Her Last Regret, page 3
Rachel, of course, knew the answer. This feel-good part of her had started to fade when she’d gotten the cancer diagnosis nearly six months ago. It had started to crumble and break when Peter had walked out on her in the midst of it all, then started to completely come untethered when Alex Lynch had escaped from prison and started to torment her family.
Now, though, life seemed to be better. No, not seemed to be … it was better. The last doctor’s visit had been nothing but good news; the meds were working better than anyone could have hoped, and she was feeling better than she’d had in a very long time—even before the tumor. Lynch had been compromised, and she was about to head back to work under normal conditions, though she was sure Anderson would take it a little too easy on her at first.
The loss of Peter along the way certainly hurt. She wasn’t fooling herself in thinking she’d fully processed it. It was truly the only reason she had for being hesitant with Jack … well, that and how Paige might take an eventual long-term relationship with another man. But that was getting far too ahead of things. For all she knew, there was nothing but a physical connection between them right now. And if they ever got the chance to test that out, they could see if there was anything beyond it.
She sensed there was, though. The physical connection was one thing, but the fact that they routinely worked on cases where they had to put their safety and well-being in the hands of the other spoke volumes. She couldn’t speak for Jack, but she was quite sure there was something deeper to what she was feeling.
She did her best to reorient her mind as she pulled into the agent parking spaces and made her way into the building. She was feeling so good that she did sort of a mental check of herself as she took the elevator up to the second floor. Her head was not aching at all. She felt well-rested and energized. If anything, she thought she could use a run. She was feeling energetic, almost euphoric.
Yeah, she was good to go. She’d just have to remind herself to be a team player when Anderson saddled her with desk work for a few days. Maybe even a few weeks. However long it took him to realize that she was perfectly fine—not only healed and mended from the final altercation with Lynch, but in peak shape and mindset overall.
She made her way to her cubicle and did her best to bite back the smile that instantly came to her face when she saw Jack sitting in her seat.
Rachel jokingly checked her watch. “I’m not late … so you’re not here to reprimand me, right?”
“That’s right. I’m just here to greet you on your first day back.”
They stared at one another for a tense yet delightful moment. They hadn’t seen one another since he’d left her house on the evening they’d kissed. He’d stayed another half an hour or so and then made his exit, making a big deal about how delicious Paige’s chicken dinner was smelling.
“Well, it’s a good way to start the day, for sure,” she said. “Have you already organized all my paperwork and scheduled my phone calls?”
“No need,” he said. “And you can forget about those thrilling wire-tap audio sessions too. It turns out you’re going to be fortunate enough to skip all that.”
“Is that right?”
“It is,” he said. And good Lord, the way he was smiling at her had her thinking things that she feared might make her blush. “You see,” he went on, “it turns out that our branch is a bit short staffed this week … as is the primary DC branch. In DC, they’ve got dual teams working on the bust of that crypto-bank owner and his little Ponzi group. Lots of background checks and manhunts and personnel hours. Some of that got sent down to us—the phone traces, text conversations, financial records, things like that.”
“This all sounds very boring.”
“It does. So, I guess it’s a good thing we aren’t going to have to deal with any of it.”
She wasn’t sure if he was simply luring her along for some sort of joke or if he was telling the truth. “Okay, Rivers … get to the point already.”
“Anderson also got a call this morning for an assist in Charlottesville. He was thinking of sending us.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. But I asked if I could be the one to tell you. He didn’t give me a ton of details on it. He wanted to brief us both.”
“It feels sort of like a set-up, going right back and all,” she said. “But if it keeps us away from this bank case and paperwork, then by all means … let’s go see Anderson.”
They left her cubicle together and walked down to the elevator. They got in, Jack pressed the button for the third floor, and the doors slid closed.
“There are cameras on these elevators,” Jack said as if he were hard pressed for a conversation starter.
“Um … yeah. I know.”
“I just figured I’d point it out. And to also let you know it’s the only reason I didn’t start kissing you the moment the doors were closed.”
She wasn’t sure what to say to that, but she once again felt that warm rush of happiness … and, if she was going to be honest with herself, something with a bit of a naughty edge to it as well. Even if she had a response at the ready, she wouldn’t have had a chance to share it. The elevator stopped, dinged, and the doors slid open.
She had no idea why, but she felt the need to take the lead. After a comment like that, she didn’t want him to think he’d left her flabbergasted, the little puppy that was ready to eat right out of his hand. This backfired a bit, as she couldn’t help but wonder if he was watching her closely as she walked ahead of him.
God, I hate this, she thought. And it was true. She’d never been the girl that went crazy over a guy or even really cared much what men thought of her. It wasn’t new to her, but it did feel rather alien.
She entered the small waiting alcove outside of Anderson’s office. The receptionist wasn’t in yet, and Anderson’s door was open. She was taken aback when Anderson got out of his seat upon seeing her and walked over to shake her hand.
“Rachel, it’s so good to see you in the building again.”
