“So it’s an important case?”

  “Yes, it’s a very important case.”

  “How much longer will it take you to catch the bad people?”

  “I don’t know, baby. Hopefully not too long.”

  “And what about after that? Ae you still going to work?”

  “I just don’t know, sweetie. We’ll see. But even if I do work for a bit longer, I’m going to do my best to make sure I’m here more than I have been in the past. Okay?”

  Paige nodded, but her expression showed that she either didn’t fully understand the answer or understood it perfectly fine but didn’t like it.

  “What is it? What’s wrong?”

  “I’m scared about you dying, Mommy.” She wasn’t crying yet, but her little eyes were glistening with tears. “Daddy left and soon you won’t be here. And it scares me. I want you to keep catching the bad people and keeping good people safe but I want you here, too. I...it makes me feel selfish.”

  She hugged her close, mainly so Paige wouldn’t see her cry. “You’re not being selfish. It’s a very confusing time, I know,” she said, trying to keep her voice steady. “I don’t know what work will look like after this important case. How do you want ti to look?”

  “I know you like your job, and it’s a cool job,” she said, wiping a tear away. “I want you to keep people safe. And I think you should. I just..I miss you more now that I know…I know about you being sick. I miss daddy, too.”

  “And we’re going to keep letting you and Daddy see each other. He knows it’s just going to be you and him when I’m gone…and even though he’s not here right now, he loves you very much. And I’m going to try some things…some things at the doctor. It’s a very small chance, but I could maybe be around longer than we thought.”

  “Maybe forever?” Paige asked hopefully.

  Rachel hugged Paige tighter and said, “Not forever. But some time.”

  Paige had nothing left to say. She fell quiet and fell asleep roughly five minutes later, still in Rachel’s arms. Rachel remained there for several more minutes, just enjoying the feel of her daughter in her arms. It was far too easy to remember her as a baby, fitting right in the crook of her arm and looking up at her with all the love and hope in the world, having no idea just how unfair the world could be at times.

  When Rachel finally left the bedroom, she was in tears. She took some time to collect herself in the upstairs bathroom before returning downstairs. She found Grandma Tate sitting on the couch, playing with a jigsaw puzzle app on her iPad. The moment Rachel sat down next to her, she put the iPad down and looked over at her.

  “How are you, Rachel?”

  For a very brief moment, Rachel almost decided to tell her about her blackout and ensuing trip to the hospital. And though she didn’t like the idea of being dishonest in this situation, she also didn’t see the point in making the coming conversation more dramatic than it needed to be.

  “I’m okay. Clear-headed and pain free for the last few days. I daresay I feel almost normal.”

  Grandma Tate looked down to her hands for a second, deep in thought. A frown touched the corners of her mouth and she started rubbing her hands together.

  “No need to be nervous,” Rachel said. “Just say what you feel you need to say.”

  “I’m just curious about this case you’re on. Because I know that you would never flippantly go back on something you told Paige. Despite how I may have come across on the phone today, I know deep down that you would never do anything to hurt her. So it makes me assume that whatever this case is, it has its hooks in you in a way that I could never possibly understand.”

  Rachel was glad to take the conversation anywhere other than her hospital visit. More than that, she also knew that she needed to vocalize the case. Working it out verbally with Jack was one thing, but actually processing it with someone who didn’t know the ins and outs of how the FBI worked might do her some good.

  “Someone is killing people who have recently been diagnosed with terminal illnesses. It’s…well, it’s hitting me harder than I expected.”

  “Oh my goodness,” Grandma Tate said, her hand going to her heart. “That’s awful. And yes, I can see how that would upset you. I don’t even know how you can manage to work on it. Doesn’t it seem personal?”

  “I know better than to see it like that,” Rachel explained. “But yes, it sort of does feel personal. And I think that’s why it’s wrapped me up as much as it did.”

  “So did you get some sort of break? Is that how you were able to come home?”

  “Well, I’m not supposed to officially be on the case because of my two-week leave of absence—a leave that I requested and wasn’t handed down to me from above for disciplinary actions. So I’ve really just been helping Jack. We have a suspect right now. Jack is interrogating him. I’m hoping it’ll pay off, but…”

  “You don’t think it’s the right person?” Grandma Tate asked.

  “I’m just not sure. It doesn’t quite feel right.”

  “That little girl upstairs needs you,” Grandma Tate said, switching the subject with an eerie sort of ease that Rachel was convinced only the elderly possess. “But she loves you so much that she’s not going to question any decision you make. You understand that, right?”

  “I do. And I’m trying, Grandma. I just…I think work has been so important to me for so long that it’s harder than I thought to walk away from it. Especially in the midst of cases like this one. But I have decided that I’m going to go back to see Dr. Emerson—the doctor Jack recommended that thinks he can use a white blood cell–oriented approach. It’s only a ten percent chance but I have to try. Not for me or for my job, but for Paige.”

  Grandma Tate smiled and reached over to take Rachel’s hand. “That’s wonderful, Rachel. Any hope is better than none. And if you need a miracle story, look no farther than the old woman sitting in front of you.”

