Page 22 of Her Last Escape

Outside, Rich was sitting on the curb, head between his knees while Rose stood nearby, offering silent support. Rachel closed her eyes briefly, knowing this scene would stay with all of them: the sodium lights casting their artificial day, the blood-slick concrete, the hollow eyes of men who had lost a friend. But she couldn't afford to let it paralyze her. Three victims now, all connected to cryonics. The pattern was clear, even if the reason wasn't.

She looked at Novak, saw the same determination in his face. They had work to do. Margaret Fenway's stonewalling would have to come to an end, one way or another. And thanks to their earlier digging, they already had a potential lead in a man named Alexander Manning. She tried to see this as a positive thing, as something to send them out into the night with at least a small bit of hope that there was an end to all of this just waiting around the corner.

But it was hard to hold on to that when the brutalized body of Peter Wells was still laying in the parking lot just a few feet away.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

The bathroom mirror had fogged over, but Cody Austin could still make out the dark smudges on his hands. Motor oil. Transmission fluid. The daily grime of honest work. Even after his shower, some of it had not come off. Naked, he walked to the sink, twisted the hot water knob, and watched steam rise as he worked the orange pumice soap into his palms.

Ten years in prison, and now here he was—changing oil and rotating tires for minimum wage plus commission. The thought should have made him angry, but instead, he smiled. Let them think he'd been beaten down, reformed into some mundane worker bee—that he was just as happy as a clam to just have a second chance. Every oil change, every tire rotation was another brushstroke in his masterpiece of mediocrity.

The soap's gritty texture reminded him of the fertilizer he'd used in the bomb. He'd spent weeks getting the mixture exactly right, testing small batches in abandoned lots far outside the city in the dead of night. Amateur bombmakers always got caught because they rushed things and got sloppy with the details. But patience had always been his strength.

He scrubbed harder at a particularly stubborn spot between his thumb and forefinger. "Come on," he muttered, his voice barely audible over the running water. The physical act of cleaning brought him back to that day at the hospice, walking through the front doors with the backpack of books for the Christmas book drive. Such a simple thing, really. Christmas…kindness…the book drive. It had been the perfect cover.

The spot on his hand finally came clean, and Cody felt a familiar surge of satisfaction. He'd always been good at removing evidence and erasing traces. In prison, he'd learned to fade into the background, to become so unremarkable that even the guards' eyes slid past him. He’d managed to stay out of trouble all that time, not causing a fuss, not drawing attention to himself. Now he used that same skill every day, playing the role of the quiet mechanic who kept to himself, who was even starting to make friends among his coworkers.

His apartment reflected that persona perfectly. Bare walls, basic furniture, a TV tuned to whatever sports game was on. Nothing that would draw attention. Nothing that would make anyone look twice at the man in unit 3B.

The only personal touch was the newspaper clipping taped inside his medicine cabinet. He opened it now, wiping away condensation to read the headline he'd memorized weeks ago: "BOMBING AT LOCAL HOSPICE LEAVES FOUR DEAD, MULTIPLE INJURED." Below that, in smaller text: "FBI Agent Rachel Gift Among Those Hospitalized."

Rachel Gift. Even thinking her name made his jaw clench. She'd stolen ten years of his life, and for what? Because she'd somehow pieced together what he really was, even though she could never prove it. He remembered her testimony at his sentencing, the way she'd looked right at him as she detailed the circumstantial evidence linking him to those murders. The ones they couldn't charge him for. But Rachel had known, and he had always hoped it had nagged at her.

The bomb had been worth the risk, worth all those careful months of planning, all the reading and studying, just to imagine her face when she realized what was happening. He'd known she volunteered there—it had taken surprisingly little effort to discover that fact. It’s why he’d gone after Scarlett when he’d also learned that she had been Rachel’s little pet project.

And he’d also known she'd respond when the threat came in. That's what made it perfect: she would have been there, helping evacuate patients, when it went off.

There had been a moment, reading about the bomb squad member who died, when something like guilt had flickered in his chest. But it passed quickly, replaced by a deeper satisfaction. Every death was a weight added to Rachel's conscience. She would blame herself for not catching him sooner, for not connecting the dots faster. That was so much better than simply killing her. But he did plan to do that, too…eventually.

Cody dried his hands carefully, then wiped down the sink until it sparkled. Everything in its place, everything perfectly normal. He'd go to work tomorrow, smile at his customers, do his job without complaint. And after work... well, that's when things would get interesting.

He studied his reflection in the now-clear mirror. An unremarkable face looked back at him. Brown hair starting to thin at the temples, eyes neither notably dark nor light. The kind of face people forgot as soon as they looked away. His greatest weapon had always been his ability to blend in, to seem harmless.

The recessed light shown overhead as he opened his medicine cabinet again, this time reaching past the newspaper clipping to take out a small notebook. Its pages were filled with his neat, precise handwriting—schedules, routines, patterns of movement. Rachel's patterns. He'd been watching her for months, learning her habits, the ways she'd changed since putting him away.

Marriage to her former partner. A closer relationship with her daughter. Regular appointments with an oncologist to monitor her remission. So many potential pressure points, so many ways to make her suffer. The bomb had been loud, messy, obvious. What came next would be subtle, surgical. A scalpel instead of a sledgehammer.

He returned the notebook to its hiding place and closed the cabinet. Through the thin walls of his basement apartment, he could hear his upstairs neighbor's television, the muffled sounds of a sitcom laugh track. Such a normal sound on such a normal evening.

Tomorrow would be normal, too, right up until it wasn't. He'd already decided how to start: small, almost imperceptible disruptions to her sense of safety. The kind of things that could be dismissed as paranoia or coincidence. He wanted her scared, but he also wanted her feeling alone. And by the time she realized what was happening, the psychological damage would already be done.

Cody walked into his sparse living room and settled into his recliner, grabbing the remote to turn on SportsCenter. Just another quiet night for the unremarkable mechanic in 3B. He felt the smile tugging at his lips again as he thought about Rachel, probably at home right now, still healing from her injuries, still jumping at unexpected sounds.

The bomb had been his announcement, his way of letting her know he was back. Now the real game could begin. He had no timeline and no rush to reach the endgame. After all, he'd already waited ten years. What was a few more months if it meant doing things right?

The television droned on, but Cody barely heard it. In his mind, he was already playing out tomorrow's moves, anticipating Rachel's reactions. It would be subtle, careful work—just like removing engine grime from beneath his fingernails. Some stains might be stubborn, might take time and patience to eliminate.

But in the end, everything came clean. In the end, Rachel Gift would be eliminated.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

The dealership's lights cast long stretches of sickly white across the pavement as Rachel and Novak made their way to their car. The entire scene looked like something out of an over-produced horror movie, made all that much stronger by the knowledge of the bloody scene behind them. A slight wind had picked up, making the already frigid January temperatures even colder. Rachel pulled her coat tighter around herself, her footsteps echoing off the blacktop.

They had a lead, though it felt like a flimsy one—a name they’d discovered during their research but hadn’t gotten a chance to properly investigate due to the call regarding the murder of Peter Wells.

“I think it’s time we look into Alexander Manning,” she said as they neared the car.

It seemed to take Novak a while to recall the name, but he eventually gave a little nod. “The only guy to have been fired from New Horizons, right?’

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