Tara and Warren entered the interrogation room. They were told that Brennan would now be sober enough to speak. The cops at the station had given him coffee and water until the weight of where he was hit him full-force. He stared at them as they entered. He squinted skeptically, and he sat up straighter, as if ready to take a beating. He had the same arrogance in his stance that he had at the entrance of his apartment, and now it was clear it wasn’t just the alcohol that made him that way. It was his core.
His mouth curled into a devious smile as Tara took a seat across from him. She knew what he was thinking. She was a woman. He could intimidate her. It was what he had done to every female in his life, and it amazed her that he still couldn’t see it was his ultimate downfall. She gave him the same smile back, with fire behind it, and his smile subsided angrily.
She slid a picture of Alyssa across the table. “Do you know her?”
“Isn’t this the picture you showed me at my apartment? I told you, I don’t know her. Only saw her on the news.” Tara wasn’t sure if he was too drunk the first time she showed him, but he had clearly remembered. She asked him again, trying to read his emotion, but once again, his response seemed sincere. Or was he a skilled liar? He was an ex-cop, after all. He knew how to play this game.
Warren took a seat beside her, opening the envelope containing all the pictures found in his apartment. He placed them on the table one by one. Brennan looked down at them, and for the first time a hint of fear surfaced in his eyes, but then it quickly vanished, as if remembering where he was. He had clearly been too drunk to remember Warren showing them to him before. He looked as if he were seeing them for the first time.
“Can you tell me why these were in your apartment?” Tara asked.
He remained quiet as he looked down at them. “I don’t need to tell you,” he finally blurted.
Tara stared at him. “Your daughter knows that you’ve been watching her. Her and your ex-wife’s lawyer are going to know pretty soon too,” she shot back at him. His face fell. “It seems kind of suspect that you’ve been watching her and her friends, and then suddenly two of her friends go missing. And I’m sure you don’t like her hanging out with this crowd, isn’t that right?” Tara’s head tilted slightly as she stared deep into his eyes. A sudden look of concern swept across his face.
“No,” he said, panicking. “She can’t know. Wait, what does she think?” He stared down at the pictures again.
Tara pointed angrily at the picture of Sofia. “Where is she?”
He looked up, confused. It was a look Tara wasn’t expecting to see. “How the hell would I know?” He then looked from Tara to Warren. “What is this really about?”
Tara couldn’t tell if it was all an act or if he truly didn’t know that he was being accused of murder. “Where were you last night?”
“I was home,” he barked. “Now tell me what the hell this is about!” His frustration caused a vein to pulsate on his forehead.
Tara leaned in closer. She could still smell the alcohol on his breath. She looked him straight in the eye. “Reese and Sofia went missing not long after you took these photos. You know what this looks like? It looks like stalking to me.”
Tara looked at Warren, who nodded. “Looks the same to me too, Mills.”
Brennan chuckled under his breath. “That’s ridiculous,” he shot back. “So, what, you think I murdered them? Is that what you put in my daughter’s head?”
Tara stood up out of her chair. “I’m going to ask you again. Where is she?” She pointed at Sofia, now leaning over him.
“I said I don’t know!” He sighed. “I was just keeping tabs on my daughter, all right?” He leaned back in his chair in defeat. “Since I can’t see her and know what she’s up to, I try to keep tabs on her somehow.” Tara was about to speak, but he stopped her. “I know,” he started as if aware of what she was going to say. “The restraining order. But I’m still not physically going near her. I didn’t take these pictures.” The words fell out of his mouth. It was clearly something he didn’t want to admit, but he had been backed into a corner. But was it the truth? Tara shared a look with Warren. It was an admission that neither of them foresaw.
“Then who took them?” Tara asked.
He sighed. “I hired a private investigator. I wanted to see what she was up to, but I didn’t want her to see me watching her.” He looked back down at the pictures. She could see he knew how bad this looked. But his story did sound plausible. It would make sense why Julie never noticed him taking her picture, and he was smart enough to know that if she did, it would immediately be relayed to the lawyers. But now, it would be, regardless. Tara knew, and so did he as an ex-cop that hiring a private investigator would still be considered violating a restraining order.
Suddenly he looked up, as if a thought had struck him. “He was at my house last night, ask him.”
***
Tara and Warren stood in a small office down the hall from the interrogation room. Brennan had already given them the name and phone number of the private investigator, and they had just tried calling. But after trying a couple of times, and no answer, disappointment swelled in Tara’s belly. Warren placed his phone back into his pocket.
He sighed. “We’ll get one of the cops to keep trying or send someone over there.”
They had looked up the name of the private investigation agency. It was a legit place, and Tara was beginning to believe that the story would check out, and so would Brennan’s alibi. There was also once piece of the puzzle that she still couldn’t fit: Alyssa White.
She mentioned it to Warren. “I just feel like we’re missing something.” He understood without question what she meant, and he expressed it with a nod. It was clearly on his mind as well; it had been from the very start, and they still could not piece it together.
“You think he was telling the truth? That he’d never seen her before?” Warren asked.
Tara crossed her arms and sighed. “I suppose he could be lying, but I didn’t see him flinch or anything when I showed it to him.”
