Whose Baby Is This?. Patricia Thayer

grass toward the ocean, perched close to the bluff, was a pewter-colored cottage with burgundy trim. She smiled. It looked like a little gingerbread house.

      She wandered to the mantel and glanced at the photographs, one of an elderly couple and a blond-haired boy. The towheaded Matt Landers looked to be about fourteen. He was tall and gangly and wore glasses. Who would have thought he’d turn out to be so handsome? Tara quickly turned her focus to other pictures of Dr. Landers and children. Who were they? Nieces, nephews, maybe patients?

      She heard voices and returned to the sofa as a man followed Matt into the room.

      “Tara, this is Jim Sloan, the investigator I told you about,” Matt said.

      The investigator was in his mid-thirties and dressed in a sport shirt and dark trousers. He had brown hair that was a little long but neatly combed.

      “Hello, Mr. Sloan,” Tara said.

      “Please call me Jim. And may I call you Tara?” he asked as he pulled a chair toward the sofa. “I want to apologize for not being here sooner. I was delayed down south.”

      She nodded.

      “Well, Tara, as the doctor must have told you, I need to ask you some questions. So the sooner we get on with this, the faster we may be able to find this man.” He pulled a notebook from his pocket. “Can you tell me where your sister, Briana, met her Dr. Landers?”

      Tara exchanged a nervous glance with Matt. “She just said she met him in Mexico when she went there on vacation with a friend.”

      “Did she call the man she met by name?”

      “She told me his name was Matt Landers and he was a heart surgeon.”

      Jim took some notes. “What friend went with her?”

      Tara shrugged. “I’m not sure. Bri and I hadn’t been in touch much the past year. I didn’t know she was pregnant until she called two days before she delivered Erin. No one else came to visit Bri in the hospital.”

      Matt watched sadness veil Tara’s features and knew this situation had to be hard on her. “Maybe the friend moved away,” he said.

      “L.A. is a big city,” Jim said. “A person could get lost there. Do you have any idea who this friend is?”

      “I can only tell you she moved to L.A. with Cathy Guthrie. I remember Bri telling me that Cathy got married to a Marine her first year here in Los Angeles. Then she and her husband moved to San Diego.”

      “Do you think she and your sister kept in touch?”

      “I don’t know.”

      Matt watched as Tara brushed wisps of auburn bangs from her forehead, her eyes showing deep concentration. He knew she was trying hard to remember.

      “What about in your sister’s apartment?” Jim continued writing. “Did she have anything belonging to Matt Landers?”

      Tara didn’t want to go through this—airing private family matters in front of strangers. She and Bri hadn’t had the best relationship over the years, and it hurt to share how badly she’d failed her sister. “I didn’t find much, just her clothes, a little jewelry…” She suddenly remembered something. “Wait, there was a ring. Bri wore an emerald ring. It was rather pretty, but she kept twisting it around her finger whenever she talked about Matt.”

      Matt’s expression never wavered.

      “Did she say where she’d gotten it?” the investigator asked.

      Tara shrugged. “No, but when packing up her things, I found a velvet box. I saved it…for Erin.” She wanted to give her something of her mother’s.

      “Was there a name on the box?”

      She sighed. “I’m not sure. Why is this important?” She looked at Matt. His dark eyes were intense. One brow was arched.

      “Because, Tara, if we have the jeweler’s name maybe he’ll remember who bought the ring and what the person looked like. It’s a long shot, but it’s all we have right now.”

      She nodded. “My neighbor has my house key. I could have her look for me.”

      Matt rewarded her with a smile, and an odd feeling gripped Tara’s stomach. “That would be great,” he said.

      “Could she look for an address book, too?” Sloan said. “Maybe this Cathy Guthrie is in there, or other friends who might have gone with her to Mexico.”

      “Okay. Anything else?” She wanted the interrogation over.

      “What was your sister’s last address?”

      It had been nothing more than a small room in a house in a graffiti-filled neighborhood, but Tara gave it to him. “But Bri had lived other places. She must have moved there when she had to quit working because of complications with the pregnancy. She had to stay in bed the last three months.”

      “Why didn’t she go home to Phoenix?” Jim asked.

      Guilt and shame filled Tara. Her throat tightened, making it difficult to speak. “Bri and I hadn’t been close…in a long time, not since our mother died….” She looked away, not wanting to see a judgmental look.

      “How long did Bri live in L.A.?”

      “Over three years.”

      “So you didn’t know about her life? Her job…the men…”

      “Look, my sister and I may not have seen eye to eye on everything, but I loved her. And pregnant or not, Bri was family. And when she told me Matt Landers was Erin’s father, I took it as the truth.” She could feel the tears building, but she wouldn’t cry in front of strangers. That she’d do in private.

      Matt reached out and covered her hand with his. “I’m sorry, Tara.” He glared at Sloan. “We have no right—”

      No matter how comforting his touch was, she pulled away. “That’s right, you don’t.”

      Jim wasn’t apologetic at all. He forged ahead. “Okay. I have one more question, then we’ll stop. When was Bri in Mexico?”

      “Bri said she went to Acapulco the last week of May a year ago. She met a man named Matt Landers the next day by the hotel pool.” Tara tried to control the heat creeping up her neck, recalling her sister’s all-too-vivid description of the good doctor and their heated sexual affair.

      She studied Matt. Although he hadn’t been her sister’s lover, Tara couldn’t stop the images of this man’s probable sexual prowess. She jerked her head toward Jim. “They had a two-week affair that was supposed to continue after returning home.”

      “How old was your sister?”

      “Twenty-three.”

      “My God, that would make me fifteen years her senior.” Matt’s expression became angry as he stood and paced. “She was hardly more than a child.”

      “Bri could make herself look a lot older,” Tara said, remembering in high school how Bri and her friends would dress up. With her shapely body, people couldn’t believe she was only seventeen.

      “Do you have a picture?” the investigator asked.

      Tara opened her purse and pulled out her wallet. She flipped through the photos until she came up with the last one Bri sent their mother. “It’s one of those glamour shots. My sister was naturally pretty, though.”

      Matt took the picture and examined the striking blue-eyed blonde closely.

      “Bri was given the looks in the family. She’s the image of our mother,” Tara said.

      “She’s beautiful,” Matt said, then glanced at Tara. “You look alike. Only your coloring is different.”

      Tara blushed, knowing there had been several differences. Body type, for one. Bri was shapely