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

trees standing tall in the background. In each one, Mr. Brennan’s smile was wide, but his daughter and wife’s looked forced. Tara knew that look too well. Unhappiness reflected on their faces at the hands of abuse. Exhaustion could be seen in their eyes, most likely from the endless push-and-pull of control. Tara could only hope that they were happier now, away from their abuser.

Tara put the folder of the images back into the filing cabinet. There was only one more folder left. It was placed at the very back and was the only one that was unlabeled. Tara pulled it out, and dozens of pictures fell out onto the floor. Tara picked one up. It was Mr. Brennan’s daughter, walking with some teens on a road late at night. Their backs were turned to the camera, as if someone had snuck up behind them to take the picture. Tara flipped through the rest. Each one was of his daughter, with friends on a beach, or in a park, or entering a house that had the looks of a party going on. Each one was taken late at night from far away, and it was clear that she had no clue a picture was being taken.

Tara already knew that Mrs. Brennan and her daughter had a restraining order against her ex-husband, but it now seemed that it didn’t keep him too far at bay. Tara assumed Mr. Brennan’s daughter had no idea he was still keeping tabs on her. It was clear he was overprotective and abusive. It was probably driving him insane that he now had no control over who his daughter was hanging out with or what she was doing. Could following her be a way for him to feel some sense of control? Tara let that thought roll around in her mind as she looked at each image more intently.

Reese was in almost every picture , standing close to Mr. Brennan’s daughter amongst a group. In some, it was just the two of them. They had to have been good friends, Tara assumed. They both had strict parents. Tara wondered if that was a commonality they had bonded over, and as a result, tested boundaries together. It was evident that they had been sneaking out of their houses together. On the back of each picture was a time and date. Each taken late at night, after or around midnight. Tara knew their parents never would’ve allowed them to leave the house at that time.

“What did you find?” Warren finally asked, noticing how intently Tara was looking at them. He moved closer before kneeling on the floor next to her. He picked up a picture as he knitted his eyebrows in suspicion.

But Tara didn’t answer. She had found another recognizable face amongst the images: Sofia. It seemed that Sofia knew Mr. Brennan’s daughter a bit more than Sofia’s close friend had even known. She passed it to Warren.

“Look who it is,” she said as she pointed at the girl in the picture. He had already seen Reese. Tara could tell by the way he had gathered each image of her in front of him. He took the photo in his hand.

“Sofia.” The name rolled off his tongue. He turned the picture over, looking at the date and time it was taken. He showed it to Tara. It was a few weeks before she went missing. They looked at the dates of all the others of Reese, each taken within months leading up to her disappearance as well. The most recent was taken a week prior.

Could Mr. Brennan had been so insanely controlling that he had sought out his daughter’s friends who he thought were influencing her? Tara ran the thought by Warren.

“It’s certainly possible,” he replied. “I mean, what kind of creep stalks their own daughter?” His eyes washed over the images once more. “The only one missing is Alyssa.”

He was right. Alyssa wasn’t in any of the images, but it could still be possible that Mr. Brennan’s daughter knew her, or maybe he had even mistaken her for someone else. But right now, their biggest priority was finding Sofia.

Warren gathered the pictures back into the envelope. “Grab his car keys. I saw them hanging in the kitchen,” he said. Tara knew his intention was to search the car. It would be the only way he’d be able to transfer Sofia, and it could possibly hold evidence, or her.

Tara did as Warren asked, and they were soon headed back out of the building. Tara could see Mr. Brennan in the police vehicle, parked out front. His head was resting against the window. They made their way to the parking lot in the back of the building, and Tara pressed the lock button of Mr. Brennan’s car. They followed the beeping noise until they stood in front of a Toyota Camry.

They searched in every corner of the car, in every crevice. They searched the dashboard, the middle console. They searched the trunk. When they finally realized there was nothing more to search, Tara sighed. If he had taken her, he had covered his tracks in the car too. But Tara also knew that there might be evidence they couldn’t see. “We’ll bring the keys to forensics, have them take a closer look.”

Warren nodded, but Tara could see a frustration boiling within him, sadness and anger dancing in his eyes. Something about the case, about Terry, shook him.

“You have to really be scum to abuse your daughter,” he said through gritted teeth.

As someone who had lost his teenage daughter, Tara knew this case was striking a delicate chord in him.

 He slammed the door of the car as he spun around, making his way to the front of the building. Tara locked it and then quickly followed behind. His eyes locked on the police car as he turned the corner. They narrowed as he saw Terry’s head resting on the window.

Just when he was close enough, he swung the backseat door