Page 47 of Her Last Secret

“Mommy…”

It was Paige’s voice, strangled and soft, thick with tears. It was the first time since entering the house that Rachel buckled at all. It was like a punch to the stomach. She wheeled around to the three agents and Anderson. In that moment, he was not her director or supervisor; he was simply a body in the way of her being able to rescue her daughter.

"Out! Now!" Rachel's growl was feral, her command leaving no room for argument. "Every one of you, get out of my house!"

"But—" Anderson began to protest.

"NOW!" Rachel's roar was almost like that of an animal, pure rage and a guttural response to the moment. In a flurry of movement, the agents began to file out, their faces grim yet obedient. Anderson lingered, his eyes locking with Rachel's in a silent battle of wills before he too acquiesced, stepping toward the front door and back into the night.

Rachel heard the front door opening as they all filed out and stepped into the night. When the door closed behind them, Rachel turned back toward the bathroom.

"Alright, Alice," Rachel said to the door, her voice steady despite the tempest raging within. "It's just you and me." Her hand rested against the cool wood, betraying none of the tremor that threatened to shake her apart. "Let her go."

“I’m trusting you, Rachel. If I come out there and see a single agent, I’ll kill her.”

“Understood,” Rachel snarled. “Now come out from behind that door, you coward.”

"First, you will toss your sidearm away. Throw it down the hall. I want to hear it land."

Rachel's hand hovered over her Glock, secured at her hip. Her fingers grazed the cool metal, a reluctant goodbye to the familiar weight of security. With a sharp exhale, her arm moved in a wide arc, sending the gun skidding across the hardwood floor into the shadowy depths of the living room. The sound of it crashing against an unseen obstacle was jarringly loud in the stillness.

"I'm unarmed," Rachel announced, her voice ringing out with a forced calm. "Now, let Paige go."

Seconds dragged on, each one laden with unspoken threats, until the click of the lock disengaging shattered the suspense. The door creaked open slowly, and Rachel was finally able to see the thin face she'd studied so many times from the doorbell footage.

It was no demon or monster, just a woman.

And as she stepped out of the bathroom, holding Paige tightly against her with a blade to her throat, Alice Denbrough actually smiled.

CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN

Rachel's eyes, cold and unwavering, locked onto Alice, whose hand pressed the sharp edge of the knife threateningly against Paige’s tender throat. The throb in Rachel's head had escalated into a pounding drumbeat, an agonizing crescendo that seemed to pulse with each second of the standoff. But it was the sheer terror for her daughter’s safety that fueled Rachel’s resolve, shoving the pain to some distant corner of her consciousness where it became a mere background hum.

"Paige has done nothing to you, Alice," Rachel uttered, her voice a controlled tremor. "Why are you doing this? What could you possibly want with my family? Why try to kidnap my little girl? Why go after Grandma Tate?"

A twisted smile crept over Alice's lips, her eyes glistening with a madness that sent chills down Rachel's spine. “Your grandmother was an accident. She got in the way.”

“But you—”

"As for the why of it all," Alice said, "well, isn't it obvious?" Alice's words came out like venom, dripping with malice. "I want my life back, the one you took from me! But I can never have it back because you stole it away from me!"

“Alice, I have no idea what you’re talking ab—”

"Love," Alice hissed, the word laced with venom. "You took my one true chance at the life I’ve always wanted. You took Alex from me.”

The confession hung heavy in the air, its implications dark and tangled. Rachel could sense the depth of Alice’s obsession; it was palpable, suffocating, a diseased attachment that went far beyond the bounds of normal affection. Alex? Alex Lynch?

"Alex," Alice continued, her grip on Paige never waning, "was everything to me. We exchanged letters while he was in prison. He understood me, accepted me in ways no one else ever did." Her voice took on a dreamy quality, as if she were lost in a reverie only she could see.

"Letters?" Rachel’s mind raced. She knew of Alex Lynch’s insidious charm, how he could manipulate and twist the emotions of others for his own gain, but this? This was a new piece of the puzzle, a dangerously unstable element she wasn't prepared for.

"Alex promised me a future," Alice murmured, her gaze distant. "We had plans – dreams." And then, as though snapping back to the present, her eyes refocused sharply on Rachel, filled with accusation. "But you destroyed all of that when you killed him."

Rachel's heart pounded in her chest, a symphony of fear and anger. Her hands balled into fists at her sides. "You're wrong, Alice. He was a murderer," she spat out, the words like shards of glass. "He took lives without mercy. You can't idolize a man like that."

She knew it was futile to try reasoning with a woman like this. But she had to. She had to do everything she could to extend the moment, to find a way to get Paige away from that knife. The anger was just waiting, coiled like a snake, ready to strike at the next ankle that passed by.

Alice's expression twisted with rage. "He was more than what they said about him! More than what you made him out to be!" Her voice rose to a near-shriek, echoing off the walls, the sharp tip of the knife pressing closer against Paige’s skin.

---