HER LAST MISTAKE Page 2

  She was so uneasy that she stopped at the top of the stairs before coming to the mostly open-floor design of the second floor.

  “Gloria?”

  The three syllables sounded far too loud. Something about the way they traveled into the second-floor space unnerved her and Talina suddenly found herself not wanting to go any further. She pressed on, though; with no response and Gloria’s name still feeling heavy within the house, she felt that there was really something bad going on here.

  She walked directly to the first door on the right. It was cracked open just a bit, revealing the hard wood floors in Gloria’s bedroom. Having cleaned the room countless times—changing sheets, vacuuming, and dusting—she knew the layout. A queen-sized bed situated perfectly on an expensive rug, single bedside table, a huge walk-in closet, and an attached bathroom. But as she approached the door and pushed it open, the space inside seemed small and almost tomb-like.

  Calm down, she told herself. You could be working yourself up for nothing…

  And as it turned out, that was very much the case.

  Gloria was lying in bed, the sheets pulled up to her stomach. Her arms were to her sides and she was laying perfectly flat, no arms or legs stretched or peeking out from under the sheets. It was the look and posture of someone enjoying a peaceful, deep sleep. And that’s what made it particularly strange for Gloria. It was 10:20 in the morning and she was still sleeping.

  At first, this relieved Talina. She really had been worried about nothing. But then she recalled the almost meticulous nature of Gloria’s daily routine. Even when she wasn’t feeling the best, she managed to get in her morning walk and, at the very least, her morning journaling.

  Talina stepped further into the room, her eyes locked on the shape in the bed. “Gloria?” she asked, trying to inject some cheer into her voice. “Gloria, it’s nearly ten thirty in the morning. Are you okay?”

  She was at the end of the bed now and when she looked straight ahead, she could clearly see Gloria’s face.

  Her eyes were open…but she wasn’t blinking. And another several seconds of staring at the shape under the sheet told Talina that Gloria wasn’t breathing, either.

  Her hand going to her mouth, Talina let out a small scream. She started shaking her head as she backed away to the door, careful not to touch anything. By the time she was racing downstairs to grab her cellphone to call 9-1-1, she was still screaming, and she didn’t stop until the dispatch operator on the other end of the call was able to calm her down.

  CHAPTER TWO

  “Rachel? Do you understand what I’m telling you?”

  Director Anderson sat across from her, looking into her face with the same sort of love and concern a father might show a daughter—not that Rachel would know what that looked like. It sounded like such a stupid question to ask, but she did understand. She understood what he’d told her perfectly well; it was just taking her brain a while to process it.

  Jack stood behind Anderson, both men standing almost statue-still in her living room. Elsewhere in the house, she could hear Grandma Tate whispering something to Paige.

  Jesus…Paige, she thought. I’m going to have to explain this to her. The thought of it was more painful than the news Anderson and Jack had come by to give her.

  “Rachel?” Jack asked. She wasn’t sure she’d ever heard his voice so soft.

  “Yes, I understand. How long ago did it happen?”

  She sensed a shift in Anderson as he finally allowed himself to sit down on her couch. She knew him well enough to know that he was making the transition from caring and compassionate boss to work mode.

  “The body was discovered three hours ago,” Anderson said. “It was reported by a woman walking her dog. She saw the door open, saw the body half-in and half-out of the doorway. According to the cops that arrived first on the scene, they said it all looked pretty fresh. Maybe one or two hours.”

  “So five hours max,” she said. It was hard to accept all that Anderson was telling her, so she did what she always did in tense situations: She kept her mind in work mode, trying to break the scene down into little nuggets of information.

  “Yes, but Rachel…I’m only telling you because of your relationship with him,” Anderson said. “You should know easily enough that this isn’t going to be your ca—”

  “It was Lynch.”

  Anderson nodded. “It was, and he wanted us to know. He…well, he…”

  Jack finished for him, knowing that sometimes Rachel just needed the hard stuff spoken out loud, as blatantly as possible. But even Jack couldn’t keep the unsteady quiver out of his voice when he said: “He carved his name into Peter’s forearm. L-Y-N-C-H.”

  It was one of the few times in Rachel’s life when she didn’t know what to say. Hell, she didn’t know what to feel.

  “Agent Gift,” Anderson said, “we need to discuss what the next few days will look like. I won’t go so far as to ask for your gun and badge, but we’re going to keep an eye on you. If you take it upon yourself to—”

  Rachel got to her feet as the only real solution she could think of came instantly to mind. Maybe not a solution per se, but the only thing that made any real sense. “Do what you want,” she said as she headed for the stairs, in the direction of Grandma Tate’s soft, trembling voice.

  “Where are you going?” Jack asked.

  Rachel felt a lump forming in her throat but managed to get her answer out before she started crying. “I’m going to tell Paige her father is dead.”

  ***

  Paige handled it almost like her mother. She didn’t respond at all at first but when she did, she cried hard. She cried and when she was done, she sought answers. How did he die? Why would someone want to hurt her daddy? Was she, Rachel, going to go find the man who did it? When Daddy died, did he feel a lot of pain?

