Page 39 of Her Last Escape

The worst part wasn't that they'd caught him. That, she knew, was a very good thing. The worst part was understanding him. Rachel had been lucky—experimental treatments, a second chance at life. But Aldridge? He would spend his remaining months in a prison cell, watching the clock run down, knowing there would be no miracle cure, no last-minute reprieve. He’d made awful decisions and deserved what he got, but she still felt sorry for him in a way she could not describe.

She splashed cold water on her face, trying to wash away the memory of his tears, of the desperate hope in his voice when he'd talked about wanting just one chance. The water dripped from her chin, and she watched it spiral down the drain, remembering all too clearly how it felt to have your future suddenly narrowed to a vanishing point.

Back in the hallway, Rachel could hear Novak's steady voice through the interrogation room door, methodically building their case. She should go back in. It was her job, after all. But she needed another moment to rebuild her professional facade, to push down the empathy that threatened to overwhelm her.

Because that was the cruel irony of it all: Aldridge's desperate bid for survival had ensured he would spend his final days in a cell. His fear of death had led him to take lives, and now both justice and karma would collect their due. Rachel pressed her palm against the cool wall, steadying herself. She'd beaten cancer. She'd survived. But standing here, listening to a dying man confess to murder, she felt the weight of that survival pressing down on her shoulders like a lead blanket.

Finally, she straightened her jacket and squared her shoulders. She had a job to do. The victims deserved justice, regardless of how much she understood and sympathized with the desperation that had driven their killer. Taking one last deep breath, she turned back toward the interrogation room, carrying her hard-won perspective like armor against the emotions that still threatened to overwhelm her.

Because sometimes survival came with a price. Sometimes it meant having to face the darker reflections of your own past, your own fears, your own desperate moments. And sometimes it meant having to be strong enough to carry empathy in that same heart, no matter how much it hurt.

CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT

Rachel's footsteps echoed through the concrete cavern of the FBI parking garage, each step amplified by bone-deep exhaustion. The January cold had seeped into the structure, turning it into an underground icebox. Her breath came out in visible puffs as she walked, reminding her of the smoke in her dreams. Her weather app had reported that it was a whopping 22 degrees when she’d left her office…and it was certainly colder down here in the garage.

It had been three days since they’d arrested Richard Aldridge. And ever since she’s returned home, Rachel had not been sleeping well. The nightmares had been relentless for three nights straight, almost like an overly familiar stranger always knocking on her front door. In them, she was always running through the hospice center corridors, but they twisted impossibly like a Möbius strip, stretching and contracting with dream logic that left her disoriented and panicked. The walls would pulse with an orange glow, and she'd hear the laughter of children—except the hospice center didn't have a pediatric ward. She'd sprint past doorways where patients sat in their beds, all wearing Aldridge's face, all with his sunken eyes and desperate expression. Except for the one room where Scarlett sat waiting for her, pointing an accusing finger at her and asking why Rachel had not been there for her…why Rachel had not been able to make sure she stayed alive.

Some nights, the patients would reach for her with withered hands, begging to be saved. Other times, they'd just watch her run, their collective gaze heavy with accusation. In the dreams, she never reached the bomb in time. She always woke up just as the flames reached her, heart hammering against her ribs, sheets soaked with sweat.

Last night had been the worst. In that version, she'd found Scarlett sitting in one of the rooms, alive and healthy again, smiling that bright smile that had drawn Rachel to her in the first place. "You couldn't save me," dream-Scarlett had said, her flesh melting away even as she spoke, "and you won't save them either." Rachel had jerked awake at three AM and hadn't gone back to sleep. Instead, she sat in the living room, reading cold case files until dawn painted the sky in shades of winter gray.

The bruise on her left arm throbbed, a purple-black reminder of Aldridge's final desperate attack. The steel pipe had indeed caused a bit of muscle damage but nothing that required a doctor or time off. She absently rubbed the spot, wincing at the tenderness as she made her way to her car. Even through her winter coat, the touch sent a dull ache through her arm. The doctors had assured her nothing was broken, but the impact had left a mark the size of a grapefruit, dark as a thundercloud.

Aldridge. The case still gnawed at her. She understood his terror, his rage against death. Hadn't she felt that same desperate clawing when her own cancer diagnosis came? That primal fear of extinction, of being erased from the world while others continued on? But understanding didn't excuse his choices. Three people dead because he'd decided his life was worth more than theirs. Because he'd convinced himself that eliminating "less worthy" candidates would guarantee his own preservation at New Horizons. The eerie rationality of his planning made it worse somehow—the careful selection of victims, the absolutely brutal way he’d killed them, as if to make absolutely sure they were dead.

