She was going home tomorrow. It was a reality that had finally sunk in, and it was all her mind could focus on. As much as she wanted to be excited—to enjoy the feeling of triumph that Warren felt—something just didn’t feel right to her. It all felt too easy. It felt too unsure. And her mind kept fixating on one thing—the compasses.

It felt too heavy of a piece of evidence to ignore. Why did James Hayden have so many collected objects in his apartment, yet, they never found any compasses? It was a question she kept asking herself. What if he really did just steal the wallets, the camera? But there was also something deeper that caused her to question it all—it wasn’t whom she would expect.

James Hayden was not brilliant. He made himself look guilty without even trying to do otherwise. He was weak-minded, and it was hard for Tara to believe that the killer was such. After all, the killer had gone undetected for this long; he had taunted them with the compasses and engravings in the tree. In Tara’s eyes, he was not someone who would give up easily—he was too smart for that.

Her stomach growled once again, as if frustrated that dinner sat in front of her, untouched. She picked up the slice of pizza and slowly took a bite. It was almost cold, reminding her how long she had been sitting there, and how she had barely eaten all day. As she took another bite, her phone rang. It was John.

She picked up and before she could even say hello, his voice came through on the other end.

“Why didn’t you call? Congratulations! It’s all over the news!” John spoke abruptly.

It took Tara a moment for it to register what he was referring to. The case. It must’ve already been mentioned on the news that they caught someone, and again, Tara felt her stomach churn at the realization.

“I was going to call you soon. I was just having dinner,” she replied.

“That’s great! When are they sending you home?”

There was a moment of silence before Tara spoke again.

“Tomorrow,” she finally said.

“What’s wrong?” John asked, without the playfulness he had seconds ago. He could hear it in Tara’s voice.

“Nothing—I don’t know,” Tara began and John waited for her to continue.

He knew that when Tara said “nothing,” it usually meant something, and that it would soon be followed with more to say.

“I just don’t feel the way I thought I would now that this case is over,” she finally admitted.

“What do you mean?”

“I just—” she began, trying to come up with the best way to turn her feeling into words. “Something just doesn’t feel right to me. This guy we caught—there’s just certain things that make me think it might not be him.” She let her words slide off her tongue and once she finished, the feeling in her gut swirled into full force, like a dam that just broke free.