With just a bit of embarrassment in her step, she hurried down to the men’s room. She pushed the door open the tiniest bit and poked her head in. “Jack?”

  She heard no response at first. But then, as she was letting the door fall back into place, she heard a groan.

  “Jack?” she asked, terrified now. She pushed the door open just in time to hear the groan again. This time there was a word to it, and she identified the voice right away as belonging to Jack.

  He said only one word, one that made no sense.

  “Run…”

  She couldn’t do that. She stepped into the restroom and saw two impossible things in the space of a second.

  First, she saw Jack. He was lying on the floor, half in and half out of one of the stalls. A pool of blood was slowly starting to grow on the floor in front of him.

  Second, there was the man coming out of that same stall. A man she recognized at once and made her feel as if she’d finally lost her mind. Maybe the tumor had taken over and she was seeing things, hallucinating her worst fears.

  But as Alex Lynch smiled at her and stepped over Jack’s body, Rachel knew this was no dream. This was real. Somehow…

  “Are you not happy to see me again?” Lynch asked. “After our last meeting at your father’s was cut short…”

  She saw the knife in his right hand. It was small and blunt. It was also covered in Jack’s blood.

  She felt the mix of emotions that had seized her at her father’s house. Absolute rage mixed with worry. For all she knew, Jack was dying right now. She’d managed to save her father and keep Lynch way from Paige last time…but he’d gotten away.

  She’d be damned if that was going to happen again. Her hand drifted down to her waist. But then she recalled that her Glock was back in the locker by the showers, bundled up with her dirty clothes. After all, there was no need for it if she was just going upstairs to her office and then heading home, right?

  “I hope you’re prepared to use that on me,” Rachel said, looking to the knife…a knife she was now starting to understand was really just a letter opener. “Because you’re not getting away this time.”

  “Good,” Lynch said. And then, with his teeth bared, he came charging at her.

  She could see the pent up rage in his eyes, years of untapped anger he’d directed at her. He’d dreamed of this moment, had lusted for it, and now here it was. And even before he reached her, she understood that the fight he was bringing to her would not end until one of them was dead.

  She dared one last glance at Jack, saw that he was just barely moving, and then clenched her fists.

  Lynch slashed out with the letter opener, a fast and brutal motion. She saw it coming from a mile away, though. She sidestepped it, planted her feet, and delivered a crushing right-handed blow to Lynch’s ribs. He grunted but barely stopped moving. He wheeled back around, flashing his right arm out once again as he pivoted on his heel.

  The blade of the letter opener caught her shoulder. It tore through the fabric of her shirt and just barely sliced into her skin. The pain was sharp but brief, and she was able to capture his right hand between her arm and her ribs. As she did this and started to bend his arm at an awkward angle, Lynch lowered his shoulders and drove himself forward. It not only took some of the pressure off of his arm, but it slammed his left shoulder into her stomach. The wind went out of Rachel as she was driven back. As the wind went rushing out of her, her back slammed into one of the sinks.

  Caught for a moment between those two painful elements, Lynch had another opportunity. He drove his knee up into her stomach and when she doubled over from the force of it, he pulled his right arm free. She knew he was bringing the blade up and then driving it down, aiming it directly for the back of her neck. The best she could do as a defense was stumble to the right. Rather than the blade catching her right at the base of her spine, it sliced her from the shoulder all the way down to the elbow.

  Her arm was suddenly engulfed in fire, and she could feel her blood flowing instantly. She screamed then, not in pure pain but in her own rage. He’d killed Peter, he’d threatened Grandma Tate, he’d tried killing her father, and he may have killed Jack.

  To hell with him. If she died in taking him out, so be it.

  He was drawing his arm back for one more slashing attack as Rachel placed all of her weight in her feet. She made a perfect fist with her right hand and brought it up in a hard arc as she pushed off of her feet. The punch caught him right in the jaw. There was so much force behind it that Lynch was nearly lifted from his feet. He went sprawling backwards, his back slamming into the wall.

