Once a Family

“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.

CHAPTER SIX

“WE KNOW WHO you are, Tatum.” Sedona waited until they were seated in the Garden of Renewal, a professionally planted utopia on the grounds of The Lemonade Stand, designed with aesthetics, sound and scent in mind. The rock waterfall in the middle of the garden offered a comforting white noise that tuned out sounds from the world beyond.

“My brother found me and told you, didn’t he? And now you’re going to make me go home.”

“No. Someone reported you missing to the police. You’re all over the news.”

“Oh.”

“You didn’t think anyone would miss you?”

The girl’s head was bent as she leaned over, her elbows on her knees, hands on her arms, and rocked.

A defensive posture that was far too familiar to Sedona. She saw it a lot in her line of work.

“I didn’t think,” Tatum said. “At least, not about that part.”

“So tell me what you did think about.”

Tatum sat upright, her eyes glistening with tears. “I had to get away from him, Ms. Campbell. I was online this morning and read about The Lemonade Stand on someone’s Facebook page. I knew I’d probably only have one chance to get here, so I grabbed my purse and left. I didn’t even bring my retainer.”

She was watching and listening for the “tells” because she didn’t have much time.

“Had to get away from whom?”

“My brother. I was off school today and he was going to be out working so I thought it was my chance.”

“What about your parents? Have you talked to them about your brother? Won’t they help you?”

“Tanner’s my guardian. He’s my brother. Our mother took off when I was five. She gave Tanner custody of all three of us kids. He always said that was the one decent thing she did for us before she left. Otherwise, we’d have been split up.”

Okay. Unexpected. Sedona slowed her mind down, reassessing.

“What about your dad?”

“I have no idea who he is. My older sister, Talia, said he was a drug dealer, just like hers and our other brother, Thomas’s. Tanner wouldn’t say. I just know that we all four have different dads and none of them hung around. Tanner’s was pretty decent, I guess. He died when Tanner was little.”

“You have three older siblings?”

“Yeah.”

“And this Tanner, he’s the oldest?”

“Yeah.”

“You have a sister named Talia and that was the name on the ID you gave Lila when you first arrived.”

“Yeah. It was hers. I found it in some stuff she left behind.”

“So she’s gone, too?”

“She’s a stripper in Vegas and Tanner won’t let me see her. Like he’s afraid I’m going to get stripper cooties or something.”

A picture of a drowning man began to form in Sedona’s mind. A man desperate enough to use force to keep his youngest sibling in line as she tried to take control of her own life?

Right alongside that vision was a depiction of a young woman who was more alone than Sedona had ever been.

“So there’s you, Tanner and Talia. What about the fourth sibling?”

“Thomas. He’s in New York. Has some fancy job to do with money but I wouldn’t even recognize him if I saw him. He headed for college the fall after mom left and never came back. He had a scholarship to an Ivy League school back east.”

“How old were you then?”

The gorgeous teenager shrugged her slumped shoulders. “Maybe five.”

“Do you and Thomas ever talk?” Just how isolated was this girl?

“Sometimes. When Tanner makes me. I mean, I don’t really know the guy, you know? We had a druggie mother in common and that’s about it.”

“But Thomas calls?”

“Maybe like on Christmas or something. Mostly Tanner calls him. Sometimes he answers and sometimes he doesn’t. Tanner leaves messages. Thomas doesn’t return them.”

No hope of support there.

“Are any of your siblings married?”

Was there any family that could take this girl? To keep her out of the system?

“Nope. And if Tanner has his way, I won’t ever be married, either.”

Not liking the sound of that, Sedona made a mental note.

“So what makes Tanner angry with you?”

Tatum shrugged again.

“Tatum?” She waited for the girl to look at her. “I can’t help you if you aren’t honest with me.”

“That makes Tanner mad,” Tatum said. “When he thinks people are lying to him. But he lies all the time, you know? He says that he’s there for me, but he’s not. He’s always out in that precious vineyard of his, leaving me alone in that big old house. And when I try to find my own life, my own friends, and to be a part of their families, he gets mad and ruins everything.”

“Like what? Can you give me an example?”

“Like...I have a boyfriend.” Tatum’s entire countenance changed. The girl’s eyes brightened, her cheeks softened. “He loves me, Ms. Campbell. Me. He doesn’t care that I have druggie parents who took off. He doesn’t think I’m any less because of that.”

“And other kids do?”

Tatum’s eyes grew shadowed again. “Some do. They say things when they think I don’t know or can’t hear them. They did that to Thomas and Talia, too.”

“How do you know? I thought you and Thomas seldom speak?”

