Page 58 of Not This Place

He sighed, looking down at the wet earth beneath their feet. "I was hired to clean up," he admitted. "That’s all. It was supposed to be a simple job."

“I think you’re lying.”

“I didn’t kill anyone!” he insisted, more firmly. He ran a hand through his short-cut hair, bristles sending flecks of water flying.

Rachel said nothing as they continued their trudge through the wilderness, the only sounds the crunch of leaves under their boots and their shared heavy breathing. There was no time for sympathy or relief - she had a mission to complete and a life to preserve.

Suddenly, she stopped, her body going rigid as her ears picked up the faintest of sounds - branches breaking in the distance. "Down!" she hissed, shoving the man to the ground and laying flat on her own stomach.

The silence enveloped them once more, stretching out into an eternity as Rachel waited with bated breath, one hand clutching her gun and the other holding down her captive.

“I didn’t hear anything,” Simon muttered, his cheek pressed against some toadstools.

But Rachel ignored him, still listening intently. The sound had faded now.

A part of her wanted to confront the predator, to find him in the woods. Another part of her wanted to reach safety, and to take Simon in for questioning.

Which path?

She hesitated briefly, scowling at her captive.

“Tell me his name,” she whispered.

He swallowed, staring at her. “Y-you don’t understand. He’s powerful. Very powerful. They don’t spare their own kids. These people are psycho.”

Rachel stared at him now, her mind spinning.

“Say that again.”

“They’re psychos!”

She could no longer hear the sound of movement. She let out a slow, shaking exhale.

“Their own kids?” she whispered. “Plural?”

A pause.

He looked stunned now. Hesitant. He grimaced, shifting in the mud by the log, his hair brushing at clumps of lichen, sending bits of green tumbling to the ground.

Rachel considered his words, her own mind racing rapidly.

Kids. Their own kids. Cheryl was dead. Jake Shields was dead… but his was happenstance, wasn’t it?

His body left on Jasper Hargreaves’ land…

To frame him?

Their own kids.

Like Cheryl. Cheryl Danvers and Jasper Hargreaves. Both colluding against their parents.

And the one figure she had yet to meet. The patriarch of the Hargreaves oil dynasty. Jasper’s father.

“Sherlock Hargreaves,” she said suddenly.

Simon flinched. "It's him, isn't it? He's the one behind all of this, isn't he? He killed Cheryl. He wanted to frame Jasper. What is it, rich daddy's version of teaching his kid a lesson? A few years in the clink, and then maybe his big-shot lawyers bust Jasper free?"

Simon was shaking now.

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