“Well, he is a cop,” Warren reminded her. It was the same reasoning that had crossed Tara’s mind. She nodded, but she still had a heavy doubt that wouldn’t ease. She could see in Warren’s eyes that he felt it too, but suddenly, Warren’s phone rang. He reached for it and quickly picked it up. Tara waited. At first, she wasn’t sure who it would be, but then it occurred to her that it could be the Evidence Response Team, that they could’ve finished searching Brennan’s car. She watched Warren’s face intently, trying to read what he was hearing, and his expression abruptly changed. They had found something, she could feel it, and her heart drummed.
“Hold on, I’m putting you on speaker so my partner can hear,” Warren said.
Tara moved a little closer as Warren held the phone out for them both to hear.
The man on the phone cleared his throat. “So I was saying, we found a hair. In the trunk. It’s definitely from a female.” Tara looked up at Warren, meeting his eyes, only to see the same shock. They had their doubts, but this could make them all subside. If the hair was in fact a victim’s, that could be all they needed for certainty.
“Do you know whose it is yet?” Warren asked.
“No, not yet. We’ll have results in the morning. Unfortunately, we don’t have any DNA for the third victim, but we’re going to compare the hair with the DNA of victims one and two. We also just stopped at the Brennans’ and got a DNA sample from the mother and daughter so we can rule them out if need be.”
Warren thanked him and hung up. He looked at Tara. They both knew there was the potential for substantial evidence, but their only option now was to wait. Warren looked up at a clock hanging on the doorway. Tara spun around. It was now evening. They had exhausted their efforts, but they still had yet to find Sofia.
She looked at Warren. “Sofia,” she said. The name rolled off her lips, and there was nothing more she needed to say. Warren understood, for he felt it too. His eyes were glossy from the tiring long day, and sadness swelled in them.
“They’re going to keep looking into the night,” he replied. He was referring to Sheriff Patel and the army of other officers that were diligently searching on every beach nearby. But Tara could see in his eyes that Warren knew that wasn’t all she needed to hear. It was the worry that they might not find her, that she was still out there, alive. But they both knew they had nowhere else to look. Every business was closed. They didn’t have a lead. They could only hope that that by capturing Brennan, she was somewhere safe.
“We’ll pick up in the morning,” Warren said. She could hear in his voice that he was disappointed, but it was their only option now.
They moved to the exit, but all Tara could focus on was another day lost, and as she reached for the door handle, a terrified Sofia haunted her.
***
Tara turned the keys to her condo and opened the door to a room full of darkness. She had arrived home before John. He was still at band practice. Tara had spoken to him on the way, and she was somewhat relieved to have some time to herself. She flicked the lights on, removed her shoes, placed her keys and phone next to the door, and made her way into the bedroom. A hot shower was what she needed. She was exhausted, but her mind was still fully awake, digging at every corner. Sofia was still not found. It was a realization that clung to her mind, unable to let go. It sickened her that she was home preparing for a shower when Sofia could still be out there, when her family was still worried sick.
Tara undressed, turned the water on, and stepped into the shower. The warm water was soothing against her skin. She took a deep breath, letting the steam fill her lungs. It soothed her, but not enough to make her mind stop racing. She knew it wouldn’t until Sofia was found and she was certain they had the killer. She had her suspicions about Brennan, but she still wasn’t one hundred percent certain. The more she thought about it, the more she felt that he was telling the truth—that he didn’t know Alyssa White.
Tara’s thoughts were interrupted to the sound of her phone ringing in the distance. It was probably John, she assumed, and she listened as it continued to ring and then stopped. She made a mental note to call when she was done, but then she heard her phone beep. She had a voicemail. John never left voicemails, unless it was important. And if it wasn’t John, who else would call her this late?
She hurried up in the shower. She had a bad habit of thinking the worst. Maybe it was John, maybe something happened, a car accident. The thoughts swirled through her head. She tried desperately to shake them off. He would’ve called the house phone next, she told herself. She didn’t know why she always thought that way—why tragedy would be her first instinct. She could only assume that it was a byproduct of her childhood trauma, and she hated that she tortured herself with those thoughts.
She stepped out of the shower, dried off, and quickly got dressed. As she exited the bathroom, she heard the jostle of keys in the front door and then the turn of the knob. She instantly relaxed. She knew it was John, and as she entered the kitchen, his smile greeted her at the door. He was still dressed in his business attire, even though he had just come from practice. He was wearing a button-up shirt that was undone from his neck to his chest, his sleeves pushed up his forearm. His hair was slicked over, and Tara couldn’t help but marvel at how handsome he looked.
“How was your day?” he asked as he placed the keys down on the counter and leaned over to give her a kiss. He then made his way to the fridge and began rummaging through it. Tara took a seat at the island.
His words instantly brought her thoughts back to Sofia, and her stomach churned into a knot. “Tough,” she admitted, but she didn’t go into details. She didn’t want to, and John understood. He nodded as he took a quick glance at her before taking out a plate of leftovers. He knew her well enough in this career now to understand when something was too much to talk about, and questions were better left unasked.
She changed the subject. “How was practice?”
A smile instantly formed as he placed his food in the microwave. “It was good! I think we’re definitely ready for the gig tomorrow. You’re coming right?”
She had almost forgotten about John’s gig and that she’d told him she’d try her best to be there. But now as the case progressed and was prolonged, she knew it was becoming more unlikely. “I really want to be,” she started as his face fell into a frown. “But this case, I really can’t promise anything.”
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 that 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.