  “Well, I already told Paige I’ll be trying, so there’s no backing out now. I think it’s best to—”

  She was interrupted by the ringing of her phone. When she saw Jack’s name on the display, she gave Grandma Tate with an apologetic look. “I’m sorry. It’s Jack. He was going to call after they knew more from the interrogation.”

  “Then answer it,” she said, getting to her feet. “I’ll go make some tea.”

  Rachel answered the call as Grandma Tate got up and headed into the kitchen. “Jack, how’s it going?”

  “It’s going a bit odd, to tell you the truth,” Jack said. He sounded both tired and wired, a confusing indicator of how the interrogation might have gone.

  “I’d expect nothing less,” she said.

  “Well, for starters, there was a lot more crying once we got him into a room. And I mean, he broke. I thought we were going to have to send someone in there to sedate him. So, like I already told you in the text, the dead woman in his basement was a woman named Becka Follin—twenty years old, went missing about four months ago in Lynchburg. And from the small bit we currently know about her, she was perfectly healthy. No terminal illness at all. Once Ayer came around, he told us everything. So now it’s just a matter of checking up on his story to make sure it’s true. And already, we’ve got a few boxes checked.”

  “So what was his story?”

  “He was in Lynchburg for a week, helping out with an intensive class at a university up there. He claims to have run into Becka at a bar he stopped by after class one day. Becka was a student at the college he was visiting, though not a psych student, so she wouldn’t have been in his class. He says they hit it off, had too much to drink, and ended up back at his hotel room. He claims they were really into one another and she came by every single night until he had to leave. On that last night, he asked her to come to Richmond with him and she got spooked. Came out and called him crazy and obsessive. He said things got out of hand and he admits to threatening her. He’d taught his last class that day and just straight up kidnapped her. He told her he had a gun in his suitcase, which he didn’t. He pushed her around a bit, a few punches and slaps, and he took her home with him, all the way to Richmond. She’s been in his basement every day since. He says he had physical relations with her a few times and that he thought it was perfectly fine since she’d been more than happy to sleep with him before. But he said for the most part, he just tried talking to her.”

  “Then how did she die?”

  “He says he poisoned her. Put something in a Coke he brought down for her. Some chemical I can’t even pronounce. We sent it to the coroner so they can confirm. We also confirmed that he was indeed a participating guest lecturer at the college and that Becka Follin was indeed a senior at the college.”

  “Does he have alibis for the three murders we’re looking into?”

  “No. He says he finds it sadly ironic that Becka is the one person that could confirm he was at home but she, of course, is just as dead as our victims.”

  “Did he mention anything at all about working as a therapist for Life Fulfilled?” Rachel asked.

  “Yeah, and gave us the names of everyone he’s worked with while under the Life Fulfilled umbrella. He’s not denying that he had access to the victims and their issues, but he is adamantly saying he didn’t kill then. And you know…I mean, if he’s so openly fessing up about Becka Follin, I just don’t know why he’d be so sternly arguing against killing these other three.”

  “What’s the consensus with Anderson and everyone else involved?”

  “There’s a vibe that this might be it—that Ayer might be our guy. I’m on the way over to his house with a small crew to tear the place apart, looking for any clues. But just based on the way he was acting in that interrogation room, I don’t think it’s him.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because when he was telling me all about Follin, he looked almost relieved. It was like he needed to get it all off of his chest. Once it started coming, it just wouldn’t stop. He even tried going into detail about their sexual escapades while he was in Lynchburg.”

  “Where is he now?”

  “He’s currently in a holding cell. He’s been set up for a psychiatric evaluation in the morning and we’ve got him on suicide watch. In other words, Rachel, he’s not going anywhere, and even if there are breaks in this case overnight, nothing is going to move until tomorrow. So you stay home and get it out of your head.”

  “I will. But if you find anything at his house, will you text me?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Thanks for the update, Jack.”

  “Yeah, no problem. Everything good at home?”

  She looked into the kitchen, where Grandma Tate was pouring water from the kettle into two cups with waiting tea bags. “Yeah, I think they are. I actually think things are better than I expected here.”

  “Good. Well, one way or another, I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

  “Sounds good. Good night, Jack.”

  She ended the call and thought about what tomorrow might bring. It was rare that both she and Jack were ever both in complete agreement that a suspect who seemed to be guilty was not the right man. It made her think hard about what the day would bring tomorrow if Ayer was somehow proven totally innocent.

  Would she be able to sit idly by, taking another back seat or even remaining here at home while Jack was out there looking for the killer?

  She wasn’t sure. But the fact that Becka Follin had not been terminally ill (from what they knew) made her quite sure that Stephen Ayer was not the killer they were looking for. It did, however, make her really wonder about what the hell sort of circus Life Fulfilled was truly putting on. They had a retired doctor who had been stripped of his license, a CEO who was sleeping with a terminally ill woman who had come to them for help, and a part-time therapist who had kidnapped and killed a woman. There seemed to be a rotten core within the foundation, which made her almost certain that their killer was someone on the inside. And given her own current situation, she thought she might be able to figure it out rather easily—and she could do it without a badge or gun.

