As she caught the edge of his consciousness, she gasped. Dark memories enveloped her. Some of them were violent. Others were sad. By herself, she would have jerked back for self-protection, but Jake kept her grounded.
She saw Carter Frederick as a boy, saw his father pounding him with fists, then saw the boy stamp down the sidewalk and kick a dog that was tied to a tree outside a house.
She rejoiced with him when he made friends with another kid in the neighborhood, then felt his despair when the family moved away. Her heart clutched when his mother died, leaving him alone with a father who turned more and more to the bottle, then took out his anger and frustration on his son.
She saw him in school feeling stupid when he couldn’t understand a lesson, then shrinking back as a teacher yelled at him in front of the class. He got his revenge by slashing the teacher’s tires.
More scenes followed. A girl he thought he loved who broke up with him to date a more popular boy.
There were scrapes with the law. The young man robbing a convenience store.
Drugs. Another girlfriend. He ached to connect with her, but he couldn’t keep his violent impulses under control. Hehit her. She left him. He was going to track her down, but her brother was large and threatening, and Carter thought better of tangling with the guy.
He never finished high school. He hooked up with other young toughs. Took jobs for crime bosses–then found his way to legitimate businessmen who wanted jobs done that they couldn’t acknowledge.
When he’d gotten a call from someone whose alias was “the Badger,” he’d been pretty sure the guy was dangerous. But he paid well, and Frederick always completed the assignments he was given. And he made good money for his efforts. Enough to live in a nice apartment.
Until he was sent to get information from Evelyn Morgan. She’d tried to fight him off. Tried to get away, and she’d ended up dead. But that hadn’t been Frederick’s intention.
He’d failed, and he’d been afraid of the Badger. He’d never met the man, but he knew it would be fatal to disappoint him, which was why he’d been so relentless in his pursuit of Rachel and Jake.
And she knew he hadn’t been lying to her. He had never met this employer. He had only dealt with the man over the phone, but even at long distances the Badger tied Carter’s stomach in knots.
His fear of the Badger came through very clearly. Along with the memories flashing through the man’s mind.
And overlaying everything was a more engulfing fear. He was dying. But he wasn’t going upward toward the light. He was sinking into darkness so profound that it rose to swallow him up.
You don’t have to go there,Rachel whispered to him.
He startled.Who are you?
Rachel Gregory.
He tried to wrench himself away from her.
No. Let me stay. I’m here to help you.
How?
You can change everything. Give yourself another chance.
Impossible.
You can make a fresh start. Your life doesn’t have to go on the way it has.
She had started this because she wanted to help herself and Jake. As she understood Carter better, she wanted to save him-- with a desperation she would have thought impossible. Because she had left Mickey in the bayou? Perhaps.
Carter was speaking again.
I’m dead. I’m going to the bad place.
Not if you want to change.
Maybe he believed her. Maybe he was so terrified that he would grasp at any straw. But she felt a shift within him. He’d had so few good relationships. So few good impulses. Now she was reaching out to him in a way that pulled him toward what he might have been if his life had been different.
She’d started off hating and fearing him, but the connection changed her perception.
In the background, she heard Jake speaking urgently to her.