“It’s good to be back,” she said, still a bit taken off her game. She supposed it made sense that Anderson would be so favorable and friendly, though. He’d gone above and beyond to check in with her during the Alex Lynch saga, and even more so when she’d been healing up at home.
“Please, have a seat,” he said, nodding to the chairs in front of his desk—chairs she and Jack had spent a lot of time in, side by side, over the years.
Anderson looked to be in decent spirits. His brown eyes sparkled a bit as he regarded them. He was freshly shaved, and his greying hair was styled in a way that made him look at least ten years younger than his true age of fifty-five. Maybe it was something about the day itself, Rachel thought. Maybe everyone was just in a great mood today.
“I take it Agent Rivers has told you that I’ve decided to get you back out into the field right away, yes?”
“He did. And while I’m grateful, I’m also very surprised.”
“Well, the case that came in this morning isn’t anything that looks to be too involved. There’s always going to be an element of danger to homicide cases but this one seems … guarded, let’s just say.”
“So, what’s the case?”
“We’ve got two murders, both in a hospice care facility just outside of Charlottesville. The metrics on it seem to have the local and state PD a little confused. The call came from DC, and they seemed to make it clear it’s not an immediate priority. But I know you and Rivers have to be itching to get back out in the field. I knew you’d see a few weeks behind a desk as a punishment of sorts.”
“You know me too well, sir.” It amazed her just how much the last few weeks had opened things up between her and Anderson. He’d always been friendly with his agents, but she now sensed another kind of bond between them. It was almost enough to make her regret never coming clean with him about her cancer.
“The case down in Charlottesville seems pretty cut and dry. Simple, but a little sad, and I doubt it will require too much strenuous activity. As I said, there were two murders in a hospice facility. Two patients brutally stabbed in their beds. Everything about it points to mercy killings by someone that works at the facility, but there are no leads, clues, or obvious links between the victims or their families. Because the targeted victims are all coming from one place, we’re hoping it’ll be a quick case. Hell, if you two get out of here in the next hour or so and pull off some of that magic that seems to exist between you, I don’t see why you couldn’t be back home tonight or sometime tomorrow at the latest.”
Rachel did think it seemed like a softball, but she was thrilled to be taking that over a desk.
“Is there a liaison on this?” she asked.
“Not officially. The police chief knows we’re sending someone, and they’ll be contacting the folks that own the facility. I don’t know if your most likely connection is going to be the people running the facility or the ones that own it.”
“Sounds good enough for me,” Jack said.
“Very well, then,” Anderson said, sliding the thin folder in the center of his desk over to them. “Here’s everything we have on the two murders and the facility so far. Digital copies will be in your inboxes within the hour.” Smiling, he looked directly at Rachel and said, “Welcome back, by the way. You were missed around here.”
“Yeah, she was,” Jack said as he took the folder and got to his feet. He gave her a little smirk as she stood up with him, an inside joke between the two of them.
Oddly enough, Rachel almost felt like she was on a weird vacation when she and Jack left Anderson’s office—like a kid about to leave school for a field trip. She’d been back to work for less than half an hour and was already heading out on a case that, she had to admit, did seem pretty tame. It was almost as if it had been designed to fit the needs of an agent coming back after six weeks off for recovery.
Of course, she had to keep the victims at the forefront of her thoughts. Even when she felt the stirring of excitement in terms of being alone with Jack, she could easily put the case first and was already drawing up conclusions about the killer. Because softball case or not, something about a killer that was taking the lives of hospice patients did seem quite dark, even if they were doing it out of pity or so-called mercy.
And with that thought growing more and more prominent in her head, she’d already started to wonder if the case might be a bit more involved than Anderson or Jack had originally assumed.
CHAPTER FOUR
The drive to Charlottesville was right at two hours, and though many things had changed since Lynch had been killed and her health had improved, Rachel noticed right away that Jack assumed he’d be the one to drive. She didn’t argue it at all because she assumed it was just sort of a chivalrous thing. Neither of them totally disliked driving so it had never been an argument. And she couldn’t help but wonder if this was a part of their partnership that might change a bit if they continued to explore what else might exist beyond their professional relationship.
They spent the first half an hour or so going over the scant information in the file Anderson had given them. The first victim had been found two mornings ago. Roland Young had pretty much been on death’s door when a morning nurse found him dead, stabbed several times. The blood and wounds were fresh and early coroner assumptions placed the death no more than two hours before his body had been discovered.
“And no one saw anything on the security footage?” Jack said. “Nothing at all?”
“Not according to what I’m seeing here. There is a note that states there are several areas within Crossway Hospice Care that have blind spots when it comes to their security cameras. Which I guess makes sense. It’s not really the sort of place that necessitates a high security profile.”
They continued on, discussing the second victim—a woman that had been killed just after being prepped for patient transfer from the hospital to the hospice facility yesterday morning. Every single person involved in that process had been questioned and deeply investigated. The result had been absolutely nothing. Even after looking over security footage from the hospital, there was nothing. The victim—a woman by the name of Marie Brooks—had simply been alive during one set of nurse’s rounds and dead the next. She’d been stabbed three times, once directly in the throat.
