The Truth About Tara

“Is the father on board with the search?”

“Interesting that you ask. She didn’t tell him she was hiring me. Apparently their marriage barely survived the tragedy the first time.”

Jack felt for the couple, but their plight didn’t concern him now that he’d eliminated the pretty Wawpaney Elementary schoolteacher as a victim. He had pressing problems of his own.

“Wait a minute,” Maria said abruptly. “How did we start talking about the case? I wasn’t through asking about you.”

“Some other time,” he said. “I came outside the diner to talk to you. My food’s probably ready by now.”

“At least you’re eating,” she said.

“Bye, Maria.” He ended the call and was back at the counter at about the same time the waitress arrived with his Southern breakfast. The paper with the age-progression

photo was still in his right hand. He set it on the counter.

“Here you go.” The waitress placed a plate of steaming food in front of him. She started to walk away, then paused, a curious expression on her face. She pointed to the paper. He’d refolded it so that the top half of the woman’s

face was visible. “Is that Tara Greer?”

The waitress didn’t wait for his answer. She picked up the paper, shook it out and stared down at it. “Why, yes, it is. Why do you have a drawing of Tara?”

The anonymous person who’d given Jack’s sister the tip hadn’t provided the name of the woman who looked like Hayley Cooper, only the information that she taught physical education at Wawpaney Elementary. Jack probably should have thought to ask the woman he’d stopped her name. If he didn’t follow up on the waitress’s remark, his sister might disown him.

“Tara’s the teacher who works at Wawpaney Elementary, right?” he asked.

“That’s right,” the waitress said. “She teaches PE.”

At least he’d stopped the right woman, although even he could deduce she was a PE teacher from her shorts and Wawpaney Elementary T-shirt. The athletic clothes called attention to her toned arms and legs and the general glow of health surrounding her. He’d thought she looked fantastic.

Jack nodded at the sketch. “That isn’t Tara.”

The waitress took another look before she put the paper back down. “I’m a little farsighted, but that sure looks like her to me.”

Jack thought of all the other false leads that his sister was chasing down. “Turns out lots of people look like this woman.”

The waitress tilted her head. “Is that the reason you’re on the Eastern Shore? Because you’re searching for the woman in the photo?”

“Not even close.” Jack folded the paper and put it back into his pocket. The waitress regarded him expectantly, waiting for him to expand on his reply.

It wouldn’t hurt to tell her at least part of the truth, Jack thought.

He dredged up his favorite line from the inspirational poem he’d hung in his locker after his first shoulder surgery, the one about sticking to the fight when you’re hardest hit.

“I’m here because I still believe in myself,” he said.

The orthopedist in Owensboro had written him off, but Jack hadn’t lasted almost ten years in the minor leagues by giving up when the going got tough.

Quitting had never been an option before.

It wasn’t now, either.

* * *

LAUGHTER AND EXUBERANT shouts rang out from the field adjacent to Wawpaney Elementary. Sixteen kindergartners, eight to a side, swarmed around the soccer ball. Tara referred to the phenomenon as the clump. No matter how many times she explained spacing to the children, they abandoned the knowledge in favor of running to where the action was.

Tara watched from the sideline, leaving the whistle hanging from the lanyard around her neck. With summer vacation only hours away, she decided in favor of fun and exercise over the fine points of playing soccer. She opted against telling them to tone it down, too. They probably wouldn’t be able to, anyway.

Especially Bryan, who did everything with gusto. He was only five, just a few years older than Hayley Cooper had been when she’d been snatched from the mall, yet he had a stronger personality than most adults.

All of the children were distinct.

Dwayne could run faster than his classmates. Ashley was more interested in the flight of a shorebird than the game. Jorge was half a head shorter than everybody else but made up for it by trying the hardest.

Observing the children made what the stranger had suggested this morning even more preposterous. Surely any one of her students would know if they’d been taken against their will from a shopping mall only two short years before. They’d know if their mother wasn’t really their mother—even if, like Tara, they’d never seen a baby photo of themselves.

