Читать книгу Once a Family - Tara Quinn Taylor - Страница 13

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.”

“You’re still keeping your name on everyone else’s accounts, huh?”

“She’s fifteen, Talia. And I also put money in that account for her. Anyway, the punk could have spotted her a thousand easy.”

“I’m sure the cops will find out from his parents if he did. Surely they’d know if he suddenly withdrew a thousand bucks.”

“Unless he got it selling drugs and then they won’t know.”

“You’re telling me she could be anywhere.”

“Yeah.”

“You need me to come home?”

Tanner had a flash of memory―Talia, back when her hair was still long and blond, sitting at the kitchen table with him and Thomas, laughing so hard she spit mashed potatoes on a bowl of peas....

“Not yet,” he said. “Hopefully she’ll be home tonight and I can tan her hide for putting us all through this.”

“Tanner?”

“Yeah?”

“I suggest you don’t touch a hair on her head. If you want her to speak to you once she turns eighteen, that is.”

He’d never hit Tatum. Ever. He’d used the words figuratively. But he’d slapped Talia once. He was seventeen at the time and she’d been ten and had been using words he’d only ever heard come out of his mother’s mouth when the woman was high on something and chasing her next lay.

Talia’s eyes had opened wide, filled with tears, but even then she’d been too tough to let them fall. He’d been more appalled at his action than she had. Had apologized over and over.

Clearly she’d never forgiven him.