Page 3 of Her Last Farewell

“Yes, for real. And you know what also helps?”

“What’s that?” he asked as they made their way into the kitchen.

"It's taco night."

Jack's face lit up. "Is that why I'm in such a good mood? Some kind of taco precognition?"

Rachel laughed as she pulled the ground beef from the refrigerator. "Must be. Though I thought it might have something to do with that budget approval you were hoping for."

"Still pending," Jack said, washing his hands at the sink before retrieving the cutting board. "But I choose to remain optimistic." He began slicing tomatoes with practiced efficiency, the steady rhythm of the knife against the cutting board creating a comfortable backdrop for conversation.

“Still wishing you were just another grunt out in the field?” she asked.

“Sometimes. I mean…yeah, there are days where I feel like the desk and the office may as well have chains installed. But I’m settling in. I finally feel…comfortable, I guess.”

Rachel browned the meat in silence for a few minutes, her mind drifting back to the funeral, to the gnawing feeling that had been plaguing her all day. Finally, she couldn't hold it in any longer.

"Jack," she began, keeping her voice low even though Paige was safely upstairs with her homework. "I can't shake this feeling about Scarlett's death. Something about it feels wrong."

Jack's knife paused mid-slice. "Wrong how?"

"Like it wasn't random." Rachel added seasoning to the meat, stirring it with perhaps more force than necessary. "Like it was meant to send a message. To me."

"Rachel..." Jack's voice was gentle but carried a note of concern. "You know from your job that sometimes therearecoincidences like this. Terrible, horrible coincidences."

"But what are the odds?" Rachel turned to face him, leaving the meat to simmer. "What are the chances that Scarlett would be killed in her home less than a week after being released from hospice? After getting good news about her cancer? After becoming my friend?"

Jack set down his knife and wiped his hands on a dish towel. "I understand why you're thinking this way. After everything with Alex Lynch, with Alice – it makes sense that you'd be hypervigilant. But sometimes terrible things just happen. Not everything is a calculated attack."

"I know that," Rachel said, turning back to the stove. "Logically, I know that. But my instincts are screaming at me, Jack. And my instincts are usually right…as conceited as that might sound."

"Yeah, your instinctsareusually right," he agreed, "but you're also usually more objective. This is personal for you. You lost a friend, and you're grieving. It's natural to look for meaning, for patterns, even where there aren't any."

Rachel stirred the meat again, watching the steam rise. "The police are calling it a home invasion gone wrong. But nothing was taken. There was no forced entry, and nothing was even disturbed except..." She trailed off, unable to finish the sentence, unable to describe again the scene she'd studied in those crime scene photos.

Jack moved closer, placing a hand on her shoulder. "Listen to me. You're one of the best agents I've ever worked with, and I trust your instincts. But I also know how grief can color our perception. Both from the job standpoint and from our personal lives. Maybe give yourself some time to process before you start seeing conspiracies?"

"It's not a conspiracy theory," Rachel protested, but her voice had lost some of its conviction. "It's just... I don't know. Maybe you're right. Maybe I'm letting my emotions cloud my judgment."

But even as she said the words, that nagging feeling remained. She'd learned to trust her gut over the years, and right now, her gut was telling her that Scarlett's death was more than just another tragic statistic.

Jack resumed his vegetable chopping, and Rachel focused on finishing the taco meat, letting the familiar routine of dinner preparation ground her. From upstairs came the muffled sound of Paige's music, hopefully helping her concentrate on that history project. The normal sounds of their household – knife against cutting board, meat sizzling in the pan, music floating down the stairs – should have been comforting. Instead, they felt somehow fragile, like a soap bubble that could burst at any moment.

Rachel thought again of how cancer had taught her to cherish these ordinary moments, but her experience as an FBI agent had taught her something else: that ordinary moments could be shattered in an instant, that peace was often just an illusion.She'd lost too many people, seen too many families torn apart, to ever fully relax into the comfort of routine.

Still, she forced herself to focus on the present – on preparing dinner with her husband, on the knowing her daughter was safe upstairs. Whatever her instincts were trying to tell her about Scarlett's death, it could wait until tomorrow. For now, she would try to simply be grateful for this moment, even as part of her mind continued to turn over the details of her friend's death.

CHAPTER THREE

The soft chime of Rachel's phone broke the morning silence of the bedroom. She rolled over, looked at the phone, and saw that it was 6:20 AM. Early morning sunlight filtered through the gauzy curtains, casting gentle shadows across the bedroom walls Rachel had been dreaming, something about walking through endless hospital corridors, but the dream evaporated as she reached for her phone on the nightstand, her hand moving through a shaft of pale gold light.

Director Anderson's name glowed on the screen just beneath the time. Rachel felt a familiar flutter in her stomach – the one she thought she might have lost during her long absence from fieldwork. But no, there it was again: that spark of anticipation that came with an early morning call from the director. It wasn't just the thrill of a new case; it was the knowledge that if Anderson was calling at this hour, something significant had happened.

"This is Gift," she answered, her voice still rough with sleep but her mind already clearing. The bedroom was quiet except for Jack's steady breathing beside her and the distant hum of the heating system kicking on against the November chill.

For a fleeting moment, her thoughts turned to Scarlett's murder. Had they found something? The crime scene photos flashed through her mind – the blood, the rest of the house perfectly untouched. But Anderson's next words took her in a completely different direction.

"We've got a body in the woods outside of Bowery," Anderson said without preamble. "Found by K-9 units during a drug sweep last night."

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