Page 49 of Her Last Secret

"Paige," she gasped, suddenly aware of how her daughter was shaking, small whimpers escaping her lips as Rachel drew her close, trying to merge their two forms into one unbreakable entity.

“You’re bleeding, Mommy,” Paige said.

Rachel could barely even remember getting cut at the beginning of the fight. And as the three of them huddled together on the floor, all tears and spent adrenaline, she didn’t even remember where the cut was. But she was aware of her blood as she held her daughter and, in turn, her future husband held them both.

Rachel clutched Paige to her chest, her tears flowing freely now, hot and relentless. They were tears for the horrors her daughter had witnessed, for the violence that had seared itself into the walls of their home, for the loss of innocence and the shattering of safety. And partly because of the violence Paige had seen her carry out in a blinding moment of weakness.

"Are you okay, sweetie?” Rachel asked, holding her daughter so tight that she wasn’t sure she’d ever be able to let go.

“Yes. Just…I was so scared and…and…”

And then Paige was crying, too.

"I know, baby. I'm so sorry," Rachel choked out between sobs, her voice a fractured whisper of regret and fierce love.

She’d almost lost Paige. She’d almost lost it all. And somehow, she’d even nearly lost herself in the way it had all come to an end. Her own fears and insecurities had nearly cost her everything. It had nearly driven her to murder Alice in front of her daughter.

“It’s okay, Paige,” Rachel said, hugging her daughter close. “It’s all over.”

Paige held her back, holding her tight, and there they remained—a family bruised but unbroken, their tears mingling in the shared understanding that so long as they always stood together, they would never fall.

CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT

Rachel opened her eyes from a nap she couldn’t remember taking and for a strange moment, she felt like a swimmer breaking through a tumultuous sea into the quiet world above. Her eyelids fluttered against the intrusive brightness of the hospital room, her senses reeling back to reality in disjointed fragments. The sterile scent of antiseptic mingled with the subtle undertone of cafeteria food.

She tried to shift, to sit up, but her left arm protested with a sharp twinge, halting her movement. She turned her head, taking in the sight of the thick bandage wrapped around her forearm, the bulky form of a protective cast obscuring the lines of her skin. Memories cascaded back to her—a blade glinting in low light, the resistance of flesh, Alice's scream. Her brain pulled the murky information to the surface: Alice’s cut had been deep, an ugly truth carved into her bicep. It had required surgery to repair a tendon. The surgery…she was pretty sure it had taken place before the unremembered nap.

She glanced across the room and saw that Jack was sitting in the visitor's chair, a book held loosely in his hands. His focus, however, was on the sleeping figure of Paige, whose soft breaths lifted and fell in rhythm with his heartbeat, her small body curled trustingly on his lap.

Jack glanced up, sensing movement, and his eyes met Rachel's. The corners of his mouth lifted in a gentle smile that reached his eyes. He nudged Paige gently, stirring her from slumber. Bleary-eyed but swiftly alert, Paige straightened and chimed in with a sleepy yet cheerful "Good morning" in unison with Jack.

"Your surgery went smoothly," Jack said, setting aside the book he had been pretending to read. His voice was calm, measured, designed to soothe. But Rachel could hear the undercurrent of concern that lay beneath—the same worry that had furrowed his brow the night before. “Do you remember any of it?”

She shook her head. “I remember leaving the house in an ambulance. I fell asleep at some point. I remember them telling me a tendon had been damaged and…and I think that’s it.”

“Yeah. They surgery took about an hour and a half and you’ve been sleeping for three hours.”

She nodded, and her mind raced to catch up with everything else. "What about Carson? The agents on the scene thought he was dead."

"Carson's still in surgery," Jack said, breaking the tentative silence. His voice was steady, but his eyes betrayed a flicker of the fear that had shrouded the room while Rachel slept. "It was touch-and-go for a while there. But he's fighting, Rachel. The doctors think he'll pull through." He paused, looking down at Paige, still nestled against him, oblivious to the gravity of their conversation. “But he’ll have months of recovery ahead of him.”

“And Natalie King?”

"Safe," Jack assured her, offering a slight smile. "She's shaken, of course, but physically unharmed. They've got someone for her to talk with to help her process... everything."

The room seemed to close in around Rachel, the beeps of nearby monitors punctuating the silence that followed. It wasn't just about solving the case anymore; it was about the aftermath, the healing that needed to happen for everyone involved.

“What about Alice?” She hated that she felt a pang of remorse for how she’d reacted to seeing the woman, temporarily losing control of herself.

“You…well, you knocked a few teeth out and shattered her orbital bone. But she’ll live. She’ll live in a prison cell somewhere for a very long time.”

Rachel looked down at her right hand and saw that it was bruised. She was sure that when whatever pain meds she was currently on wore off, it would ache.

"Rachel..." Jack hesitated, then leaned closer, a seriousness cloaking his expression. "There's something else. Anderson wanted to tell you himself, but I asked to be the one."

Her mind raced, thoughts of being reprimanded for her reckless charge towards Alice surfacing. "What, he's going to fire me now?" she tried to joke, but the humor fell flat, lost in the weight of last night's chaos. The thought wasn't absolutely ridiculous. She had, after all, torn away from him last night and shouted at him to get out of her house.

"Nothing like that," Jack reassured her quickly. "Anderson's just glad you're safe, really. But Theo Barnes..." He trailed off, searching Rachel's eyes before delivering the blow. "He collapsed last night, in pain, as you know. I thought it was a seizure and I suppose it could have been, but it turns out he's been harboring a brain tumor for a long time. Never got it treated. The prognosis isn't good. Maybe two weeks."

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