Her Last Wish (A Rachel Gift FBI Suspense Thriller—Book 1) Read online

  Rather than give an answer, Paige continued to point out her friends. “Oh, and that’s Micah! He’s funny because sometimes he’ll burp in class and never remembers to say ‘Excuse me.’”

  Just as they were about to fall into place for drop-off, a car in the exiting lane to the left stopped and gave a little beep of the horn. Rachel looked over and saw that it was Courtney Pinter, a way-too-involved school mom. She was rolling her window down and, not wanting to seem rude, Rachel did the same.

  “Hey there,” Courtney said in a tone befitting of a Disney princess. She was pretty and far too chipper. She was also only twenty-eight which Rachel also did not appreciate. “Just wanted to remind you that we need permission slips for the Summer Camp Crafts by next Tuesday! I know how sometimes those deadlines and dates get the best of you!”

  The smile Rachel sent Courtney’s way was about as fake as the too-chipper tone in Courtney’s voice. Ah, she thought, if only I lived a life where handing school paperwork was at the top of my priorities list. Must be nice…

  “Oh, I know,” Rachel said. “We’re going to be figuring out how to make that work over the weekend. Thanks!”

  She rolled up her window and pulled ahead, one stop away from drop-off. “Mom, really?” Paige asked. “You’re going to sign us up for Summer Camp Crafts?”

  That Courtney is a real bitch, Rachel thought. She’d rather hoped Paige had forgotten all about Summer Camp Crafts—a three day camping trip for mothers and daughters.

  “Well, like I told Ms. Courtney, we’ll have to check our calendar and see, okay?”

  Paige smiled so wide that her cheeks seemed to stretch. The smile was still on her face when Rachel pulled into the drop-off spot. Page opened her door with great enthusiasm, dragging her bookbag out with her.

  “Bye, Squirt,” Rachel said. “Love you lots!”

  “Love you lots!” Paige echoed. She then took off running to catch up with one of her friends under the watchful eye of the drop-off watchdogs.

  Rachel took three seconds to watch Paige enter the school. It was a sight that filled her with pride and sorrow in equal measure. She sighed as she pulled away and downed the last bit of her smoothie, wondering if she could maybe figure out a way to make Summer Camp Crafts work out.

  ***

  Rachel walked out onto the training grounds and felt like a kid about to step out onto a playground. She’d run this course at least a dozen times before and had essentially obliterated it each time. She wondered if she’d be able to beat her personal best time today—a time that was the second fastest the Richmond, Virginia, branch of the bureau had ever recorded.

  Earlier in her career, she’d come out and run the course for the fun of it. Nearly two miles of rugged woodland terrain right on the edge of Henrico County, complete with rope ladders, log obstacles, and a grueling quarter of a mile incline. At the end of it was a small open field where she’d then complete several firearms drills. Now, though, it was not for fun (though she did enjoy it). She’d been asked to run the course as part of a skills assessment required by the bureau.

  The proctor was standing a few feet to her right as she waited at the start of the course. She’d spoken to him a few times before; his name was Griffith, a fifty year-old that had also once been an agent but had a debilitating knee injury that put him out of the game. He was typing something into a smart pad as he looked up to her. “G’morning, Mrs. Gift. You doing good?”

  “Of course. Any day out at the obstacle course is a favorite.”

  “Glad to hear it,” Griffith said. “As you know, there will be another proctor waiting for you on the other end. And this time around, there’s going to be a bit more attention paid to your results.”

  “Why’s that?” Rachel asked, already looking forward to the challenge.

  “The higher ups know you have the second best time on this course. Because the first best is more than five years old, from an agent that’s relocated to Salt Lake City, they’ve got their eyes on you. Between me and you, they’d be pleased if you broke your old record. But if you could beat that one…”

  “Got it,” Rachel said, already priming herself.

  “Ready?” he asked.

