O N E
L A S T
B R E A T H
(A TARA MILLS MYSTERY—BOOK TWO)
S A R A H S U T T O N
Sarah Sutton
Debut author Sarah Sutton is author of the TARA MILLS mystery series, which includes ONE LAST STEP (Book #1), ONE LAST BREATH (Book #2), and ONE LAST UNVEIL (Book #3).
ONE LAST STEP (A Tara Mills Mystery––Book One) is available as a free download on Kobo!
Sarah has always been fascinated by the mystery genre and loves to write suspenseful books with complex characters. Sarah would love to hear from you, so please visit www.sarahsuttonauthor.com to email her, to join the mailing list, to hear the latest news, and to stay in touch!
Copyright © 2021 by Sarah Sutton. All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior permission of the author. This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return it and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictionally. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
BOOKS BY SARAH SUTTON
TARA MILLS MYSTERY SERIES
ONE LAST STEP (Book #1)
ONE LAST BREATH (Book #2)
ONE LAST UNVEIL (Book #3)
CONTENTS
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY NINE
CHAPTER THIRTY
CHAPTER THIRTY ONE
CHAPTER THIRTY TWO
CHAPTER THIRTY THREE
CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR
EPILOGUE
Prologue
He stood on a mound of sand formed from the deep pit he had just dug. There was no one around. No one knew what he was doing. No one had seen him––just as he had planned.
It was nearly three in the morning, and the homes lining the beach were just a row of shadows, dark and silent. They were the vacation homes of the wealthy, used to escape the fast-paced city life for days of tranquility. People were resting their weary heads, only to awake and rest some more under the sun and atop the sand. Little would they know what would be buried nearby or that they would soon hear another girl went missing.
He smiled at the thought of their concerned faces glued to the news as they stepped into their vacation homes for lunch the next day, unaware that they sunbathed so close to her body that very morning—that their children played right where he had carried her in a trash bag.
He could picture them in a panic as they questioned their own safety and gathered their things. It was the type of town where crime was rare. A person going missing was not supposed to happen here, but it would now be the second time. His eyes drifted down the dunes, along the row of houses, to where he had buried Alyssa White just about a year ago. She was still there; she still had not been found. He smiled at the memory—at the panic her search had caused—and at the realization that it was now going to happen again.
The town was just starting to get back to normal, but he couldn’t let them get too comfortable. It would be a huge news story, he could feel it, and it sent a flurry of excitement through his body.
He stared back into the hole he had just dug. It’s deep enough, he concluded as a gust of wind swirled around him, scooping up the fragments of sand until they struck the beach grass like shattered glass.
His forehead glistened with sweat in the moonlight as he sliced his shovel one last time into the walls of the sand, making the hole wide enough.
He was done now, but not completely, and a sudden tinge of excitement flowed through his body once more at the thought of what lay in his car. He was ready to bury her, and he knew he was so close to getting away with it. This had all gone so perfectly to plan.
He had already backed his car up onto the sand, and he quietly walked toward it. The trunk was cracked slightly, and he opened it wider. He had already disabled the light, but he could still see the outline of her body––curled unnaturally within the trash bag he had stuffed her in.
He stared at the bag for a moment. He had envisioned this for weeks, each time he watched her walk to and from work, each time he interacted with her. Every time, his mind wandered to this very outcome. At first, it was just a fantasy, but then it became a need as it seeped into his mind during everything he did. It became an urge so strong that he felt there was no other choice. He wanted all of her. He needed her. But it wasn’t for his own enjoyment. What he wanted was indirectly associated with her. She was a flame that attracted anything in her path. She was polite. She was smart and beautiful. She would smile and blush at the slightest compliment. She was innocent. She was perfect.
And that was when he knew she was the flame that would spark a fire.
He reached for her with his gloved hands and cradled her in his arms as he turned back toward the beach and walked across
