15
"Tara Portman," Gia said, rolling the two names through her brain for maybe the dozenth time. "I've known an occasional Tara and a couple of Portmans, but can't for the life of me recall a Tara Portman."
They'd returned directly from the restaurant in Astoria-no stop at Menelaus Manor per Jack's insistence-and settled down for a movie. Gia had found Stepmom on one of the cable movie channels and declared tonight her turn to pick. Jack grumbled and groaned, saying anything but Step-mom, but finally gave in. He turned out to be a poor loser, editorializing with gagging and retching sounds at the best parts.
He'd checked his messages before they headed for bed and found an urgent call from Lyle Kenton who'd claimed that the ghost had told them her name.
Lyle had read off what the spirit had written and Jack had copied it down. Staring at the transcription now gave her a chill. A bodiless entity, the ghost of a little dead girl, had mentioned her. She shuddered.
"Well, whoever or whatever it is," Jack said, "it thinks you're nice. At least that's what it says."
Gia was sitting at the kitchen table, the transcription before her. Jack stood beside her, leaning on the table.
"You don't think I'm nice?" she said, looking up at him.
"I know you're nice. And you know my agenda. But we know nothing about this thing's."
"Her name is Tara."
"So it says."
Gia sighed. Jack could be so stubborn at times. "Are you going to be difficult about this?"
"If being protective of you translates as difficult, then yes, I'm going to be very difficult about this. I do not trust this thing."
"She seems to want me to come back."
"Oh, no," he said. "That's not going to happen."
"Oh, really?"
Gia knew he was looking out for her, but still she bristled at being told what she could or couldn't do.
"Come on, Gi. Don't be like that. This is the Otherness we're dealing with here. Responsible for the rakoshi. You haven't forgotten them, have you?"
"You know I haven't. But you don't know for sure it's the Otherness."
"No, I don't," he admitted. "But I think the best course is to assume the worst until proven otherwise."
Gia leaned back. "Tara Portman... how can we find out about her?"
"Newspapers are the best bet," Jack said. "We can hit the Times or one of the other papers tomorrow and search their archives. Start in '67 and work backwards and forwards."
"What about the Internet? We can do that right now."
"The Internet didn't exist back in '67."
"I know. But it can't hurt to try."
Gia led Jack to the townhouse's library where she'd set up the family computer. She and Vicky were starting to use it more and more-Vicky for homework, Gia for reference stills for her paintings. She fired it up, logged onto AOL, and did a Google search for Tara Portman. She got over ten thousand hits, but after glancing at the first half dozen she knew this wasn't going to give her what she needed.
"Try 'missing child,' " Jack suggested.
She typed it in and groaned when the tally bar reported nearly a million hits. But at the top of the list she noticed a number of organizations devoted to finding missing children. A click on one of the links took her to www.abductedchild.org.
She read the organization's mission statement as the rest of the welcome screen filled in, and was dismayed to learn it had been founded in 1995.
"This isn't going to work. She's been gone too long."
"Probably right." Jack said. "But there's a search button over on the left there. Give it a shot."
She did. The next screen allowed searches by region, by age and physical description, or by name. Gia chose the last. She entered "Portman" in the last name field, 'Tara' in the first, and hit enter. The screen blanked, then a color photo began to take shape. Blurry at first, but increasingly sharper as more pixels filled in.
Hair... Gia felt her saliva begin to vanish when she saw that the child was blond.
Eyes... her breath leaked away as blue eyes came into focus.
Nose... lips... chin...
With a cry, Gia pushed back from the keyboard so hard and fast she might have tipped over if Jack hadn't been behind her.
Jack caught her. "What's wrong?"
"That's..." The words clogged in her throat. Her tongue felt like clay. She pointed to the screen. "It's her! That's the child I saw in the house!"
Jack knelt beside her, clutching her hand as he stared at the screen.
"Gia... really? No doubt?"
Her voice was a whisper. "None. It's her."
Jack reached for the abandoned mouse and scrolled down the screen.