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

He nodded. “For about a week and a half, I’d say. She was supposed to meet me that night and never showed. I figured her parents were on to us or something.” He shrugged. “Thought maybe she was trying to cut it off.”

“You didn’t stop by the coffee shop at all after?”

He shook his head. “If her parents were on to us, I didn’t want to cause more trouble. I figured she’d reach out to me when she was ready. But I sent one of my buddies over, just to see if she’d say anything to him. You know, if it was over, I just wanted to know.” He sighed. “And then I found out she was missing. I just figured she ran away or something, to get away from her parents. I never would’ve thought—” He stopped abruptly, catching his breath. His friend patted his shoulder, rubbing it slightly.

“Do you remember the exact day you were supposed to meet?” Tara asked.

“It was—” He thought for a moment. “Last Tuesday,” he finally said, nodding with certainty.

Tara and Warren shared a look. It was now Wednesday of the following week. The victim had gone missing eight days ago, which would mean he had planned to meet her on the night she went missing.

“And you spoke to her that day?” Warren butted in.

He nodded. “In the morning. Everything seemed good. She was ready to meet me. But then I got held up at home; my mom needed me to watch my brother for an hour. I tried to text her, since she would’ve already been on her way, but she never answered. And then when I finally was able to get to the beach, she wasn’t there.”

Tara knew he would be a prime suspect, but if his story checked out, he would have an alibi. Her eyes moved to his arm. “What happened to your arm?”

He looked down at it and sighed. “Fell off a roof. I do roofing for my uncle when I’m not lifeguarding. He owns a company. I broke my forearm…had to get surgery.”

“When did that happen?”

He thought for a moment. “It happened last Monday. I went into surgery on Tuesday.”

If his story checked out, that would ultimately rule him out as a suspect. Tara and Warren both continued to ask him a series of questions—if she ever seemed afraid, if she ever mentioned anyone. But each answer led nowhere.

“Where were you guys planning on meeting, exactly?”

“On Dewey Beach,” he replied. “We meet by an entrance to the beach.”

He explained the route. Reese would walk about a half mile down the road, and then she would take a turn by a gas station—Mobile, he said—and then walk straight to an entrance of the beach.

Tara felt a rush of excitement. They could trace her steps. They could possibly find where she was abducted. The gas station. There would be cameras.

Tara thanked him, and once she and Warren were far enough away, he turned toward her.

“Let’s make sure his story checks out. And then you thinkin’ what I’m thinkin’?

Tara nodded. “Cameras.”

They now had a solid lead.

Chapter Nine

Tara and Warren pulled up to the gas station. It was the only one along the road Brian had said Reese walked to meet him. It had to be it; they were both sure of it. They had already gotten a hold of Brian’s medical records. He had in fact had surgery two days before Reese went missing. It was enough to rule him out. They both knew it would be too difficult to strangle an individual with an object with only one hand.

They pulled into the lot. It was a large gas station, and cars waited in line for the pump.

“There has to be cameras here,” Warren said as they walked toward the gas station store and scanned the area around them. “Ah-ha!” he blurted with satisfaction.

Tara followed his gaze. Just under the awning, above the line of impatient cars, hung a white, round object with black eye-like center—a camera. Another one sat at the other corner. Both faced the road they had just driven on that Reese supposedly walked.

“Let’s hope it tells us something,” Tara replied.

Warren shrugged. “One can hope.”

They both knew that the cameras would only show them a small fraction of the length in which the victim walked. She either reached the gas station, or she didn’t. And it was highly unlikely that she was abducted right in front of it. That would be too obvious. But it could help them narrow the area in which she was taken.

Tara and Warren were soon inside. A younger man stood behind the counter, speaking with a customer as he rung him up. He had a piercing in his eyebrow and one in his lip. As he spoke, the metal piercings would move slightly, catching the light coming through the window next to him. He handed the customer a pack of cigarettes, and Tara and Warren stepped forward.

It didn’t take long for Tara to explain who they were. At the show of her badge, the young man’s eyes flashed with fearful surprise. But at the mention of the cameras, he understood why they were there. After he called his boss to confirm that he could go ahead and show them, they were soon in the back room of the store, looking down at the computer screen.

Warren sat in a chair, rewinding the footage until the day Reese went missing, and then fast-forwarded slowly. They looked for anyone unusual at first. They studied every individual that crossed the camera, but no one sparked their interest. They were all people doing ordinary things—getting gas, parents riding by on their bikes with their kids. Warren then fast-forwarded slowly into the night. The influx of cars into the gas station slowed, the people walking or riding bikes to and from the beach came to a halt. And then—

“There!” Warren burst out, sending a jolt through the room and through Tara. He paused