He didn’t have to reinvent the wheel.
If he wanted to uncover more information, he needed to go to the person who had the information. In this instance, that person was the witness who’d seen the man fitting Eve’s attacker’s description leaving the murdered woman’s trailer. Hopefully she’d be easy enough to find and willing to talk.
Then he’d uncover as much as he could about the woman who was killed.
The light of his phone dimmed, and he swiped his thumb over the screen to bring it back to life. He had one more item left to write, but as much as he dreaded it, he couldn’t put it off until the morning. He had to call his sister now.
Before he changed his mind, he found Tara’s number and pressed Call. The line rang in his ear, and he sent up a silent prayer for her voice message to click over, before she finally answered.
“Hey,” she said. “I wasn’t expecting to hear from you tonight.”
The heaviness in her usually upbeat voice had him sitting up in the unfamiliar bed. “Yeah, sorry. I was busy when you texted and I’m just getting a chance to reach out.”
“New case?”
He rubbed a palm over his normally smooth face and thought back on the last twenty-four hours with Eve. This assignment was way different than just another job, but he didn’t want to dive into that with his baby sister. “I’m keeping a local woman safe while some things get sorted. How you holdin’ up?”
A beat of silence stretched into seconds, followed by the sound of Tara sniffing. “I’m okay. It’s rough, you know?”
He bit back his frustration, knowing anything he said against their father would immediately raise his sister’s hackles. “I’m sorry you’re going through this again. You don’t deserve to be treated this way.”
“I don’t know where Dad is,” Tara continued. “I’ve called all his usual spots, searched the last shithole he stayed at and spoken with the degenerates he calls friends. He’s nowhere. And now Richard is pissed he stole the money we’ve been saving for vacation. Just swept right into the house when no one was home and took it. Richard’s threatening to leave me—claims he’s over the drama—but what am I supposed to do? I can’t abandon Dad and leave him for certain death like everyone else.”
Reid’s blood heated. He and Tara had argued over their respective positions on their father countless times. She claimed Reid was coldhearted and not willing to be there for family. He countered he’d learned how to have healthy boundaries and she needed to do the same or their father would ruin her life like he did everyone else’s.
Neither could ever see the other’s perspective, leaving them in an endless loop of resentment and frustration.
“Well, are you going to say anything?” Tara asked, cutting into his thoughts.
Sighing, he sat up and prepared for battle. “Do you want to hear what I really think?”
“Yes.” The word came out clipped and defensive, all but guaranteeing another fight.
He chewed over how to lay out the same logic he spouted weekly, praying this time she’d finally hear him. “Dad doesn’t want help. He wants a handout. He wants to live life on his terms. He wants to drink. Until that changes, nothing you do will help. He’ll keep pushing you away until he shoves you over a cliff, just like he did with Mom. Just like he tried to do with me.”
More sniffles sounded through the phone and tore at his heart.
“Tara, I love you. I don’t want to see you hurt over and over again. Mom tried to fix him for years, and she was rewarded by him smashing their car into a tree, stealing the best years of her life. If she couldn’t get through to him, no one can.”
“I don’t know how to say no to him. Mom would want me to stay. To keep trying.”
The smallness of her voice reminded him of Tara as a little girl. Big blue eyes and dark curls, always wanting to please everyone.
But that was the problem. Tara lived her life to please others, to help others over helping herself. If she couldn’t figure out how to escape their father’s unhealthy clutches, she’d never be happy.
“Mom would hate for you to be stuck in the same pattern she was in for years. Hate to see you stuck catering to a man who loved booze more than anything else in this world—more than his family. The difference is Mom stayed for us. To try and protect us and provide us with stability the only way she knew how. You have a choice. A future away from him. But just like Dad’s the only one who can choose sobriety, you’re the only one who can decide when you’ve taken enough abuse and walk away.”
“But what if I leave and he needs me?”
Reid tightened his grip on the phone and gritted his teeth. He hated the position Tara found herself in, and he hated himself for leaving her back in their small-ass town where she felt as though she was the only thing standing between Stan Sommers and death.
But he’d made the choice Tara faced daily. He’d walked out of his father’s life and never looked back. He might share blood with that man, but he wouldn’t sacrifice himself for the sake of someone who didn’t deserve it.
“He’s a grown man. If he needs help, he knows how to get it,” he said. “Maybe he needs to fall on his face a few times before he can finally pick himself back up.”
More silence. More crying. More guilt crushing down on Reid’s chest, making it hard to breathe.
But at least Tara wasn’t fighting him, wasn’t hurling insults or making excuse after excuse for the horrible way their father treated her. Maybe she was finally ready to see reason.
