Page 36 of Her Last Confession

"Please," Rachel cut in, keeping her voice steady. "I know it's difficult, but it's important." More important than you know, she thought.

The silence stretched for several seconds, thick with unspoken fears. When he spoke again, his voice was thick with emotion. "Once. Three years ago. We'd just gotten married, and... we lost a baby. Miscarriage. It hit her hard. Really hard." He cleared his throat. "But that was a long time ago. She got help. She's better now. I thought she wasmuchbetter, honestly."

Rachel's heart sank. Another connection...and now it was undeniable. Another piece of Bradley's twisted puzzle. For some skewed reason, he was going after people who had attempted suicide. She wondered if he was doing it as a morbid way to mourn the loss of his wife to suicide or if it was something more complicated. Something….darker.

"Mr. Parker—"

"No, you need to tell me what's happening. Right now." The fear in his voice had hardened into anger. "Why are you asking about—"

Rachel's phone buzzed against her ear. She checked the display and saw that it was an incoming call from Detective Wheeler. She glanced at Novak, who was watching her intently, his face illuminated by a stream of sunlight that was breaking through the trees as it began to properly set.

"Mr. Parker, I'm going to have my partner call you right back with more details,” Rachel said. “I have to take an urgent call, but I promise you'll know everything in just a minute."

"Wait—"

"Agent Novak will call you immediately." She switched calls, stepping out of the car into the cool evening air. The temperature had dropped with the sun, and goosebumps rose on her arms. She looked back into the car and saw Novak already dialing to get CJ Parker back on the line.

"Wheeler?” she said into the phone. “What do you have?"

"We found one." Wheeler's voice crackled with excitement. "One of the drones spotted something weird and shiny in the forest, so we routed it back and lowered it down.”

“You’re certain it’s one of the pods?”

“Positive. I’m looking at the imagery right now. It’s sort of tucked away in some trees, but yeah...it’s one of the suicide pods. I'm sending you coordinates now."

Rachel's phone buzzed with the incoming message. She pulled it away from her ear, quickly copying the coordinates into her mapping app. She felt like an automated machine, having spent the past five minutes or so making calls, inputting data, taking other calls, absorbing new information with what seemed like every breath.

With the coordinated now in her phone, she felt her heart skip a beat. “Wheeler, this is only fifteen minutes from where we are right now.”

"Good. Looks like we got lucky. I'll head out that way to meet you in the next few minutes, but you’ll get there well before I will. But I’m on the way."

Rachel was already moving back to the car, gesturing urgently to Novak, who was finishing his call with Parker. The gravel shifted under her feet, reminding her of crime scenes, of evidence markers, of body bags. "We’ll see you there, Detective. And thanks for this. Damn good work."

“Oh, this has been a team effort all around. See you soon.”

Rachel ended the call and slid back into the passenger seat. Novak was looking at her expectantly, his face grim.

"How'd it go with the husband?" she asked.

"About as well as you'd expect." Novak put the car in reverse, the engine rumbling beneath them. "He's scared. Angry. A nervous wreck. Wants to come help look for her."

"You told him no?"

"Strongly. Had to promise to call him every thirty minutes with updates. I told him to call his local PD to ask to have him connected with Wyler County PD for any updates." He glanced at her as they backed down the driveway, trees looming on either side. “How about you? Was that good news?”

“Very. We’ve got a destination. One of the drones found a pod.”

"Thatisgood news. Where are we headed?"

Rachel held up her phone, the map glowing in the gathering dusk. "Fifteen minutes northeast. Looks like it’s way off the beaten path like the others.”

Novak wasted no time, pulling out of the driveway so quickly that he spit up gravel as he made his way out onto the paved road. As he drove, Rachel ran a quick social media search for Jennifer Parker. Her Instagram account popped up first. She was young…maybe twenty-five. Pretty. The kind of genuine smile that made others want to trust you.

She then went back to her map, not wanting to miss a turn. She studied the map, zooming in. The area was remote, heavily wooded. Perfect for hiding things – or people. And as the darkness continues to gather, the daylight slowly giving up the fight, that thickness of forest on her phone screens seemed more ominous than it had even just five minutes ago.

The car accelerated through the dusk, wheels humming against asphalt with his partially wrecked back-end creating a strange rattling noise. Rachel thought about Jennifer Parker, about her husband watching football, about how quickly ordinary evenings could turn into nightmares. She thought about Christopher Bradley, waiting somewhere ahead of them, playing out his twisted game while dealing with his own heartbreaking loss.

And she thought about the pods again…most notably about how easily Christopher Bradley had managed to transform them into a dark and dangerous tool.

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