Once a Family

“I hate to disturb you again, Sedona, but you said to call immediately if there was any break in the Talia Malone situation.” Lila McDaniels did not sound calm.

“I did and I meant it. What’s up?” Switching mental gears in a blink, Sedona set Ellie inside the French doors leading to her living area and, with her phone held between her shoulder and her ear, grabbed the glass of wine and plate of cheese and headed indoors.

“Lynn Duncan just left Maddie’s. She called right afterward to tell me that Talia looks like a girl she’d seen a picture of on the news a little while ago. She’s a missing person. And if it’s the same girl, her name’s not Talia. It’s Tatum.”

“Can you wait for me to get there before you do anything?”

“Of course.”

Wine down the drain, Sedona dumped the remainder of the cheese and bread into the trash and, making certain that Ellie was in her bed, grabbed her keys and was out the door.

“She’s safe here.”

“Exactly.” The old Ford Thunderbird started up first try and Sedona was on her way. “If she’s been reported missing, the police might return her to her family. With no bruising, no reports or evidence of previous abuse it might be that the most we can hope for is the assignation of a caseworker for follow-up....”

Her mind was racing. With the laws. And the ways to use those laws to protect her young client.

“I can’t not report her. Not now that I know who she is. She might be just what they suspect, a runaway. I can’t risk the lives of my residents if I get embroiled in a lawsuit.”

“I know. I’m not suggesting that you should. Just let me talk to Tatum. And then I’ll call the police myself.”

Good thing she’d only had a couple of sips of wine. It was going to be a long night.

* * *

TANNER WASN’T ABOUT to just go home and wait. He wasn’t a sit-by-the-phone type of guy. But the law enforcement representative he’d spoken with, a no-nonsense dispatcher who’d taken his report immediately at the neighborhood station when he’d stopped in, said an officer would meet him at his house.

While the calm and efficient manner of the phone representative had reassured him, the urgency with which the department was acting set his anxiety levels soaring again.

He’d pulled Tatum’s recent school photo out of his wallet and handed it over. He’d emailed some photos from his phone while he’d been standing in the station. He’d already given a list of the social media sites she used, complete with usernames and passwords, explaining that he’d made her share them with him as a condition of her right to go on the sites.

And while he’d nodded, expressing his thanks for the officers’ help, they’d scared the shit out of him.

They’d assured him that an Endangered Missing Advisory would be issued immediately.

Endangered missing?

The words conjured up all kinds of horrible images. He couldn’t allow them to take root.

He wasn’t going to lose Tatum. He couldn’t lose her. He’d loved the others—Talia and Thomas—still loved them. He’d taken good care of them. He’d give his life for any of his siblings.

But Tatum...she was more daughter than sibling to him. He’d sacrificed everything for her.

And she was going to be okay. They’d find her. There’d be some reasonable explanation for her absence. Just because he couldn’t come up with it didn’t mean it wasn’t there.

She’d be home, sleeping in her own bed that night, or, at the very latest, tomorrow. And life would go on. Just like normal. Things would be fine.

She’d take her SAT test in October. Outscore her older brother. And the sky would be her only limit.

Because she was sweet baby Tatum....

A tan-colored four-door sedan was parked in his driveway as Tanner pulled in, barely getting the truck into park before jumping from the seat. He didn’t recognize the car, but if someone had brought Tatum home to him...

A couple got out of the car—one male, one female, both in dark suits. Both pulled badges from their pockets as they approached.

Detectives Morris and Brown, they introduced themselves.

“We’d like to take a look around your sister’s room,” the older of the two, the female, Morris, said. “According to our report this is the last place she was seen, is that correct?”

“Yes.”

They entered the house. Tanner stood in front of the cockeyed pillow in the living room, finding it incredible that it was only that morning that he’d tossed the stupid thing. Unbelievable that something so horrific could have occurred while the pillow just sat there as if nothing had happened all day.

“We’ll need the names of everyone she knows or has had anything to do with now or in the past.”

Calmly standing, while the detectives sat down uninvited, disturbing his pillow, Tanner listed every name he could remember. A total of nine.

There should have been more. A lot more.

But he’d been busy growing grapes and couldn’t remember.

