Her answer.
She didn’t have to do this. She didn’t have to forgive her father, but she didn’t need to destroy him, either. She could choose a good life full of love, happiness, a new family. Live out her revenge instead, and live it singing her songs, her truth, to the world. She deserved it. Deserved freedom at last.
Rachael unlocked her phone and checked her texts. She didn’t have to read them all to know Jake had sent her every lyric he knew to change her mind. To break through and save her. She hit his text icon and the phone dialed Jake’s number.
He picked up immediately. “Rachael! Please tell me you’re safe.” In the background she could hear a car engine and Camden’s voice. They must have changed the tire in record time, and now they were headed to Ross to try and find her.
“I am safe. I’m so sorry. I went a little crazy—”
“No need to explain, Angel. When I found my own mom after the attack, I thought she was dead. I know how you feel. No, no, actually I don’t, because I still have her. I don’t blame you, Angel, but please tell me you’re not at the barn yet.”
Rachael blinked rapidly. “How did you know that?”
“You took my gun. The barn’s remote. The tree is there and it means something to you. I know artists and you’re an artist, Angel. You’re going for poetic justice.”
Rachael smiled. “Do I even have to say got it in one?”
“So are you there? Camden and I are speeding that way.”
“Almost. I’m—”
Before Rachael could finish, she heard the click-click of a gun cocking behind her.
“Disconnect and drop the fucking phone, bitch, and put your arms in the air.” Hank’s voice came from the rows of corn. She realized he’d startled the crows on his way from the barn to her and she’d missed the warning. “One more word and you’re dead.”
No. I’m going to live through this, somehow. I love you, Jake, Rachael thought as she hit disconnect and dropped her cell.
Thirty-One
“Fuck! Drive faster, brother!” Jake gripped the dashboard as if he could will the Dodge to break the sound barrier.
“They got her, didn’t they? Shit.” Camden stomped the accelerator and they bumped over washboard roads that threatened to rattle every tooth out of their skulls. “She at the barn like you thought?”
“No. She said almost. And she said she was safe. She wasn’t driving and I heard crows cawing, so she was outside, probably standing beside her car. Then I heard Hank tell her to drop the phone.” Jake squeezed his eyes shut to concentrate. “He must have snuck up on her. Which means he was on foot. Walking distance from the barn.”
He opened his eyes. “That’s it. He went through one of the cornfields to a backroad where she was parked. She probably planned to sneak up on them and Hank got her first.”
“Damn, brother, Watchdog Security’s gonna get a top-notch profiler when you start.”
Jake noticed the faintest trace of dust still hanging in the air between the fields. Someone had driven this way not long ago and he prayed it was his Angel. He went back to the maps app to find the backroad nearest to the barn that ran along one of the cornfields.
“Slow down, we’re kicking up dust and we’re close. Turn left.”
“Left? All I see is corn…oh, there.” Camden slowed and turned onto an even smaller dirt road—a tractor trail, really—that Jake identified from the satellite image.
Yes. He saw her car up the way. To the right was the barn across the field, maybe a quarter-mile away. Rachael and Hank might still be in the cornfield, or just getting to the barn.
Ifthey went to the barn.Fuck. They could be anywhere.
“Pull up behind her car. We’ll see what we can find.”
Camden parked. The agents drew their guns and got out. Jake spotted Rachael’s smashed phone beside the car. All was quiet except for the rustle of cornstalks in the faint breeze and a stray bird call. He looked into the field to the right toward the barn. It appeared undisturbed. The cornfield opposite looked the same. Did they run down the road? Did Hank actually come from the barn?
Jake looked closer until he saw a couple leaning cornstalks to the right a few rows in.Hank was careful. Then he looked deeper into the field to the left and spotted a broken stalk. Then another.And when he took Rachael that way she made sure to mark the trail.
Jake pointed to the left-hand field. “They went—”
“Yeah, I see it. We passed another trail just on the other side of that field coming in.”