  This poor kid is going to grow up to be just like me, Rachel thought several times over the course of the days that followed.

  A tense three days followed Anderson’s visit, bearing the bad news. Old friends she and Peter had shared came by to pay their respects and through it all, she watched as a stream of people told her and her daughter how they’d be in their prayers, how they’d be there for them if they needed anything. And through it all, even when Paige was clinging to her and crying softly for her father, Rachel could think of only one thing: of Alex Lynch carving his last name into her dead husband’s arm so she’d know he’d done it. So there would be no mistaking that he was coming for everyone she loved. While others came to mourn her would-have-been ex-husband, Rachel was busy fostering a deep-seeded revenge and trying to understand how Lynch was able to do these things with such freedom.

  The only time she was able to keep the image of Lynch out of her head was at Peter’s funeral. It took place four days after Anderson and Jack had come by with the news. She was surprised just how clear her mind had become while she sat in a hard-backed foldable chair as she watched Peter’s casket lowered into the ground.

  She thought of why he’d left and found a sick sort of irony in it. They’d decided to separate over differences and arguments related to her keeping the cancer diagnosis from him. She understood his points to a degree but it was all overshadowed by the fact that he’d died first. That even though there was a tumor pressing into her brain that could snatch the life right out of her at any second, Alex Lynch had seen to it that Peter had gone first.

  Once the service was over and the funeral goers started to depart, Grandma Tate whispered softly into her ear. “Take your time here, dear. I’m going to take a walk with Paige over near the flower garden.”

  Rachel only nodded, looking toward Paige’s father’s gravesite. She was able to recall how madly in love they’d once been, how excited he’d been when they’d gotten pregnant with Paige. And in that tide of memories was her diagnosis and how she’d hidden it from him—of how she’d willingly gone to see Alex Lynch and how that had stressed Peter out, too. She’d not been the best wife and, lookin
g back, she knew she should have told him about the diagnosis right away. Of course, it was too late for that now and she’d have to live with all of the wondering and what ifs. She had no doubt that separation had been the right decision; they’d come to it so easily that it had told them both that maybe it was a long time coming and they’d only ignored it for the sake of Paige’s happiness. Still, to know that he was dead and that a man she was connected to through her work was responsible for it hurt her in a way that made no sense.

  She looked briefly away from the gravesite, over to the parking lot. People were getting into their cars and backing out, walking in the somber quiet of a funeral. Among all of it, she saw a single figure standing at the hood of his car, looking out her way. She recognized Jack at once, even when he was dressed in a suit and a nice coat.

  She got up from the chair, giving one final look to Peter’s resting place. She felt like she was being propelled across the cemetery to the parking lot, mainly because her legs felt like jelly. None of this felt like it was really happening, and her body and mind seemed okay with pretending none of it was real.

  Jack stood a bit straighter as he saw her approaching. His face was stoic and still, as if he wasn’t sure how he was supposed to greet her. As she drew closer, he sighed and said, “Rachel, I’m so s—”

  She interrupted him by embracing him. And when his arms wrapped around her, she felt a surge of sorrow come barreling out of her. It came with embarrassing force and before she knew it, she was wailing into Jack’s shoulder. There was no hesitancy in the fact that this was Jack, a man she worked with and respected deeply and she, in turn, felt no hesitancy from him. It felt far from familiar, but it felt safe. And given all that she’d been through in the last year—Grandma Tate’s diagnosis and then her own, and then the separation from Peter and now his death—safety was exactly what she needed.

  “Come on,” Jack said. “Let’s get you home.”

  She shook her head, not quite ready to leave the cemetery. She felt deep down that once she left, it would be incredibly hard to ever come back. Not only that, but Paige and Grandma Tate were back at the cemetery garden, too.

  “Not yet,” she said, through sobs. “Let me get it all out here. I can’t…can’t…”

  She meant to say I can’t let Paige see me like this but even as she failed get the comment out, she wasn’t sure if that was true or not. Maybe seeing her mother like this would do Paige some good. Lord knew she’d never been the best in terms of encouraging her daughter to show emotion. Maybe Paige needed to see her mother slightly broken and undone.

  But in that moment of vulnerability, she felt she was where she needed to be. Other than Paige and Grandma Tate, Jack was now the closest person in her life. It wasn’t a burden she wanted to place on him but as she wept into his shoulder and felt his arms around her, it was so easy to lose herself, to give into the still-building grief, if even only for a moment.

  ***

  To Director Anderson’s credit, he gave her three days of quiet. And even then, when he felt it necessary to reach out, he chose to have Jack do it. It had consisted of a short conversation on the phone and Rachel had been instantly relieved to find that despite her crying into his shoulder three days before, things did not feel at all awkward with Jack. Neither of them mentioned the moment and as far as she was concerned, it would remain a touching yet always unspoken moment between them.

  The phone call from Jack had led to what he referred to as an “exclusive meeting of the minds” at Anderson’s office. No talk of work or routines, but of how to best approach the days that would follow in regard to her family and Alex Lynch.

