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Seated on the wide deck overlooking the ocean, Tara appeared to be much more relaxed than she had been earlier.
Great, thought Jake, at least one of us benefitted from her taking off in a fit of anger.
He lifted his iced coffee and wiped the bottom of the sweaty glass on his pant leg. No point dancing around. Might as well get right to the point. With Meyers working the case from so many different angles, they needed every scrap of information they could get.
“We’re missing big chunks of Brady’s history, and hoping you can help us fill them in. You said everyone called him Butch?”
“That’s right.” Tara chose a cookie from the plate on the table between them and nibbled on it.
Jake glanced at Grace, who’d joined them on the wide deck overlooking the ocean, but she seemed distracted by the view and not about to participate in their conversation.
“Did you ever see any kind of paper, mail, or anything with another name on it?” Jake asked Tara.
“Nope.”
“I need you to go through the story again, of how you met him and ended up on his farm.”
Dark glasses hid the expression in her eyes, but the deep crease between her brows was clear enough. “I’ve already told you everything.”
“I know, but Quinn wants us to go over it again in case some little detail pops up. Something we might have missed the first time. Please?”
Tara set the half-eaten cookie on a napkin, leaned back in the chair, and wrapped her arms around her middle. “It was at Rose’s memorial,” she began in a monotone. “I’d had enough of the insanity, the hugs from strangers, sad smiles, meaningless words. And the awful shoulder squeezes. Then the dreadful lines like, ‘Your mother would want you to... whatever... go on... be brave,’ that sort of thing. And I remember thinking, ‘How could they know what my mother would want?’” She drew up her knees and hugged them to her.
“When they started closing in like crows on road kill I took off to the lake to be alone, to breathe, and that’s where Butch found me.” She rested her forehead on her knees. “I liked the way he talked. The way he smiled. Said he didn’t know what my mom would want me to do. Then he told me they’d met when she was in Vancouver, and they’d talked about me going to work on his farm for the summer. Said she was going to surprise me on my birthday, and even though she was gone, I could still go there if I wanted.”
When she stopped talking, he waited, not sure if she was simply regrouping. Then he finally prodded. “Tara?”
She turned her head to look at him. “He was smart enough to leave me alone then. Just gave me his card and said, ‘Call when you’re ready.’ Never touched me, didn’t sound pushy, just kind. Hard to believe what he turned out to be.”
“What was on the card?”
She sighed. “It was exactly the right thing to hand to a teenager. A picture of mares and foals in a green field, and one word in bold print across the center, THOROUGHBREDS. He’d written his address and phone number on the back.”
“How long until you called him?”
“Not quite a month. Stan had to go back to work and was going to be away for a while, so he dropped me at my aunt’s place in town. My cousin and I were pretty tight even though she was older than me. When I told her about Butch’s offer, she said I should go after what I wanted. So we looked up the bus routes, then I called and told him I was coming.
“We weren’t certain I could travel that far without getting hassled about being underage, so my cousin gave me her passport and the shirt she’d been wearing in the photo—we looked a lot alike. She did my makeup, gave me all the cash she had, and drove me to the bus station.”
“So the real Sharon Kathleen Yoste, nickname, Sky, wasn’t planning on using her passport?”
“She wouldn’t need it until the fall, and I’d be back by then to go to school.”
“But you still use the passport.”
Tara took a long drink of her iced tea. Wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. “She died in a car accident only days after I’d left.”
“That must have been hard for you.”
“No one knew where I was, so I didn’t find out until I came home, and by then, I was numb because...” Her voice faded and he barely heard the next words. “My mom, Butch, Charlie, nine-eleven, and then...” She sat up, waved her hands, and cleared her throat. “Enough of that. It’s all ancient history. Nothing can change what’s happened.” She pushed out of the chair and went to the railing.
Jake had to keep her on topic. “But the past can influence the future. You said your mom talked to Thomas before she died. Made arrangements for you to go there. Why? How did she know him? And why didn’t your stepfather know about this?”
“You had to know Rose. She was a people magnet. Befriended everyone she met. It was totally believable when he said they’d hit it off and one thing had led to another.”
“You don’t think it’s strange, him attending her memorial when they’d only recently met? And he approached you, a teenager, to go live with him?” Jake would be contacting the entity in Ontario that handled offender records. There was a good chance this guy used a handle like Butch because he’d been in the system. Men didn’t become abusers overnight. Neither did they learn manipulation and how to slide under the radar without a damn good reason.
“As an adult, of course all kinds of flags would have gone up,” she said. “But I was a kid and I loved horses, and when my mom phoned me before she took off on that last flight, she told me she had a big surprise for my birthday. I was a completely self-centered child. The man was a predator. He pushed all the right buttons and hooked me like a starving trout.”
“Seems damned convenient to me.” Did he troll obituaries? Or had he just lucked out by meeting Rose before her death. Jake didn’t believe in coincidence, but he’d keep those thoughts from Tara. Not like she didn’t have enough garbage to deal with.
“I used to wonder if he had something to do with her death,” Tara said.
Jake froze mid-reach for the last cookie. “Why?”
She glanced toward the sliding door where the cat sat staring at her. She took a step toward him, then stopped and backed up to lean against the cedar rail, her elbows braced on its width.
“Tara?”
She spoke slowly, enunciating each word with care. “I was a kid. I was traumatized. I made up all kinds of wild scenarios in my head. But she was a careful woman and her plane was in a secure hangar. It could not have been tampered with. I know that, but still, I want someone to blame, and I want it to be him.”
“Natural to only want one villain in your life.”
“Out of my life.” She straightened and fisted her hands. “What is it going to take to get him out of my life, Jake? A miracle?” A single tear slipped from behind the tinted lenses and dripped off her jaw.