“Tara!” Mary Dee Larson, the kindergarten teacher who was Tara’s best friend on the staff, approached from the direction of the sprawling brick school. She wasn’t any taller than five foot two, but her short, quick steps ate up the ground. Tara had avoided her since earlier that morning when Mary Dee alerted her that she expected to get the scoop on the hot guy she’d seen Tara talking to. Mary Dee wouldn’t interrupt Tara’s PE class to talk men, though. She wouldn’t be walking so fast, either.

“Your mom’s waiting for you in the school office.” Mary Dee was slightly out of breath, concern pinching her sharp features. “She says it’s an emergency.”

Tara’s heart sped up. Her mother called and left urgent messages at least once or twice a week. However, she rarely stopped by the school. “Did she say what kind of emergency?”

Mary Dee shook her head, rustling her silky black hair. “I didn’t ask. I just volunteered to come get you and keep an eye on your class.”

“Thanks.” Tara took off at a jog, her head emptying of the questions about her childhood she’d intended to ask her mother. They seemed unimportant now.

She burst through the double doors and hurried along the wide empty hall, the soles of her tennis shoes squeaking on the tile floor. A colorful Enjoy Your Summer! banner hung on the wall outside the office. Beside it stood Tara’s mother.

She was dressed in the same flowing print dress she’d worn that morning to her job at the bakery. With flyaway long blond hair she couldn’t manage to tame, her mom never looked quite pulled together. She seemed even less so now, with her lipstick worn off and her hands fluttering.

“Tara, honey!” Her mother rushed forward to meet Tara, the skirt of her dress flowing behind her. Though she’d spoken only two words, her North Carolina drawl came through loud and clear. In her wedged sandals, she was still a good four inches shorter than Tara. “I know you’re busy, but I just had to come on over here and see you.”

Her mom seemed physically fine, eliminating one of Tara’s worries. On the heels of it came another.

“Did something happen to Danny?” Tara asked, referring to the ten-year-old who was her mother’s latest foster child. Her mom had hooked up with the program the same year Tara went off to college, which was already a dozen years ago.

“Why ever would you think something like that?” Her mother sounded truly stumped. “Danny’s fine as can be.”

Tara felt her pulse rate slow down. “Then what is it?”

Her mother tapped her index finger against her lips, the way she did when she was thinking about how to phrase something. What would Mom consider an emergency? Tara wondered.

“Wait a minute. Why aren’t you at work?”

“Would you believe Mr. Calvert said no when I asked for time off this summer to be around for Danny?” her mother asked, her tone conversational. “What could I do but quit?”

Tara let out a surprised, involuntary breath. “But you loved that job.”

“I liked it,” her mother corrected. “I never will put work before family. Danny needs me, the same way you did when you were younger.”

While Tara was growing up, her mother had switched jobs as often as some women changed hairstyles. Her mom had once walked away from the reception desk of a dental office because she couldn’t get permission to leave early to attend Tara’s high school volleyball game. Another time she’d quit her job at the grocery store to go on a school field trip to the National Wildlife Refuge.

Tara swallowed a sigh. “I wish you’d talked it over with me first. I already told you I could help out with Danny this summer.”

“Then what I did wasn’t so awful, now was it?” Her mother grabbed Tara’s upper arm and squeezed. Finally, Tara thought. Her mother was ready to reveal the reason she’d come to the school. “It’s about that summer day camp where I want to send Danny.”

“The one in Cape Charles that’s just starting out?”

“That’s the one.” Her mother clapped her hands. “I volunteered to help and got a break on Danny’s tuition!”

Tara would bet anything there was more to the story. If all her mother had to report was good news, she would have waited until Tara arrived home from school.

“What aren’t you telling me?” Tara asked.

Her mom sucked in a breath through her teeth. “I volunteered you, too.”

“You what?”

“Before you say anything else, hear me out.” Her mother talked so fast her words tripped over each other. “You know how hard it is to find a camp for children like Danny. This one’s a gift from God, being that it’s new and fifteen miles away in Cape Charles. There are only ten children signed up, but they still need lots of volunteer counselors. With your background, why, you’re perfect. So I filled out the paperwork for both of us.”

Tara could have predicted the next answer, but asked the question, anyway. “When is this camp?”

“It starts Monday and goes for two weeks. But you don’t have to be there all day, every day.” Her mother worried her bottom lip with her teeth. “Orientation’s at seven o’clock tonight. Now you see why I had to rush on over here and tell you?”