  Rachel gave a nod and readied herself into a runner’s position. At the sound of the proctor’s whistle, she took off without pause. Her muscles seemed to react joyfully right away. She’d read an article not too long ago about how experienced surfers often felt a surge of something very close to euphoria the moment they straddled their board and saw a wave starting to form nearby. She thought it might be very similar to how she felt whenever any physical task was presented to her.

  She supposed it also helped that she knew the course well. The first portion was mostly flat woodland, a thin trail that wound through oaks and elms. As she came to the end of the first portion, her heart rate still pretty much normal and her breathing well-managed, she came to a drastic rise in the ground. Here, there was a rope that hung down along the ground, attached to a look-out station at the top of the hill. She made it halfway up the incline before grabbing the rope and using it to leverage her weight.

  Next she came to a wooden wall that had been constructed right across the trail. There were two ropes or a series of handholds to choose from. Rachel opted for both, leaping up and planting her foot on the lowest handhold, and then grabbing the rope to propel herself upwards. She kicked upwards using another handhold and was over the top of the wall less than five seconds after touching it. The moment she came down on the other side, she was running again.

  She took the following obstacles with the same precision and speed; she blew through the hurdles and scaled the rope wall as if she’d been doing it her whole life. She glanced quickly at her watch and saw that she was on course to beat her best time. But she was going to have to push even harder to beat the overall record.

  When she came to the top of the incline, her calves were burning, but the sight of the open field up ahead numbed it. She saw the proctor all the way at the end of the field, standing in a protective barricade. All that sat between Rachel and the proctor were three wooden posts, all adorned with typical silhouette targets, and three half-walls to use as cover. She dashed to the first wall and drew her Glock from the holster at her hip.

  Before she could bring it up and take position behind the first barricade, a stabbing pain flared in her head. It was so paralyzing and unexpected that Rachel’s knees went out. As she fell to the ground, for a moment, all she saw was a blanket of white. The entire world went blank and then the sheet of white started to fade. It was replaced by what looked like shooting stars speeding right across her field of vision.

  The next thing she was aware of was a man rushing towards her—the man she’d seen at the end of the course. “Agent Gift! Are you okay?”

  He knelt down beside her, keeping his distance until he knew what had happened.

  Rachel’s vision slowly came back and she blinked away the last of those little white stars. A deep fear starting to rise up in her heart but she wasn’t ready to process that yet. She couldn’t even make sense of it.

  “Agent Gift?”

  “I’m fine,” she said. “Pushed a little too hard…massive leg cramp.”

  She hoped it didn’t sound too much like a lie. She was scared. No…she was terrified. The pain had been immense, like nothing she’d ever felt before, and the white specks and flash were somehow even worse.

  She looked ahead and saw the three firing stations. She’d fallen less than twenty yards away from the end of the course.

  But recalling that awful pain and the white spots and flashes, she had a sudden worry that it was the least of her problems.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Rachel was pretty sure that one of the more tense moments in a person’s life was the handful of minutes following a CAT scan. It was bad enough that her primary care physician had seen her for ten minutes and then directed her to a specialist; that had placed a huge knot of worry in her heart. But
now, sitting in a too-bright examination room while waiting for the neurological specialist to come back in, was like waiting in a cell to be led to the electric chair.

  She felt fine, other than the nerves. Up until the point her doctor had recommended she see a specialist, Rachel was certain it would turn out to be nothing. Maybe just some random migraine that had blind-sided her and somehow affected her vision at worst.

  But with each minute that passed, she became more and more certain there was more going on. Having to visit a specialist was scary enough. But waiting for them to come into the room for more than twenty minutes after a CAT scan was infinitely worse. A million different scenarios played themselves out in her head but they all felt ridiculous. The worst ailments she’d ever suffered were a fractured wrist and a very small surgery to remove a tooth when she was fourteen. She rarely even got sick, for God’s sake.