  She’d gone begrudgingly, the only real driving force being the concept of nailing Lynch. She’d gotten properly dressed for the first time since Peter’s funeral and when she left the house, she noticed two unmarked sedans parked on the street in front. They were obviously FBI vehicles and they were making no attempts to be subtle about it—likely on purpose. The bureau wanted anyone and everyone to know that this house was pretty much under lockdown.

  Oddly enough, being out of the house and driving the familiar route to the field office helped immensely. In doing so, she realized she’d eaten nothing but a few crackers, a slice of pie, and a bowl of cereal since coming back from the funeral three days ago. She stopped by a fast food restaurant and wolfed a burger down on her way to the office and by the time she got there, she felt herself being lifted out of the emotional fog that had kept her bound and sluggish for the last three days.

  She was not naïve enough to think she was done with her grieving, but it was the first time she’d dared to look through the tunnel looming ahead of her to see a small pinprick of light. She took the elevator up to Anderson’s office and saw that both Anderson and Jack were already there, sitting at Anderson’s desk. There was a third man there as well, someone she’d never seen before. He was middle-aged with brown hair and broad shoulders. He wore a button-down shirt, a pair of basic slacks, and had a Glock holstered to his hip.

  “All this for me?” she said lightly as she walked in. It felt forced and cheesy; apparently, she wasn’t ready to attempt light-hearted jokes yet.

  As she took the seat next to Jack in font of Anderson’s office, she noted that he looked at her with something a bit too much like sympathy. She chose to ignore it, smiling warmly at him instead.

  “Agent Gift,” Anderson said, “I do appreciate you coming in today and I’ll make it as quick as possible. This man,” he said, gesturing to the stranger, “is Deputy Marshal Sam Cole. I’m putting him in charge of the efforts to keep you and your family safe until we can find Lynch.”

  “The U.S. Marshals?” she asked.

  “Yes,” Anderson said. “The situation with your husband…it can’t be overlooked. And if this bastard is so focused on coming after you and your loved ones, we have to make sure that can’t happen.”

  Rachel understood it perfectly, but she hated the feeling of being babysat. But as soon as the feeling passed, she reminded herself that this went far beyond her. This included Paige and Grandma Tate, and she’d be fully on board with whatever it took to keep them safe. And when she realized and focused on those things, she found that she was very happy for the U.S. Marshals to be on the case as well. Deep down, it did worry her that it might rob her of the secret little revenge schemes she was hatching, but those were deep enough that she was able to shove them aside without much problem…for now.

  “Okay. So what will it look like going forward?”

  Anderson looked to Cole, giving him the floor. “We’d like to have you and your family relocate to a secure location. We have several you can choose from and they’re all local. Your daughter’s school won’t be affected, and life will be pretty much the same until Lynch is stopped.”

  She thought about what this would mean—of uprooting Paige so shortly after her father had been murdered. Paige was resilient and would likely see it as an adventure, but Rachel wondered what sort of long-term effects the entire situation may cause.

  “Where are the locations?” she asked.

  “We have one just three blocks from here, a townhouse in a grid of townhomes that are predominantly occupied by older married couples. There’s another one, a two-bedroom apartment, a bit further away. That one would be closer to your daughter’s school. There’s also a playground, a nature trail, and other kids.”

  The additions to the apartment alarmed her. She cocked her head at Anderson and asked: “Just how long are you expecting this to take?”

  “We have no way of knowing. You know that as well as anyone. We could nab him before you’ve even made the move, or it could be weeks. Months, maybe.”

  Rachel felt her heart sag a bit as she sank back into her chair. Again, she knew it was the best move, but for Paige to be away from her home for weeks or months? She wasn’t sure how that might work.

  “What about Agent Carson?” she asked. “He was only assigned to us for a short time so far, bu
t Paige has come to trust him.”

  “Then we’ll keep him on detail,” Cole said. “I’ve worked with Agent Carson before. Is he currently at your house?”

  “I believe he is, yes, but in one of two sedans parked outside of my house.”

  Jack spoke up next and when he did, she was surprised how he turned directly to her and regarded her not as a fellow agent, but a friend. “You know this is your call,” he said. “They aren’t going to do anything without your permission, aside from keeping Carson on. But you know this is the smart move, right?”

  “Yes, I do,” she said. She knew it was vital that she make the right decision rather than the one she was going to feel the most comfortable with.

  “So what do you want to do?” Anderson asked.

  “If you make a decision soon, we can get started with the relocation by the end of the day,” Cole said.

  “Let’s do it, then,” she said. “In terms of location, do whichever one you think will be the safest and smartest.”

  “That would be the townhouse.”

  She was starting to see less and less of that little light she’d sensed at the end of the tunnel. Knowing that their lives were about to get thrown into a whirlwind, she suddenly felt the need to be back with Paige. And it made her hate Lynch that much more.

  “Is that all?”

  “Almost,” Anderson said. “There’s one more thing.”

  “And he’s only mentioning it because I pushed him on it,” Jack said. “Before Lynch went for Peter, we’d all decided that as long as you were up for it, you should carry on with life as usual in an effort to lure Lynch out. And I think that is a fact that still holds true. If he’s after you and your family, dividing you up seems like the smart play. And now with Cole and the U.S. Marshals on this, your family is safer than ever. So you should—”