The Selkie Spell (Seal Island Trilogy) (20 page)

“Didn’t anyone ever tell you it’s not polite to leave without saying goodbye?”

“How did you—?”

“No,” Dominic said tightly, guiding her out of the store and away from the busy intersection to where a bridge crested over a rushing river.  “You don’t get to ask the questions anymore.”

Tara squeezed her eyes shut.  “You shouldn’t have come.”

“Why not?”

“It’ll only make it harder.”

“For who?  You?”  Dominic’s eyes flashed.  “What color is your real hair anyway?”

“It’s black,” Tara answered.  “And I know what this must look like.”

“I don’t care what it looks like,” Dominic cut in.  “I want to know what it is.  What the hell is going on, Tara?  Did you think I would let you just take off?  Let you leave without even giving an explanation?”

“No.”

“So you ran so you wouldn’t have to tell me the truth?”

“I can’t tell you the truth.”

“Why not?” he demanded.

“Because…”  Tara turned, gazed down at the silver ribbon of water.  “Because if I do, it’ll put you in danger.  It’ll put Kelsey, and others, in danger.”  She shook her head.  “I can’t—I won’t do that.”

“What kind of danger?  Tara!”  He grabbed her hand and turned her around to face him when she continued to stare down at the river.  “What kind of danger?”

“I can’t tell you,” she whispered.

“Then tell me what you saw.”  Dominic jerked the magazine out of his pocket.  “Tell me what you saw in
this
magazine that made you run.”

Tara stared at the crumpled pages.  “How did you…?”

“Tell me the truth, Tara.  Give me a reason—one reason—to let you get back on that bus.”

“Dominic.  I—”

“One reason, Tara.”

She let out a long breath.  “I’m married.”

***

Dominic took a step back.  “You’re
married
?”

Tara nodded.

“Are you still
with
him?”

“I left him.”

“When?”

“Three weeks before I came to the island.”

“Three weeks?”  Dominic’s mind reeled, remembering back to his first impression the day she walked into his pub.  The rich, cultured voice.  The second hand clothes.  The answers that didn’t add up.

“Is he in here?” Dominic held up the magazine, balled in his hand.  “Is that why you ran away?  So you could go back to him?”

Tara shook her head.

“Then… what?  Christ, Tara, we’re sleeping together!  You’re building a relationship with my daughter!  And you’re still
married
?”

“I can’t let him find me here,” she whispered.

“
Find
you?”

Tara’s gaze shot to the bus, as the doors snapped closed.  The driver held up his hands through the windshield.  “Dominic,” Tara turned to him quickly.  “I have to go now.  I’m sorry.  I know that you’ll never forgive me.  Or understand why I have to leave.  But please… just tell Kelsey I’m sorry.”

She stepped down to the pavement and Dominic’s hand shot out, closing around her arm.  “What do you mean,
you can’t let him find you here
?”

“He’s looking for me.”  Tara waved a desperate hand at the bus driver.  “If I stay still, he’ll find me.”

“What’s going to
happen
if he finds you?”

“He won’t,” Tara said, prying her hand out of Dominic’s grip.  “Because I won’t let him.”

Dominic gazed down into Tara’s determined eyes.  He’d seen that look in her eyes before, the day she came into his pub looking for a job and he’d turned her down. 
‘I don’t understand.  Did you change your mind after you put the ad in the paper?’  ‘I changed my mind when I saw you.’  ‘What is it about me that made you change your mind?’  ‘You’ve a look about you.  Like you’re running from something.’
  Dominic took a step back as suddenly everything fell into place.  “He hurt you.”

“Dominic,” Tara was already walking out into the street.  “Please don’t make this any harder than it has to be.”

“He hurt you,” Dominic repeated, following her across the street to the bus.  “He hurt you and you ran from him.”

“I did what I had to do to survive.  I’m going to keep doing what I have to do to survive.”  She turned, one hand on the rail leading up the steps to the bus.  “I wish that things were different.  I wish…”  She reached up, laid a hand on his cheek.  “I wish I could have met you first.”

“Tara.  Don’t leave.”

“Please, Dominic,” Tara pleaded.  “Just let me go.”

“I can’t.”

“Why?”

Dominic held her eyes.  “Because I love you.”

***

Tara’s hand slid from the rail.  “What?”

“I said, I love you, Tara.”

“No.”  Tara shook her head. 
This wasn’t happening.
  “You can’t possibly love me.”

“Why not?”

“Because you don’t even
know
me!”

Dominic took a step forward and lowered his voice “I’ve known you
intimately
for the past two months.”

Tara shook her head again, trying desperately to process what he was saying.  “Two months isn’t long enough to know someone!”

He took her hand, pulling her away from the bus.  “I know that you want to help people.  I know that you can’t stand to see someone in pain.  I know that you use herbs as a way to heal others, when you don’t bother trying to heal yourself.”

“That’s because I’m a doctor!  That’s what I do!”  She watched the hurt, the anger flash across his face.  “Yes,” she snapped when he just stared at her.  “I lied about that, too.”

When the door cranked shut, Tara whirled.  “Wait!”

The driver ignored her, pulling away from the curb.

“Stop!” Tara shouted, running after it, banging on the side.  “Oh my god,” she breathed, when it sped away, leaving her staring after it in the middle of the street.  “What have you done?”

“Tara—”

She turned, scanning the town for a ticket booth and spotting one, she raced to the window.  “I need a ticket for the next bus,” she said, pounding on the glass.  “Wherever it’s going.  I don’t care.  Just give me a ticket.”

“Sorry, love,” the ticket seller said, his brows knitting together in concern.  “That was the last bus out of Cleggan today.”