Maybe she spoke with her siblings more than she realized. Maybe they cared enough to step forward. Maybe Thomas had a significant other. Was part of a family Tatum could join.

“Talia told me. She said that I wasn’t supposed to listen to them. And that I wasn’t to let Tanner suffocate the life out of me, either.”

“She said that.”

“Yes.” Tatum nodded. “Exactly those words—not to suffocate the life out of me.”

It was tough to form a picture of a family, to get a realistic sense of the dynamics, in a half-hour conversation with a distressed teenager. And yet...she was hearing enough to know that Tatum’s problems were real.

“When did Talia tell you that?”

“The last time I spoke to her.”

“Was she living in Vegas then?”

“Yes.”

A stripper feeling she’d been suffocated? Because the older brother had tried to save his sister from a dangerous and potentially unhappy life choice?

For a second, Sedona pitied the man. A seemingly young man who’d had the well-being of three younger siblings thrust upon him.

He could be forgiven for making some mistakes.

Sitting solemnly on the bench beside her, Tatum shuddered and Sedona could only imagine what the girl was remembering.

Mistakes were forgivable. Hitting a defenseless fifteen-year-old girl was not.

“I asked you why you thought that if your brother had his way, you’d never get married.”

“Because he hates Del,” the girl said, her voice impassioned. “That’s my boyfriend,” she offered as an aside. “He went off on him on Sunday, and there was this huge fight. He says Del can’t ever come back, I can’t ever see him again and I’m not allowed to talk to him, either. He took my phone and left me with this flip thing with no data plan so I can’t even text.”

“Why doesn’t he like Del?”

Hands clasped tightly, Tatum shook her head. “Because he thinks we’re gonna sleep together, I guess. He caught us out in the barn.”

“Are you sleeping together?”

“No.” A new note entered the girl’s voice.

“Tatum, I’m not your judge. I’m the one who has to know the truth so I can best defend you.”

“We haven’t had sex,” Tatum said. “I’ve never... But he wants to. He was trying to talk me into trying it when Tanner suddenly showed up.”

“Do you want to?”

The darkening night was cool, but she and Tatum both had sweaters and were enclosed in a thick circle of trees surrounding the several-acre garden. The orange-and-golden California poppies on the outskirts of the garden hadn’t yet closed for the night.

“Yeah, I want to. Sorta. I mean, I want to be...you know...together and all. I just, I mean, Tanner’d kill me and...”

Sedona wasn’t a juvenile counselor. But being a family lawyer specializing in divorce and family arbitration meant that she often found herself in the role of counselor. She’d had some training.

She also remembered being fifteen....

And she had decisions to make. Every hour that law enforcement personnel were searching for Tatum, an endangered missing child who wasn’t missing at all, they were being taken away from other important work.

The scent from the flowering plants in the beds close by wafted around them. Sedona focused on those flowers for a moment, seeing some color but mostly shadows within the soft glow of strategically placed landscape lighting.

“Does Del know you’re here?”

“No.” Tatum shook her head. “I...” The girl’s voice faded and Sedona sensed her inner struggle.

“You love Tanner,” she said now. The brother might be overprotective. Was possibly abusive. But he’d been the only parent this girl had known.

“Sometimes, I guess.”

“And you love Del.” Or she thought she did.

“Yes. I do.” There was no doubt that Tatum believed the words. And maybe they were true. It wouldn’t be the first time a love that was born in high school lasted a lifetime.

She had to look no further than her own parents to see that.

“Does Del know that Tanner hit you?”

“No.” No hesitation there.

Time was of the essence. The bottom line was that Tatum had had the courage to reach out for help.

“Do you think Del is the one who reported you missing?”

“No. I messaged him on Facebook this morning to tell him I loved him and that I was leaving but I wouldn’t say where I was going. I didn’t want him to have to lie when his dad asked him about it.

“I know Tanner turned me in. It’s just like him. He did it to Talia, too, the first time she ran away. I can’t believe I didn’t think of that. I just found out the name of this place and then called a hotline to find out more about it and knew today was the only chance I’d have of getting here.” There was absolute conviction in Tatum’s reply.

“You mentioned the first time Talia ran away. There were more?”

“The second time she took off, she was eighteen and he couldn’t do anything. She’d left a note saying she was moving out so she wasn’t, like, in danger or missing or anything. But for years he couldn’t find her. When he finally did she was in Vegas and there was nothing he could do to her.”

“Did he hit Talia, too?” Sedona kept her tone soft, unthreatening. And tried to stick to the facts, not giving rein to any of the emotions that were creeping up on her.

In a small voice, Tatum said, “Yes, he did. The big kids always hid everything from me like I was too dumb to know what was going on. But one time after Thomas left and Talia and Tanner were in this really huge fight, Talia screamed at him to get away from her and said he’d gotten away with slapping her face once but that if he ever touched her again she’d report him.” The girl frowned.

