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“Oh, you did?” She was amazed at just how filled her heart was in that moment—assuming, of course, he meant Grandma Tate and Paige.
“I am. Now, I love you and all but one of these women in particular has a feisty side that I’m really starting to appreciate.”
“That could be either of them.”
They both had a laugh at this, again making Rachel feel about two inches tall for forgetting to call. “Hold on a second,” Jack said. “We’re in the middle of cleaning up dinner, but let me put you on speaker so you can talk to everyone.”
She spent the next twenty minutes speaking with her family—hearing all about Paige’s day at school, about Grandma Tate’s blood pressure check-up at the doctor, and how Jack had been in charge of making tonight’s avocado salsa chicken. When they were all done, Jack moved quickly into another room and they said their goodbyes. And Rachel hung up the phone, her heart still felt full. She supposed there was some truth to the phrase absence makes the heart grow fonder. She couldn’t remember ever wanting to see him so badly. It had her feeling slightly giddy as she ended the call—like a high school girl who had just managed to bag her crush.
Smiling, she went back to the case files even though she was pretty sure she’d already exhausted every possible thought and avenue to be had. She felt a very small, ghostlike urge to just call it quits. If she threw the towel in and focused solely on her treatments, there would be no harm, no foul. It wasn’t like it was her case, now was it?
But she knew she wouldn’t be able to do that. What she did know was that the day had taken its toll on her. And even though, after another two hours od pouring over thing it still wasn’t yet even 9:00, she found herself struggling to keep her eyes open after just five minutes of returning to the files. She knew better than to fight it; it could be a very minor drawback to the treatments. Also, she’d been constantly on the move for a period of about six hours or so. Rather than forcing herself to soldier on, she tidied up the piles of files and folders and placed them on the small table in the corner, along with her laptop.
As she brushed her teeth and readied herself for bed, she felt momentarily stuck between two worlds: one word was here, in the midst of this terrible case, and the other was on the other side of the country where a fiancé, daughter, and living grandmother waited for her. It made her feel both fully alive and split right down the middle.
She feared that this strange feeling would keep her from falling asleep. But as she lay down in bed, she quickly found this would not be the case. She knew most people often felt uncomfortable sleeping in hotels, but she'd always found it easy. Her head was on the pillow for no more than thirty seconds before she felt herself slowly succumbing to sleep.
She naturally had no idea how long she’d been asleep before the nightmare started, but it began with a dissolving sort of fluidity that seemed to understand her feeling of dislocation.
In the nightmare, she found herself standing in Jane Adler’s lab. Sullivan was standing by the door, speaking to Jack. As they spoke, both of them kept suspiciously glancing over at her. She opened her mouth to ask them why, but when she opened her mouth, several teeth fell out, carried on a gush of blood.
She could just barely hear Jack’s voice, whispering to Sullivan. “If she can’t slow down and learn to put her health first, she’d not going to make it to the wedding.”
Another voice spoke up from behind her. “He’s right, you know.”
She turned and saw Alex Lynch. He was standing just three feet away from her. By the time she realized who she was looking at, she also understood that he held a knife in his hand. Upon seeing it, Lynch thrust it in her chest. Somewhere, in some unseen place within the nightmare, she heard Paige begin to cry. She stared into Lynch's eyes and found them full of glee.
The wind went racing out of her. The stab burned. Rachel opened her mouth to call out for Paige and—
She jerked awake with a scream, nearly having crawled out of her throat. For a sickening moment, she still felt the burn of Lynch's knife piercing her gut.
Gasping, she looked around the room and suddenly understood that it was more than fright that had pulled her out of the nightmare. Her cell phone was ringing on the bedside table. She reached out to it with a trembling arm; the terror of the dream was doing its best to creep into the waking world and she was sure this call would have something to do with Paige back home on the complete opposite side of the country.
Instead, she saw two other bits of information at once. First, it was 4:57 in the morning. Second, the call wasn't coming from home; it was Detective Sullivan. The option to ignore the call didn't even occur to her. Her brain associated Sullivan with the Adler/Willis case, and she instinctually answered despite the time.
She answered the call, doing her best not to sound too rattled and out of sorts. “This is Agent Gift.”
“It’s Sullivan. Hey, sorry to call so late…or early, however you see it. But I thought you’d want to know that it looks like we’ve got a third victim.”
The last vestiges of sleep that had remained after the nightmare fell away, and Rachel found herself suddenly very much awake. "You're certain?"
“Yeah, it’s sort of undeniable. Now, I know you’ve got your treatments, but I thought you’d want to know. If you want to come out and have a look at a pretty fresh crime scene, you can be—”
“Can you shoot me the address?”
“Sure thing. But…you’re sure you’re up for it?”
“Yes. I’m fine.” She felt this was true but also knew that the smart move—the healthy move—was to try to go back to sleep and not leave the room until it was time for her appointment, which was scheduled for 9:30.
“Okay, then,” Sullivan said. “I guess I’ll see you in a bit.”
Rachel ended the call and instantly slid out of bed. She was not only awake, but felt a bit jittery. A fresh crime scene, a third murder. A new sense of urgency filled her, lighting a new fire.
Maybe she’d be able to see this case wrapped before she left Seattle after all.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The address took Rachel into a well-to-do subdivision. Dawn had not yet quite cracked the sky, but the street was aglow all the same with a series of headlights as patrol cars came and went. Rachel parked behind one of four patrol cars and shows her badge to the large officer who had been assigned security duty by the house’s mailbox.