“The
last
bus?”

The ticket seller nodded and Tara turned, colliding with Dominic.

“Tara,” he said, gripping both her arms.  “Get a hold of yourself!”

“Get a hold of myself?”
she shouted, wrenching out of his grip.  “You don’t know who you’re dealing with!  You don’t know what he’ll do to me if he finds me!”

“Then let me help you!”

“You can’t help me!  You don’t understand!”

“I do understand,” he shouted back.  “If you’d give me two seconds to explain—”

She yanked the magazine out of his pocket.  “You think you understand?”  She opened to the page about the nurse, shoved the article at him.  “This is what he would do to me if he found me.  This is what he would to do you!  To
Kelsey!
”  Her voice broke when she thought of little girl she had left.  The little girl who’d been abandoned twice now in her life.  “
This
is why I’m leaving, Dominic.  If he finds me with you, he’ll kill you!  He’ll kill your whole family!”

“Drink this,” Dominic said, handing Tara a Guinness and settling down beside her on a sheltered outcropping of rocks overlooking the bay.  “And after you do,” he said, watching her take a sip.  “I want you to tell me everything.”

Tara stared at the boats bobbing gently in the quiet water.  Live music drifted down from the crowded streets of the village above them.  The scent of malt vinegar and pipe smoke floated out of the open doors of the pubs, warring with the salty breezes blowing in from the bay.  “Where should I start?”

“Why don’t you start by telling me your real name?”

“It’s Sydney Carter.”

Dominic nodded, taking a deep breath.  “Alright, Sydney—”

“I don’t want you to call me that.”

His gaze shifted over, locking on hers.

“I want you to call me Tara.”

“Because you’re afraid someone will overhear?”

“Because Sydney is dead.”  Tara watched a dragonfly land on the rock beside them.  “I killed her.”

“Okay,” Dominic said slowly.  “Why don’t you start by telling me how?”

Tara’s gaze drifted back out to the water.  “It was the first time he left me alone, since the last time he put me in the hospital.  Since the last time he beat me and made it look like an accident.”  Her voice was calm, dead calm.  “It was raining.  There was a big storm headed for Houston.”

“Houston?”

“Houston.  Yes.  That’s where I’m from.  Or at least, that’s where my father and I moved after my mother died.”

Dominic nodded, processing.  “Go on.”

“There was a flash flood warning.  Not that anyone ever took them seriously, but we’d had three straight months of drought.  Of hot, sticky, humid heat.  The stream beds were all dried up, the ground hard as a rock, and a huge storm was heading for Houston.  The weatherman was warning people to stay off the low roads, to use caution when driving.  So I did the opposite.  I drove my car down to the parking lot under the bridge.  I left it there and hailed a taxi to the airport.  I thought if I could get to the airport fast enough, I could beat it.  That I might be able to get out before it hit.  And when it did, my car would get swept into the floodwaters.”

“And everyone would think you were dead,” Dominic finished for her.

“Yes.   And it worked.  I got out of the city before the storm hit, flew to Rome and then took a train to Amsterdam.  I worked there for a couple weeks and then took a train to Ireland.  I was looking for work in Galway when I found the advertisement for a waitress in your pub.  I thought if I could get that job, in a place so removed from the rest of the world, I might be able to take a few days to think, to process what I’d just done and figure out where I was going to go for the next six months.”

“You never meant to stay,” Dominic realized.  “You said were looking for summer work, but you were only planning to stay a week or two.”

Tara nodded.

“But… you stayed.”

“I stayed,” Tara echoed.  “And I thought I might have even fooled him.  I might have even won.  Until today, when I saw the article.”

“Okay.”  Dominic waited for her to take another sip.  “Why don’t you tell me about the nurse in the article.”

Tears stung the back of Tara’s eyes but she fought them back. 
The woman in the magazine had died.  Had been killed, because of her.  How was she every going to forgive herself for that?
  She focused on the foam of her drink, avoiding Dominic’s gaze.  “Carol Johnson—the one who was murdered—she was the nurse on staff the last time I was admitted.  She knew—I don’t know how she knew—but she knew.  And she waited until Philip left my room and then she came back in with the envelope.”

“The envelope?”

“The envelope holding the passport, the birth certificate, and the credit card to purchase the airline ticket.”

“She just gave it to you?”

Tara nodded.  “She didn’t say anything.  She didn’t
need
to say anything.  She just handed it to me and walked out of the room.”

“How did you know it was safe?  How did you know it wasn’t a set up?”

“I didn’t,” Tara admitted.  “But I was desperate.  I would have taken anything from anyone if it offered a way out.”

Dominic motioned for her to take another sip.  “So you think he killed her?”

Tara lowered the glass.  “I
know
he killed her.  Jacob Cohen—the man who created my papers—the police arrested him.  If there are any records of my documents, any pictures of me in his files, the Feds have them now.  And Philip is a powerful man.  He has connections everywhere.  All they have to do is trace my credit card to Europe, then the passport number to Ireland.”

“Ireland is a big country.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“But how do you know he’ll look for you on Seal Island?”

“
He
won’t.  He’ll have hired someone by now.”

Dominic searched her face.  “You think there’s a detective looking for you?”

Tara nodded.  “Philip might have given the police two weeks, three at the most, to recover my body.  When they didn’t, he would have hired someone.  Someone good.  And it’s only a matter of time before he tracks me to the island.”

Dominic gazed out at the water.  The happy chatter of tourists and travelers drifted down from the crowded streets.  Sea gulls rode the soft summer breezes into the harbor, landing on pilings and squawking at children clamoring onto the pier.  “How did you meet him, Tara?  I need to understand how you could have gotten involved with someone like this.”