One Last Breath

by Sarah Sutton

  He sighed. He was clearly let down, and Tara felt bad causing him disappointment. She truly did want to be there, but she had no clue what tomorrow would hold, and she didn’t want to get his hopes up.

  He took a seat next to her, his plate of food steaming in his hands. “If you can make it, it would really mean a lot to me. And I think you would really enjoy being there too.”

  Tara nodded. “I’ll do my best,” she said.

  He smiled weakly, but he still couldn’t hide the disappointment behind it. He ate in silence as his eyes remained steady on the food in front of him.

  “Everything okay?” Tara asked. He was deep in thought, way deeper than their conversation should’ve caused.

  Her words sent a jolt through his body. “Of course!” The words burst out of him as he suddenly straightened his posture and forced a wider smile.

  If Tara questioned his behavior before, she was now fully aware that he was acting odd. She chuckled slightly at the looks of him. Something was on his mind, she was sure of it. She assumed it might be slight anxiety about his upcoming show, although John was never the anxious type. But maybe, she wondered, this was bringing out something new in him.

  He relaxed instantly at Tara’s laugh, realizing how he looked. “Everything’s fine, why?” he said in a normal tone and manner.

  “No reason,” Tara replied. “How do you feel about having your first gig?” she questioned, trying to see if that was the reason for his behavior.

  “I feel good,” he said with a hard nod. “I’m excited.”

  Tara looked at him a moment. He was acting normal again. He would’ve told her if he was anxious, but Tara wasn’t going to push it further. And at that thought, something else struck her.

  “By the way, did you call me right before you came home?” She had suddenly remembered the voicemail that came in while she was in the shower. She stood up, moving to the bench by the door, where she had left her phone.

  “No, why?” John asked, confused.

  She had assumed it wasn’t him. After all, he had arrived home right after her phone rang. But if it wasn’t John, then who was it? “I had a call…” She scooped her phone up, too preoccupied to finish her explanation. She unlocked the screen to see a missed call and a voicemail from an unknown number. But she recognized the area code as one from New York. Confusion swirled as she pressed play on the voicemail and held the phone to her ear. A familiar voice came through.

  “Hi, Tara,” it started. “This is Owen Reiner.” He paused, as if questioning whether he should go further, but then he continued. “I think I have some information for you. Please give me a call back, only on this number, my cell phone.”

  The voicemail ended. She pulled the phone away from her ear, staring at the number. Why would Owen, the corrections officer from her father’s prison, suddenly call her?

  “Who was it?” John asked. She could sense his eyes on her, but she couldn’t answer. She was too focused on what she just heard. He had called her a half hour ago. She looked at the time on her phone. It was now nine o’ clock, and a flicker of hope stirred. She could still call him back.

  Without even a word to John, she briskly walked down the hall. She could feel his eyes follow her. But she didn’t have time to explain, and she wanted to make this call alone. She entered the bedroom and sat down on the bed, her phone still sweaty in her grip. She stared at the screen a moment as she took a deep breath. What could he want to tell me? Did something happen to my dad? The question stirred a mix of emotions inside her. No, she finally said to herself. He wouldn’t have told me to call him on his cell phone. The only reasonable explanation was that he had maybe decided to hand over the visitation records after all. It would make sense why he called her privately, why he only wanted her to return the call on his cell. It was the last and only thing she had spoken to him about.

  Her heart thumped in anticipation as she pressed the send button and held the phone to her ear. Her heart raced as heat radiated on her skin.

  The phone rang a couple times, and then—

  “Hello?”

  “Owen?” Tara asked. She tried to steady her voice, which shook slightly with anticipation.

  He was quiet a moment. “Tara?”

  “Yes.”

  “One minute,” he said abruptly before the sound of footsteps and the closing of a door. A slightly out-of-breath voice then resurfaced. “I’m glad you called.”

  Tara didn’t know what to say. Everything about this call was strange. She and Owen knew each other, but they weren’t close friends; they didn’t keep in touch. She knew in the back of her mind that he would only be calling her if he had something important to say, and she just hoped it had to do with the visitation records.

  He steadied his breathing and sighed. “I’m really not supposed to be doing this,” he said before pausing as if second-guessing the call altogether. “What did you mean exactly when you said something wasn’t right about your father’s case?”

  Tara didn’t understand the motivation for his question. Why was he calling her—to ask her a question? “Why?” she asked. “Why did you call?”

  “I need to know before I tell you anything more.” His voice was stern.

  Tara wasn’t sure if she should answer. It seemed too personal, and she wasn’t sure if she wanted to detail that information to him. After all, they weren’t close friends. But she also reminded herself of Owen’s character—that he always tried his best to help others. He wasn’t the type to use personal information against someone or to judge them. Her curiosity pushed her skepticism aside. If he had something important to tell her, she would be a fool to let him go without revealing it.

  “I think someone else was involved with my mother’s murder,” she admitted. “I think my father’s hiding something.” She forced the words from her mouth, but as she finished, she felt instantly vulnerable. Her face grew hot as she wondered if she had just admitted something she shouldn’t have.

