Oh. My. God. “I don’t know what to say. Except thank you. I don’t know if my voice isthatgood—”
Bette clucked her tongue. “If there’s one thing that Jake knows better than how to judge people, it’s how to judge good music. And he says you have the best voice he’s ever heard.”
“He’s too kind.”
“Rachael. Dear. Do me a favor?”
“Yes! Anything.”
“Use your beautiful voice to sing the truth until justice is served. Don’t be afraid. And then come home to us with my son who loves you.”
* * *
Rachael sat stunned on the bed. She couldn’t believe she’d just had a conversation with Bette Collins, that she had the possibility not just of meeting her, but of breaking into the music business. Her—inconsequential Rachael Deal.
A knock broke her out of her thoughts. “Come in.”
Jake opened the door. “Got quiet in here so I thought you might be done talking.” He sat next to her and pulled Rachael to his chest. She felt his heart beating strong and regular against her cheek. “How are you?”
“I just got a pep talk from one of my favorite movie stars. Who also happens to be your mom. Who apparently likes me. Who am I?”
Jake’s chest rumbled. “You are Rachael Deal—amazing singer by any standard, destroyer of the corrupt, woman of my dreams. The woman who I told my mom I’d be bringing home…” he let her go, slid off the bed, and dropped to one knee as Rachael’s heart went into overdrive, “…as my fiancée. If she’d have me.”
Rachael covered her heart just to make sure it wouldn’t beat right out of her chest. “Jake. You aren’t serious.”
He looked up at her with the most loving expression she’d ever seen as he took her hand. “Oh, but I am. I am dead fucking serious. I’m so serious, I’m about to break into a Taylor Swift song.”
Rachael laughed. She couldn’t help it, even though this was the most important moment of her life. “You mean “Love Story”, Romeo?”
She stood and pulled him to his feet. He wrapped his arms around her.
“Got it in one, Angel, got it in one, just like usual. So what’s your answer? Will you marry me, Juliet?”
“Of course I’ll marry you, Jake Collins, son oftheBette-Freaking-Collins.”
He lifted her off her feet and kissed her down to her soul.
Yes, I’ll marry you…if I get out of this alive.
Twenty-Nine
As Jake sat fidgeting with his phone on the couch, he never felt happier. How could he have known at the beginning of this Godforsaken mission that he’d find the woman of his dreams, his Angel of the Most Beautiful Voice, and that she’d agree to marry him? All they needed to do now was keep laying low and wait for the team to find the body.
Even now, the investigators were assembled at the end of the dirt road Rachael identified on a satellite map. Jake’s heart had clenched when her finger brushed over the giant cottonwood on the screen—the blackbird tree and barn were only a few miles away from the unmarked grave, all on land owned by Deal. With Rachael’s testimony, Ernest Deal and Sheriff Stevenson would face long-deserved justice. Jake felt confident that Rachael wouldn’t be charged for any other crime she knew about, that Nat could offer her a deal in exchange for testifying against her father, and that any sane court and jury would see her as a victim, especially with the right lawyer, and Jake knew the perfect one—his older brother, Grant.
Like Jake had gone into the SEALs and later the FBI, Grant went into law after their mother’s attack and her battle for justice. All the Collins siblings shaped their lives around that tragedy, determined to do good in a dark world.
Jake’s phone buzzed and he recognized the name—Inspector Mac Kelley, head of the FBI team tasked to find Agent Smiley’s remains. Jake hit talk as he stood up and looked through the screened door at the back yard where everyone else sat drinking iced tea and talking on the deck, Tina and her new best friend Toby playing fetch in the yard.
“Talk to me, Mac. What have you got?” Jake paced back and forth, excited.
“Jake.” Mac sounded tense. “We found a body wrapped up in a rug, just like your witness said.”
Relief flooded Jake. There’d been a part of him worried that Rachael had remembered the wrong spot after so long, or that Deal may have moved the body in the meantime. “Thank God. Now we can charge Deal and let Smiley’s family know, give them some peace finally.”
Mac paused. “We can do the first, but not the second. Not yet.”
“Well, yeah, you still need to confirm his identity, check his dental—”
