Page 24 of Her Last Escape

"Paige, I—" She almost said it again. I'll do better. I'll be home more. I'll figure this out. But the words died in her throat. How many times had Paige heard those promises? "I love you," she said instead.

"Love you too, Mom. Be safe, okay?"

“You know me…I’m always safe.”

Rachel made a pfff sound before saying, “I love you,” and ending the call.

After they hung up, Rachel stared out the window at the darkness beyond the glass. She thought about Alexander Manning, fired for speaking uncomfortable truths in an environment where controversy already had people on edge. She thought about the bodies that were already in New Horizons' facility, preserved in ways she didn’t fully understand, waiting for a future that might never come. And she thought of Thomas Whitman, Diana Foxworth, and Peter Wells – all wealthy, all dead, all connected to New Horizons in ways they were still trying to understand.

And she thought about Paige, doing her homework alone in their kitchen, probably wearing those pink wireless earbuds Rachel had bought her for Christmas, the ones she used to block out the sound of Jack's work calls.

"You okay?" Novak asked, his voice cutting through her thoughts.

Rachel straightened in her seat, pulling up Manning's address again on her phone. "Yeah. Just thinking about the case." She paused, then added, "And wondering if I made the right choice, coming back full-time."

Novak was quiet for a moment, navigating through a particularly dark stretch of highway. "You know what I think? I think there are no right choices, not really. Just different kinds of hard ones…especially when there are kids involved."

Rachel looked at her partner – really looked at him for maybe the first time since they'd been assigned together. In the dashboard lights, his face was serious and thoughtful. "You sound like you're speaking from experience."

He shrugged. "My dad was a cop. Missed most of my baseball games, my graduation, my mom's funeral. But he put away some really bad people. Saved a lot of lives." He signaled for their exit. "I used to be angry about it, but now... I don't know. Maybe some people are just built to carry certain burdens."

She nodded, recalling that he had told her once before that her father had been a cop—and was pretty much the only real reason Novak himself had looked towards a career in law enforcement.

Rachel thought about the killer they were hunting, about the families of the victims, about all the potential targets they hadn't identified yet. She thought about Paige again, but this time she forced herself to remember something else: the way her daughter had always looked to her as a hero when she’d been younger…like an actual superhero. She wondered what had happened to change that. Did Paige now only notice the absence of her mother more than the sometimes heroic things she did?

She looked to Novak’s phone on the center console, with the map app open, showing their progress. Seven minutes to Manning's place…and hopefully answers that would, one way or another, provide answers that would end this killer’s bloody quest.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

The neat rows of colonial-style homes looked warm and welcoming in the cold night as Rachel and Novak pulled up to Dr. Manning's address. The neighborhood straddled that delicate line between aspirational and attainable—the kind of place where successful professionals settled when they wanted good schools without the pretension of the truly wealthy suburbs.

Manning's house stood out subtly from its neighbors, not through ostentation but through careful attention to detail. The brick facade was painted a warm beige, with crisp white trim that looked freshly touched up. A curved pathway led to the front door, bordered by solar-powered garden lights that gave off an ambient blue light in the darkness. The small front yard displayed evidence of hands-on care rather than hired landscaping: well-tended beds of native plants and a Japanese maple that had been carefully pruned to create an elegant silhouette against the house.

A covered portico protected the entry, its ceiling painted the traditional pale blue common to Southern homes. Rachel noted the premium video doorbell mounted beside the glossy black door—clearly the Mannings took their security seriously.

She pressed the bell, watching as its ring light pulsed blue. After a moment, a woman's voice came through the speaker, polite but cautious: "Yes? Who's there?"

Rachel held up her credentials to the camera. "I'm Special Agent Rachel Gift with the FBI, and this is Agent Novak. We need to speak with Dr. Alexander Manning regarding New Horizons."

The door opened almost immediately, following the sound of two locks disengaging. When it opened, a striking woman in her early fifties stood before them. Her blonde hair was styled in an elegant bob, and she wore what Rachel recognized as the unofficial uniform of the comfortable upper-middle class: designer jeans and a cashmere sweater in a flattering shade of marine blue.

"Please, come in," she said, stepping back to allow them entry into a foyer with gleaming hardwood floors and a tasteful Craftsman-style light fixture overhead.

Before they could introduce themselves properly, a man emerged from a doorway to their right. He had the lean build of a distance runner and wore wire-rimmed glasses that gave him a scholarly air. "I'm Dr. Manning," he said, his tone indicating he'd overheard their introduction. He looked back and forth between them suspiciously as if wondering if he could trust them. "What exactly can I help you with?"

Rachel met his gaze directly. "We're investigating a series of deaths that appear to be connected to New Horizons."

A slight furrow appeared between Manning's brows. "I see,” he said, giving a slight nod. “Please, come into the sitting room."

The room he led them into perfectly balanced comfort and sophistication. Built-in bookshelves flanked a gas fireplace with a classic marble surround, their shelves filled with an eclectic mix of scientific texts and well-worn novels. Two leather club chairs faced the fire, each with a book splayed open on its arm, suggesting they'd interrupted the Mannings' evening reading. A plush sectional in warm cognac leather dominated one wall while floor-to-ceiling windows looked out onto a private backyard garden, currently covered in night and shadow. The room smelled faintly of cedar and vanilla, emanating from a candle flickering on the mantel.

"Please, sit," Manning gestured to the sectional. His wife hovered near the doorway. "Can I offer you anything? Tea? Coffee?"

Novak shook his head, but Rachel smiled. "Tea would be lovely, thank you."

"Peppermint or black?" Mrs. Manning asked.

"Peppermint, please."

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