“You can check her Facebook page,” he said, relieved when he came up with the idea. “Everyone she knows or has ever known is on there.”

“We’ve already got someone doing that,” Brown said. Tanner nodded. What else did a guy do when everything that mattered to him was on the line and he stood there completely helpless?

“Does she have any enemies?”

“Not that I know of.” Did Morris just frown at him? Okay, so maybe he’d been a bit preoccupied lately, but it was only so that he could make enough money to send Tatum to college if she didn’t get the scholarship she was hoping for.

He’d had to spend a sizable chunk of savings the previous year to buy Talia out of her marriage to a man who’d been pimping her out to powerful acquaintances for profit. In fact, Tanner had bought her “services” from the man for an extended vacation, which had actually been time she’d spent in a safe house while she got help to divorce the man.

After which she’d returned to exotic dancing.

But the detectives didn’t need to hear any of that.

“What about family?” Morris asked. She wasn’t writing any of this down.

“No one in our family would hurt Tatum. We all adore her. She’s the baby.” He and Thomas and Talia fought sometimes. They didn’t always agree on life choices. But they’d never once disagreed about Tatum. That baby girl had been their only joy when they should all have been having the time of their lives.

So could Tatum be with Talia?

“Who is ‘we all’?” One of Morris’s very thin brows rose. Her tone of voice had changed. And for the first time Tanner realized that he might be a suspect.

The detectives weren’t just there to help him find Tatum. They were there to investigate him.

Here he was ready to piss himself or puke he was so worried, and they thought he’d done something to Tatum?

* * *

“I’M SORRY, MR. MALONE, I know this is difficult, but we have to ask, were you and Tatum having problems?”

Brown had stayed with Tanner in the living room while Morris went up to Tatum’s room to look around. And now she’d returned to grill him some more. No telling what she’d found in his sister’s things.

Lord knew he wasn’t her favorite person anymore.

“Yes, we were,” he said now, hands in his pockets as he stood in his living room facing the two detectives sitting side by side on his couch. “But I didn’t hurt her. I was out in the vineyard all day. I can show you the fresh-cut clippings to prove it.”

“But you don’t have an alibi?”

“No, I do not.” He wasn’t going to lie. There was no point. But... “Put someone on me, look into every aspect of my life. But please, don’t stop looking for my sister while you do so. I am not your man and if you waste time focusing solely on me, God knows what will...”

No. He couldn’t go there. He’d had enough heartache to last him a lifetime and could not borrow more.

“You said you two had trouble....” Morris’s tone had softened, though not perceptibly.

“About two months ago Tatum met this rich kid, Del Harcourt, at a party. He’s spoiled and selfish and I’m pretty sure he hit her. She had a bruise on her arm, a bad one.”

“You saw the bruise?” Brown’s eyes widened.

“Not at first. She kept her arm covered. But I grabbed her once—” which sounded bad “—and she flinched. I made her show me her arm. The bruise was faded, almost gone, but it was from a fist, I’m sure of it. She insists she walked into an old furniture spindle in the barn.”

“And that’s the trouble you’ve had? You didn’t believe her about a bruise?”

Tanner didn’t like the way Morris was studying him. But he wanted Tatum found. At whatever risk to him.

“Two days ago I threw the punk out of my house and told Tatum she was not to see or speak with him again. And I took away her smartphone.”

He felt a cold knot of fear as something else occurred to him. It should have been his first thought. Would have been if Tatum hadn’t been so crazy about the asshole.

“There is someone,” he said, his mind coldly calculating. “The woman who gave birth to us...” He couldn’t bring himself to say mother. “Last we knew, her name was Tammy Malone, but it changed frequently. She’s usually high, homeless and spreading her legs, and once tried to sell my other sister for a fix. Usually I wouldn’t expect Tatum to have anything to do with her, but now that she’s mad at me... Anyway, if Tammy sees money for herself in having Tatum, she might try to work her.”

“Is she in the area?”

“I have no idea. Not recently that I know of.”

“How long has it been since you’ve heard from her?”

Last time she’d come begging for money. “A year, maybe two.” He didn’t mark his calendar with things he preferred to forget.