  “Here you are,” Grandma Tate said, setting a cup of peppermint tea down in front of her. She settled down on the couch where she’d been before and started sipping from her own cup. “Everything okay with Jack and his interrogation?”

  “We’re not sure just yet,” Rachel said, still thinking about her fairly simple plan. “But I think I’ll have all the answers I need tomorrow.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT

  Rachel woke up the following morning and decided to play things out as normally as possible. The first thing she did when she stirred awake at 6:10 was check her texts and emails. She saw that Jack had indeed texted her around one in the morning. And, as she expected, there was nothing in Stephen Ayer’s house to suggest that he had been killing terminally ill patients who had been seeking help from Life Fulfilled.

  The text read: Found some questionable emails from female patients and a few memberships to fetish porn sites. Becka’s prints on the doorframe to the basement and her hairs all over the place but nothing to link Ayer to our case. Will touch base tomorrow.

  Realizing that their case was very much still open, Rachel placed her plan firmly aside as she went downstairs. She put coffee on and started making a breakfast of pancakes and eggs. As the first batch of pancakes stiffened on the griddle, Grandma Tate joined her in the kitchen, with Paige coming down ten minutes later.

  “You haven’t cooked breakfast in forever,” Paige said as she delightedly poured syrup on her pancakes.

  “I wouldn’t say forever,” Rachel said. “But yeah…it’s been a while. And if it’s okay with Grandma Tate, I think I’d like to take you to school this morning, too.”

  “Oh, yay!” she said, shoveling syrup-soaked pancake into her mouth.

  “Now, you make sure you get some eggs, too,” Rachel said. “Eat up. I’m going to drag Grandma Tate into the living room for a second, okay? Don’t choke on those pancakes. Chew. Don’t swallow them whole.”

  Paige giggled, a little trickle of syrup running down her chin. Rachel stood up from the table with her coffee in hand and waved Grandma Tate to follow her. Rachel didn’t bother sitting, as she didn’t expect to spend much time going over what she had on her mind. She glanced back into the kitchen to make sure Paige wasn’t trying to eavesdrop before starting.

  “I wanted to run this by you,” Rachel said, “because I think you deserve to know what’s going on. You were right yesterday…on just about everything. I feel like I may be taking you for granted and that’s not fair.”

  “Rachel, all I was—”

  “Hold on a second. Let me finish. I just wanted to let you know that I am going to head out this morning after I take Paige to school. But I’m not going out with Jack. While it is related to the case, it’s sort of on an unofficial scale. And unless something drastic comes up, I should be back in plenty of time to be here when Paige gets home.”

  “I appreciate all of that, Rachel. But really, you don’t need to fill me in to that level.”

  “I think I really do,” she said. “You’ve been an enormous help here ever since Peter left. I don’t know how I would have survived it all without your help.”

  “As long as you try to take care of yourself and are now at least considering going after this thing,” she said, softly tapping the side of Rachel’s head, “I’m glad to do it. Now, let’s get back in there. The little one is trying to listen in, I think.”

  Rachel nodded and blinked back tears as she went back into the kitchen. She checked her watch and said, “Fifteen minutes, Paige.”

  “Okay,” she said, sliding her last bite of pancake through a little pond of syrup on her plate. “I just have to brush my teeth and I’ll be ready.”

  Rachel sat back down at the table and had her own pancake. She ate and sipped on her coffee and started to think about the best way to go about enacting the small plan she’d been working out in her head since last night.

  ***

  It did Rachel a world of good to realize just how excited Paige was to have her mother taking her to school. After sitting in the drop-off lane for about ten minutes, Rachel received a big hug and a wet kiss on the cheek before Paige got out and headed into the school building. Rachel wondered if every parent had the odd pain of watching their child enter a school—a feeling of pride but also of profound sadness.

  It clung to her as she pulled away from the school and headed in the direction of downtown. Before she arrived at her destination, she thought she had a decent idea of how to pull off her plan without getting into any real trouble. And while the news of her tumor may become wider knowledge when she was done, she thought she could probably play it off as a bit of theatrics—something she had to make up in order to get the job done.

  She pulled her car along the side of the curb in front of Life Fulfilled at 8:52. The signage on the front door told her that office hours didn’t start until nine, so she sat in her car for those eight minutes, putting the pieces together. She supposed that Jack must be feeling an odd sort of victory this morning, if he was awake yet. While she was still convinced that Stephen Ayer wasn’t their killer, they’d manage to nab a killer anyway, and that was always a good feeling. She thought about texting him to check in, but didn’t want to interfere with his morning. If his text had come in after one in the morning, there was no telling when he’d finally managed to get to sleep.

  Several minutes later, a woman came to the door from inside and unlocked it. Not wanting to jump the gun, Rachel remained in her car, making sure she was still comfortable with what she had planned. As she waited, she watched as a man of about forty or so walked into the offices. Rachel watched through the window as the woman at the front desk greeted him with a smile.

  After another few minutes, Rachel got out of the car and finally went inside. The same woman at the counter smiled at her but it wasn’t genuine. Rachel figured she was probably good and tired of seeing her.