  And though he was clearly dazed, he still came forward. He was crazy with rage, no longer even caring that he had a weapon in his hand. When he gritted his teeth as he charged at her, Rachel saw that she’d busted his lip and knocked two teeth out. And now that he was nothing more than a machine fueled by rage, she knew the rest of the fight could be easy for her…but a bit more dangerous.

  As he charged with a roar, Rachel faked another right-handed punch. As he pivoted to avoid it, Rachel brought up her right knee. It caught him squarely in the ribs. When he buckled, she grabbed his right arm, swung her own body around in an arc, and threw him as hard as she could at the wall. Lynch slammed into the same sink her back had collided with only seconds before, only he went forehead first. The impact sounded like someone pounding out a steak.

  He stumbled backward, his knife-wielding hand still trying to do something, anything…

  Staying as far away from that blindly slashing hand as she could, Rachel grabbed Lynch’s left arm, drew it hard behind his back, and then slammed his face into the wall. When his knees wobbled, she let him fall, pushing him once again into the sink. This time, the side of his head hit with an almost musical thunk.

  When he hit the floor, he was bleeding from the forehead and the mouth. His eyes were hazy and he groaned absently.

  She had no handcuffs, so she knew what she had to do. First, she would have to kick the letter opener out of his still-grasping hand. And then she was going to have to pin his arms behind his back and march his ass upstairs, maybe straight to Director Anderson. She glanced over to Jack for just a moment. He’d stopped moving, but she could see his chest rising and falling.

  “Jack…how bad is it?”

  “Bad. But…fine…for now. Take care of—”

  Searing pain tore through her leg. She screamed and fell forward, looking back to see that Lynch had sliced her in the calf. Blood was pumping out at an insane rate already. He leered at her, trying everything he could to get back to his feet.

  Rachel felt something move to the side in her mind, almost like a mental shifting of gears. For that moment, she was not an FBI agent. She was a woman being attacked. A woman trying to stay alive. A woman wanting to make sure her family was taken care of, and that Jack didn’t die.

  Unable to put much pressure on her wounded leg, she fell to the ground. But when she did, she planted a knee directly on Lynch’s wrist. She heard the crunch of it breaking. He finally released the letter opener and the moment it was on the floor, they both scrambled for it.

  Lynch, unable to support himself on his wrist and still dazed, moved slowly but in a spastic fashion. Rachel grabbed the letter opener and when Lynch slapped at her in an attempt to get it, Rachel drew her arm back and brought it down in a hard jabbing motion.

  It caught him just below the neck, making a quick and hollow popping noise. His eyes went wide as Rachel gave the letter opener one last shove, burying it to the silver hilt.

  With one last scream of guttural emotion, Rachel slid away from Lynch, his eyes losing their light and color as she somehow made her way over to Jack.

  “Jack…please…”

  He was trying to reach into his pocket, trying to grab something. “Phone…” he said.

  Rachel reached into his pocket and grabbed the phone. In doing so, she realized just how badly Jack was bleeding. She saw at least two wounds, one higher up on the right side, near the ribs, and the other right in the navel.

  When she pulled up Anderson’s number, she saw just how badly she was bleeding, too. her entire left arm was coated in blood and her slashed calf had trailed it all over the floor. Her fingers were shaking as she tried to navigate the phone.

  But as it turned out, none of that mattered. Two people came rushing into the restroom, one clearly an agent because of the suit and tie, and the other a janitor.

  “Jesus…” the agent said. “Are you…”

  “Medic,” was all Rachel said.

  The agent ran while the janitor came in to see what he could do. In an almost dreamy fashion, Rachel placed Jack’s phone beside him. She then took his hand and looked into his eyes. He was fading, his breathing was ragged, and his eyes kept wandering from left to right.

  “Please, Jack…hold on.”

