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

been late a lot lately actually and often cuts out early.” She sighed and rolled her eyes again. “Apparently my boss is trying to fire him, but she can’t even get in touch with him.”

“Do you work with him often?”

“Pretty regularly.”

“And do you get along?”

The woman shrugged. “He’s one of those people that are just really hard to read. He’s a bit socially awkward, so he kinda just keeps to himself.”

He was sounding more and more suspicious upon each of her replies, but Tara had a feeling there was more to learn from this woman, and at that thought, she pulled out pictures of the victims.

“Do they look familiar to you?” she asked once the woman’s eyes fixated upon them.

The woman studied them for a moment and then suddenly pointed to the pictures of the first two, the couple.

“I knew they looked familiar on the news,” she said as she looked up at Tara. “They definitely came through here. They were asking how to get to Hanover.”

“Was James working here when you saw them?”

The woman pondered a moment. “Yeah, he was actually,” she said. “He was the one who gave them directions, which was odd, because usually he tries to avoid the customers.” A silence lingered for a moment.

“Do you have his address?”

“Yeah, here.” The woman shifted to the computer, looking it up, and then reached for a piece of paper to scribble it down. She handed it to Tara.

Tara thanked her, before asking her for her phone number, in case they needed to contact her with any more questions. She scribbled it down as well.

Warren then stepped forward, handing her his card.

“Let your boss know if he contacts either of you, to call us immediately.”

Chapter Twenty Six

“Looks like someone’s home,” Warren said as he pulled up to a small, weathered farmhouse with a beat-up van sitting in the driveway.

Tara nodded. “Let’s just hope it’s his.”

She wasn’t quite sure what to expect, but she had this feeling they were closer than they ever were. All the signs pointed to this man—he had been spotted at a crime scene, showed odd behavior, and had met two of the victims and directed them to where it’s believed they went missing. There was a very strong possibility that he was the killer they had been looking for all along.

As they stepped out of the car, Tara’s eyes darted to movement in a window next to the front door—it was a curtain falling—and a shiver flowed up Tara’s spine.

Warren saw it too. “Looks like someone knows we’re here,” he said.

Seconds later they stood on a worn-out welcome mat as Tara knocked on the door. A few moments went by, but no one answered and they waited in silence as an unsettling feeling washed over her. They knew someone was home—whoever it was had seen them—yet they intentionally chose to not answer. Tara was about to knock one last time, but just when she lifted her fist to the door, they heard a shuffling inside and the door opened slightly.

Just through the crack, they saw the bloodshot eyes of a man. He squinted, as if the sun hurt him, and stepped a bit further back into the darkness behind him.

“Hello,” Tara said cautiously, while allowing her hand to fall near her gun just in case. “Is James Hayden available?”

The man stepped a bit closer to the door, opening it slightly more.

“I’m James,” he said. He opened his eyes wider, revealing their piercing blueness. They were swollen and tired, as if he hadn’t slept in days. “Who’s asking?”

“My name is Agent Mills, this is Agent Warren,” she said. “You work at the hiking information center not too far from here, correct?”

“Yes, why?” he asked sharply.

“We were just hoping to ask you a couple questions,” she began. “I’m sure you’ve heard about the missing persons reports on the Appalachian Trail?” Tara asked, carefully easing into the conversation.

He just stood there, silent, with no change in his expression or body language, and Tara had a hard time reading him. When she realized he wasn’t planning on answering, she continued. “We have reason to believe that two of the missing persons may have come to the information center, and we were hoping you might be able to help us with piecing together their timeline,” she mentioned with her hand still a millimeter from her gun.

Again, he didn’t respond and his eyes squinted as he studied her face. He didn’t trust her, Tara could tell, and she braced herself for whatever his next move could be.

“Can we come in?” she finally asked. At her question, he raised his eyes to meet hers, staring intensely into them.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” he replied with a strange softness in his voice, before a smile crept on his face.

Tara’s hand moved even closer to her gun and she gently placed her hand on top of it. “And why is that?” she asked.

“My place is a mess,” he replied, as his eyes moved toward where Tara’s hand now rested. He stared at it for a brief second and again smiled. “Am I making you nervous?” he asked.

His response was strangely forward, with an unwavering confidence that Tara knew any right-minded person wouldn’t have in a situation like this.

“Why would you be making me nervous?” she asked.

He stepped a bit closer to the door. “It’s okay. I make a lot of people nervous.” He looked from Tara to her gun. “Can I hold it?”

“Hold what?” she asked, confused, as she grasped her gun tighter.

“It’s okay. I won’t take it from you,” he said before backing into his apartment, into the darkness.

Tara stared in through the crack in the door, but the room was too dark, and all she could see was his outline, and hear him shuffling things around.

“Sir, please stand where we can see you,” she said, her gun now out of the holster, and held straight out in front of her.

Warren did the same.

“Sir!” Tara yelled again. “Please show