One Last Breath by Sarah Sutton (speld decodable readers txt) 📗

“Whoever it was had to have been watching them. He must’ve known they’d be walking alone.”

Warren nodded. It was the only logical explanation for how they both vanished at the perfect moment—when no one was around, when it was late. He must’ve been watching them, studying their routine, studying when that perfect moment would be. The thought sent a shiver down Tara’s spine. He was living among them, and they didn’t even know.

“There must’ve been someone who saw something,” she added as she stared out onto the road ahead of them, dusted with a small layer of sand and littered with broken branches. She knew that if the killer was watching each of the victims, it was likely someone would’ve seen him and thought he seemed a bit suspicious—that his car was parked too long, that he seemed odd, anything.

Warren agreed. “We’ll see what the family has to say. Then I think we head to the coffee shop that the victim worked at. Who knows, he could’ve even been a customer.”

Tara nodded. He was right. The killer most likely knew when she was getting off work. He may even have known her hours. And being a customer, having the perfect opportunity to learn more about his victim while not getting caught could’ve been the ultimate thrill.

Warren turned onto a side street and then pulled over in front of a house. It was the home of the second victim, and Tara could already feel the unease swirl within her belly. She hated this part, interrupting a family’s grieving. But she also knew that families often held more valuable information than they even realized.

They both stepped out of the car as a gust of wind whirled. Particles of sand danced across the stone driveway. The house was small but charming. It was a pale yellow, with a blue front door and white trim. It had the looks of a quintessential beach house, with surfboards strapped to the hood of a Jeep Wrangler in the driveway. Tara wondered how long those surfboards had been strapped there. They had fallen leaves scattered over them. She assumed they were placed there before the storm, before their daughter went missing, before her body was found. The thought gave Tara an unsettled feeling. They had clearly been too stricken with grief even to consider taking them off the roof.

Tara and Warren walked up the front steps, and Tara knocked. Muffled sobbing could be heard coming from inside. But at each knock, the sobbing would die down, replaced by whispering and a sniffle before the door started to open.

A balding man with sun-kissed skin, wearing khaki shorts and a t-shirt that read Dewey Beach stood in the doorway. His eyes were red and watery. He looked blankly back and forth between Tara and Warren, as if in a daze, and then a look of reality sank in.

Tara held up her badge. “Do you mind if we just speak with you a moment? I’m so sorry to intrude. We won’t be long.”

The man’s face sank to the floor as he sighed and opened the door farther without a word. The door opened into the living room, where a woman sat on the couch, comforting a child who looked to be about ten. She held him close to her chest, kissing the top of his head as he sobbed into her shirt. The woman looked up as they entered, her face streaked with pain. It was clear she was trying desperately to hold it all in. Her eyes were bloodshot, her face was red. It looked as if she would burst into tears at the slightest trigger, but she was holding it together for her son. She stroked his head continuously, his face still buried into her chest as she cradled him like a baby and looked at them questioningly.

The man motioned for them to sit down, and the woman, realizing who they were, looked down at her son.

“Maybe you should go to your room,” she said to him.

He looked up and around him as he slid from his mother’s lap and took a seat next to her. His face was swollen and red, his skin as tanned as his parents’. His hair was a light brown, but sun-kissed, which brought out bits of fiery red.

“I want to stay with you,” he cried as he looked up at his mother.

She looked around the room for approval, at her husband, Tara, and Warren. It was clear she couldn’t bear to tell him no.

“Is that okay?” she asked.

Warren looked at Tara and then back at the woman. “As long as it’s okay with you,” he replied as he took a seat on a couch next to the one she was sitting in. Tara sat next to him. The house was all light and beachy, from the white furniture to trinket decorations placed throughout the room. A large wooden antique sailboat sat on the table next to the couch.

The husband took a seat next to his wife with the boy between them, still clinging to his mother’s arm. The mother and her husband stared at Tara and Warren with concern, cautiously awaiting what they were about to ask in the presence of their son.

“Your daughter was coming home from work when she went missing, correct?” Tara asked.

The woman nodded. “She gets out at ten. She’s usually home before ten thirty.”

“Do you know of anyone who could’ve possibly wanted to harm her?”

The woman looked from her husband to Tara as she began to stroke her son’s hair again. “No,” she started, her voice cracking at the end. “Reese was loved by everyone. I can’t think of anyone who would want to hurt her.”

“Did she have a boyfriend?”

Again, the woman shook her head, and so did her husband.

“Reese wasn’t allowed to date until recently,” the father added. “Not until she was seventeen, which was only a month ago.” His eyes welled up at his words.

Tara could easily get the sense that they were protective