A row of condos came into view as Warren neared the end of the road. They had already dropped Terry off at the station. The cops there were helping them by trying to get him to sober up. They had also handed his keys off to forensics, and Tara assumed they were now over at his apartment complex, combing through his vehicle for anything of substance.
Now, Tara and Warren were nearing the home of Mrs. Brennan and her daughter. Unlike Terry’s complex, this one was on a nice side of town, sitting on a dead-end street, facing the beach. They pulled into the parking lot. A glare reflected into Tara’s eyes, and she turned to see two young children riding their bikes around in circles as a father helped one of them gain their balance. Light reflected on the metal rims each time they turned into the sun. Tara smiled. It was refreshing to see a positive parental relationship, when she knew very well she was about to speak of a troubling one.
Warren parked, and they were soon standing two doors down from the father and children. Tara could feel his eyes on them as Warren pressed hard on the doorbell and they waited. A moment later the door swung open. A middle-aged woman with short, curly blonde hair and a toothy smile was in mid-laugh as she opened it. But her face fell upon Tara and Warren standing before her. The smile simmered, replaced with a questionable glare.
“Can I help you?”
A girl moved briefly to the door, as if to check who it was, and then disappeared into the kitchen. Tara assumed it was Terry Brennan’s daughter.
“Are you Mrs. Brennan?”
The woman nodded questioningly. She wore an apron covered in white powder, and she wiped a smidge from her cheek. She had clearly been baking.
Tara flashed her badge. “We were wondering if we could speak to you and your daughter,” she started. “We know your daughter was friends with Reese Tanner. We were hoping she might be able to help us.”
The woman raised her brows in surprise. “Oh,” she said, startled. She sighed, shaking her head briefly. “It’s a shame. That poor girl. She was a sweetheart.” Her mind drifted a moment at her words, and then she abruptly looked back at Tara. “Come in,” she added as she stepped aside, opening the door wider.
The condo had a cozy feel, with family pictures neatly placed on surfaces and in frames on the walls. Tara looked at them briefly as she took a seat on the couch. They were of Mrs. Brennan, her daughter, and others, which Tara assumed were extended family. Not one picture had Mr. Brennan in it. A wooden sign hung over the frames with the words Home, Sweet Home etched into it.
Mrs. Brennan took off her apron as she walked into the dining room and placed it over a chair.
“I’m sorry, my daughter and I were just baking. My niece’s birthday is tomorrow.” She was talking to Tara and Warren, but she was now in the dining room, facing the kitchen. “Julie,” she called as she waved her hand for her daughter to come near. A shy-looking teenager moved to the doorframe. She locked eyes with Tara from across the room. She suddenly blushed and her eyes fell to her feet. She wore an apron too. She took it off, laying it over her mother’s before pushing her pin straight hair behind her ear and sitting on a loveseat across from them. Her mother sat next to her.
“Reese used to come over quite often, actually,” Mrs. Brennan said as she looked from Julie to Tara and Warren.
Julie was staring at the floor. She bit her lip at her mother’s words, trying to control her emotion. It was clear just from her sitting there that Reese’s death had really shook her up.
“You two were close?” Tara asked.
Julie’s eyes moved to Tara, and then they closed as they began to well up. She sighed and nodded. “We were.” Her voice shook slightly. Mrs. Brennan grabbed her hand.
“Do you have idea who would’ve wanted to harm her?” Tara asked. She and Warren already had their theory, but she wanted to see what Julie would say. Julie thought for a moment before sharing a brief look with her mother, but then she looked back at her feet and shook her head. In only confirmed that Julie didn’t instinctively suspect her father of murder, even though she knew he was violent. But it was something Tara understood personally. As a child, witnessing abuse, she never would’ve thought her father was a murderer until he was charged as such. Tara’s stomach began to churn with sadness at what this girl could soon learn.
Tara reached into her pocket and pulled out a picture of Sofia. She slid it across the coffee table. “Do you know her too?”
Julie let go of her mother’s hand and picked up the picture. Familiarity washed over her face and then concern, and she abruptly looked up.
