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

them. Warren’s face was tense with pain, and it caused Tara’s stomach to twist in a knot. She knew what they were looking at: Sofia’s body.

She took a deep breath as she stepped over the sand dune fence and trudged up the small hill. Warren looked up at her presence. A look of sheer horror and disappointment was clear on his face. Another innocent teenage girl had been taken; another life lost. While they were never certain if Sofia was still alive, they had certainly hoped they would find her that way, that they would be able to save her and return her to her family. Now they both knew that another family would never be the same, that their daughter’s future would never be lived.

The officer nodded as she finally stood in front of them. She kept her eyes steady, moving between each of them as Warren admitted that he had arrived just before her. Tara couldn’t dare look down yet into the gaping hole that she sensed between them.

“Chief Garcia,” the man said as he held out his hand. He was short, with a round belly and clean-shaven face. Tara introduced herself as well, but after their introductions a silence fell between them. Warren and Tara met eyes, and then his fell into the hole, reminding Tara that she still hadn’t looked down.

She took a deep breath as she followed Warren’s eyes. About a few feet deep, Tara could just make out Sofia’s face, still covered by bits of sand. Her eyes were closed, but she could see the unmistakable button nose, the curly brown hair. Her skin was now a bluish tint, making the marks around her neck more apparent. They were the same marks found on Reese.

Tara took a deep breath, giving relief to the swell of anger and sadness that had risen up in full force. She looked at Warren and then Chief Garcia.

“When did you find her?”

“I was just telling Warren. Early this morning,” he replied. “I’ve had my cops looking at every beach in the area, and I know others have been doing the same all down the coast in Sussex County.” He shook his head at his words, as he tried to stifle his emotions. “I’ve got teenage girls myself, this one hit home.”

Tara looked at Warren. She knew those words would hit him hard after what he had told her about his wife and daughter. She could see the pain surface, but then he shot his eyes to ground, trying to remove any trace of it.

Tara tried not to draw attention to him and bent down, getting a closer look in the hole. She studied the blue marks on Sofia’s neck. “Looks like the same marks we saw on Reese,” she said to Warren.

He nodded. “Strangulation.”

Tara bent down farther, now sitting on her heels. Around Sofia’s wrists were the same dark blue ligature marks they had seen on Reese. She scanned the rest of the body. Sofia wore a loose-fitting t-shirt and a pair of jean capris, folded halfway down her calves. Just above her sneakers, around her ankles, the same blue ligature marks were apparent. Tara pointed them out to Warren.

He nodded. “Looks just like Reese too.”

Tare looked up. “Do we know an approximate time of death?”

Chief Garcia nodded. “Forensics said it looks she died the night or early morning after she was abducted, between midnight and 2:00 a.m. yesterday morning. He must’ve buried her pretty soon after that, because we started searching this beach around seven.”

His words caused a sudden chill to rise up Tara’s spine and then burst into frustration in her mind. Chief Garcia and his officers had possibly just missed the killer. If they had arrived only a few hours earlier, the killer would’ve still been there, caught in the act of burying Sofia’s body. But it wasn’t just that missed opportunity that tugged on her conscience. There was something else that tugged even harder—the time Sofia was still alive. She had been abducted between eight and nine, which meant that she had been alive for a few hours before she was killed, but Tara and Warren had failed to find her. The realization sat heavy.

But Tara also knew she couldn’t dwell on a lost moment. The killer was still out there. They had to focus on the path ahead of them, carefully deciding where to place their footing. Her thoughts turned to Brennan. She knew it was still possible that he could be who they were looking for. If he had buried the body yesterday morning, he would still have had time to get home before Tara and Warren arrived at his door. An eyewitness was all they would need to be sure, but Tara knew the chances were slim.

“No witnesses?” she asked.

Chief Garcia shook his head with disappointment. “There’s not much around here, and no one would be on the beach that late.” His words only confirmed what Tara suspected. But then he added, “I was going to tell Warren before you got here that we did find something. I’m not sure what it means, though.” Tara’s ears perked up, and so did Warren’s. He stepped a bit closer.

They hadn’t even realized that Chief Garcia was tightly holding an evidence bag. He held it out in front of him. “We found this when we were digging her up,” he said as Tara focused on the bag. “It was placed on top of her. Might’ve fallen out of the killer’s pocket.” Tara leaned in closer. Inside sat a small black rectangular object. At first she wasn’t sure what she was looking at, but then she recognized it. She had seen one before, when John bought her a camera for Christmas one year. It was a memory card.

She looked at Warren. She could tell he recognized it right away, and his eyes lit up. “Have you checked if anything is on it?” he asked.

Chief Garcia shook his head. “We were going to leave that up to