The Truth About Tara

“You know Mrs. Jorgenson, Danny,” Tara said. “She lives in the white house across the street from you.”

“Old lady in white house,” Danny said. Tara winced.

“That’s me,” Mrs. Jorgenson said cheerfully. “I’ll be eighty-seven on my next birthday.”

“I’m ten,” Danny said.

“Lucky you,” Mrs. Jorgenson said. “Where’s your mother, Tara?”

“At the beauty salon,” Tara said. “School’s out for the summer so I have more time to help her with Danny.”

“Such a good heart your mother has,” Mrs. Jorgenson said. “I don’t know what I would have done without her when Artie was in the hospital. She drove me there every day. Now that he’s home, she stops by a few times a week to check on us. Always brings us something home cooked, too.”

Tara hadn’t known that, but it didn’t surprise her—not when frozen dinners filled Mrs. Jorgenson’s buggy.

“Artie doesn’t feel up to cooking these days,” Mrs. Jorgenson said, gesturing to the food she was going to buy. “I was never much good at it.”

Danny started down the nearest aisle, darting back and forth as he checked out the items on the shelves. Tara debated whether to call him back and decided against it. The attention span of a ten-year-old, disabled or not, was only so long.

“Nice talking to you, Mrs. Jorgenson,” Tara said. “But I’ve got to go after Danny.”

“Certainly dear,” the older woman said, shooing Tara away with the motion of her hand.

Tara gave chase, the bad wheel on her buggy causing the entire cart to wobble. “Danny, wait up!”

She needn’t have bothered calling out anything. The child had stopped, transfixed by an item on the shelves. Tara groaned even before he reached out and grabbed a jumbo-sized bag of potato chips.

“Look what I found!” Danny thudded toward her on heavy feet. “Chips!”

He put the bag in her cart, his face creased in a broad smile. Tara did not smile. The salty snack was a terrible choice for a little boy with a weight problem.

She reached inside the cart for the chips and held them out to Danny. “Please put those back, Danny.”

“I like chips!” Danny cried.

“I know you do,” Tara said. “But they’re not good for you.”

“They are good!” he protested, his voice rising.

“Not every food that tastes good is good for you.” Tara gave up trying to get Danny to reshelve the chips. “I’ll buy you a healthy snack.”

She headed for the spot where the chips had been with Danny following close behind.

“Want chips!” he yelled at the top of his lungs.

The other people in the aisle, Laura Thompson and her two young daughters, stopped and stared. Tara had taught the older girl, Shelly, in PE last year. She groaned inwardly. Tara was a teacher. She was supposed to be able to handle situations like this.

“Anything I can do to help?” Laura asked.

“Thanks, but no,” Tara said. “Please stop yelling, Danny.” She kept her voice as calm as possible, the way she did when one of the students at school misbehaved. She placed the potato chips back on the shelf. “Let’s go find you something else.”

“No-o-o-o-o!” Danny screamed, his face turning red. “Want chips!”

Although her mother had warned her about Danny’s tantrums, Tara had never seen one. Her calm voice hadn’t worked. Time to try something else.

“Quiet down this instant, Danny!” she said sharply.

“Want chips!” His cry was even more ferocious than the last one. With a defiant look, he snatched the chips from the shelf and took off down the aisle as fast as his short legs would carry him.

“Danny! Come back!” she yelled after him.

He didn’t even slow down. With the bag of chips slapping against his hip, he veered right when he reached the end of the aisle.

Tara got behind the cart and followed him. “Sorry about this,” she called to Laura and her two daughters as she passed by. She tried to speed up, but the rickety cart slowed her.

“Forget this,” she said aloud and abandoned the buggy.

At the end of the aisle she turned in the direction Danny had gone. She stopped in her tracks. The child was nowhere in sight. She couldn’t hear him, either.

Her heartbeat sped up and her throat closed. Hayley Cooper sprang to mind. Was this panic what Hayley’s mother had experienced when she first realized her little girl was gone?

Tara usually felt safe in Wawpaney, which encompassed a few square miles and had a population of about four hundred. Even during the height of summer, the small inland town didn’t get a lot of strangers. Hayley had reportedly been abducted from a small town in Kentucky, proof that bad things can happen anywhere.

Her heart thudded so hard it felt as if it was slamming against her chest. The store had dual exits and one of them was in the general direction Danny had headed. Tara set off again, checking each aisle for any sign of Danny. She spotted people she recognized as she went, but didn’t want to linger, asking them if they’d seen Danny. Her panic grew by the second until there was only one more aisle to go.

She was almost afraid to look for fear she wouldn’t see him. But, yes! There he was. Not alone, though. A man was crouched down so that he and Danny were at eye level.

Not just any man.

Jack DiMarco.

Her fear over losing Danny subsided, and her heart gave a little leap. If he’d been any other man, she would have attributed the reaction to excitement. But no good reason could exist for Jack to still be in Wawpaney. At the thought, adrenaline of another sort surged through her. She glanced back over her shoulder, battling the urge to flee. Retreat wasn’t an option, however, not without Danny.

Gathering her courage, she started forward.

CHAPTER THREE

“HEY, BUDDY, WHERE’RE you going in such a hurry?” Jack crouched so he was eye-to-eye with the boy he’d seen in the parking lot of the grocery store with Tara Greer, the one who’d plowed into him about five seconds ago. The boy

didn’t seem to be suffering any ill effects from the collision. Jack couldn’t say the same for the bag of chips he was clutching to his chest.

“She won’t let me have my chips!” the boy cried.

He was different from most other little boys, Jack realized instantly. From his almond-shaped eyes, somewhat flat nose and round face, Jack guessed he had Down syndrome. Like his first cousin’s son back in Kentucky.

From the corner of his eye, Jack spotted Tara approaching. Was she the boy’s mother? She hadn’t been wearing a wedding ring when he’d confronted her the other day, but plenty of women had children outside marriage. She might even be living with the boy’s father. Something inside him deflated at the thought.

The boy pointed to Tara. “She’s mean!”