Page 42 of Her Last Secret

Silence crept in, filling the space where his breaths had been, and Alice stood over him, a dark angel of vengeance, her control absolute. Alice's hand was steady as she withdrew the knife from Carson's chest, the blade slick with blood. The sound it made was eerily pleasant to her ears. She turned her gaze upon Paige, whose face had drained of color, eyes wide with a terror that mirrored the chaos of the scene before her.

"Please," Paige choked out, her voice barely rising above the wail of the alarm. "Don't."

The plea hung in the air, meaningless to Alice. Her focus never wavered as she took deliberate steps toward the girl she’d been so fixated on ever since her plot for revenge had started. The metallic scent of blood mingled with the acrid tang of fear permeated the kitchen with an almost palpable dread.

Alice took another step forward, knife raised. Paige screamed, the sound erupting from her in a raw cry of terror. It reverberated off the walls, so visceral that it seemed to vibrate within Alice's own chest.

"Quiet," Alice hissed, her tone colder than the steel in her hand. But Paige couldn't hear her over her own screams and the relentless shriek of the alarm.

Alice closed the distance between them, her movements unhurried, almost graceful. She watched Paige's chest heave with panicked breaths, saw the tears streak down her cheeks. This was the fear Alice had yearned for—only it would be in Rachel’s eyes soon enough.

"Shh," she said again, more insistent this time, though she knew it wouldn't make a difference. Paige was beyond hearing, beyond reason, enveloped in the grip of pure fear. “I’m not going to hurt you, my dear. No, I need you for bigger things.”

The moment stretched, taut as a wire, as Alice stood before Paige, the bloody knife glinting dimly in the overhead lights. She knew what happened next. She was already looking to the front door, waiting for the men from the sedan.

Grinning nervously, Alice reached out to Paige. This was the endgame, and she was ready for it. And though Paige suddenly turned to run, Alice was too quick, too anxious. She reached out and grabbed Paige, pulling her close while she once again raised up the sharp, deadly blade.

CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR

The city blurred past the windows as Jack navigated through the dark, quiet streets. The eerie stillness of everything seemed to fit the moment perfectly as the digital numbers on the dashboard clock read 2:04. The energy of this new potential lead had shoved Rachel’s weariness aside and she now felt more primed and focused than ever. They of course had no way to know for sure if Theodore Barnes was their killer, but something about the connection simply felt right to Rachel.

While Jack drove, Rachel continued to sift through the digital footprint Theo Barnes had left behind.

"Listen to this," Rachel said, breaking the night silence that hung between them like a charged cloud ready to burst. "Barnes is a complete ass in most of these reviews. Most are just brutal—right here, he described this director’s vision as 'ham-fisted theatrics unfit for even the most forgiving of audiences.'"

"Ouch," Jack replied, taking a quick glance at her screen before returning his eyes to the road.

“But some of the reviews I’m seeing for when Barnes was an actor himself are just as bad."

“An actor turned critic…there’s going to be some hard feelings, I’m sure.”

"Looks like it," Rachel muttered, scrolling through more pages of information. She stopped abruptly, her finger hovering over the screen. "Then, about half a year ago, maybe a little less, it’s just like he just vanished into thin air."

“So maybe he decided it was time to do something more than just gripe and bitch about the industry that had been so cruel to him,” Jack commented. “Maybe he wanted to take it to the next level.”

As they spoke these theories out loud, Rachel started to feel more certain that Barnes was their guy. This was the lead they'd been desperate for—a suspect with a motive rooted deep in the visceral world of theater, where critique could make or break careers, foster deep-seated resentment.

Her eyes remained glued to her phone screen, but her mind raced ahead to what they might find at Barnes's residence. Would they finally come face-to-face with the killer? Or would they stumble upon yet another cryptic clue in this maddening puzzle?

The neighborhood seemed to swallow them whole as they drew closer to Theo Barnes's residence. Rachel's eyes darted from one house to the next, scanning the quiet facades painted in the pitch black of early morning hours. Victorian homes with peeling paint and overgrown gardens blurred past them, each one a silent witness to the countless stories harbored within their walls. Their car rolled to a halt a block away from their destination, tucked between two others under the boughs of a weeping willow.

"Ready or not…" Rachel said tersely, her hand already on the door handle.

They moved swiftly, their shoes crunching on the gravel path. Rachel's gaze never stopped roving; a creaky gate, a flash of movement behind a curtain, the whistle of wind through the leaves were all potential harbingers of danger. It was a sense she often got—a sort of sixth sense some agents developed over time—when every nerve in her body felt that she was closing in on something either dangerous or monumental.

As they approached Theo's house, Rachel noted its neglected appearance—shutters hanging slightly askew, weeds conquering the front steps. The home was still far better than some she’d seen in the slums and poorer neighborhoods, but it seemed almost derelict when compared to the well-tended homes around it.

They stepped up onto the porch, and Jack knocked right away. He rapped hard on the wood, the sound echoing ominously.

"Theo Barnes!" Jack called out. Silence was his only reply, the quiet mocking his urgency. Rachel shrugged at him, and he knocked again, harder this time. Again, there was nothing.

"Nothing. Let's circle around back," she suggested, not waiting for Jack’s response before heading toward the narrow alley alongside the house.

The rear of the property was even more desolate, choked by untamed ivy and tall grass. A small porch sat in disrepair, perhaps a project started long ago and simply abandoned. There were no lights back there and the faint glow of distant streetlights out front were completely blocked. They ambled along in darkness toward the back door.

And it was then, as Rachel started for the wooden steps on the half-finished back porch, that she heard a faint, muffled cry. It was distant and low, muted by the walls of the house. Rachel froze, her blood turning to ice.

"Did you hear that?" she whispered, fear and resolve mingling in her voice. Jack nodded, his expression grim.

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