CHAPTER TWELVE
Jack was beginning to regret that he’d gone to see Rachel. He’d not been naïve about it. He’d known she would want to come with him and he’d been fully prepared to allow her to come to the crime scene to have a look and offer some opinions and insights. But he’d been sure it would stop there. With the way the last case had gone and after putting in her request for a temporary leave of absence, he didn’t see why she’d want to press on any further.
So as he parked the car in front of the small suburban home of Charlie Foster, Jack had to admit it to himself: this was his fault. While he could simply put his foot down and demand that she shut up and let him take her home, he couldn’t bring himself to do it.
He was starting to realize that she needed the job. He knew she loved Paige more than anything in the world, but he also knew that in order to keep her mind sharp and sane, she needed her work. He almost pitied her for having to manage that balance in her current predicament. Yet at the same time, he knew he could be heavily reprimanded if Anderson found out she was with him.
Before opening the car door, Jack looked over to her. He could tell her mind was brimming with thoughts—maybe trying to operate that balance he’d just thought of, or maybe figuring out how to take back her request for a leave of absence without it coming off as wishy-washy and unprofessional.
“I need you to think about the logistics of this,” he said. “It’s been almost four hours and it’s getting to be night. As your partner and friend, I’m going to strongly urge you to go back home after this. We’re risking too much. Your health, my job security. You understand that Anderson would go nuclear if he knew you were with me while you’re technically on leave, right?”
“I know.”
“Besides, I’m driving. You have to go where I take you, right? And after this—after we speak with Charlie Foster—I need to take you home for both our sakes.”
He could tell that she wanted to argue but fought it. Her lips pressed together tightly as she nodded her head. “That’s fair,” she said, but it was clear that she wasn’t entirely convinced. “But would you keep me in the loop on this? I feel…I don’t know…connected? Killing these terminally sick people…it’s hitting harder than I thought.”
“I can promise to do my best to keep you up to date. How’s that?”
“So long as you keep your word.”
“Do you regret putting in for the leave of absence?”
Rachel simply gave a shrug and opened the passenger’s side door. “I don’t know just yet.”
They walked together up a thin sidewalk that led to Charlie Foster’s house. He lived on the backside of a suburb in a house that looked identical to all of the others on his block. It wasn’t an upper-tier neighborhood but the zip code meant that he was apparently doing fairly well for himself.
The small porch was clean and adorned with a porch swing. A little ashtray sat underneath the swing, indicating that Charlie was a smoker but opted not to smoke inside. There was no doorbell, so Jack knocked on the door, realizing as he stepped back that he could hear the murmuring of a television from inside.
After several seconds, the door was answered by a middle-aged woman. Her hair had been dyed partially black at some point in the recent past, but her natural blonde strands stood out. She was wearing an athletic tank top and a ratty-looking pair of sweatpants. She was also wearing a lot of makeup, especially the black eyeliner that made her eyes appear a bit too bright.
“Yeah?” she asked. “Who’re you?”
For a few seconds, Jack was speechless. He was afraid they’d somehow gotten the wrong house. Unless maybe this was Charlie Foster’s wife. But a quick glance at her left hand showed no sign of a wedding ring. It did, though, show a tattoo of a vine that wrapped around her wrist.
“We’re looking for Charlie Foster. Is this the right house?”
“Depends on who’s asking.”
Jack had been an agent long enough to know that this response was essentially a yes, an answer that typically came from people who were themselves guilty in some fashion or another.
When he moved his arm to retrieve his ID from his jacket pocket, the woman at the door instinctively took a step back. This was a woman that was flinchy and probably well acquainted with trouble in some form or another. Her left hand went back to the door, as if to close it if need be.
“We’re Agents Rivers and Gift with the FBI. We just need to speak with Charlie Foster about some developments in a case we’re looking into that could concern an organization his mother is tied to.”
He made it through the entire statement unhindered, but noticed her eyes darting to the left and her neck going stiff at the sight of his badge. It appeared as if she wanted to peer back into the house. Maybe to warn someone or to make sure someone else in the house was hearing what she was hearing. It told Jack everything he needed to know. Yes, Charlie Foster was home and no, he was not going to take a visit from the FBI lightly.
“Well, he’s not home,” the woman said.
“Oh, I see,” Jack said. “Well, how about you? Could we maybe talk to—”
He heard movement elsewhere within the house. Something that sounded like the shuffling of feet and then the sound of a door opening slowly and very intentionally. His brain was locked into work mode, thinking only of the case, and that was why he made the following comment without even thinking twice about it.
“Back door,” he said. In saying it, he was not thinking that Rachel shouldn’t even be with him right now, and he didn’t think about the fact that there was a tumor growing in her brain and slowly killing her. He didn’t think of any of that until Rachel responded as if nothing was different. She practically leapt down the porch stairs and instantly started running for the side of the house. He nearly called out for her but even if he’d decided to do so, the words would have been cut off. Because at the same time, the woman turned and ran into the house, yelling as she went.
“It’s the FBI! Move your ass!”
His first instinct was to chase the woman. But then again, the woman was not their point of interest. And if she was running into the house after he’d already heard a door slowly opening as if in secret, he knew that this was going to all end up playing out in the back yard or during a sudden foot chase.