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

his eyes as he gritted his teeth. His hands dug deeper into the chair. “You just want to pin this on me, don’t you? I know how these things work.” He then looked off into the distance, his expression changing again into fear as he shook his head back and forth and began to pace. “Someone’s framing me,” he said over and over again as he paced the living room.

It was a strange thing for him to mutter, and it was not the response Tara was expecting at all. “Ben, take a seat, we can talk about this.” At Tara’s words, he stopped in his tracks and whipped his head, staring directly at Tara’s pocket, the same pocket where she had placed the memory card. Without even a second to premeditate it, he hurdled over the chair.

“Ben! No!” his mother screamed, but it was too late.

He lunged at Tara across the coffee table. She darted out of the way, but she wasn’t fast enough. He grabbed her shirt as he plunged into the couch. She tried to steady her footing, but his force was too strong, and she fell backward in his grip, their momentum forcing the couch to tumble over.

Her head slammed into the floor, disorienting her for a split-second until she felt the weight of his body on top of her. He was trying to get to the pocket of her pants, but Tara elbowed him right in the chest, and he spiraled back for a moment. He was about to try again, but Warren pulled him back full-force by the collar of his hoodie. “You just made this a whole lot worse for yourself,” he spat through gritted teeth as he slammed him face-first into the floor. Tara stood up. Warren sat atop of him, holding him steady by the weight of his body as he cuffed him.

The mother came running in. “Ben, why would you—” she started until she broke out into sobs.

“Someone is framing me!” he yelled as Warren forced him to his feet and pushed him forward. It seemed like a desperate excuse, Tara thought.

“Where are you taking him?” his mother screamed as Warren led him to the car. She followed him out the front door, leaving Tara alone in the house. She rubbed her head where it hit the floor. Just a bump, she said to herself. It was nothing compared with the injuries she had suffered before.

The room was suddenly silent, and Tara’s eyes focused on the hallway as she walked forward toward the basement door. They now had probable cause to search the house, and she wasn’t going to waste any time. She swung the door open to be met by a set of stairs plunging into darkness. She felt around for a light, until she found one and turned it on, lighting the room below her. The fluorescent light almost blinded her as she walked down the carpeted stairs that opened into a large, finished basement. A bed sat in one corner—just a box spring and mattress that still had yet to be made, with sheets crumpled at the foot of it.

A computer was situated at the other end of the room, with bags of what looked like camera gear placed next to it. But as Tara studied the room, something else caught her eye: around the computer, scattered every which way, were pieces of a broken object. She moved closer, sitting on her heels for a closer look as she scooped a piece of the object into her hand. It was a piece of plastic, but then she studied the other pieces around—some little shards of metal, and then her eyes fell upon a larger object sitting under his desk. It was a piece of a hard drive.

Suddenly, Tara heard footsteps behind her and looked to see Warren descending the stairs. “What did you find?” he asked as he reached the last step.

“Looks like a broken hard drive.” She slipped on some gloves from her pocket and scooped the larger fragment into her hand before swiveling on her heels and handing it to Warren, who was now behind her.

He turned it around. “Must’ve happened pretty recently, or he’d clean this up, I assume.”

Tara agreed. It seemed as if he were trying to hide something. She spotted a small rectangular window where the wall met the ceiling, and she moved closer for a better look. She stood on her tiptoes as she tried to get a glimpse of the view. She could just make out where the window sat. It was in the front of the house and gave a clear view to the driveway. Ben was a few inches taller than her. He would’ve easily been able to spot them. She turned around to Warren. “You can see the driveway. He might’ve heard us and smashed it.”

Warren nodded as he moved about the room. The room was large, but mostly empty with only the bed, computer desk, video equipment, and a closet. Warren kneeled down and checked under the bed but then quickly let the bed skirt fall. He looked at Tara and shook his head, signaling that there was nothing underneath. He moved to the closet and began rummaging through it as Tara knelt down by the video gear. She unzipped one of the cases, but only a tripod sat inside. She checked the pockets, but nothing. She moved to the next one, a smaller case. Inside lay a camera. Tara checked the brand—it was a Canon—and began to feel hopeful. She knew it could easily have been the camera that took those pictures, and she scooped it up, switching it on. She tried to look through the video footage, but her heart sank when there wasn’t any. She sighed as she looked through the rest of the equipment, but nothing was out of the ordinary.

Warren moved across the room. “Nothing,” he said as he shook his head and moved from the closet. He stared across the room