“Has she been in touch with Tatum in the past?”

“Not since she was five.” It couldn’t be Tammy. Pray God it wasn’t Tammy. Tatum was at a vulnerable age. And partially because of him, Talia was out of her life and...

“Did you sue her for custody of Tatum?”

“No. She signed her and my other two siblings over willingly.” To avoid a jail sentence.

It was a long shot. In ten years, Tammy had never contacted Tatum. There was no reason to panic.

“I see here that Tatum has an old flip phone with no texting capability.” Morris looked down at the clipboard on her lap.

“That’s right. It was an old one of mine. I called my provider and changed her line over temporarily. She has no data plan at all. For a month. She lied to me. I can’t tolerate that.” Tatum had too much free time, too much lack of supervision, to allow for lying. He had to be able to trust her. “But I couldn’t just take her phone away,” he added. “It’s not safe for a young girl to be at school without a phone these days.”

“Smartphones have tracking apps on them.” Brown looked apologetic as he explained the dilemma Tanner had unknowingly caused.

“Her number goes immediately to voice mail,” Tanner told them.

Morris pulled a charger from the black leather satchel she wore on her shoulder. “I found this in her room,” she said as Tanner recognized the charger for his old phone. And took hope.

Until another thought chased that one.

“She wasn’t planning to be gone long.” He voiced his first thought. And then, more slowly, his second. “Which makes her disappearance look more like she didn’t leave of her own accord.”

“You said her purse is missing.”

“Yes.”

“Was there anything else missing?”

“No. Not even her retainer case.” Tatum was always careful to store the expensive mouthpiece carefully. Her straight teeth meant a lot to her.

Obviously she’d been planning to return home that evening. So...he just had to be patient. Wait. She’d show up.

And have one hell of a lot of explaining to do.

“We’re going to need to take something personal of hers,” Brown said as the two detectives stood. “A toothbrush. Or hairbrush...”

For DNA. Tanner watched television on occasion. He knew why they were asking.

And handed over a couple of items from Tatum’s bathroom drawer without saying another word.

CHAPTER FIVE

“I CAN’T TELL you what to do, Lila, you know that. I represent Tatum Malone, not The Lemonade Stand, on this one.”

That was the funny thing about volunteer service—lines blurred when there wasn’t someone paying the bill. When there wasn’t someone with whom the buck stopped.

“I have to call the police.” Lila spoke softly, walking with Sedona toward Maddie Estes’s bungalow. The special-needs woman had no idea what was going on, and Tatum hadn’t been alerted yet, either. “She’s a minor and I can’t keep her here without guardian permission.”

“That’s a fact of law, yes.”

“But who’s to say when I found out that she’s an official missing person?”

“Lynn Duncan.” The live-in nurse practitioner who was not only Maddie Estes’s friend and protector, but soon to be her sister-in-law, too.

“Lynn’s not going to say anything to anyone.”

The Lemonade Stand was a place where secrets were safe. For good reason.

And sometimes, for that good reason, law enforcement looked the other way when they couldn’t conform to the letter.

“I’ll take her to the Garden,” Sedona said. “It’s almost dark. We should be alone there. I’ll do my best to find out what’s going on and then figure out a legal way to keep her from being sucked up into a system that might or might not be able to help her.”

Lila’s footsteps were soft whispers on the meandering sidewalk. Floral scents wafted from the gardens on both sides of the path.

“If there’s no proof of wrongdoing, no viable reason to remove Tatum from her home, to take away custody from a family member, a judge could determine that it’s in Tatum’s best interest to go home. A judge can order her home,” she said.

“I know.” Lila sounded less than satisfied.

“But you’d like it if I could get temporary placement here. At least until we get this figured out.”

“Yes.”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

“Thank you.”

* * *

“I NEED TO speak with Talia Malone, please.”

“Yes, sir, can I say who’s calling?”

With his back to the room, Tanner stared out the kitchen window. His vines were out there. Sucking water and nutrients out of the earth. Growing. A testimony to the resilience of life. And to its fragility, as well.

“Tanner,” he said into the cell phone he was holding so tightly his knuckles shone white. Unless she was onstage, in the middle of...well...what she did up there, they’d call her to the phone.

