What did it mean that she’d never seen a photo of herself with her father or sister? Didn’t most parents delight in having their children photographed together?
“Can I make you something to eat?” her mother asked. “Get you something to drink?”
“No, thanks. I need to go home and take a shower.” Tara started backing toward the door, then stopped. If she didn’t at least ask her mother about the photographs now, she might never screw up the courage. “Mom, can I borrow your photo albums from before we moved to Wawpaney?”
Her mother’s hand flew to her throat, a reaction that seemed out of proportion to the request. “Why ever would you want to do that?’
“I guess because I’m curious,” Tara said. Her mother continued to gape at her, compelling Tara to come up with a better explanation. “Mary Dee has her kindergartners bring in baby pictures at the start of every year. She brings in one of herself, too. She’s always asking to see one of mine.”
Her mother’s hand was still at her throat. She was so petite, it wasn’t much bigger than a child’s hand. “The school year just ended.”
“Yeah, but I thought I’d have one ready for September. And besides, I’m curious about when we lived in Charlotte. I don’t remember ever seeing those pictures.” Tara swallowed. “So, can I borrow those albums?”
Her mother’s face seemed to lose color, although Tara thought that perhaps her imagination was running rampant. She held her breath as she waited for a response.
“I’m real sorry, Tara,” her mother finally said. “I don’t have any photo albums from Charlotte.”
Tara frowned. Her heart started to thump. “Are you sure? You’re always taking photos. You even did that scrapbooking class last year.”
“I didn’t get into scrapbooking until we moved here.” Her mother’s voice sounded shaky. “All those pictures I was going to put in albums—I’m afraid they’re gone.”
“Gone?” Tara repeated, a hitch in her voice.
Her mother averted her eyes—or was that Tara’s imagination, too? “A casualty of the move. Such a shame, it was. Some of the boxes had water damage.”
Including, apparently, the very box that could have proved Tara was who she’d always believed herself to be.
“I’m sorry,” her mother said again.
Tara’s throat was so thick she could barely get the words past her lips. “That’s okay. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
She backed out of the house and into the overcast night, automatically placing one foot in front of the other.
I’m sorry, her mother had said.
Tara wondered what exactly she’d apologized for before facing a truth of her own. There was another reason she hadn’t been more persistent when questioning her mother. A stronger reason.
If Carrie Greer had abducted her, she didn’t want to know.
* * *
WHAT WAS HE GOING TO DO for the rest of the day? Jack wondered. It wasn’t a great question to be asking himself, considering it was barely past noon.
The beach where he was renting a cottage wasn’t wide enough or long enough for running, so he’d jogged along the narrow road through the maritime forest that bordered the salt marsh. He’d also performed the series of shoulder exercises the team doctor had prescribed before the Mud Dogs released him, driven into Wawpaney to buy some toiletries at the drugstore and eaten a sandwich he’d slapped together.
The local newspaper he’d bought at the convenience store lay on the butcher-block kitchen table. He picked it up, struck again by how thin it was. It wouldn’t take long to read.
With the newspaper in hand, he headed out to the porch that was just steps from the bay. The low rent on the one-bedroom cottage hadn’t made sense until he saw the collection of modest homes on either side of a mile-long street that made up the community. If the houses hadn’t been parallel to the water, there’d be nothing special about them. As the Realtor in Onancock had claimed, however, the location couldn’t be beaten.
With a narrow expanse of beach just steps from the porch, the warm, salty scent of the Chesapeake Bay in his nostrils and the sound of the lapping waves filling his ears, Jack had to admit she was right. The setting would be even more perfect on a day that wasn’t overcast.
He was about to sit down on one of the plastic Adirondack chairs when he noticed two local girls in bikinis about fifteen yards away staring at him. From their gangly figures and coltish legs, he judged them to be about thirteen or fourteen. Their heads were together and their shoulders shook