Tara sighed. “You could have told me before today.”

“I know, honey. I should have,” her mom said. “I was so excited for Danny when I heard about the camp that I didn’t think. And you will be able to get time off here and there to do all those other things you do.”

Tara worked at some businesses in the summer on an as-needed basis to help out friends and keep busy, but in order to volunteer at the camp she’d have to cancel the kayaking trip she’d impulsively booked. But then, Tara hadn’t shared her plans with her mother yet.

“Oh, please, Tara.” Her mother laid a hand on Tara’s arm. “Say you’re not mad.”

Tara should have been more irritated than she was. She might have been if the trip had excited her more. But the bottom line was that her mom’s kind heart was in the right place.

“How can I be angry?” Tara asked. “Like you said, you’re only thinking of Danny.”

Her mom’s lips curved upward, relief evident in her smile. She touched Tara’s hand, her blue eyes sparkling. “I am so darn lucky to have a daughter as wonderful as you.”

Tara was the one who was lucky.

After losing her husband and her oldest child when Tara was a baby, her mom had showered all her love and attention on Tara.

Not for a single second of her childhood had Tara doubted she was loved. Mom had been there every step of the way: volunteering to be homeroom mother, sitting in the stands at her athletic events, chairing the all-night grad party committee, chaperoning the prom.

And because a handsome stranger had spun a wild tale, Tara had been prepared to ask her mother for proof that they belonged together.

So what if beneath the hair dye Tara’s natural color was the same golden-brown as Hayley Cooper’s would be? And there could be plenty of explanations for why Tara had never seen baby photos of herself.

As for the flashes Tara sometimes got of a woman shaking her and yelling that she should stop crying, the woman could be anybody. Or nobody. Maybe she was simply the stuff of nightmares.

“I love you, too, Mom,” Tara said.

Her mother beamed and ran a gentle hand over Tara’s cheek the way she’d done so many times before.

You don’t want to believe your mother could have abducted a child, a little voice inside Tara’s head insisted.

True enough.

It was a moot point. As far as Tara was concerned, the absurd matter was closed.

The only person who had ever raised the possibility that Tara hadn’t been born a Greer was a stranger passing through town. When Jack DiMarco left Wawpaney, he’d taken the question with him.

CHAPTER TWO

TANGIER ISLAND WAS A THROWBACK, a tiny slice of land in the Chesapeake Bay with nothing near it but crab shanties on stilts and miles of water. The teacher in Wawpaney who looked so much like the age progression of Hayley Cooper seemed very far away. So did civilization as Jack had come to know it. If not for the tour guides who greeted the ferry from Onancock, Jack imagined Tangier hadn’t changed much in hundreds of years. The guides stood in front of golf carts, which according to the ferry captain was the main method of transportation on the island aside from walking. The boat had been about a third full, which apparently was typical for a weekday before summer kicked in. The other passengers, all of them dragging suitcases, went directly to carts. Jack hung back.

“Ten dollars for a tour of the island,” a short middle-aged woman, wearing a straw hat, called to Jack. She had the same formal English accent as the ferry captain, which supposedly didn’t sound much different than the way Tangier residents had spoken in the 1600s.

“How much to take me to the Marsh Harbor B and B?” Jack asked.

“The same.” The woman smiled at him, revealing a gold front tooth. She swept a hand toward her golf cart.

Why not? Jack thought. He hopped in, resting his large cardboard folder on his lap.

“Do you have any bags?” the woman asked.

Jack tapped the folder. “This is all I need.”

The woman nodded and joined Jack in the cart, pressing her foot down on the accelerator. The canopy over the cart provided welcome relief from the blazing June sun that made the day feel warmer than eighty degrees.

The cart crawled ahead more slowly than the posted fifteen-miles-per-hour speed limit down a quiet, narrow street leading away from the dock. People wandered from shop to shop. None of them seemed to be in a hurry.

“This is Main Street,” the guide said, pride evident in her voice. A few restaurants shared space with a place to rent bikes and a smattering of gift shops, one of which proclaimed Tangier The Soft Crab Capital of the World. There wasn’t a fast-food chain or department store in sight. In the distance, a church steeple pointed to the sky.

