The Last Sister (Columbia River)(75)

Tara paused and briefly closed her eyes. “It’s a long story. I’ll get to it, I promise.”

The girl shot Emily and Zander suspicious glares but reluctantly left with Wendy. Emily watched her departure, a hungry look in her eye.

The room went silent. Tara’s and Emily’s emotions had crested and fallen, and the awkward moment stretched. Unanswered questions wove between them. Why had Tara left? Why no contact?

They faced each other on the couch, and Tara knotted her hands, twisting and clenching. Emily saw them and separated her own clenched hands.

Zander took pity on the quiet women. “How old is Bella?” he asked. A neutral question.

“She’s nine.”

“She looks like you,” he told Tara, noticing she didn’t wear a wedding ring. “Is her father still around?”

Tara paled. “No. He died in an automobile accident five years ago. Wendy is my mother-in-law, and she took us in after that.” Her voice wavered.

“Tara, I’m so sorry.” Emily touched her sister’s arm. “How horrible for you and Bella.”

“Everyone around me dies.” The statement was flat and lifeless; the emotional woman had vanished.

Zander flinched. “Are you all right?” he asked cautiously. He didn’t know exactly what he referred to . . . her health, her current emotions, her living situation, her dead husband.

She simply looked at him and then turned to Emily. “What happened to your head?” Tara asked, eyeing the bandage under her hair.

“It’s nothing. I whacked it pretty good, and they had to stitch it up. I’m okay.”

Zander wasn’t surprised Emily didn’t go into detail. Especially after Tara had just said everyone around her died.

He decided to outright question Tara. “Why did you visit Chet Carlson?”

Tara blanched. “That’s how you found me.” The whisper high and reedy.

“Why are you hiding?” Emily cut in sharply. “How could you go for twenty years without contacting us? Your family? I lost three members of my family within a week back then!” She waved her hands as she spoke, scaling another emotional peak.

Tara’s face crumpled. “I can’t talk about it.”

A theory percolated, and Zander studied the woman, wondering how to phrase his suspicion.

“Why?” Emily begged. “What is so horrible that you can’t tell us?” She pointed at Zander. “He’s an FBI agent, Tara. He can help with whatever it is.”

Zander wasn’t so sure about that, but Tara was listening, impulses warring on her face, the line of her back tense. She regarded him warily.

“I have a niece,” Emily said softly. “I never knew—Madison never knew. We missed her birth, her chubby baby cheeks, losing her first tooth . . .”

“She’s not yours.” Tara grew fierce. “That is my daughter, and I do everything I can to keep her safe. You are to tell no one that you saw me or her.”

A mama bear had replaced Tara on the sofa.

Emily snapped her mouth shut.

“What did you see that night, Tara?” Zander questioned.

“Nothing. I wasn’t there.” She didn’t ask which night.

Emily started to speak and stopped, pressing her lips into a thin line.

“I was at a friend’s. We were drinking. I don’t know anything about what happened to Dad. You already knew this.” She looked Emily in the eye.

“You didn’t answer Zander’s question about Carlson,” Emily said.

“What happened that night has haunted me all my life. I wanted to see that man’s face.”

“Do you believe he killed your father?” asked Zander.

“Of course,” she said quickly. “Even though he claims he didn’t do it.”

She’s lying.

“My life has been hell for twenty years,” Tara said. “First Dad’s murder and then Mom’s after I left. The only way I could put it out of my head was with booze. Now I have constant insomnia and can never relax.”

Zander exchanged a sharp look with Emily.

“Tara, Mom committed suicide.” Confusion laced Emily’s words.

Tara blinked several times. “No, she was murdered.”

Emily shook her head. “Where did you hear that? It was ruled suicide from the start.”

Her sister sat very still, focused intently on Emily, and a hesitant fear crept into her eyes. “You’re wrong.”

“I swear. It’s true.” Emily swallowed hard, shadows crossing her face.

Zander’s throat constricted as he watched the painful conversation.

“No.” Tara rose to her feet, her hands in fists. “You’re lying. The people who killed her are the same that killed Dad.”

“No. I know—”

“Who do you believe killed your father, Tara?” Zander jumped in. “A moment ago you said Chet Carlson did it. Now you just said people did it. Who was it?”

Her frantic gaze bounced between Emily and Zander. “Chet Carlson did it. I meant that he killed Mom too.”

She’s lying again.

“I need to lie down.” Tara turned to leave, and Emily leaped up, grabbing her arm and making her sister face her.

“I don’t know what’s happened to you, but it’s okay, Tara. I just want you back in my life, no matter what. I don’t care what you did.”