CHAPTER FIVE
The following day, Thursday, Paige Gift went back to school. She’d made the request without any prompting, though Rachel had offered her to take the rest of the week off. It was all guesswork, really. After all, how was she supposed to be able to predict how such a young child would handle the news that her mother would be dead in about a year? She figured it might be good for Paige to try to keep a sense of normalcy, so if she wanted to go back to school, who was she to question it?
So with Paige at school and Grandma Tate still occupying the guest bedroom, Rachel did her best to keep herself busy. She tidied up the living room. She dusted and vacuumed. The banal activities felt almost cathartic. Sure, there was a tumor in her brain but that didn’t mean the dust was going to stop settling in around the house or that Paige was going to stop leaving her homemade slime and little bottles of glitter all around the house.
The act of cleaning was also something she’d often used in the past to focus her mind. As she swept and scrubbed, she thought of her two-week leave of absence and how it might affect the little bit of career time she had remaining. Was there really even any sense in going back? Beyond that, what about the Alex Lynch case? Was she supposed to be expected to just sit back and happily let someone else, some entire other arm of the government, track him down? She knew it seemed beyond conceited, but she felt that given her history with Lynch, she should have been the clear choice to lead the effort to hunt the man down.
She was vacuuming the carpet on the stairs when Grandma Tate appeared at the top of the stairway. She peered down with a look of grave concern, causing Rachel to shut the vacuum off.
“Something wrong?” Rachel asked.
“I just want to make sure you’re not pushing yourself too hard.”
Rachel bit back the sour reply that instantly came to her tongue—a reply about how Grandma Tate was being far too overbearing. Instead, she tried to keep things as pleasant but as firm as she could without causing a rift between them.
“I was working an active case as an FBI agent two weeks ago,” she said. “I think vacuuming the stairs is going to be okay.”
Grandma Tate furrowed her brow and sighed. “Don’t forget who you’re talking to, Rachel. I’ve been in your shoes. Hell, some days I feel like I still am. I know how it sneaks up on you. I’m just trying to watch out for you.”
“I know you are.”
And she did know how the wear and tear of her situation could sneak up on her. She’d experienced the blackouts, the thinning of her vision. She’d even crashed a car during the last case because of a moment of dizziness and confusion.
Still, there was something about Grandma Tate’s watchful eye that was pissing her off. There was no sense in denying it. She did not regret having Grandma Tate come to stay with her and Paige, but it was starting to wear on her nerves.
“Tell you what,” Rachel said. “I’m going to finish the stairs, make a little lunch, and maybe try to take a nap. Sound good?”
Her grandmother seemed to be confused on whether or not she was being made fun of but ended up nodding her head. She came down the stairs, sidestepping the vacuum cleaner. “I’ll throw some lunch together. What do you want?”
Rachel waited to roll her eyes until Grandma Tate was behind her. And knowing that it was useless to argue, she said: “Just a ham and cheese sandwich, please.”
She then turned the vacuum cleaner back on and finished the stairs. When she was done, she put the vacuum away and found her sandwich on the kitchen table, with a Granny Smith apple beside the plate. As for Grandma Tate, it seemed that she had walked out onto the back porch with her book of crossword puzzles. Rachel considered joining her just to catch a bit of sun, but decided against it. The nap she’d mentioned just to get her grandmother off of her back was starting to sound good. She didn’t feel tired but she also knew she’d probably be able to doze off for a quick hour-long nap if she closed the door and turned the noisemaker on.
She sat down at the table with her sandwich and began to wonder if she’d made a mistake by being so unflinching with Anderson. What if she changed her mind next week and went back to him only to find that he’d taken offense to the way she’d reacted?
Really, in the grand scheme of things, she wasn’t sure if it mattered. She had a very brief amount of time where she’d actually have to be concerned about what Anderson thought of her. It also made her wonder if she should just come clean with him, too. Everyone else close to her knew about her diagnosis so it was only a matter of time before he heard it, too.
She was roughly halfway through her sandwich when the doorbell rang. It was an odd sound to her, as it was rarely ever used. She wondered if it might be Peter, but could not think of a reason why he might come by in the middle of the day. Her thoughts then turned to Alex Lynch but she found it highly illogical that he’d be so bold as to come to her house—much less use the doorbell.
Still, she simply looked in the direction of the living room for several moments before getting up from the table. She decided to go ahead and answer the doorbell because if she didn’t, another ring or two and there was a chance Grandma Tate would hear it and come rushing in to make sure she wasn’t over-extending herself by answering the door. She left the remainder of her sandwich on the table, walked across the living room, and answered the door.
The person on the other side was not Peter or Lynch, but someone just as familiar as both. It was Jack, offering her a vague smile.
“Jack, how are you?” she said. At first, she was pleased to see him but then she remembered that she’d purposefully not told him about her decision to take a leave of absence if she could not get on the Lynch case. For all she knew, Jack might very well be pissed at her.
“I’m good, I suppose,” he said.
“You mad at me?”
“Mad? No. But I’m a little concerned, and…well, can I just come in?”
“Of course.” She opened the door and waved him in, closing the door behind him. She led him into the kitchen and sat back down to her sandwich. “Have you had lunch?”
“No, actually.”
“There’s leftover lasagna in the fridge if you’d like some. There’s some tuna salad my grandmother made, too.”
“I’ll take you up on the tuna,” he said.