“Legend has it that Tangier Island was settled in the middle of the 1680s by the Crockett family. No relation to Davy,” she said in her accented English. “This was after Captain John Smith discovered Tangier in 1608. Not counting the tourists, we have about seven hundred residents, most of them watermen.”

After a few blocks, she veered the golf cart off the main thoroughfare onto an equally narrow street. She chatted about the island’s eclectic mix of styles while they passed Victorian cottages that were next door to double-wide trailers. A few homes had weathered gravestones in their front yards.

Jack breathed in the earthy smell of the marsh. He wasn’t in Tangier as a tourist, but the guide had aroused his curiosity. “How big is the island?”

“Three miles long, one-and-a-half miles wide.” She turned the golf cart down another street that had a partial view of the bay. “We have room for some churches, a few grocery stores, a school, a health center and not much else. Even in the high season, we’re not crowded. Exactly how we like it.”

She pulled up in front of a large yellow clapboard house with turn-of-the-century Victorian architecture and a steeply pitched white roof. A wide porch wrapped around the house.

“Here we are,” she said.

If Jack had known exactly how close the dock was to the B and B, he would have skipped the golf cart and set off on foot. But then, he would have missed the nuggets of information about Tangier.

He pulled out his wallet and withdrew enough money for her fee plus a healthy tip. “Thanks for the ride.”

“I hope you have a wonderful time here on our little piece of paradise,” she said, puttering away with a wave of her hand.

The house had none of the trappings of tourism except the Marsh Harbor B and B sign suspended from one of the porch railings. Jack climbed the three wooden steps leading to the front door, stopping abruptly when he noticed a gently swaying hammock occupied by a man with white hair. Could it be? Jack narrowed his eyes. Yes, it was Robert Reese.

Although they’d never been introduced, Jack recognized the other man from his website photo. Not many guys sported a full head of prematurely white hair before they were forty years old.

Jack strode forward, the soles of his sturdy sport sandals clapping against the wooden slats of the porch. “Dr. Reese?”

The man rested his book against his stomach spine first. It was a mystery Jack recognized as one of the blockbuster hits of the year. He looked up at Jack with a quizzical expression, as though Jack presented a bigger puzzle than the book.

“You are Dr. Robert Reese, aren’t you?” Jack asked.

The other man scrunched up his brow, contorting his regular features. “I’m sorry. Do I know you?”

Jack stuck out his hand. “Jack DiMarco.”

Reese took it, a wary look in his eyes. “Refresh my memory.”

“The pitcher with the torn labrum,” Jack said. “We spoke a few days ago. You said you were on your way here, that the only people you’d be seeing in the next three weeks were on Tangier.”

Reese swung his legs over the side of the hammock and stood up. His book slid off his lap, falling to the porch floor with a loud thunk. Several inches shorter than Jack, he carried himself with the confident air of a successful man. “I remember now. Don’t tell me you took that as an invitation?”

Jack wasn’t about to admit he realized Reese had been brushing him off. He inhaled the scent of island flowers before answering. “I tried to call ahead to let you know when I was coming, but I couldn’t get through to your cell.”

“There’s no cell phone reception on the island,” Reese said, then stopped. “Wait. You never did tell me how you got my number.”

Where there’s a will, Jack thought, there’s a way. He’d called in a favor from a former teammate who’d become golf buddies with Reese after the doctor operated on his shoulder.

“Does it matter?” Jack asked.

“I suppose not.” Reese bent and picked up his book. “So, tell me. Why exactly are you here?”

“My goal is to play ball again. To achieve it, I need to be operated on by somebody who’s tops in the field.” Jack omitted the fact that the team doctor of the Owensboro Mud Dogs had advised against surgery, leading to the team releasing Jack. “Lots of people say you’re the best.”

“Are you trying to flatter me?” Reese asked.

“That depends.” Jack cocked his head. “Is it working?”

Reese ran a hand through his white hair. “The reason I vacation on Tangier, that anybody vacations here, is to get away from it all. I should tell you to leave me alone.”

“But?” Jack asked, starting to hope.

“But vanity is a weakness of mine,” Reese finished. “You understand I can’t do the surgery on the island?”