  The doctor finally came in exactly twenty-three minutes after the scan (Rachel knew this because she’d been checking almost obsessively). He had a folder in his hand and she was pretty sure she could see the white corners of her scan peeking out from around the edges. He was an older man, closing in on sixty, and had the sort of voice that was made for doctors—calm and reassuring with just an edge of authority. He’d introduced himself when she arrived but she had forgotten his name. Fortunately, it was right there, pinned to his breast pocket: Dr. Greene.

  “Mrs. Gift, I have a few questions before we get to your results,” Greene said.

  “That can’t be good, right?” she asked. Already, her heart was plummeting. It felt like it had been tossed into a mine shaft.

  “The flickering lights you described…today was the first time you experienced them?”

  “Yes.”

  “Any headaches as of late?”

  Rachel thought about it for a moment and then shook her head. “None that stand out, no.”

  She could tell by the way Greene took the scan out of the folder that the news was not going to be good. As he revealed the scan, everything seemed to be moving in slow motion. “I ask,” he said, “because I can’t understand how something like this was missed.”

  Something like what?

  She could have sworn she asked the sentence out loud, but apparently had not. For. minute, she could not breathe. She could not even quite fathom exactly what he was saying. How was any of this real?

  He held the scan up to the light and took a pen out of his pocket. He used it to point at a portion of her brain. When he spoke again, he did it with the gravity of a man that had given similar news far too many times before. “Mrs. Gift, right here in the frontal lobe of your brain, is a rather sizable tumor. And I can’t imagine how it has not caused you any ill effects until now.”

  She looked to the scan and even her untrained eye could see it. “Is…is that considered big?” It sounded like a dumb question now that it was out of her mouth, but it was all she could think to ask in that moment.

  “It’s among the largest I’ve seen,” he said rather gravely.

  “And is it…”

  She couldn’t finish the question. It was too hard to get it out, especially when she could already see the answer in his eyes.

  “This type of tumor is referred to as a GBM,” he said. “A Glioblastoma multiforme. They are very deadly and I’m afraid to say that yours is malignant.” He spoke with the candor of a man that had delivered this same news far too many times. Oddly enough, Rachel pitied him for it.

  “How…how long do I have?”

  My God, am I really asking that question? she thought? I was fine this morning. Hell, I was great this morning. How is this even happening? She felt a tightening in her chest that she knew wanted to come out as wails and tears. She did her best to keep check on it as the conversation went on.

  “There’s no single answer to that question,” he said. “It depends on if you want to try chemotherapy or other avenues.”

  “Is there any hope in those?” she asked.

  He lowered the scan from the light and saw down in the lone chair in the room. “If we’d caught this about a year or so ago, there might be a chance. But as it stands now, I just can’t say with any confidence that it would help.”

  The tiny bit of hope she’d clung to when she saw the scan in the folder died in that moment. She felt it happen. It was like heartbreak with a side of fear. Right away, she thought of Paige—of her daring daughter and the plans they’d made even as recently as this morning. Then, beyond that, another thought speared through her already-breaking heart.

  Paige without a mother. My daughter is going to have to experience grief far too early in her life and…

  No. She wouldn’t think such things. Not yet.

  “What about an operation?” Rachel asked. “Surgery?”

  “GMBs are notoriously difficult to remove. There are surgeries, but with the size of this one, I can almost promise you that even if we could remove it, the surgery would kill you.”

  “Is there any hope?” she asked, her voice riding a wave somewhere between anger and sorrow. Her mind kept going back to how her death would affect Paige. Sure, there was Peter, too, but at least he’d experienced loss before when his mother died four years ago. But this…to leave a child motherless…

  “Well, there are other specialists you can see,” Dr. Greene said. “Doctors that specialize in trying to extend the lives of those with GMBs, for instance. There is, as I mentioned, chemo. And while the success rate with GMBs is incredibly low, I am never willing to one hundred percent rule anything out.”