And Sedona could only guess at what Tatum was feeling in that moment.

“Is that why she ran away?”

“I don’t know. I was only seven.”

“So you really don’t know her, either?”

“Talia was like my mother until Tanner drove her away. And she still kept in touch with me. In secret. Until Tanner threatened her or something and made her cut me off.”

“How long has it been since you’ve had contact with her?”

“Almost a year. He caught me talking to her last summer. He’d just found out from an old friend of hers where she was in Vegas and then, just my luck, he comes in from the vineyard and hears me saying her name. Next thing I know, he’s off to Vegas and when he comes home he tells me she won’t be contacting me again.”

“Did she?”

“Nope. She had her number changed, blocked my email and unfriended me, too.”

“Even though she communicated with you in secret for all those years?”

“Because Tanner didn’t know then. She wasn’t really crossing him until he knew and I’m sure he expressly forbade it. You have no idea how convincing my brother can be.”

“Is that when you found out she was a stripper?”

“No. Talia told me what she was doing. That’s why she couldn’t petition for custody and let me come live with her. Because child services would never have approved her for my guardian. She wanted me to know she wasn’t ditching me. That she loved me and would take me if she could.”

It seemed to Sedona that Tatum had tried to look at other avenues to make a good life for herself. To fix her problem.

Without success.

That was going to change.

Tanner Malone wasn’t just dealing with a fifteen-year-old girl anymore. He had Sedona Campbell to contend with now.

For better or worse.

CHAPTER SEVEN

TANNER WAS OUT in the furniture barn, looking under an old claw-foot couch that Tatum had wanted to move into the living room. She couldn’t possibly fit under it, but—because he was out of his mind with worry—he had to look everywhere. He hit his head when his cell phone rang. It was Detective Morris.

“The boyfriend repeated that she messaged him this morning. And as he told you, she said she loved him. He also admitted, when we told him we could trace deleted Facebook posts, that she told him she was leaving but wouldn’t tell him where she was going so he wouldn’t get in trouble.”

His heart sped up. And dropped. Tatum had left? Without taking any of her things? Where could she have been going? Harcourt had to have made some provisions for her, given her someplace to hang out....

“We know she got on a bus.” Morris’s voice was all business. And Tanner’s heart rate escalated again. “Heading toward Santa Raquel beach. We’ve spoken with the driver. He told us where she got off.” The detective named an intersection he could place, but wasn’t all that familiar with. It was easily twenty miles from the vineyard that was situated halfway between Santa Raquel and Santa Barbara. “Do you have any idea why she’d get off there? Is there someone she knows in the area? Someplace you used to go?”

“No. I... We’ve never been there. I have no idea....”

He tried to remember, forcing his throbbing head to work overtime. Had Tatum attended a birthday party in Santa Raquel, maybe?

“She loves to go to the beach,” he said, for lack of any better ideas.

And there were a handful of them a hell of a lot closer than Santa Raquel. Besides, Tatum knew better than to go to the beach alone.

“We’ve got officers canvassing the area,” Morris told him. “Someone has to have seen her.”

He was beginning to think more clearly. He headed to the truck, about to get to know that unfamiliar neighborhood really well. “Was she alone?”

“As far as we can tell. The driver said she was the only person to board the bus about a mile from your place.”

He knew the stop. Little more than a bench on a country corner. How in the hell had Tatum gotten there?

Harcourt. He had to have taken her. Had to know where she was.

“He said there was an older woman who got off when she did, but they didn’t seem to know each other and went in opposite directions. She didn’t fit the description of a druggie or a homeless person and he didn’t recognize her from the picture you had of your mother.”

Tatum didn’t know any other older women that he was aware of. “Harcourt’s got to be meeting her later tonight. When he can get away without anyone noticing.”

“We’ve spoken with his parents. He won’t be getting out of their sight tonight.”

“So if she’s waiting for him someplace, she’s going to be alone in the dark.” He wasn’t sure which was worse, Tatum alone with Harcourt all night or out by herself.

Or with Tammy.

He feared that the lesser of two evils was the young man he’d banned her from seeing.

In his truck, driving toward the main road, Tanner said, “Can we call them and have them give him his freedom? Just in case. He could lead us to her.”

“I’ll give them a call,” Morris said, not sounding happy about the prospect. “But if they don’t want their son used as bait, I can’t blame them.”

Tanner could, though. If not for their corrupt son, Tatum and Tanner would still be okay, sitting at home, ignoring each other.

Ringing off, he pushed the pedal to the floor, determined to make twenty miles in fewer minutes than that.

