Don't Make a Sound (Sawyer Brooks #1)(53)

Her stomach grumbled, prompting her to put her clothes and purse on the counter and open the refrigerator. There wasn’t much inside. A half a loaf of bread. Some milk, ketchup, mustard, a block of cheddar cheese. She pulled out a glass dish. It was a casserole. She took a few bites before putting the casserole away and opting for a bruised banana instead.

On her way to the bathroom shower, she paused outside Dad’s office. She reached out and rested her hand around the doorknob. Her heart raced. Seconds ticked by before she attempted to open the door.

It was locked.

Growing up, she and her sisters were never allowed inside his office. The only time she’d ever seen her dad get angry was when he’d found Sawyer and her friend Rebecca playing in his office. Rebecca had run from the room the second he walked in, but Sawyer had been hiding under his desk. The look on his face when he found her and dragged her out remained fresh in her mind: the bulging veins in his neck, the flared nostrils, and the whites of his eyes as he shook her so hard she’d thought he might accidentally break her in half.

Sawyer released her hold on the doorknob and continued on. Nothing about the home she’d grown up in brought her comfort. The walls felt as if they were closing in on her, every piece of furniture heavy with sorrow, the ceiling weighted down with grief, threatening to cave in at any moment.

In the bathroom, she set her things down and locked the door. As she waited for the shower water to heat up, she stripped down and caught her reflection in the mirror. She’d suffered much more than a bump to the head. Her left eye was bruised. She looked as if she’d gone a few rounds in the ring. A thick line of blood had dried on the side of her face. Her throat was dotted with bruises where Jonathan Lane’s thumbs had pressed hardest.

Once again, she wondered if he’d killed Isabella. Had Isabella tried to end things between them and possibly pushed him over the edge?

She stepped into the shower. She was getting nowhere. Uncle Theo and Jonathan Lane were both on her list of suspects. Uncle Theo was a rapist who had been convicted and jailed. Jonathan Lane was a pedophile. Nobody could tell her otherwise. And he was violent.

Putting together a list of suspects wasn’t easy.

There was a one-in-three chance that the police would never identify a victim’s killer. She could have driven by the person who killed Isabella. Maybe they’d been at Gramma’s funeral.

She needed to keep talking to people around town, which wouldn’t be easy. People tended to clam up because they didn’t want to get involved.

As hot water rushed over the top of her head, images of Kylie and Isabella floated around in her mind. Both dead. Eyes wide open, calling her forth, begging for help.



Sawyer had found an entry for Uncle Theo in her mom’s address book tucked away in the kitchen drawer. He lived at 201 Glen Road. His home was a glorified shed, with a sagging porch and metal roof. The two windows, yellowed by time, looked jaundiced. The woodpile out front was covered with an old tarp. The grass and weeds obscured the pathway leading to the front door.

As Sawyer reached out to knock on the door, her hand began to tremble, and her heart skipped a beat. No. She couldn’t handle an anxiety attack. Tips on how to handle her stress ran through her mind. She needed to relax before she could regain control of her thoughts.

She took a breath, then pulled out her phone and left a text message for Aria, letting her know where she was in case anything went wrong.

Once that was done, she focused on inhaling and exhaling.

She was at Uncle Theo’s house. He wasn’t the same man he was all those years ago. He was frail and weak. She would be fine. Whatever she was feeling, it was temporary.

With that thought in mind, she knocked. It was still early. Uncle Theo was probably sleeping. She knocked again. As she waited, she launched the camera app on her cell phone and swiped across to video mode.

The door creaked open.

She aimed the screen in his direction and tapped the “Record” button.

Her phone was vibrating. Someone was calling her. She ignored it.

Uncle Theo rubbed his bony fingers over his face. His unwashed hair hung in limp strands over bloodshot eyes. “Are you recording me?”

She nodded.

“Why?”

She straightened her spine, thankful when her hands stopped shaking. “I have questions that I need you to answer.”

His shoulders drooped. “You said you never wanted to talk to me again.”

She kept the video rolling. “That was before you murdered Isabella Estrada.”

He squinted. “I didn’t murder anyone, and I’ve never heard of that person.”

She had no idea whether or not Uncle Theo knew Isabella, let alone killed her, but after seeing him at her parents’ house and then again at the funeral, she could tell he’d been worn down by the hardships of life and might easily break down and tell her if he was responsible in any way. His red face and broken blood vessels told her he’d most likely been using alcohol as a crutch. He looked thin and dehydrated, nothing like the Uncle Theo she remembered. She nudged her way inside his place and looked around. “Why did you kill her?”

“You’re crazy.”

She knew all about the accusatory method that interrogators used to get a confession. Sawyer pivoted on her feet, circling in place, video rolling as she got a 360-degree view of his living space before landing back on his face. “You killed them all, didn’t you?”