“I still can’t believe what happened to your arm,” he said as he placed a plate of food down on the coffee table in front of her.
But Tara knew that wasn’t all that was on his mind. She knew John well; he was protective. She knew very well that what she had told him terrified him, yet he was trying so hard to hold it together—to not show how thankful he was that the injury to her arm was all that happened.
She couldn’t quite tell if he was holding back his emotions to prevent her feeling guilty for worrying him, or if it was simply because he couldn’t bear to admit his fears to himself, or both. But Tara couldn’t help but be thankful that he wasn’t expressing it, because she hated when he got worried, when she would have to reassure him. It took so much energy—energy that she didn’t quite have at the moment.
In all truth, Tara was worried too. She had always known that by going into the FBI, she would be risking her life at times, but she had never quite known what that would feel like until after today. It felt terrifying, but thrilling, and there was one piece of it all that kept replaying in her mind. It was that one moment she froze in the beginning of the case. It was the fact that she could never really be too sure that it wouldn’t happen during a crucial moment like today.
Tara leaned forward and picked up her fork, attempting to twirl her pasta. But just as she did so, she immediately dropped it as each small movement pulled on her stitches, making her feel a sudden pain.
“Here,” John said as he took a seat next to her on the couch and reached over to help her.
Tara thanked him, and they continued to eat, surrounded by silence. But every once in a while, Tara could sense John’s eyes moving toward her and she knew he had something he needed to tell her, and finally she turned toward him and asked him.
He sighed. “I just feel badly that I kind of guilt tripped you when you left. I should’ve never done that. You were just doing your job.”
“It’s all right. You already apologized.”
“I know, but I’ve just been doing a lot of thinking.” He placed his fork back down. “I don’t want you to ever feel guilty for having to do your job. You have a really important job.” He took a deep breath. “I should be supporting you no matter what, not making things difficult for you.”
Tara nodded. She appreciated his support. After all, she certainly needed it, but there was something about what he said that tore at that same wound that had opened up so many times throughout the case. Because in reality, it wasn’t John that made her job difficult at times. She could handle the arguments, she could push those aside and perform. But there was something much deeper, much more painful, that she knew would always trickle its way into her career without her control, unless she took control of it first before it happened again. If she didn’t, she would certainly end up dead or have to leave this career for good.
“What’s on your mind?” John suddenly asked, causing Tara to realize that she had been staring at her plate for a moment too long.
But she still couldn’t find it in her to lift her head. She needed to focus on something as she pieced all her thoughts together. She had always blamed the trauma of her mother’s death as the reason for her nightmares, as the reason for her panic attacks. But deep down she knew there was another layer to it all and it was the reason for her recurring dreams. Each time she saw her father standing over her mother’s body; each time he lifted his head as his eyes moved to the corner of the room before he noticed Tara’s presence. That one dream she had, where he lifted his finger to his lips, where he whispered to the corner of the room—she now knew it wasn’t just a dream. It was a fractured piece of her memory and it was something she had been trying to keep buried for way too long.
Tara finally lifted her head. “There’s something I need to tell you.”
John suddenly stiffened, his eyes filled with questions.
“I think I need to visit my dad,” she said.
John stared at her in confusion. He had known that Tara’s dad had been in prison ever since her mother’s death, and she had made it clear from the very start that she had no desire to visit him, that she had no need to. She never wanted to give him the satisfaction of seeing her.
“Are you sure that’s a good idea?”
Tara nodded. “I have to,” she said. “Because I’m not sure he did it.”
A silence lingered between them for a moment as John wrapped his mind around what she was saying.
“But how do you know?” he asked.
“Because I know someone else was in the room.”
John held a world of questions in his eyes. “How?” he asked.
Tara explained to him about the dream, about the vision of her father holding his fingers to his lips, about the whisper.
John listened intently, and when she was done he moved closer, wrapping his arms around her.
“Whatever you need to do,” he said, “I’ll be right here.”
She buried herself in his chest, feeling more at home than she ever had.
NOW AVAILABLE!
ONE LAST BREATH
(A Tara Mills Mystery––Book Two)
ONE LAST BREATH is book two in the new FBI mystery series by debut author Sarah Sutton.
A popular beach town was torn apart when a teenage girl went missing. Now, one year later, after a storm rips through the area, her body is found––strangled and buried deep under the brush of a local