* * *

“WE’RE GOING TO have to let the police know where you are.” Sedona needed a lot more answers. And had no more time. “They’re wasting valuable dollars searching for you.”

The eyes that looked over at her were filled with fear. And resignation, as well. It was a look far too mature for a fifteen-year-old girl to be wearing. “They’re going to send me home with Tanner,” she said, without a hint of a whine. “This will all be for nothing.”

“If Tanner’s hitting you I can ask for an emergency order to have you kept away from him, at least until the state has time to investigate your allegations.”

“I told you, I’m not going to report him to the police.”

A response that wasn’t all that unusual in domestic situations where the abused also loved their abusers.

“You’re a minor, Tatum. And you told me about it. I’m legally obligated to report it.”

“I’ll just deny having told you. Or I’ll say I lied. I thought this was a safe place. Where I could come and just tell someone here and have a place to stay until I can get settled on my own.”

“You’re fifteen. You not only have to finish high school, but you’re under your brother’s guardianship. He’s legally responsible for you.”

“I’m not reporting him.” Tatum crossed her arms, her face set.

“Why not? If he’s hurting you, he needs help, Tatum.”

Her gaze darting around the subtly lit garden, Tatum straightened, flicking her long blond hair over her shoulder. “It’ll be my word against his,” she said. “I don’t have any proof. It’s not like I took pictures. Or even told anyone. They’re going to think I’m just a fifteen-year-old kid who’s mad at him because he won’t let me be with my boyfriend.”

Sedona couldn’t deny the possibility. She’d already thought of it and had to be straight with her client. Even though, technically, Tatum couldn’t be her client without her brother’s, or the court’s, approval.

“Is that what’s happening here?”

“No!” Tatum’s eyes widened and she faced Sedona squarely. “I’m pissed at him about Del, yes, but I’m not just a spoiled kid who can’t take no for an answer. I’m here to find answers.”

“What kind of answers?”

Tatum sat back. “You know, about what someone does when they’re a victim of domestic violence.”

Tatum could be playing them. She could just be saying the right words. And if she was, she’d be caught out. If she wasn’t, and they sent her home...

Sedona couldn’t take a chance on sending this young girl back to get beat up on again. Statistics showed that domestic violence issues in the home escalated from incident to incident. The next time Tatum might not just get off with a few bruises.

“I have another suggestion,” she said, believing that, under the circumstances, it was the best option for the moment.

“What?”

“I can try to talk your brother, to let him know that you aren’t missing and haven’t run away so that he can alert the police to drop their search. And then ask him if he’d be willing to let you stay here—even if it’s just for a day or two, until we get this settled.”

“It’ll take a lot more than a day or two for anything to get settled with Tanner. More like a lifetime.”

“Either way, we’re out of time,” Sedona said, aware that Lila would be pacing her office, looking at the clock.

They could only pretend not to see the news bulletins for so long.

“What’ll happen to me tonight if I tell the cops that Tanner hit me? Which I’m not going to do. I already told you that. But what would happen to me if I did?”

“I can’t say for sure. I can probably arrange to have you spend the night here tonight. But they might come for you in the morning. And then it will be largely up to the court. They’ll assign a caseworker to you. And investigate the situation.”

They could send her home as early as that night, too. Or the next day. Based on the lack of evidence or witnesses—and if no domestic violence reports had ever been filed for Tanner Malone, and there were no medical records of abuse and no problems reported by Tatum’s school, and if Tatum said she lied, they probably would send her home. And just keep an eye on things.

Which, as Sedona knew all too well, so often meant wait until the abuse happened again....

She could contact Talia. See if she could get testimony out of the older sister regarding previous abuse. But again, with no corroborating evidence, and considering Talia’s current situation and previous history with her brother, her testimony wouldn’t be all that credible. The court could go either way. Unless reports had been filed in the past.

“Even if I talk to Tanner, whether he lets you stay here or insists on taking you home, I’m going to have to report the abuse to the police, whether you want to do so or not.”

A caseworker would be assigned. Tatum would most likely still be sent home because, as the teenager said, she could just be a truculent child lashing out for having her boyfriend privileges removed.

There would almost surely have to be another abusive incident before anything more could be done.

“What’s your choice?” she asked Tatum, standing up in the dimly lit garden. “The police have to be notified that you’re safe, Tatum, one way or the other. Do you want me to call your brother or not?”

It felt cruel, to be putting such a choice to a child who’d turned to them for help. But it was the best she could do. Short of putting the girl in her car and running with her.

Standing, her chin low and shoulders sagging, Tatum gave Sedona Tanner Malone’s cell phone number.

* * *