“I do, why?”
It was clear that neither she nor her mother had watched the news that day.
“She went missing last night,” Tara said. “She was riding her bike home from a friend’s house.”
Julie’s hand instinctively covered her mouth. Her mother looked at her with sheer concern.
“You knew her too?” her mother asked. It was obvious that she was unaware of the friendship.
Julie nodded, still in shock. “I didn’t know her that well, but I’ve hung out with her a couple of times. Just at...” She paused, her eyes moving to her mother, as if afraid to say what she needed to in her presence. But then she took a deep breath. “At parties,” she finished. “We had some mutual friends.”
Her mother stared at her, confused. She had clearly no knowledge that her daughter had been sneaking out, going to parties some nights. It was a topic Tara didn’t feel the need to address outright, but she also knew that what she and Warren were about to show them would reveal it.
“Do you still talk to your father?” Tara asked Julie.
She and her mother both jerked their heads back. “What does that have to do with anything?” Mrs. Brennan interjected.
Tara looked to Warren, who opened an envelope on his lap. He pulled out the pictures they found in Mr. Brennan’s apartment and placed them on the coffee table. It took Julie and her mother a moment for it to register what they were, but then Julie’s eyes opened wide. She gasped with a look of total devastation. Mrs. Brennan was quiet as she reached for the pictures. She knitted her brows and squinted.
“I don’t understand,” she said as she turned to her daughter. “Julie, what are these?”
Julie blushed. It was inevitable now that her mother would know she was sneaking out of the house. “They’re pictures of me and my friends, hanging out at night.”
Mrs. Brennan continued to stare at them, taking each one in her hand, looking at them intently until moving to the next. She turned each one over, seeing the time and date. She looked at her daughter, not with anger, but with sadness. She sighed.
“I thought you were going to stop with the lying,” she said under breath, but her words were met with no response, and then her eyes focused yet again on the pictures. “Who took these?” she asked as it all began to come together.
Warren leaned forward. “We found these in your ex-husband’s apartment.”
Mrs. Brennan stared at him a moment, trying to make sense of what he was saying, and then she placed a hand over her mouth.
Julie stiffened as terror flooded her eyes.
“But…” Mrs. Brennan started. She picked up the pictures again, one by one, almost frantically. “We have a restraining order.” The words fell out of her mouth as she placed another photo down in disbelief. She then looked up at Tara and Warren. “He was a very angry, abusive man. We have no ties with him anymore. He’s not supposed to be anywhere within a hundred yards of me or my daughter.” She looked at her daughter. “Did you know he was watching you?” she asked, but Julie only shook her head as she too stared down at the pictures in disbelief.
Mrs. Brennan looked back and forth between Tara and Warren as a thought struck her.
“What does this have to do with Reese? Or that other girl?” she asked. You don’t think—” She placed her hand over her mouth again, stopping herself before she spoke the words. But it was already clear she understood why they were there.
Julie was still quietly in shock. Tara shared a quick glance with Warren before she spoke. “Did your father ever mention Reese to you? Did he ever talk about her? Or Sofia?”
Julie looked off into the distance and took in a sudden emotional gasp of air. She then looked back at Tara. “My father never liked me hanging out with anyone. He made my mother homeschool me. He didn’t want me to have any social influence. That was partially the reason why my mother left him.” She glanced at her mother briefly.
“He had a lot of issues. His father was the same way. He was very controlling.” Mrs. Brennan sighed. “And he didn’t have a relationship with his mother. She left them when he was young for another man.”
Her words only confirmed that he had a deep-rooted mistrust of women.
“I thought I could help him,” Mrs. Brennan added with a shake of her head. “But clearly I was wrong.”
Julie stared at her mother as she spoke before grabbing a hold of her hand–– the room falling into silence. They were clearly both still healing.
“And how did you meet Reese?” Tara asked Julie.
“I used to go to the coffee shop to study sometimes before my dad got home. I met Reese when she first started working there. That’s when our friendship really started. We both had strict parents, so we kind of just understood each other.”
