Rachael bit her lip and squeezed her eyes tight to keep the tears from falling as her heart broke for the last time. “Got it in one.”
“Even when the world’s beating you down, I’ll be around, Angel. I love you.”
“I love you, Jake. So much. Just let me do this alone. Then I’ll be right out.”
Rachael pushed herself away from the door and Jake. She went into the bathroom and turned on the shower then returned to the bedroom. She picked up her tote from the chair and quietly opened the bedside table drawer on Jake’s side. She took out two things—the keys to Jake’s Indian and the gun she knew was stashed there—and dropped them into her bag. Then she slid the window screen open and slipped out onto the back deck. She ducked as she ran to the garage where her car, Jake’s bike, and Camden’s rental waited.
A pair of pruning shears hung on the wall. She could use them on the rental’s tires, but what if one blew with a bang? Rachael took the flathead screwdriver out of her tote and unscrewed the cap to the front tire. She pressed the flathead against the metal pin inside and listened to the air hiss out. She didn’t have enough time to make it completely flat, but it might be enough to slow them down. She didn’t see an air compressor anywhere.
The minutes ticked by as she let the air out of the tire. She pulled her phone out of her tote and unlocked it, then opened the text app. The last text was from her father answering the fake one Jake had sent the night they escaped. Jake had seen her open her phone one time and memorized the pattern like the amazing agent he was. He’d texted that they had the book and would negotiate for it. The real plan was to find the body, then set up a meeting place where Jake and Camden and whoever else would surround and arrest him. Daddy sent back a string of veiled threats—even now, he was slick and careful—but Rachael read between the lines. She texted back one-handed that they were ready to make a trade and that he was to come to the old barn with one hundred-thousand dollars in two hours. Alone.
First you show the money, then you get the book.
She waited. After a minute, her phone buzzed. She looked at the text:
Deal.
Rachael listened for Toby’s bark to give her away. If sneaking out didn’t do it, starting the car and opening the garage door might. She had to take the chance. Grabbing the garage door opener from the rental, Rachael got in her car and started it as soon as she hit the button. She pulled out before the door was open all the way and sped off down the back alley.
Her escape had taken less than ten minutes. She’d be at the barn in another half-hour. She’d given herself enough time to park far away and still get across the fields and hide in the hayloft before her father arrived, even if it took him only an hour to get the money together and speed out there. She wasn’t naïve enough to think he’d actually come alone. He’d probably bring Hank since the sheriff was out of commission. Her father wouldn’t want to involve anyone else who didn’t already know about the book, which left the accountant, and he wasn’t what you could call muscle.
Rachael focused on her father as she wiped angry tears from her eyes and gripped the wheel. The minute he walked into the barn, into the range of the handgun, close enough that she could see the last look of pain in his eyes, she’d serve him justice.
Ten minutes later, her phone on the passenger seat buzzed. “You’d better not back down, Daddy,” she said as she glanced at their string of texts on the screen. No new message.
Then the first notes of “All of Me” played. Jake’s ringtone.
She ignored his call.
He tried again.
She let it go to voicemail.
She imagined Jake in the garage with Camden trying to either hotwire the bike or…change the tire…dammit, she should have taken the spare.Stupid. Jake could call out an APB she supposed, but he probably assumed she was headed back to Ross, when the barn was the other direction from the safehouse.
Her phone buzzed again. And again. Each buzz was like a cicada, an ugly thing trying to scare her.
She tried to ignore them. “Forget about me, Jake. Let me go.”
But Jake wouldn’t give up. One text after the other buzzed her phone.
Rachael couldn’t help it. Her brain filled with song lyrics about phone calls. Jim Croce’s “Operator.” Blondie’s “Hangin’ on the Telephone.” Even that stupid eighties earworm, “867-5309/Jenny.”
She didn’t have to read Jake’s texts to know what they’d say. He wasn’t giving up on her, on them. He’d never give up, never stop. And he’d say it with lyrics and she’d get them all in one.
Rachael pulled over, shut off the car and got out. She was about a quarter mile from the barn. Tall cornstalks just starting to fire in the late August heat would hide her car. Hide her as she crept among them to the barn, jumping every now and then to spot the very top of the blackbird tree peeking over the field serving to guide her there.
Buzz. Buzz. Her phone kept going in her hand, one text after the next.Just cicadas.
But what was a cicada’s purpose except to shed its skin for a new life?
She’d talked to Bette Collins.Bette. Collins. She had a man who adored her, who’d do anything for her.Even knowing all of me, she thought, and laugh-cried at the absurdity.
She was acting crazy. She could call Jake back this minute. Tell him she was sorry, she was out of her head with rage and grief, but now….
It wasn’t a lie. Now that she was here so close to the blackbird tree, to the special place she shared with her mom, Rachael’s mind started to clear. Would her mom want this, want more bloodshed for the sake of revenge? Want Rachael to throw away her life when she finally had a chance at a new one, a good one?
A multitude of crows exploded from the tree. They gathered into a flock and danced on dark wings over her head. She turned to watch them fly away together, disappearing into the western sky.