Her sensible black boots clicked against the concrete as she walked, the sound bouncing off the support pillars and creating a weird echo chamber effect that made it sound like someone was walking behind her. Row D, Level 2. Her assigned spot felt miles away tonight. The fluorescent lights cast harsh shadows, creating dark corners that seemed to shift and writhe in her peripheral vision. She blamed the lack of sleep for her paranoia, but her hand still strayed closer to her holster. The garage had always felt exposed, but tonight it felt positively hostile.

All she wanted was to get home, to sink into the couch between Jack and Paige. Maybe watch one of those cooking shows Paige had gotten addicted to lately. The ones where amateur bakers tried to recreate impossible sculptures out of cake and fondant. Or even Brooklyn 99 if Paige really pushed the issue. Let the competitive baking drama or slapstick comedy wash away the echoes of interview rooms and evidence folders. She had sleeping pills in her bathroom cabinet—the ones she hadn't needed since her recovery, the ones Jack didn't know she'd kept. Tonight felt like the right time to break that streak. Just one dreamless night of at least eight solid hours, that's all she needed to reset.

Her car chirped as she pressed the key fob. The sound was oddly cheerful in the tomb-like garage, bouncing off the concrete walls like a demented bird call. The temperature had to be near freezing down here; she could see frost forming on some of the windshields, creating delicate patterns that reminded her of crime scene photos of glass fractures.

As she reached for the driver's door handle, something caught her eye. A white envelope, trapped beneath the windshield wiper like a fallen leaf.

Rachel's stomach clenched. The garage suddenly felt colder, darker. She scanned the shadows between the parked cars, the spaces behind the concrete pillars. Nothing moved, but that meant little. Her hand slowly inched toward her holstered Glock with practiced efficiency, checking under and around her vehicle. The motion aggravated her bruised arm, but adrenaline was already pushing the pain aside.

Finding nothing, she returned to the envelope. It was plain white, unmarked. No name, no address.

Her hands trembled slightly as she pulled on a pair of latex gloves from her coat pocket. Evidence procedure was muscle memory by now, one of the first things that had come back to her after returning to work. She documented the envelope's position with her phone camera before carefully removing it, noting the high-quality paper stock, the precise creasing of the fold.

Inside were three items, each one hitting her like a physical blow.

The first: Scarlett's obituary, carefully cut from the newspaper. The article praised her volunteer work, her spirit in fighting cancer, her tragic death just weeks after entering remission. A thick black 1 had been drawn across the text, the ink so heavy it had bled through to the other side.

The second: A news article about the hospice center bombing. The evacuation had saved lives, but the building's east wing and lobby was severely damaged. The photo showed the blackened walls, the blown-out windows. Her own name was mentioned in the article as an injured FBI agent on the scene. Another black number marked this one, a bulky 2. She thought of the nightmares again, of all those identical Aldridge faces watching her fail to reach the bomb in time.

The third item made her blood run cold. A playing card. The Jack of Hearts. A bold, black 3 defaced the familiar face. The card was pristine except for that marking, as if it had just been pulled from a fresh deck. She thought of Jack at home, probably already starting dinner, completely unaware that he'd been marked as the next target. Because to Rachel, there was not even a shred of doubt that was what this card, along with these two newspaper clippings, meant.

Her heart thundered in her chest as the message became crystal clear. Cody Austin was counting his moves against her. Past, present, and future. Each one calculated to cause maximum pain, to show her just how powerless she was to protect the people she loved now that he was free.

And he was coming for Jack next.

Rachel's training kicked in through the fear. She pulled out her phone, thinking over what her next steps should be. First call: Evidence Response Team for the envelope. Second: Protective detail for Jack. Third: Assistant Director Anderson. Her fingers flew across the keypad, muscle memory again taking over while her mind raced through contingency plans.

But then she stopped, thinking in the cold. Her eyes swept the garage again. Cody Austin was out there somewhere, watching, planning. He'd been released early for good behavior, but Rachel knew what he really was. She was the only one who had seen the full scope of his darkness, the true extent of his kills. Now he was turning that methodical brutality toward her world, her family. She thought of his face in the interrogation room all those years ago, the bland pleasantness that never quite reached his eyes. The perfect mask of normalcy that had allowed him to walk among his victims undetected.

She also knew that as of right now, not even Jack believed her when she had mentioned her concern that Austin had been behind Scarlett’s death and the bombing. But now there was this…and because it seemed Jack was being targeted, she needed to talk to Jack before she spoke to anyone else. If she knew she had him firmly on her side in all of this—in all of whatever came next—it would be so much easier to tackle it.

All she knew was that she’d be damned if she would let Cody Austin have his Number 3. Or 4 or 5. Whatever it took, Cody Austin's morbid countdown would end here. She'd stopped him once before, and she'd do it again—this time permanently.

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