  She kept his hand in hers and then lay down on the blood-covered floor beside him and started to cry.

  CHAPTER THIRTY THREE

  Rachel spent three days in the hospital. Her doctor told her she really only needed two from her injuries but that her exhausted body simply needed another day’s worth of uninterrupted and well-monitored rest. On the first day, all of her stitches were in—forty-three for her left arm and nine in the right calf—long before three in the afternoon. Therefore, Paige and Grandma Tate were able to come visit. Grandma Tate seemed terrified about what happened while Paige thought her mother having stitches because she got into a fight was pretty cool.

  While Paige was occupied by studying the bed controls, Grandma Tate sat carefully on the edge of the bed. With tears in her eyes, she said: “So Lynch is…he’s gone?”

  “Yeah. He’s gone.”

  Even saying it made it hard to believe, but when Grandma Tate took her hand, Rachel could feel the freedom in it. No more security, no safehouse. Lynch was dead, and they could get their lives back.

  “Grandma, did you ask about Jack? The last time I asked the doctor, he told me to focus on me. And when I called him a bad name, he seemed to get upset.”

  “I did ask about him. He needed surgery. Something about his small intestine. But the doctors seem to think he’s going to be okay.”

  Rachel nodded and looked at the ceiling, doing everything she could not to cry. When Paige settled in beside Grandma Tate and made her next comment, keeping the tears away was a bit easier.

  “So we can move out of this stupid townhouse now?”

  Rachel laughed and pulled her daughter close with her unstitched arm, thinking that now all she had to do was beat this damned tumor and life might actually get back to normal.

  ***

  When there was a knock at her door at 9:25 that first night at the hospital, she’d hoped it would be Jack. Maybe he’d been in a wheelchair, sneaking around the halls to come see her. But the face that greeted her, though warm and familiar, was not Jack. Director Anderson entered the room with a surprisingly pleasant look on his face.

  “Sorry to bother you,” he said. “I told the night nurse who I was and she allowed it. They said you’re all stitched up and going to be fine.”

  “That’s what I hear.”

  “Have you eaten?”

  “A bit.”

  He shrugged and placed a brown bag at the side of the bed. It was a Burger King fast-food bag and the smell of it seemed to make her ravenous. “I know how bad hospital food can be at times,” he said. “Consider this a token of my appreciation.”

  “Thanks,” she said, instantly reaching into the bag. “Now…don’t get me wrong…I appreciate the visit, but you aren’t usually the type to make hospital runs.”

  “I know. But I also don’t usually have agents that capture a serial killer several hours away only to come home and murder another serial killer in a men’s bathroom. I just wanted to make sure you were okay.”

  “Yeah, I think I am. Lynch got my left arm pretty good…but other than that I’m fine. I’m more worried about Jack.”

  “No need to be,” Anderson said. “The nurse said he came out of surgery totally fine. Two stab wounds, one of which chipped a rib and the other of which went right through his small intestine. He’ll need a few weeks of recovery, but he’s going to be fine.”

  “Do you know how Lynch even got into the building?”

  “I do, actually. He came in through the janitor’s entrance. Had a scan card and everything. We still don’t know how he came across it, but we do know the name listed on the card and logged into the entry records is fake. No idea where it came from, but we’re looking into it.”

  “But he would have had to have known we were down there, in the locker rooms. How did he even know that?”

  “I don’t know that, either. We’ve got people looking at the security camera footage from the parking lots to see if he’d been scouting the place out. But as you know, that may not give any answers, either. I’m sorry, Ra…Gift. But with him dead, I think we’re going to have some questions that aren’t answered.”

  “Seems to be the theme for cases this week.”

  “If you’re referencing the aftermath of Avery Reed, I think I do have some answers. We found out that each of the victims had some sort of ties to Reed’s mother. She died of cancer about seven months ago and every one of the victims had commented on a post he’d made about her funeral service.”

  “That’s weird.”

