One Last Breath by Sarah Sutton (macos ebook reader .TXT) 📕

Warren reached a hand forward and waved it just below the girl’s chin as he looked toward Tara. She could see what he was gesturing at. Just below the girl’s chin, the center of her neck was even more purplish-blue, spreading from a clear string-sized center.

“Looks like strangulation,” Tara admitted as she finally stood up, trying to get a break from the smell.

Warren stood up as well. “Looks like it wasn’t done by a hand either.”

He was insinuating that it was a smaller, ligature-like object; string or wire was what Tara assumed.

“That’s what we thought too,” Patel replied as he looked to the other detective, who then shook his head.

The other detective looked in his mid-forties, but he was fit like a college athlete. The short sleeves of his uniform hugged his arms tightly. Patel quickly introduced Detective Wade.

 “You can see similar marks around her wrists,” he finally added as he bent down and gestured toward them.

Tara took a closer look and could see similar string-like marks just above her hands. They were less bruised than her neck, but it was clear that they were the marks of ligatures from being tied up. Whoever had taken this girl, whoever had killed her, clearly didn’t do so right away. They had tied her up, probably kept her alive for some time before strangling her. But why?

“Any way to know if it was sexually motivated?” Tara asked.

Detective Wade shook his head. “We’ll have to wait until forensics reviews the body in the lab.”

Tara nodded. She knew the statistics. Strangulation was firmly associated with sexually motivated murders, especially in young female victims. The absence of such was rare. And even more rare was strangulation by ligature, but they would have to wait until the body was in the lab for forensics to get an idea of what the actual murder weapon was.

“And no one saw anything?” Warren asked.

It was a question both of them had. It seemed odd that on such a popular beach, with houses not too far from where the bodies were found, no one had seen someone dragging a body.

Detective Wade shook his head. “We spent all this morning going door to door. We didn’t get any leads.”

“Whoever it was was a careful planner. They must’ve come in the dead of night,” Patel added.

Tara looked around her. It was certainly possible not to be seen. The houses were far enough back that someone could easily be hidden among the beach grass and curvature of the dunes. Plus, in the middle of the night, when everyone would be asleep, it was even more likely.

“Did you speak to family yet?” Tara asked.

“Not yet.” Patel shook his head. “We just told them about the news a few hours ago. They were of course really shaken up. We wanted to give them a bit of time.”

Tara certainly understood, but she also knew that they could hold some answers about their daughter’s last few days that would be crucial in finding her killer. She hated having to interview family. It was always so delicate, and it was always difficult to watch someone in so much pain, especially since she understood it so well. However, she knew that the only way to help them now would be to get justice.

“What about her place of work?” Warren asked.

Wade nodded. “When she went missing, but we couldn’t get any leads there either.”

Tara turned to Warren. “Start with the family?”

Warren nodded, before thanking the sheriff and Detective Wade. Tara followed him as he turned to the car. They both didn’t want to waste another moment.

Chapter Seven

Tara sat in the passenger’s seat, staring down at a stack of documents in her lap. They were the case files of Alyssa White. Warren had retrieved them from headquarters before he left for Dewey Beach. He hadn’t had a chance to go through them yet, he had told her, but he handed them to her once they got in the car. Now she flipped through them, eagerly reading.

Every once in a while, Tara would look up, but Warren’s eyes remained steady on the road. Warren had barely said anything to her since they left the beach. Part of her wondered if it was because she was short with him when he asked about her trip to New York. But she also wondered if he was afraid Tara would ask about him and Dr. Harris, or if his reasoning had to do with both. Tara didn’t mind the silence; in fact, she rather liked it. She didn’t want to talk about New York.

However, seeing the awkward exchange between Warren and Dr. Harris made Tara realize how little she knew about Warren. Yet he knew so much about her. All he’d ever mentioned about his family was that he wasn’t married and that he lived alone. He had told her he was married once, but he had never expanded beyond that. He never mentioned children. It made her feel suddenly exposed. She had told Warren about her mother—something she had told very few people in her life. Yet here he was, completely guarded.

She wanted to ask about Dr. Harris, but the papers in her hand felt heavy, and she knew she had limited time to review them. She looked back down.

The details of Alyssa White’s disappearance were similar to the second victim’s. Both went missing as they walked home alone. However, unlike the second victim, Alyssa White was not walking home from work. In fact, she wasn’t a local at all. She was on vacation with her family, Tara had read. She had met some friends and played mini golf with them that night. And then she had walked home, alone, never to be seen again.

Tara finally looked up. “The killer had to have been stalking them,” she said before reading the details of Alyssa’s case out loud and reiterating how each victim had gone missing while walking home late