“Tanner? What’s wrong?”

He didn’t have to wait long. And she was out of breath. He didn’t want to know why.

“I tried your cell, first. When you didn’t answer...”

“It’s fine, Tanner, what’s wrong?”

He’d shown up at Talia’s place of business one time. It hadn’t been pretty. But he’d been assured any future calls would be answered.

This was the first time he’d tested the theory.

“Have you heard from Tatum?” Why was he doing this? It wasn’t like Talia would be able to help. The sisters hadn’t spoken in more than a year.

“Of course not. Even if I had, I wouldn’t have broken my word to you. No contact, just like we agreed. She’ll be eighteen soon enough and free to make her own choices. And I don’t want her making mine. You were right about that. I don’t want her future on my shoulders.”

“She mimicked your every move.”

“And that’s why you’re checking up on her? Because you think she’s like me and will go behind your back and get into trouble?”

Wincing at the sarcasm in his twenty-six-year-old sister’s voice, Tanner pinched the bridge of his nose, right between his eyes, in an effort to make the pain stop. The pain in his heart...

“I shouldn’t have humiliated you at your place of business, Talia, I’m sorry.” The irony in the words choked him. His hauling her away from a client on the way to a lap dance was humiliating to her, and undressing onstage was not?

“You say you love me, Tanner, but you don’t accept that I’ve made a choice I can live with.”

“You’re a...” He wasn’t going to do this.

“What? A hooker? Go ahead and say it, big brother. It won’t kill you.”

Talia was beautiful. Had so much going for her...

He loved her. But not enough, apparently. Or maybe it was their mother, and her father, who’d failed to give her the validation she’d needed—driving her to find it in the eager paws of men who were so hot for her they’d pay her for privileges.

Or pay just to see her swing around a bar and take her clothes off.

“Tatum’s missing.”

“What does that mean, missing?” She sounded sharp, but he heard a note of concern, too.

Because, deep down, they were family. They loved each other.

And that was why he’d made the call.

“I don’t know, sis.” In one long breath Tanner summarized the hellish couple of hours he’d just spent. “They’ve put out a bulletin and now we wait. I just... They took some things...for her DNA...and I... You should know.”

“They think someone snatched her?”

“They don’t have any evidence of that. They’ve searched all around the house, outside and in, and around the area, too, and so far there’s no sign of struggle and no one saw anything.”

“Have they considered the possibility that she ran away?”

“Yes.”

“It’s what you think, isn’t it?”

Part of him wanted to believe she had, because it meant there was more of a chance that she was safe. But Tatum had been angry with him before and stayed put. You couldn’t parent a child without pissing her off sometimes. Tatum’s anger always passed.

“What did you do to her, Tanner?”

“I threw her punk boyfriend out of the house and forbid her from seeing him.”

“That’s the first place I’d look for her, then.”

“I did. She wasn’t there.”

“Sounds like she learned from my example, after all.” Talia’s words brought back more memories than he needed at the moment. “I ran straight to Rex, making it far too easy for you to find me.”

He’d brought Talia home that first time. The next time, she’d been eighteen, legally allowed to go, and determined that he wouldn’t find her.

He’d been just as determined that he would. And hadn’t stopped looking. Not for years.

She’d already been working in Vegas when he finally had.

“You were only sixteen.” He stood by his long-ago choice. “Besides, this guy’s a real jerk.”

“Rex wasn’t. He was a college graduate with a good job and he wanted to marry me. It was three months before my seventeenth birthday and we’d already set a date.”

But Rex had lost his job and gone to jail for statutory rape. Because at twenty-three Tanner had been Talia’s legal guardian and he’d pressed charges against the twenty-seven-year-old high school teacher he’d caught bedding his sister.

Talia had been pregnant, too. She’d given up the baby for adoption—her choice. But she’d never forgiven Tanner for any of it. If he hadn’t put Rex away, she would’ve been able to keep her son, to give him a good, stable secure life. Or so she’d believed. He’d told her that if he hadn’t pressed charges, Rex would still have been charged and lost his job. She hadn’t wanted to hear a word of it. She’d said Rex had been willing to lose his job, but that he wouldn’t have done jail time. With the certainty of youth, she’d believed that no one else would’ve filed charges against the man.