“I find it hard to believe no one on staff there or with the hospital and transport raised no red flags. Someone has their hands dirty on this.”
“For sure,” Rachel said. “I think if we buckle down and zone in on—”
The words froze in her mouth as a sweeping, dizzy sensation flashed through her body. She smiled at first because it was so sudden and, honestly, not entirely unpleasant at first. It was very close to having a bit too much to drink in one sitting and then standing up all of a sudden. However, when she recalled the last time she’d felt the sensation, the smile quickly vanished from her face.
This feeling of sudden, brief vertigo had often come in tandem with the headaches. They were usually a precursor, a—
“Are you okay?” Jack asked.
“Yeah,” she said, the answer coming quickly. She wasn’t about to worry Jack about what may or may not be a serious issue. Maybe it was simply her body processing the excitement and adrenaline of being on another case after six weeks away. Or maybe it was just plain old vertigo.
But Jack seemed to be hung up on her speechless moment. “Are you sure?”
“Yes, Jack,” she said, putting on her best teasing tone. “I’m fine. I’m just sort of confused about the simple nature of the case, given that there are no answers to be had yet. It seemed strange to assume this is an easy, shoe-in case for us if no one has managed to get any sort of leads or information at all.”
She could tell right away that he’d bought the diversion, his head nodding and his eyes widening a bit. “It’s a good point,” he said. “There’s definitely more to the story than it seems up front.”
They carried on a bit longer, Rachel reading some of the notes on the interrogations as they continued to discuss the case. She found it hard to focus, though; she was still reeling from the quick wash of vertigo, scared of what it might really mean.
On the one hand, she absolutely felt that she was rushing back into work. Small case or not, she was a bit surprised that Director Anderson was okay with this. Maybe he was far too convinced of the simple nature of the case or the knowledge that she and Jack working together was pretty much a guaranteed win. She liked to think that maybe he truly was trying to help her get back into the flow of things with a case he thought would be a softball pitch, but she was already sensing that this case might have more bends and ups and downs than it seemed.
It was a fear that grew larger, festering while hidden away, as Rachel began to also recognize the beginning stages of a headache creeping in as well.
***
They arrived at Crossway Hospice Care just after eleven o’clock in the morning. It was a quaint-looking building located just off of a secondary road. It was the only building on a well-maintained property. The grass along the entryway road was trimmed and bright green, and a series of elm trees lined the parking lot. Rachel noticed the police car right away, parked right at the front sidewalk.
When they stepped inside, the place was pretty much exactly how Rachel assumed it would be. The front area looked like a combination lobby-living room and smelled of strong anti-bacterial with a very slight undercurrent of body odor. There were two people waiting behind the large check-in counter, which was U-shaped and came off of the back wall in an arc to greet visitors. One was a rotund woman in a monogramed polo shirt that read Crossway Hospice Care across the breast. The other was a tall, middle-aged policeman. He apparently picked Rachel and Jack out as police officers right away because he hurried around the counter to give them a proper greeting.
“Agents?” he asked, already offering his hand. “I’m Deputy Derick Hall. I’ve been stationed here as sort of a guard until you arrived.”
“A guard?” Jack asked.
“Anxious family members and even the media,” Hall said. “Just smaller, local perps so far. No TV.”
“Well, that’s good, at least,” Jack said. “I’m Agent Jack Rivers,” he added, shaking Hall’s hand.
“And I’m Agent Rachel Gift. Would you be up to showing us the points of interest?”
“Of course,” he said, already leading them toward a large, single door along the wall just beside the counter. “I assume you’ve seen the reports?”
“We have,” Rachel said. “And we’re finding them just a bit too hard to believe. Two elderly people killed in confined spaces, both linked to the same hospice center, and there’s not a single lead or clue?”
“Yeah, it’s got us stumped too. We’ve had to really grill into some of the staff here, and I hated every minute of it. Made a few ladies sort of buckle and cry. It’s been awful.”
As he led them back through the main hallway, Rachel saw that each of the patient doors was opened wide. They passed by a nurse as she came out of one of the rooms. She nodded at them with a tired and slightly nervous expression on her face. Another woman behind what Rachel assumed was the nurse’s station on the left glanced at them with some steel in her eyes and then looked away—the look of a woman that did not appreciate the police or the FBI walking the halls.
They stopped at a doorway on the right, the only door along the hallway that was closed. Rachel could see small, sticky marks along the frame where crime scene tape had recently been applied. Deputy Hall opened the door and led them inside.
“As far as we can tell, this is the only area of the entire facility worth checking out. There’s the computer monitors behind the front desk and the nurse’s station, but as the report said, those proved pretty much useless. The blind spots for those damned cameras in this place are beyond reason. Whoever had them installed needs to lose their job if you ask me.”
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