Darlene Gardner - The Truth About Tara

“The best, especially the fresh seafood and homemade desserts. The lemon meringue pie is to die for,” she said. “But our breakfasts are nothing to sneeze at, either. Where you from?”

“Kentucky,” he said.

“You don’t sound it.”

“Lexington, not Appalachia,” he said. “It’s pretty urban, with lots of transplants.”

“What brings you here?”

“Road trip,” he said.

“Business or pleasure?”

His waitress asked so many questions, she reminded him of his two sisters, who never hesitated to poke around in his business.

“Both,” he said, hastening to ask a question of his own before she could fire off another one. “Tell me, do you know anything about Tangier Island?”

“Sure,” she said. “Never been myself, but I hear it’s real tranquil, though maybe not so much as it used to be on account of tourism. No cars—just bikes and golf carts.”

Tangier sounded like the kind of place people with high-stress jobs and expendable cash vacationed. No wonder Robert Reese had chosen it.

“Any idea how to get there?” Jack asked.

“Easiest way is the ferry in Onancock, which is up the coast a ways along the Chesapeake,” she explained. “Or you could always charter a boat. It’s not a long trip. Tangier’s only ten or so miles off the coast.”

“Thanks,” he said. “I appreciate the information.”

“Have you decided on breakfast?” she asked.

“What do you suggest?”

“You can’t go wrong with the creamed chipped beef or the sausage gravy biscuit. They come with either grits or home fries.”

What the hell, Jack thought. When on the Eastern Shore of Virginia, eat as the natives do. “I’ll have the creamed beef with grits. And coffee.”

“Black?”

“Two creams, two sugars.”

She flashed him a grin. “Interesting.”

“Why is that interesting?” he asked.

She leaned over the counter. “It means you have a sweet side.”

He thought of the glare he’d adopted as the top relief pitcher for the Owensboro Mud Dogs, a minor league baseball team in his home state that for many was the last stop before reaching the big time. Jack had gotten called up to the majors late in the season twice over the course of his career, both for brief stints. His goal was to make the third time stick.

“Not everyone would agree with that,” Jack said.

“Then they’re not looking hard enough.” She raised her dark brows and left the counter to take another order.

His phone rang for the second time that morning. He checked the display. Not Annalise this time. His other sister, Maria, the private investigator. Jack had grown up with his older two sisters and younger brother in a rambling house on the outskirts of Lexington with parents who didn’t always give them what they wanted but provided them with everything they needed. The perfect family, other people called them.

The two stools closest to him were empty, but the rest of the diner was filling up fast, providing him an excuse not to answer. If he didn’t, however, one of his sisters would keep calling until they got him. They might even enlist the help of his mother. He clicked through to the call. “Hey, Maria.”

“Jack! I’m so glad I caught you. Are you okay?”

Almost thirty-two years old and they still checked up on him, proving his family wasn’t perfect. Privacy was pretty much impossible. Considering what had happened to their younger brother, though, it was understandable.

“Hold on a minute,” he told her. To the waitress who was bringing his coffee over to the counter, he said, “I’ll be back in a few.”

“Where are you?” Maria asked on the other end of the line. Patience had never been her strong suit.

He exited the restaurant into the bright sun of the morning before answering his sister’s question. “At a diner on the Eastern Shore.”

“You’re there already? You didn’t drive straight through, did you?”

“No, I didn’t,” he said. “I just got a really early start this morning.”

The high-pitched giggle of a little boy carried through the gravel parking lot. The man with him lifted the boy and tossed him in the air a few inches before catching him and swinging him to the ground. A deep, pulsing throb started in Jack’s shoulder, only partially due to yesterday’s eight-hour drive and the too-hard mattress at the hotel just outside Richmond.

“Annalise said you didn’t answer your cell this morning,” she said.

“Some states have laws against using the phone while you’re driving.” Jack didn’t know if Virginia was one of them, but it was as good an excuse as any.

“Just as long as you’re okay.” Maria’s pause lasted a few seconds. “You are okay, right?”

He was getting tired of answering that question. He scuffed his foot in the gravel. “I’m fine. You and Annalise don’t need to keep tabs on me, you know.”

“You can’t blame us for being worried,” she said. “We know what a blow it was when the orthopedist told you that you couldn’t pitch again.”

Those hadn’t been his exact words. After performing a second surgery in a six-year span on Jack’s right shoulder, the doctor had said he doubted Jack would ever be able to throw a fastball in the nineties again.

Maria didn’t wait for Jack to respond. “And then when you announced you were taking off, well, what were we supposed to do?”

Jack took a deep breath and got a whiff of the bacon cooking inside the diner. “Accept that I need some time alone.”

“Of course you do,” Maria said. “You’ve never wanted to be anything but a pro baseball player, but you’re not getting any younger. You need to figure out what to do with the rest of your life.”

Jack had fallen in love with baseball at his first T-ball game when his ball soared to the outfield. Even though he now realized the ball had gone only about sixty feet, he’d felt as powerful as Babe Ruth. Later he’d gotten that same feeling when he took the mound. He’d had his future mapped out since he was a kid. He wasn’t about to change his mind now. He wasn’t going to share the particulars with Maria, either.

“Hey,” he said. “I checked out that lead for you.”

“Already? I thought you just got to Virginia this morning.”

“She wasn’t hard to find in a place as small as Wawpaney,” he said, even though it had been a shock to see a woman matching the age-progression photo walking on the sidewalk toward the school. “But she wasn’t your missing person.”

“You’re sure about that?”

Jack had experienced a moment’s doubt that the woman was being entirely truthful, but it made no sense for her to lie. It was human nature to want to know where you came from. She obviously already knew. Add to that her reddish-colored hair, her age and her comment about baby photos and Jack was convinced.

“It’s not Hayley,” Jack maintained.

He heard what sounded like a sigh. “I didn’t really expect her to be.”

“Any luck with the other leads?”

“Not so far. I’ve checked out more than half of them and they’re all dead ends. But as I told Hayley’s mother from the start, finding her daughter is the longest of long shots.”

Jack leaned against the sun-warmed passenger door of his pickup. Five years ago Maria had left the Fayette County sheriff’s office to become a private investigator and had never looked back. “Then why take the case?”

“She said not a day goes by that she doesn’t think of her missing daughter,” Maria said. “She doesn’t care if the odds of finding Hayley are one in a million, as long as that one chance exists.”

Jack reached into his back pocket, withdrew the paper with the age-progression photo and unfolded it. Unlike an actual photograph, where personality could shine through, the computer-generated likeness seemed flat and lifeless.