Whether, deep down, she’d realized the truth or not, she’d blamed him for her broken heart and broken life.

And no good would come of reopening the old wound.

“Harcourt’s into drugs.” Tanner shoved his free hand into the pocket of his jeans and wondered if Tatum could be out there in the vineyard someplace. Close by. Safe. And just making him suffer.

“Selling or taking?”

“Taking, for sure. And I think selling.”

“Tatum knows better than to get involved with drugs.”

Their mother had been an addict. A couple of her baby daddies had been dealers. And not one of the Malone children had ever touched illegal substances. It was like an oath with them.

“He was smoking a pipe out in the barn. There was more than just marijuana in it.”

Like Pavlov’s dogs, they’d all been trained from the womb to know what certain smells meant. And the consequences that would result.

“I’m guessing Tatum didn’t know?”

He’d have guessed the same.

He’d have been wrong.

But there was no good to come from bad-mouthing one sister to another. Or disillusioning Talia any further, either.

“I asked her if she’s ever used drugs. She said no. I believed her,” he said. “I still do.”

For the time being. Too much time with the punk kid who seemed to have more influence over Tatum than Tanner did, and chances were, Tatum would succumb eventually. He’d heard Harcourt pressuring Tatum to “try it” Sunday, when he’d passed the barn on his way back out to the vineyard. Hell, if he hadn’t broken his clippers, he wouldn’t even have known the two were home.

“She used to write to me about some girl named Amy. They told each other everything. Girls do that. Call her.”

Talia’s “Amy,” Melissa Winchell, had helped Tanner find his sister in Vegas because she’d been worried sick about the choices Talia was making. As far as he knew, the two of them hadn’t spoken since.

But then he hadn’t known that Talia and Tatum had talked to each other during the years he’d been searching for Talia, either. So maybe Melissa and Talia talked, too.

Melissa used to stop by the farm now and then. Just to keep in touch.

“According to Amy, Tatum ditched all her friends when she met Harcourt.”

“This guy’s got a real hold on her.”

“I know.”

“I’m guessing the police know about him?”

“They do. The Harcourts like Tatum. They cooperated. I got the idea that this kid’s a problem for them, too. If he knows anything, his father will get it out of him.”

“So I can expect a call from the cops, too?”

“They asked about her family.”

“I’m guessing you couldn’t wait to tell them what I do for a living. How I’m such a horrible influence on my baby sister that we can’t be in the same room together?”

Okay, so maybe his stance had been a bit harsh on that one. He was willing to rethink it if she would. As soon as they got Tatum home.

“No, sis. I told them Tatum idolizes you and gave them your cell number.”

A long silence followed. “And you’re giving me a heads-up that if the cops call, it’s not me they’re after.”

“Something like that.” He loved her. “And to tell you that Tatum’s missing.”

“In case she comes calling.”

“In case she comes to harm. You have a right to know that she might be in danger.” At the moment, he’d give his vineyards, his house and the rest of the money he had in the bank if Tatum would show up on her sister’s doorstep.

Show up anywhere. Alive.

“It’s not like her to just leave. She didn’t take her retainer or any of her things, which indicates that she didn’t intend to be gone long, and Harcourt’s at home with his folks.”

And Morris and Brown had asked for her DNA.

“Do I have your permission to call her?”

Instincts honed by Talia’s proven lack of trustworthiness almost choked him as he said, “Yes. But I’m pretty sure her battery’s dead. Her phone goes immediately to voice mail and the charger was here.”

“She can get another charger.” Talia’s dry response made him feel a little better. For no apparent reason. “And it’s also possible that she’s sending the line to voice mail when she sees who’s calling. Or maybe she has the phone off to conserve the battery. I’ll keep trying, just in case.”

“Thanks, sis.”

“How much cash does she have on her?”

When Talia had left at eighteen, she’d taken all of his money that she could get her hands on. Close to five hundred dollars.

“I gave her fifty on Saturday, as I do every week. I don’t know if she spends it all every week, or if she’s saved up. She hasn’t accessed our joint account.”