  “That’s what I thought you might say.” He sighed. “I wasn’t sure if I should tell you this, but if I was in your situation, I’d hope someone would help me out, and I’m going to trust your judgment as an FBI agent, as a friend.” Tara eagerly waited for him to continue. “There has been someone visiting your dad.” Tara couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Her pulse pounded in her ears. “I think she knows you visited him too. She came the other day, and she went off about how your father was acting odd. She kind of went ballistic, actually. She was demanding to know who visited him. It seems like he was trying to protect you or something and didn’t tell her it was you. But she definitely had a feeling, because she said your name.” He fell silent as several questions swirled through Tara’s head. Why would he need to protect me? And why would this woman care that I had been visiting him? And how did she know my name?

  “Do you know their relationship?” Tara asked. This woman clearly knew her father well. But how? She couldn’t think of one person who would visit him, especially a woman.

  “She always writes her relationship as a friend,” he replied. “But she must be a good friend, because she comes once a week, like clockwork, around noon.”

  Tara’s suspicion was now even more heightened. They were even closer than she imagined. She remembered what John had suggested—maybe he was having an affair—and now Tara was beginning to believe it herself. It sat uneasy in her belly.

  “How old is this woman?” Tara asked.

  “Forty-two, that’s what her license says.”

  “And what does she look like?” Tara wanted to flesh out as much information as she could get.

  “Pretty average-looking, I’d say. But she has curly red hair.”

  Tara thought for a moment as she remained silent. She did not know anyone that fit that description. Her father was sixty-two. She would be young for him, but it was possible that she was a love interest. In fact, her mother was ten years younger than her father. Could he have been seeing her all along? Could tha
t be where he went on his work trips? The ideas spun in her head, and then one other question came forward. “Why are you telling me this?” It seemed odd that he would call her to tell her this, that he would risk his job. For what?

  He sighed. “I keep asking myself that too,” he said with an awkward chuckle at the end, but then his voice hardened into a serious tone. “I like to think I’m a pretty good judge of character. That woman…” He paused. “I can’t explain it, I just get really weird vibes off of her, and it wasn’t just that one time. It’s every time she comes in. She’s jumpy and angry, and then you asking about your dad’s visitation records just made me think of her instantly. And then of course she came in and got all riled up about you and then just topped off my suspicion.” He grew quiet again, as if thinking of how to solidify why he was telling her all this. “I just couldn’t sit by and not say something. It just didn’t feel right,” he finished.

  Tara didn’t know how to respond. “Thank you,” was all she could say. But she still had yet to wrap her mind around this information or what to do with it. Before she got off the phone with him, she had one last question. “What’s her name?”

  Owen hesitated. “Mackenzie James.” Tara mouthed the name silently before thanking him again and saying her goodbyes.

  She sat still at the foot of the bed, staring at the blank wall in front of her. Mackenzie James, she mouthed again. She had never heard the name before.

  Tara finally stood up. She knew John was eagerly waiting in the next room, still confused. She walked out of the bedroom and down the hall, to see John sitting on the barstool, looking at his phone. He abruptly turned toward her with a look of concerned curiosity.

  “Who was it?”

  She took a seat next to him, still focused on the strange call. She then turned toward him, shaking her head, still trying to make sense of it all.

  “I just received the strangest call,” she finally said.

  John knitted his eyebrows, the way he always did when he was confused and worried. Tara explained who it was on the phone, what she had just heard, what she suspected. At each revelation, John’s eyes opened wider with surprise and disbelief. He just sat quietly and listened. After she finally finished, he looked at her with sorrow in his eyes.

  “So what next?” he finally asked.

  It was a question Tara hadn’t yet answered herself, but it had been on her mind all along. She didn’t yet know what her next steps would be. She knew nothing about this woman. She knew nothing about her relationship with her father. She didn’t even know if her mother was aware of her when she was alive. After all, Tara was too young to pick up on any of her mother’s suspicions, if she had them. But she knew one thing that she was planning to do for sure.

  She hadn’t even realized how focused her eyes had been on the island counter. She looked up at John. “I’m going to find out who she is.” The words burst from her lips as a newfound determination flowed through her body.

  John simply nodded, knowing that it was the exact answer she would give.

  ***

  Tara sat on the couch in the living room with only a floor lamp lighting the area surrounding her. She sat cross-legged, her laptop resting on her thighs. It was now close to midnight. John had gone off to bed, but Tara already knew she wouldn’t sleep. She needed to look for answers. She had searched for Mackenzie James numerous times, adding every neighboring town near the prison as a keyword. So far, she had found nothing. No articles, no social media accounts, no job hits.

  Tara sighed as she scrolled through the results one more time. She was growing frustrated. She knew this woman held the possibility of answers, that she could very well be the person Tara had sensed was in the room during her mother’s death. But yet Tara still had no understanding of who she was, other than a name.