  Rachel nodded, doing her best to stay sane and rational. “So how long?” she asked, trying not to break down and cry in front of him.

  “The best you can hope for is a year and a half. It could be less, though. Maybe a year. I can give maybe a more accurate timeline with some more scans.”

  The tears came then, but she still managed not to start sobbing.

  “I’m very sorry,” Greene said, and she felt that he meant it. “Is there anyone you can call that can help you process this?”

  She nodded, wiping the tears away. “My husband. He can…but…but, he…”

  “I am not telling you what to do, Mrs. Gift. But I would call him. Have him come pick you up. You’re welcome to use my office or one of our patient rooms to process through it and discuss next steps.”

  “No. I’ll call him, I just…need a second. Can I have this room for a bit?”

  “Of course. Please let me or my nurses know if there is anything we can do.”

  He gave her a final look that she supposed was meant to be some sort of sorrowful encouragement. When he closed the door behind her, the trauma of the news came slamming into her heart and mind. She let out a singular wail and then held the rest in as images of her daughter—bright, happy, smiling, full of dreams—filled her head. She rocked back and forth on the edge of the examination table. She only reached for her phone a single time, fully prepared to call Peter. She could still hear him singing in the shower, echoing in her head, and for some reason she did not want to tell him. She did not want to throw this grenade into their orderly lives.

  No…not over the phone. If she called and told him he needed to come pick her up, he’d know something was wrong. For now, she’d get herself together and go home. She’d find some way to tell him at dinner—him and Paige, both.

  And with that thought, the tears came faster as something within Rachel felt like it was breaking.

  CHAPTER THREE

  As she slid the dish with the prepared ingredients into the oven, Rachel thought she might start crying. She’d chosen something simple—baked spaghetti, one of Paige’s favorites—and it was still a monumental task to focus on the ingredients and bake times. Making dinner with the weight of the doctor’s devastating news was unbearably difficult

  How was she supposed to tell Paige that she wouldn’t have a mother in a year or so? How was she going to have the talk with Peter and start figuring out how to move money aroun
d, how their insurance would—

  The front door opened as Peter arrived home from work. Rachel heard Paige squeal “Daddy!” at the top of her lungs and then a series of little footsteps as she ran to greet him. It was a sweet little bit of monotony, the same way every Monday through Thursday afternoon played out. Paige pretended to attack Peter, Peter dropped his bags and picked her up, spinning her in circles until he deposited her on the couch.

  Rachel listened to it all as she set the oven timer. She the wiped the counters down and took out plates for the table, anticipating the last part of the weekday routine. It came, just as expected. Peter came into the kitchen, gave her a playful tap on her backside, and kissed her cheek.

  “Good day?” he asked.

  “Mmm hmm.” Tears stung her eyes as she said this and she made a point to keep facing the cabinets as she took out the plates. “You?”

  “Busy, but not too busy,” he answered. “Mostly just meetings to figure out who we’re going to get to write up these proposals. Which means the next few weeks will be absolute hell. And maybe a few after-hours sessions at the office. So just a heads up.”

  “Baked spaghetti for dinner,” she said. “I know it’s not your favorite, but I was in a hurry and it’s Paige’s fa—”

  “Nonsense. Sounds delicious. I’m going to run up and get changed and I’ll set the table.”

  She watched him rush out of the kitchen and up the stairs, likely wanting to make sure he got back downstairs to set the table before she did. Peter was a good husband and tried to make sure she never felt like all of the household items such as cooking, washing dishes, and laundry came down to her. He helped with a bit of funkiness in his attitude, but she’d almost stopped noticing it after a few years of marriage.

  She left setting the table for him, standing just outside of the entry between the kitchen and living room. She watched Paige in the living room, perched on her knees in front of the coffee table. She was coloring while also watching a show about magical cheerleaders. Her tongue stuck out of her mouth just a bit, a trait that had apparently been passed down biologically from Rachel.