One Last Step by Sarah Sutton (free e books to read TXT) 📗

up the pictures and placed them back in the folder and then reached deeper to pull out the one last thing to determine if he really was being truthful. She grabbed hold of the evidence bag and pulled it out of the folder. Inside it was the compass.

“Does this look familiar to you?” She held up the evidence bag so he could clearly see.

He knitted his eyebrows in confusion. “I mean, I’ve seen a compass before. I don’t own one.”

“Have you ever seen this compass before?” she prodded.

 He quickly shook his head. “I’ve never seen it before.”

Tara let out a sigh. She knew this wasn’t him. She placed the compass back in the folder and looked toward Warren. “I think we’re done here,” she said.

He nodded, affirming that he knew it too—this wasn’t their guy. They both stood up and made their way to the door.

“Wait, wait! Does this mean I’m off the hook?” McNamara asked from behind them.

Tara reached for the doorknob as she turned her head back toward him.

“No, not at all,” she added. “Illegal hunting is still a crime.”

***

“It’s not him,” Tara said as she shook her head. They stood outside the interrogation room, staring through the one-way mirror yet again. “That man can’t tell a lie.”

Warren nodded. They both saw it—his unmistakable anxiety when he thought they were questioning him about illegal hunting, when he lied about what he caught. But the second they questioned him about murder, he spoke with ease. He knew he wasn’t guilty, and Tara and Warren now knew it too.

The door creaked opened and Tara turned around to see Sheriff Brady briskly walking into the room.

“How did it go?” she asked.

“We don’t think it’s him,” Tara said abruptly.

Brady’s face fell. “What do you mean, you don’t think it’s him? You have nothing to even rule him out yet.”

It was odd that she was now questioning why they were ruling him out, when hours earlier, she was so sure they were wasting their time in interviewing him.

Warren stepped in. “We can’t rule him out completely but we don’t have enough to convict him either.” He paused. “And we have a feeling it’s not him,” he revealed.

“So, all this is based on feeling?” Brady snapped back. Heat boiled to her face. “We can’t spend all this time continuing an investigation because of a feeling,” she insisted.

Tara then realized what it was that changed for her. The stress of this investigation was finally beginning to take a toll on her. After all, it was Sheriff Brady’s job, and the cops under her to make sure all hikers were informed in the area that the trail was closed, and to keep them off of it.

“We can’t end an investigation prematurely either. It’s dangerous,” Warren cautioned. He took a deep breath. “Did you get the blood results back?” he finally asked.

Tara could see the vein in his forehead begin to pulse at the agitation.

“Yes, we did,” Brady replied, stone-faced. “But I don’t want you to think that this means that we can rule him out.”

“It wasn’t human blood, was it?” Tara said.

Brady remained silent for a moment and then reluctantly confirmed by nodding her head.

Warren let out a slight laugh. “So what exactly makes you so sure this is the guy?”

“He has no alibi, he’s a hunter. And he’s clearly aggressive given that he tried to assault an FBI agent.” She spat the words out as if them not seeing it all was stupidity.

Warren took a deep breath. “We don’t have solid evidence,” he repeated.

“Well, Agent Warren, if you want to spend federal dollars prolonging this investigation, than that is out of my control, but I think we should be spending more time narrowing in on McNamara.”

Tara suddenly interjected. “Sheriff Brady, the killer could very well still be out there.”

The sheriff’s face tightened. “I can’t stop you from continuing this investigation, but our job is to also limit the damage this is causing to our trail. This is becoming a circus! And I’m at my wits’ end trying to keep people away from the trail. We now even have crazy people hiking just to find this killer on their own!” Brady looked from Tara to Warren. “I have nothing more to say to you two, but we’ve appreciated your help to bring McNamara in.”

At those words, Sheriff Brady opened the door and closed it behind her. Tara turned to Warren. They both knew they had to move fast.

Warren stared off into the distance, his face scrunched in thought.

He then spoke. “I think we should set up a dragnet.”

Tara nodded. He was right. It was the only possible way to catch the killer. They had no other lead, but they might be able to pick checkpoints where he might travel through next, and hunt him down themselves.

“That might be hard with just the two of us though,” Tara replied.

It was unlikely that Chief Brady would offer up her own officers, but to cover such a large amount of ground, they needed more than just two people.

Warren turned to her fully. “I know,” he said. “I think we should call some neighboring police stations.”

Chapter Nineteen

Tara and Warren stood in a room of the Bridgewater police station with ten eager officers standing around them. It didn’t take Warren long to find some volunteers. The first station he called, the chief got on the phone and volunteered ten of his guys, including a lieutenant. Now they all stood in front of them like soldiers.

Tara looked down at the map, rolled out on a large table. It was the same map they had stared at earlier that day—that marked each crime scene and the direction of the compasses.

She and Warren had already contemplated that the killer was moving south and they had agreed that it was the best lead they had right now, but with a trail that spanned across fourteen states, and with crime scenes randomly spaced apart, determining where he would strike next would be