Page 2 of Her Last Escape

It was impressive to see how the men managed to get the wheelchair (and Rose) down the stairs. There wasn't much jostling, and for a moment, it seemed that Rose was actually enjoying the ride. When she was back outside, there were a few more vehicles in the lot. More than that, he saw a familiar face that she'd not expected on the scene.

Director Anderson was looking around the lot with a practiced eye, studying everything. His expression darkened when he saw her, that familiar look of concern mixed with exasperation. Before he could speak, she cut him off. "I'm only helping. I swear."

He nodded grimly. “I didn’t call you so that you’d come out here, Gift.”

“I know. But did you really expect anything less?”

Without waiting for his response, she turned back toward the entrance. A nurse hurried past, calling out, "Last two coming down! Bus is pulling up!"

Rachel reached for the door handle to head inside to help. Later, she would remember how cool the metal felt against her palm, how the morning sun caught the glass and turned it into a prism for just a moment.

Before she was able to open the door, the world exploded.

The blast hit like a giant's fist, lifting Rachel off her feet. Time stretched like taffy as she flew backward, her body sailing in a whirl of shattered glass and pulverized brick. The Christmas tree cartwheeled past her, ornaments scattering like deadly confetti. Something slammed into her stomach—a chunk of debris—driving the air from her lungs. Then she hit the ground.

Pain bloomed across her back and head. Her ears rang with a high-pitched whine that drowned everything else. Through blurring vision, she saw the entrance had collapsed, the Christmas decorations now twisted metal and burning plastic. A nurse lay motionless in the doorway, half-buried in rubble, one arm stretched out as if reaching for help that would never come. Black smoke billowed from a jagged hole torn in the building's side, and the acrid smell of explosives mixed with the more pungent smell of dust and shattered brick and concrete.

She tried to move, to call out, but her body wouldn't respond. Faces appeared and disappeared above her—Anderson, Officer Lorenz, others she couldn't quite focus on. Their mouths moved, but she couldn't hear what they were saying over the ringing in her ears.

The last thing Rachel saw before consciousness fled was a single silver bell, charred and bent, rolling across the parking lot like a child's discarded toy. It caught the morning sun one final time, flashing like a signal, before disappearing into the chaos of emergency vehicles and running feet.

Then darkness took her, and for a while, there was nothing at all.

CHAPTER ONE

The bandage on Rachel's thigh had become more of an irritation than a necessity. She peeled back the edge, examining the healing contusion beneath - a mottled purple landscape that served as a daily reminder of how close she'd come. Again. The wound throbbed as she investigated it in the ladies’ room of the field office, but it had mostly healed. Alternating between ice and heat and a good amount of rest had done the job, and now, nearly three weeks later, it was little more than a reminder of the explosion that had nearly taken her life.

She exited the restroom and headed back to her desk. When she sat down, her eyes instantly went back to the crime scene photos spread across her desk.

Four faces stared back at her from the manila folder. Barry Easton, the bomb tech who had been trying to diffuse it. Sharon Martinez, night nurse. Devon Cooper, maintenance supervisor. Eleanor Webb was a terminal cancer patient who'd finally found peace in her last weeks, only to have it violently stripped away by a chunk of flying debris that struck her in the back of the head. Rachel knew their faces better than her own Christmas tree this year - the one that had stood in her living room like an accusation while she'd tried to manufacture holiday cheer through gritted teeth.

All around her, the field office hummed with the usual January energy, agents shuffling between desks with coffee cups and case files, still sharing stories about the holidays even though they were now one week into the new year. But Rachel barely noticed. Her focus remained locked on the explosion analysis report, though she'd memorized every detail weeks ago. The bomb had been crude but effective. Some of the pros on the bomb squad had seemed perplexed that such a bomb had been able to cause so much destruction. It had been professional enough to cause significant damage, amateur enough to leave no signature.

Her computer screen showed the caller ID log from that day, pinpointing the time of the call. And the only listing they had was UNKNOWN. The voice on the recording was digitally altered, clinical in its warning. Forty-five minutes later, the hospice center's east wing had become a tangle of concrete, rendered brick, and steel.

"Still at it?"

Rachel looked up to find Novak leaning against her cubicle wall, his suit jacket draped over one arm.

"Someone has to be." She gestured at the files. "The surveillance team's been through two months of footage with nothing to show for it. No suspicious vehicles, no unfamiliar faces. Nothing."

“Nothing yet,” he pointed out. “It’s been less than three weeks. You know how this stuff works.”

Yes, she did know how this stuff worked. Which was one of the reasons she’d not yet told Novak or Director Anderson about her suspicions about Cody Austin.

"No breakthroughs at all?" he asked, as if wishing he could have said something a bit more profound or hopeful the first time. After six months as partners, he was still trying to find his footing, trying to learn the ins and outs of his partner.

"None,” she said. She couldn't tell him about her suspicions about Cody Austin. Couldn't risk having them dismissed or, worse, reported up the chain. And she certainly couldn’t tell him that she had Cody Austin’s current address. She’d received it through the proper channels—a simple call to the prison that had released him. Still, she felt that it was something to keep hidden…for now.

Rachel's jaw tightened. If only Novak knew. If only she could explain about Cody Austin, about his patterns, about the way he could blend into any environment like smoke. But she'd learned her lessons about obsession the hard way. She had the old mental scars from Alex and Alice to remind her.

“Anything I can do to help?” he asked.

“I don’t think so. Hell…I don’t feel like there’s much I can do at this point. Honestly, I’m waiting for Anderson to reprimand me for still looking into it. He made it pretty clear it wasn’t my case to look into.”

“Well, you know where I am if you change your mind.”

With that, he gave her a polite nod and headed back down the hallway. She watched him go, recalling the touching moment he had called her home the day after Christmas just to check in on her. Following the blast, Rachel had spent half a day in the hospital, undergoing concussion protocols and having her leg tended to. She’s also spent about an hour in her hospital room after Jack had already come to visit, crying her eyes out. Crying for the deaths, crying for the destruction of the hospice center…crying because she felt helpless to do anything about it. Novak seemed to have sensed this and call on the 26th just to make sure the holidays hadn’t steamrolled her.

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