Jake blew out his breath and looked around the office. “I understand.” He stood up, and before he opened her door he said, “I’m sorry if I stepped where I shouldn’t have. But I couldn’t stand by and not say anything. I still won’t. If my mom saw me ignore what happened to you, she’d do something absolutely terrible to me. I don’t even want to think about it.” He shuddered.
That got her attention. She looked horrified. “Oh my God, what would she do?”
“She’d…she’d…she’d never make me apple pie again.” He pulled his saddest clown face.
Rachael covered her grin. “Apple pie? Seriously?”
“It’sreally goodapple pie.”
Rachael rolled her eyes.
Jake gentled his voice. “Look, we just met, but I want you to know that if you ever need a friend to just listen to you, or make you smile with his crappy jokes, I’m that guy.”
Rachael smirked. “Well, you’re right about the crappy jokes.”
“And I have your back, Rachael.”
Jake didn’t wait for a response before he left her office. He didn’t want to see the hope in her eyes because that would only make things worse if he couldn’t keep his word and ended up betraying her in the end. And right now, that was his biggest worry, so much so that it tempted him to call the home office and have himself removed from the case. This felt way too personal, way too fast. If he fell for her, and she turned out to be as crooked as her old man, he could get himself killed.
But one thing was true—if Rachael Deal was innocent of any crimes, he would have her back to the very end, no matter where he was.
Six
At the end of the long day from hell, Rachael hid her face in her hands and groaned.What am I doing? The book is gone, Hank almost beat the shit out of me again, talking to Jake felt like a police interrogation, and I just opened right up.
But not about the book. Nobody on the outside could know about the second, true, accounting book that Larry kept for Daddy Deal. It was the only record of Daddy’s true deals because he didn’t trust computers. She needed to find where Hank hid it. Then she could disappear with a note left behind saying not to come after her this time or she’d go to the feds, and hope that Daddy believed her bluff. Truth was, Rachael was just as likely to go down along with her father. No one ever believed her. No one ever would. And Daddy told her his reach went all the way to the FBI. What if she trusted the wrong agent and played right into her father’s hands again?
Rachael got up and paced. The accounting book had to be on the premises because Larry needed regular access to it. Hank was stupid, but not stupid enough to keep it in his locker. Rachael could access the lockers and he knew it. She needed to figure out if Larry had agreed to Hank changing the book’s location and knew where it was, or if Hank just planned on moving it from one hiding place to the other. Maybe she needed to keep an eye on Larry, follow him and he’d lead her to it. All while dodging Hank and possibly Daddy.
Sure, no problem.
Rachael stopped in front of a candle and watched the flame. She wanted to give up. Even if she could get out, where would she go? What would she do? She couldn’t exactly use her father as a job reference, and the idea of blackmailing him for money on top of everything else now felt impossible. So much had changed in the span of a couple of hours.
Jake Spiro was one of those changes. Rachael molded the candle’s warm wax edge, curling it in to melt. So tempting to trust Jake, to think of him as a new friend. The way he looked at her so warmly and made her laugh at his lame humor in spite of everything. Every one of his soft touches sent shivers through her, even as they steadied her. But Jake had really shone when he’d protected her from Hank.
‘I’d be tempted to throw my hat into that ring.’
And Rachael was tempted to let him.
The men who worked here and lived in Ross fell into two groups—those like Hank, who talked big, drank and fought and harassed her at every opportunity, and the ones who kept their heads down, did their jobs, got kicked around just enough to keep them in their places, like Lewis Broggart, the sheriff’s deputy and lackey. He’d never harassed her, smiled even on the occasions she’d seen him around town, but he wasn’t about to defend her either.
Jake seemed so different. He wasn’t a bully like Hank, but he also wasn’t about to let himself be kicked around like Lewis. Would either of those things change the longer he stayed? Rachael hoped not. It would kill a little of her heart to see Jake turn mean like Hank. But he probably would. Hank had fooled her at the beginning, too.
Hank rode into town almost a year ago, all swagger and cocksure and Rachael pegged him as just another asshole. She steered clear of him, even as he sought her out. Then she noticed that the other guys laid off on bothering her. No more catcalls, no ordering her around, stealing her lunch—or doing worse things to it and leaving it for her to find. Instead, they deferred to her, especially when Hank was around. Even Daddy didn’t do that for her.
Hank grew charming, walking Rachael to her car in the dark, slipping into her office just to say hi, carrying heavy boxes and such for her. It was cute, almost like they were in school. He started sweet-talking her, little nothings mixed in with the occasional jab at Daddy. Then the talk got hotter and the jabs sharper. Hank told Rachael she deserved better, and he was the one who could provide for her. Hank said he wasn’t afraid of Daddy Deal, that he could take him down. Rachael didn’t love Hank, but she started to believe him. His influence in the plant was so telling the day of the meeting prior to federal inspections, when everyone looked to Hank for guidance before Daddy. It was obvious he held influence over everyone in the plant.
Hank finally talked her into bed two weeks ago, and God, was he lousy—fast, selfish, not caring whether or not she came. But he gave her a pillow talk promise that he’d take her away from her terrible life just as soon as he could figure out how to get some final leverage over Daddy. And Rachael provided it, told Hank about the real book that Larry kept in the safe in accounting. She would get a copy of the key made, find out the code, and they would leave together. Rachael liked Hank. She could talk herself into loving him later. Or at least teach him what a woman wanted in bed.
But then everything went sideways. Daddy found out something was up. Maybe it was the power shift in the meeting that tipped him off. Maybe someone decided to get in good with Daddy and gave the two of them away. Daddy called Hank to the mansion he lived in that dominated the town. Hank told Rachael that this was it, he would stand up against Ernest Deal and put the old man in his place. Then he and Rachael would live in the mansion and have everything they deserved.
Hank’s face told the rest of the story. Rachael sat in her car across the street and watched him slink out of her father’s house. After he drove away, her phone buzzed. Daddy wanted to see her too, so she could just get the fuck out of her car and come on in.
The candle’s flame blurred through Rachael’s tears. She should have driven away then, taken her chances and run. Fear and years of obedience guided her steps across the street and up the flight of stairs to the wide porch and the heavy front door. Daddy’s ‘butler’—three-hundred pounds of muscle and meth-fueled anger, let her in. She crept to Daddy’s office, noting the drops of blood on the floor like a trail of macabre breadcrumbs leading not to home but to the heart of the monster’s lair.
And there at the end of the trail, her father waited.
“Daddy, I—” she started, but he cut her off with a wave of his hand. He got up from behind his big mahogany desk, walked around it, and embraced her, pressing Rachael against his solid round belly. His shirt was damp and he stank of sweat and Hank’s blood.