“I just want to get it scheduled. The sooner, the better,” Jack said.

Reese walked over to one of two large wicker chairs on the porch and sat down. Jack took the other seat.

“Tell me how the injury happened,” he said.

“About a year ago I collided with a base runner and broke my collarbone.” Jack stated the barest facts when there was so much more to the story.

“I thought you tore your labrum,” Reese said.

“I didn’t know the labrum was torn until the collarbone healed. The MRI I had a month ago confirmed it.” Jack held up his cardboard folder. “I brought my films, present and past.”

“You do understand I need a computer to look at those,” Reese said, making no attempt to take the films. “Wait a minute. What do you mean, past?”

“I’ve had two rotator-cuff surgeries.”

“And you want to go through surgery a third time?” The tail end of Reese’s question rose.

“If it means I can pitch at a competitive level again, hell, yeah.”

“Stand up and show me your range of motion,” Reese said.

Jack raised his arms over his head. The right one touched his ear. The left one came close.

“Not bad after a rotator-cuff injury,” Reese said, “especially considering you have that tear.”

“Tears,” Jack corrected. “There is no one big tear, just a number of smaller ones.”

Reese stroked his chin. “How old are you, Jack?”

“Thirty-one.”

Reese whistled. “Too bad I didn’t know about the other surgeries or I could have saved you a trip. A third surgery won’t get you where you want to be.”

“How can you say that without looking at my films?”

“I don’t need to see them,” Reese said. “The labrum is collagen based. It can’t be strengthened.”

“People have surgeries to repair their labrums all the time,” Jack argued.

“Yes, they do. But if they’re athletes who use an overhead motion, like a pitcher, it’s highly unlikely that surgery will yield the desired result,” Reese said. “My advice is to go with rehab to strengthen your shoulder muscles and increase flexibility.”

“Does rehab ever work?” Jack asked.

“Depends on how aggressive the rehab is,” Reese said. “I know of a swimmer with a mild tear who came back to compete in the Olympics. But he was ten years younger than you.”

“I’m tough,” Jack said. “I’ve already rebounded from two surgeries. I can rehab with the best of them.”

“That may be true, but you’ve got to understand how far-fetched it is to think you’ll improve to the point where you can pitch at a major league level.” Reese’s pronouncement was distressingly close to what the Owensboro team doctor had said. “Let me give you a piece of advice, Jack. Find something else to do with your life.”

Later that afternoon, after an hour-long ferry ride under the unrelenting sun, Jack arrived back at the dock at Onancock. It was larger and more tourist oriented than some of the other small towns and quaint villages that dotted the finger of land that made up the Eastern Shore of Virginia, with a prominent downtown and several hotels and B and Bs. He walked the block into town to find a place to eat. His head hurt from thinking about what the specialist had said.

Find something else to do with your life.

“Like hell,” he said aloud.

He’d been working toward pitching in the major leagues since he was a boy. He’d gotten there three times, twice as a September call-up and once as a roster player. Because of the injuries, however, his big-league stat line was meager: three games, four total innings. He refused to believe the dream was over.

He walked past a gift shop and an insurance office before coming to a storefront that looked more like a house than a business. Real estate listings plastered the front window. He slowed, then stopped. The sign above the door said the Realtor dealt in rentals as well as sales, not only in Onancock, but throughout the Eastern Shore.

Jack thought about the Olympic swimmer who’d returned to his previous form. He’d take bets that the swimmer didn’t have sisters who popped in on him whenever they felt like it and parents who kept telling him that life didn’t end when athletic careers did.

No, the swimmer had probably rehabbed somewhere peaceful and tranquil where he could devote his energy to healing. Somewhere like the Eastern Shore.

Jack pushed through the door of the Realtor’s office. The woman at the reception desk looked up, a smile on her face. “Can I help you?”

“You sure can,” he said. “I need to get away from it all.”

* * *

THE SALTY BREEZE BLEW over the rustic outdoor patio of the restaurant, one of the few establishments near Wawpaney with a water view. This view was of a shimmering bay that eventually led to the Atlantic Ocean. The sight didn’t have its usual soothing effect on Tara. No surprise. Mary Dee Larson was gazing at her as though Tara had just bitten the head off a seagull.