  She could only assume that her father was having an affair, and it pained her. Not for herself, but for her mother. Her father had already made her mother’s life a living hell and then ended it. He had inflicted pain each time he left a bruise on her body. He would belittle her every chance he had, chipping away at every piece of her that made her special. And now he was unfaithful too? Anger boiled up. How could he do all this to her? And why did she stay with him? Was she ever happy? The last question caused her fingers to go limp on the keyboard. A great sadness rose up within her, until it crashed on her like a tsunami.

  Could it be that the few years Tara had been in this world with her mother were probably the most difficult years her mother had ever faced? Tara’s eyes welled, and she sat back in the couch, letting her head rest as she stared at the ceiling. She had been so young, so oblivious.

  She wiped a tear away as she tried to picture her mother. At first, she remembered the fights, the abuse, the bruises. But then other memories pushed through, the memories without her father. She pictured her mother smiling, watching Tara play. She pictured her mother’s laugh when she did something funny. She envisioned her mother doing arts and crafts with her, baking, going to the museum. Each memory was filled with smiles and laughter.

  Tara finally took a deep breath and sat up. My mother was happy, she reminded herself. Because of me. Warmth flooded through her at the realization; it was love. She suddenly saw everything differently. It wasn’t her mother, her father, and her, all living together but distant in their emotions and experiences. She now saw herself and her mother entwined together in a tragedy, with her father standing at a distance.

  Tara looked back down at her computer. She couldn’t allow self-pity to seep in. She couldn’t dwell on her mother’s sadness. None of that would help her find answers. Only focusing on the love they shared would, because that was ultimately what drove her. Her mother deserved justice.

  Tara laid her fingers atop the keyboard once more. She typed the woman’s name in Google over and over again with new towns. She went to Facebook, to Instagram, to Twitter. She searched in every way she could possibly think of. She tried different nicknames she could think of for Mackenzie—Mack, Kenzie, Kenz.

  She searched diligently for another hour, each search leading to inaccurate results—same names with different ages, different last names. Eventually, Tara’s eyes felt heavy. She tried to push through, to continue to search, but soon all she could focus on was how tired she was. She laid her had back onto the couch. She would just rest her eyes, she told herself, but exhaustion quickly enveloped her, pulling her into a deep, deep sleep.

  Chapter Twenty

  He took a swig of his whisky, sloshed it in his mouth, and then let the burn hit his throat. He had been sitting in a booth at the restaurant for a couple hours now. He was a few drinks in, the buzz only intensifying the sense of pride he felt at what he had done and what was about to occur.

  It was late on a weekday, and the restaurant was relatively quiet. Only a few men sat at the bar—regulars—speaking louder than they realized, sloshing their drinks in their hands at each laugh. It was the type of crowd he had hoped for tonight, because he knew they would never bother him. They wouldn’t spark conversation, they wouldn’t even recognize him, as people usually did. They were too into their drinks, and he was too concealed in his booth to make a presence.

  He stared down at his whiskey, deep into the empty glass, and he smiled. It reminded him of the clues he left behind, the strategy he had followed, and that no matter how close law enforcement thought they were, they too would only be left looking into an empty glass of what once was a lead.

  He snapped out of his trance as he sensed movement, and looked up to see the waitress who so often waited on him smiling before him. Her long, slender body was accentuated with an apron tied tight around her waist. “Another?” she asked as she reached for his glass and placed it atop her tray.

  Without hesitation, he nodded. He already had a strong buzz, but tonight he deserved it.

  “Where are your friends tonight?” she asked, beaming.

  “Tired.” He laughed. “We all had a long day.”

&n
bsp; She nodded. She understood. And without another word, she turned on her heels, the smile still plastered on her face as she moved to the bar to place his usual order.

  At her exit, his eyes moved to the television, sitting over the bar. The news was on. His story was on, the story he had created. It was everywhere, on every station, on ever television in everyone’s home, in every restaurant—it made him glow with pride.

  A picture of the girl he had recently buried hung in the corner of the screen as an anchor pleaded for anyone with information to step forward. The station then cut to a reporter standing outside in the dark, highlighted only by the production lights behind the camera and the lights of the search crew that lined the beach behind her.

  “I’m here reporting from Fowler Beach, where law enforcement has been diligently searching for any sign of Sofia Hernandez,” she started. “So far, no trace of her whereabouts has been reported, and no body has been found, but law enforcement has been extending their efforts.”

  As he stared at the television, listening to the reporter’s words, he knew exactly where she stood, because he had stood there too. The search was closing in, they were getting closer, and his body tingled with excitement. He knew exactly what they were going to find; it was only a matter of time.

  Chapter Twenty One

  Tara woke up with a startle to her phone ringing on the coffee table. She looked around her. She was in the living room, the floor light still on, her laptop still in her lap. Sunlight was beginning to peak into the room, and it sent a shockwave through her as she realized it was dawn.

  She quickly reached for her phone. Warren’s name flashed across the screen. He must have news, she realized as her hazy, tired mind began to awaken. She picked up.