The Stolen Canvas(52)

“Oh!” Tara said, throwing her arms around Annie’s neck. “I didn’t know you were taking her for me.” She drew back, her cheeks pink. She had not shown such affection before and seemed embarrassed now by her spontaneous reaction.

Annie linked an arm through Tara’s. “The little runt needs a good home. I know you’ll give it to her, Tara. Love and a bowl of milk now and then—that’s all any of us really need. Come on. Mary Beth will be champing at the bit.”





16

Tara walked along the beach and thought about all that had transpired since she’d come to Stony Point. Two days had passed since she brought Blackie home from A Stitch in Time. She was touched by the gift of the kitten and by the warmth of her new friends. It was generosity she could never have anticipated and trust she had no right to claim.

They all cared about her search for her mother’s story, and they cared about Carla. How strange that the two were inextricably linked. Wonderingly, Tara played their conversation over in her mind.

“You found the clipping, didn’t you?”

Carla Calloway had fixed her with wary eyes, favoring her bandaged arm as she sat behind her desk. Just released from the hospital, she probably should be in bed, but she had quickly resumed her duties.

“I—I didn’t mean to pry,” Tara stammered. “I was just cleaning up a little and …” She met her employer’s gaze, trying to analyze the expression on her face.

Carla stood and walked to the window. She was silent for a long time, just looking through the glass. When she turned back, her eyes were misted with tears. “I thought it was just a coincidence—you looking so much like her. That day you came in, all the years melted away. She was here again. We were both fifteen years old and walking along Stony Point beach together, drinking lemonade with Mrs. Holden, laughing and full of summer adventure …” Her voice caught, and Tara was frightened. She’d never seen the feisty Carla Calloway cry.

What was she talking about? Had she left the hospital too soon? Was she delirious again? Tara took a step forward but faltered, wondering what she should do and what she should say. But Carla shook her head slowly, moistening her lips before she spoke again. “When Stella Brickson came to the hospital to see me and showed me what she’d found, I knew who you were.”

Stella Brickson? Tara thought back to Tuesday’s meeting of the Hook and Needle Club meeting. They had been discussing the clipping. Everyone but Annie and Alice had gone, but Stella had overheard, and she’d remembered H.T. Simmons, the man whose car had been stolen and wrecked. He was a distant cousin of Stella’s. But what did that have to do with Tara and her mother?

“She found the whole story in one of her old scrapbooks,” Carla said, pausing and catching her lower lip between her teeth.

Had Carla been arrested for stealing? Had her mother perished in the crash when the police phoned with the news? The terror of the experience would have marked anyone who’d gone through it and made them sad and resentful. No wonder Carla was so indrawn and suspicious. But why was she telling her all this? “What story? I don’t understand,” Tara stammered.

“She called herself Corky,” Carla said in a near whisper. “She had curly hair—dark and thick—and when it rained it coiled up like corkscrews all over her head. She called me Carlotta, and we were best friends.” She drew her arms across her chest, cupping the injured one, and a sad smile trembled on her lips.

Tara shrank back, frightened—though of what she didn’t know.

“She never told anyone,” Carla continued in the same detached voice. “All those years, and she never told a soul.” With her good arm Carla pulled something from the pocket of her jeans—an envelope. She opened it to show Tara the contents. It was the coil of hair and the small beaded ring that Tara had discovered in Carla’s bedroom. She held them out to Tara with trembling fingers.

“I don’t understand.”

“She gave these to me; I’ve always treasured them. When you read the article, you probably thought I was the girl who was arrested. But it wasn’t me.” Carla’s eyes widened, as though she saw something Tara could not see. “It was your mother—Claire … my best friend, Corky. But I was the one driving the car. I crashed it into that tree. I ran away and just left her standing there to face the police alone. I didn’t do the right thing because I was afraid.”

Tara backed away, staring at the ring and the black coil of hair that was so like her own. So that was why she hadn’t been able to put that clipping out of her mind—the sight of that hair. It had seemed alive, as though it could speak to her. She had been touching part of her mother’s life, a part she had never known. A part that had marked her forever.