Jake stood, half of him wanting to go to her, to enfold her in his arms, and comfort her. His more practical side needed to escape and have nothing to do with this emotional shit storm. He shot a glance toward Grace, felt better knowing she was watching Tara and not missing anything.
“Maybe not,” he said. Why the hell was he still here? He didn’t know what to do with needy, or dependent. And the faintest tug of “strings” had him reaching for his throat to loosen the invisible noose.
“I need to make a call.” He beat a path to the door. Hesitated. Almost looked back before he marched past the cat. He needed to update the team. Needed to get his freaking head on straight before he did anything.
Tara wasn’t surprised she’d scared him off. But couldn’t stop her reactions toward all those memories. She mopped her face with a napkin while carefully reinforcing her protection against Grace. Couldn’t afford to be broadcasting her internal words. Worse still, Logan was always close by and he could hear unprotected thoughts.
“I won’t intrude,” said Grace.
Tara picked up Charlie and went back to the lounge chair. “I—I’m trying to trust, but this situation doesn’t leave me much privacy.” She buried her face in the gray fur long enough to inhale deeply and settle her soul. “It’s hard for me to have people around all the time. To make conversation and—”
“I’m an introvert, too, so I get it. People are exhausting.”
“Exactly. When I wake up and don what I call my ‘shield of protection,’ that’s what it’s about.” Lies came easily, but the guilt that came with them was new and unwelcome. She had to protect her innermost thoughts. No way could she let any of these people know the whole truth—she was already too vulnerable.
Grace tipped her head, and even though they both wore sunglasses, Tara struggled not to squirm under the direct gaze.
“Tara, you’re a strong woman, and you’ll do what you need to for survival, of that I have no doubt. What worries me though, is your resistance to the people trying to help you. We can’t operate blind, and you’d get the reprieve you’re looking for a whole lot faster if you’d trust us.”
“I—” The words wouldn’t come and she shook her head, stroked the cat. She trusted herself and Charlie. He was all she needed.
The storm inside her stilled. The cool ocean breeze dried her eyes and cooled her skin. She drew a deep breath and held it as long as she could, then blew it out slowly.
“How can I help, Tara?”
Tara shook her head and managed a bit of a smile. “I’m fine, Grace. I’m going to go in now. Charlie doesn’t like it out here. I think seeing the waves through the spaces between the floorboards makes him anxious. I’ll see you at supper.”
She went straight to her room and carefully locked the door. Set Charlie on the bed where he hunkered down to watch her prowl.
She’d messed up. Again. Scared Jake and pissed off Grace. Oh, both of them had covered well, but her extra senses made her well aware of their feelings. Thoughts of the asshole who’d changed her forever made all of her senses more acute. She’d been normal until him. Until the first time he’d beaten a horse and she’d somehow tuned in to its feelings of pain and terror.
Each exposure made her more sensitive, more aware, until one day, she’d picked up his intention before he’d gone off on a horse. It could have been as simple as a subconscious reaction to energy, electricity, life-force. Whatever it was, wherever it had come from, her equine senses had become part of who she was.
There were a few people who called her a horse-whisperer, though the term made her skin crawl because that’s what Butch had claimed to be. One more thing he’d ruined for an impressionable fifteen-year-old girl—the memory of a lovely movie with a happy ending about a girl, her mom, and a horse.
She parked her butt on the edge of the bed and rubbed at the tension in the back of her neck. “It’s like his presence is surrounding us again,” she said to Charlie. “We need to get out of here.”
When he climbed into her lap, she asked, “Would you like to go for a plane ride?” But he didn’t so much as blink.
“Probably a stupid idea, right? But what options do I have?” She sighed. “And how far would we get? They’d track us like criminals and then we’d get separated. No way I’ll let them take you away from me.” So that idea was out.
“We have to move Tara,” said Grace.
Jake’s training kicked in and every muscle tensed. “Security breach.” He whipped the secure phone out of his pocket.
“Don’t.” She stopped him a heartbeat before he hit speed dial. “No. We’re tight. But she needs to move.”
“Why?”
“She’s feeling threatened and ready to make a run for it, and I don’t want her trying to steal a dingy from the Perennial. If she heads off into the chuck we’ll never find her. I think the only thing holding her back right now is Charlie. She’d be concerned about him on the water. But she’s a smart woman, and she’ll eventually figure out a way to keep him safe. Logan and I have decided to move her before something goes sideways.”
“Where? Where will you take her?”
“Logan’s working out details. I won’t know until we get there.”
That was bullshit. She’d know exactly where they were headed because she stayed telepathically connected with Logan. Why was she lying to him?
As though reading his thoughts, she said, “We’re semi-shut down right now since we suspect Tara has some telepathic abilities.”
“She does?” That could explain a few things. “She’s holding out on me. There’s something she isn’t sharing about Thomas. If you get a chance to get inside her head, maybe take a look.”
Her smile was a bit twisted. “Sorry, pal, can’t go there. What’s private, stays private.”
“Even if her life is in danger? That makes no sense, Grace.”
“Think about confidentiality, as in lawyers and psychologists. If I learn something I think needs sharing, I’ll work to make sure she shares it. That’s the best I can do.”
“Great. Another roadblock.”
“I’m curious, Jake. You don’t use any specials yourself?”
“Nope. Remember, I’m a Meyers, but not a blood relative to Julia.”
Her smile was slow, but it went all the way to her eyes. “You weren’t aware that your uncle James has extra abilities?”
He frowned. “No.”
“Pity. When you have some time, you should explore your heritage. You may be surprised.”
“Doesn’t matter what the others can do, I don’t have anything extra.”
Now she was grinning at him. “Don’t bet on that.”