  “It is. But it’s a decent lead and I’ve asked Chief Hunt to keep me in the loop.”

  “Reed suggested there were others. That he—”

  “There are. Maybe. One more has been found using ground penetrating radar. The box was dug up three hours ago. The man inside was a friend of Reed’s mother and a caddy at one of the golf clubs Reed used to frequent.”

  “Jesus…”

  “But you and Jack got him, Gift. He can’t get anymore. And you just have to rest easy in that.”

  Rachel nodded and she could sense Anderson’s visit coming to a close. He started walking toward the door but turned back just before he reached for the doorknob.

  “One more thing. These last three days have been a lot. I want you to take two weeks to yourself. Rest up, take care of yourself. Check in on Rivers.”

  “Thank you,” she said. And in that moment, she almost told him the rest of her truth. She almost told him about the cancer. She felt the moment deserved the truth but at the same time, she didn’t want to admit to the lie she’d been keeping from him.

  So instead, she bit into the burger Anderson had brought her and watched him leave. She ate in quiet and silence, once again overcome with the concept that now it was just her and the tumor…her and the diagnosis she’d been trying to run from over the last several months. And as she took the final bite of the burger, she decided that it was okay to hope. It was okay to think that she would beat it and that the remainder of her life was hers to control.

  ***

  It took some sweet talking, but just before she was discharged, the nurses and the doctors allowed Rachel to visit Jack. She found him in mostly good spirits and the smile he offered her when she stepped into the room warmed her heart.

  “I’m headed home,” she said.

  “Are you bragging?” he responded.

  “Not at all. But I wanted to see you before I left. I had to see you.”

  “I’m glad you’re here,” he said. “I wish I wasn’t in this hospital gown with this tube in my stomach and bag to catch my poop for a while, but…” He shrugged, as if that was a proper way to finish the statement.

  “Thanks for that image.” She sat down in the chair beside the bed, not sure what to say. After a while, she finally asked. “Has Anderson been by?”

  “No; he tried, but the docs wouldn’t let him come back. But the nurses have been delivering messages and updates. Emails and faxes, things like that.”

  “Faxes?”

  “Yeah, it’s Anderson.”

  “So… you know how he got in?”

  “Yeah. And it makes sense, I guess. I mean…the guy was right there, in the restroom and I didn’t even know who it was until he came at me with the letter opener and—”

  “Nope. Don’t relive it.”

  He nodded and then, under his breath, said: “I still want to know where he got the letter opener. It had to have come from somewhere in the building. If he’d brought it from outside, the metal detectors would have gone off, even back at the janitor’s entrance.”

  “How long will you be in here?” Rachel asked, eager to change the subject.

  “They said three more days. And then three weeks of doing nothing so I can heal up properly after that.”

  “Sounds good. I want you to know that if it weren’t for Paige, I’d stay here with you.”

  “Nah, I wouldn’t let you do that.”

  “But I think I’d want to. And that…well, that brings me to something I need to ask you. A favor, sort of.”

  “What is it?” he asked, genuinely curious.

  “When you’re out of here and feeling better—and aren’t using the toilet through a tube and a bag on your side—I want us to go out to dinner. No work talk. Just us and food. And wine, and conversation.”

  “Like a date?”

  She felt foolish for not wanting to echo the word, but there it was, plain and simple. “Yes, exactly like that.”

  He locked eyes with her, and she could see a storm of emotion in them. And though it was hard to read it all, something in there was comforting. “Yeah,” he said. “We can do that. But I have a question for you, too.”

  “What?”

  “Does this hospital gown do anything for you?”

  She laughed and shook her head. “No. It really doesn’t.”

  “Just as well. I was going to ask for as kiss but then realized I haven’t been able to brush my teeth in like three days.”

  Rachel walked over to the bed slowly and carefully, feeling the tightness of her skin where her calf had been stitched up and bandaged. She leaned down and gave him a small but lingering kiss on the mouth, lips unparted for the most part.