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

She didn’t even have a second to respond before the doors opened onto their floor and Warren walked ahead, soon reaching the large glass doors of their division and holding them open for her.

She could hear the hustle and bustle of the office before she even stepped through the doors—people talking, footsteps with purpose—but the second Tara and Warren entered, letting the office door shut behind them, it all stopped. The footsteps came to a halt, and the chatter lowered into gossiping whispers. Tara and Warren stood there a moment and Tara looked around her. All the faces that a second ago had other thoughts on their mind, now looked straight toward her.

Tara felt her face begin to blush. All eyes were on her and Warren, and she knew exactly why. She watched as the eyes around her stared at her bandaged arm and Warren’s sling before moving up to study their faces. Tara’s eyes shot to the floor.

But all of a sudden, she sensed movement and Tara lifted her head. An agent, who was sitting at his desk a moment ago, now stood with a smile on his face as he started clapping. The rest of the room looked toward him and Tara began to relax as one by one, each person at a desk stood up and began to clap too, while the others standing followed their lead. She felt a hand pat her on the back and she looked next to her to see Warren smiling.

“All right, settle down!”

The moment came and went quickly as eyes shot behind them to see Reinhardt standing at the end of the row of desks. Each person quickly turned back to what they were doing as Reinhardt locked eyes with Tara.

“You two, come to my office,” he said as he abruptly turned on his heels.

Warren and Tara quickly followed and were soon seated in front of Reinhardt’s desk. Reinhardt closed the door behind them before reaching for the blinds and letting them fall to cover the glass wall separating his office from the rest of the floor.

He took a seat.

“How was your flight?” he asked.

The anxious feeling Tara felt before suddenly dropped into the pit of her stomach again, as if it never left. Warren confirmed their flight was fine, and Tara nodded her head in agreement.

But Reinhardt remained silent. His mind had already moved onto something else as he reached for an envelope on his desk and pulled it toward him.

“Well, I got some reports back from forensics,” he said as he pulled out the papers in the envelope and shuffled through them. “There were seven bodies total in the barn. Four of them were the victims we were searching for.” He looked up at them. “You both did excellent work.”

Tara began to relax slightly at his positive words, but her mind remained focused on the number of bodies he mentioned, that there were more than they anticipated to find.

“And the other three?” Tara asked.

Reinhardt smiled, closed his eyes briefly, and nodded his head.

“Well, I’ll tell you, you two solved more than one case.”

He pulled out two pictures in the envelope and placed them in front of Tara and Warren. One was a picture of a young woman with long brown hair, standing and smiling at the camera. The other was a selfie of a young couple. “These were the other three victims,” he said.

Tara stared at them, at their smiling faces. It was hard to imagine that these were the same faces of the decaying bodies, thrown into the barn like garbage.

A sadness swelled within her. It was the same sadness she had felt the many times she stared at her mother’s pictures after her death. They would bring forth a happy memory, but then another would flash in her mind—her mother lying in a pool of blood—and she would have to put the picture down. For months, she couldn’t bear to look at them.

“What do we know about them?” Warren asked as he reached for the pictures and looked at them as well.

“They were also hikers on the Appalachian Trail,” Reinhardt replied. “They were basically skeletons. They’ve been missing quite a while, about six months.”

Silence filled the room and both Tara and Warren stared at the pictures.

“You two did great work,” Reinhardt repeated. “But Mills—” he began, his voice falling to a sterner tone.

Tara knew what was coming. She looked up at Reinhardt, who stared her deep in the eyes.

“We made a mistake in not trusting you. You really showed great instincts on this case. You’re smart, Mills.” He leaned his body forward, placing his hands together on his desk. “But you can never defy me again, you hear me?” Tara nodded her head as she listened carefully to his words. “Not only for your safety, but for everyone around you. It ended well this time, but if you ever go off on your own again, I promise you, it’s not going to end well.”

Tara knew exactly what he meant. He was giving her a verbal warning that if she ever did that again, it would end with a termination of her job, if she didn’t end up dead from her actions. She nodded, making it known that she understood, and Reinhardt quickly changed topics.

“I also wanted to tell you both that I think you make a great team.” Reinhardt’s eyes moved from Warren to Tara and back again as he spoke. “How do you two feel about continuing to work together as partners?”

Warren nodded abruptly, as if expecting him to say that.

“That sounds great to me,” he said. “What do you think, Mills?” Warren’s smiling face turned toward her.

His smile was contagious and she felt one form on her face instantly.

“Yes, I’d love that,” she said in agreement.

Epilogue

Tara sat on the couch in her apartment as John dished out the food they just ordered onto plates. She had already told John all that had happened that day, and ever