“Did you ever tell your dad about her?” Tara asked
Julie shook her head. “I knew if I told him, he would get all concerned about it. He always said I had a personality to be easily influenced.” She paused, sadness blooming on her face. Tara felt sorry for her. Hearing those words from her own father had to have affected her confidence.
“And what happened the night of the party?” Tara felt guilty asking. She knew it was a delicate subject, but she needed her to recount her story.
The girl sighed. “My dad thought I was home, but Reese snuck out of her house for a party and invited me. I went. I didn’t think my parents would know. But he was a cop and ended up getting called to break up the party.” Her eyes began to well up, and Tara knew very well why. It was the same story that Sofia’s friend had told them. “He hit me, in front of everyone. Over and over again. He broke my arm.” She now couldn’t control her emotion as she began to cry. Her mother leaned in closer, wrapping her arm around her. It steadied her. “Reese tried to stop him. I think he kind of made the connection then. He knew I went to the coffee shop a lot. He used to go in there before work, so he clearly recognized her.”
Mrs. Brennan spoke. “I got a call that night when I was in bed. I thought Julie was home, but it was the hospital. She squeezed her daughter’s hand. “That was my last straw with him,” she added. “I filed for divorce and a restraining order the next morning, and we moved in with my sister.”
“Has he tried contacting you at all?” Tara asked.
“Just once,” Mrs. Brennan admitted. “He showed up at my sister’s house with a box of our stuff a few months ago. He claimed he didn’t know we’d be there, but he knew.” She rolled her eyes. “He just wanted an excuse to check on us. I told my lawyer that he defied the restraining order, and he never did it again.”
Tara looked between Julie and her mother. “Do you think he would’ve hurt Reese?”
They shared a glance, as if to see what the other thought. They both questioned it; Tara could see it in their eyes. “I would hope not,” Mrs. Brennan replied. “I never would suspect him of murder, but I honestly don’t even know how he’s been this past year.”
It was an answer that made him seem even more suspect. His own family couldn’t even deny that he was capable of murder. But Tara still had one more question . Did Julie know Alyssa? She was the only victim that somehow hadn’t fit into the theory. She looked at Warren, who was already holding her picture in his hand, waiting for the right moment to ask. At Tara’s glance, he placed the picture in front of Julie.
“Do you know her?” he asked.
She looked down at it, and Tara could see familiarity flicker in her eyes. But Alyssa’s pictures had been everywhere, on every news station, on every telephone pole for a year. Anyone in this town would recognize her.
Julie shook her head, and Tara’s heart sank. “Only from the news. I don’t think I’ve ever met her, though.”
Tara and Warren thanked them both, and they soon stood in the parking lot. Mr. Brennan seemed like an obvious suspect to Tara now, but the only piece that gave her doubt was Alyssa. Where did she fit in, if at all? Once they got into the car, Tara posed the question to Warren. She could see that it was on his mind as well. He was being quiet, as he always was when in deep thought.
“I’m not sure,” he admitted as he placed the key in the ignition. He scrunched his face as he stared in front of him. His hand still held the key, even though the car was now on.
“What?” Tara asked. She could tell he had more to say.
He sighed. “I don’t know,” he said as he turned to her. “Reese and Alyssa do look a bit alike. Could he have confused the two?”
It was a question that hadn’t occurred to Tara, but he was right. They were a similar average height. They were both thin with long brown hair. Although Reese’s was slightly straighter, it was possible that they could’ve been mistaken from behind. If that was true, then he had wanted to kill Reese much earlier than he actually did. But Tara also knew that once he captured Alyssa, he would’ve known. But maybe it was too late? She mentioned it to Warren.
He nodded. “I agree. Maybe he knew he couldn’t turn back or he’d be caught.”
It was possible, Tara assumed, but the only way to know for sure was to get it out of Mr. Brennan directly. “Let’s just hope he’s sober enough now to talk,” she replied as they made their way to the station.
Warren pulled out of the parking lot, and Tara stared at the road ahead of them in silence as she wondered if they had finally caught the killer.