“Jake, stop.” Mac blew out his breath in a way that made Jake stop pacing and sit back down on the couch.
“What are you trying to tell me? Fucking spit it out, man.” Jake’s stomach dropped.No. No, no, no. He hesitated, already suspecting the answer to his next question. “What did you find?”
“It’s not Agent Smiley. Smiley was six-foot-one. This body is five-foot-two. And wearing what’s left of a yellow dress.”
Jake closed his eyes, leaned forward, and covered his face. “Yellow…dress,” he said after a minute.Oh, shit fire fuck. Oh, no. That sick, sick fucking bastard.
Mac cleared his throat. “We found a woman, Jake. I think we can make a safe guess as to who.”
“Yeah. I think we can.”Goddamn. How could he ever break the news to Rachael? That she hadn’t helped bury a stranger, but her own mother?
“What yellow dress, Jake?”
Oh, fuck me. Jake opened his eyes and sat up straight at Rachael’s voice. The words sounded flat, the pretty lilt in her voice long gone.
“Rachael.”
“I came inside because I heard you talking, and saw you pacing. They called, didn’t they?” Her face scared Jake. So blank with shock.
Jake hit end on the phone. “Angel, let me get you a glass of water.” He started for the kitchen.
“You said yellow dress. My mom had a yellow dress covered in wildflowers. She wore it that day. It was my favorite.”
“Angel.” Jake changed direction, intending to hold Rachael, keep her together at what had to be the worst moment of her life, worse even than that night. This was the king of bad blackbirds, buried until now and rising into a nightmare sky.
“No.” She put out her hands and backed away.
“Rachael. Let me help you.” Jake spread his arms.
“You can’t help me now.” She turned and bolted down the hall to the bedroom. “I need…I need…” She slammed the door behind her and Jake heard the lock click.
It sounded like a casket lid closing.
Thirty
Ineed to find my father. He made me…made me…
Rachael’s thoughts trailed off into the sound of cicadas screaming and blackbirds flying. The locked bedroom door wouldn’t keep Jake out long. But maybe long enough.
“Rachael, open the door, Angel. You shouldn’t be alone. Not now.” Jake stood right outside. The knob shook as he tried to open it.
She leaned against the door and tried to make her voice sound as normal as possible. “Just give me a minute, please, alone.” She added a hitch to her voice, as if she were sobbing. “Then I’ll come out. I love you, Jake.”
“I love you, Angel, and you need me right now.” Jake sounded on the edge of desperate, as if he were trying to control his voice too. She heard Elena’s and Camden’s voices grow louder as they came down the hall, asking what was wrong. Toby’s nails clicked on the hard floor. Chances were Elena carried Tina in from the back yard.Good.
Rachael acted on pure rage-driven instinct. She couldn’t risk thinking or she might stop what she was doing. “Guys, I just need to pull myself together. I need a shower. I…I don’t feel clean.”
“Angel. This isn’t your fault. You have no reason to be ashamed.” The tenderness in Jake’s voice nearly undid her. All she had to do was unlock the door, turn the knob, and let him take her into his arms. He’d see to it that her father met justice. Rachael reached for the doorknob.
And stopped. Justice? Her father would get out of this somehow, and either send Rachael to jail or into witness protection, into a life where she’d never see Jake again, a life of always looking over her shoulder, waiting for her death to creep up behind her. Her father deserved to die.Thatwas justice. For her mom, who gave up her life to protect her daughter.
I will take all that is dark in me, everything that you buried in my soul that night, and turn it against you, Daddy.For my mother. For vengeance.
“Rachael, please open the door. I don’t want you to hurt yourself.”
“I’d never.”Not now. “I have so much to live for.”Like seeing my father dead. “I just need a shower, to pull myself together.” This would hurt Jake later, God, how it would haunt him. But she put as much lightness into her voice as she could and added, “You know, get my head under water and then I’ll breathe fine.”
Jake whispered back, ““All of Me” by John Legend. Our first song.”
