CHAPTER ONE

Rachel lingered in the doorway, the ghost of lavender and mothballs teasing her senses. The room itself seemed surreal, like something that had no business being a part of her home anymore.

Grandma Tate's guest room lay untouched since the day she'd died, a shrine to memories and unspoken words. The quilt she had stitched by hand was draped over the rocking chair, and Rachel could almost hear the creak of its rhythm, a lullaby now silenced. Six weeks—a blink, an eternity—and the killer still breathed free air.

Her heart sat heavy with grief, a stone dipped in sorrow, but it was the searing trail of anger that kept Rachel standing. Anger toward Alice Denbrough, the face that now haunted Rachel's waking hours and kept her awake at night, staring at the ceiling with cold, hard plans for revenge. The woman's face was burned into her mind: sharp cheekbones, cold eyes—a predator's gaze. On that fateful day, the doorbell camera had captured pieces of Alice's attempt to steal Paige away from her; instead, she had taken Grandma Tate's life in an act that had been both cowardly and unpredictable.

"Grandma," Rachel murmured, her voice a fractured whisper. "I'm so sorry."

She'd spoken those words into the room countless times. She should have been here, at the house, when Alice had arrived. She knew it had all been beyond her control, but guilt and anger cared nothing about such logic.

In the weeks that followed, Rachel had used basic online searches as well as the FBI's criminal database, scrolling through endless case files, public records, and social media accounts. Each click was a hope and each dead end was a frustration mounting like a storm within her chest. Alice Denbrough's name was nowhere to be found. The only way she'd been identified was because of the facial recognition software used by the bureau.

Rachel had gotten adept at that sort of thing because, following Grandma Tate's death and her last batch of experimental cancer treatments, Director Anderson had placed her on desk work only. She understood it and even respected the decision, but it was still infuriating. Her personal connection to the case combined with her recent barrage of cancer treatments had rendered her sidelined—relegated to paperwork while Alice roamed free.

It was a safety measure, they said. But to Rachel, it was a cage.

The injustice of it all had only added to the growing anger she felt. They might as well have asked her to stop breathing. She'd contemplated handing in her badge more than once, imagining the look on Anderson's face. But quitting would mean giving up, and Rachel wasn't about to do that. It wouldn't be what Grandma Tate wanted and it wasn't the kind of example she wanted to set for Paige.

From her rounds of desk work, she'd compiled a simple bio of sorts without Director Anderson's knowledge, one that she recited sometimes when she felt that the case was going to get away from her: Alice Denbrough, age forty-nine. No kids, and divorced once. Her last known physical address had been in Afton, Virginia. But Director Anderson had sent a team to that address only to find it long ago abandoned. In other words, the woman who had tried taking Paige and had killed Grandma Tate was essentially a ghost. A phantom.

The images from the doorbell footage were clear as daylight in her mind. Rachel had memorized every line of her face, every moment of that footage. Yet, as the search engine returned another round of nothing, Rachel's pulse thrummed with a familiar blend of desperation and resolve.

She stared into the room, as if willing it to tell some secrets, when laughter bubbled up from downstairs. It was the sound of healing, of life moving forward despite the gaping hole left in their home. Rachel's breath caught at the realization that Paige's laughter had returned. Rachel hadn't heard that sound since the day Alice Denbrough had shattered their world.

Stepping away from the threshold of memories, Rachel moved towards the staircase, letting the sound of her daughter's laughter guide her down. At the foot of the stairs, she lingered, watching Jack and Paige huddled on the couch playing a video game together.

"Gotcha!" Paige exclaimed, triumphant as her character on-screen landed a decisive blow.

"Hey, not fair! You've been practicing without me," Jack said, feigning protest.

Rachel stepped into the living room, her lips curving into a half-smile at the sight. Paige just barely saw her out of the corner of her eye.

"Mom! Come play with us," Paige beckoned, pausing the game. "I need some competition."

"Hey, that's low!" Jack chuckled.

"Maybe later, sweetheart," Rachel replied, her voice tinged with a warmth she didn't entirely feel.

"Looks like someone's not ready for our dinner date," Jack teased, glancing up at Rachel with a playful smirk. "Reservation's in what, an hour and a half?" he added, checking his watch with exaggerated concern.

"Guess I'll have to dazzle you both with my superhuman ability to get ready in record time," Rachel quipped back, though the thought of sitting through dinner in a crowded restaurant made her stomach turn. But they needed to do it. Even Paige was looking forward to this little pre-family dinner date, and she usually loathed going out to eat at restaurants.

"Record time? So, like, maybe an hour," Jack countered with a chuckle, nudging Paige gently.

"Ha-ha, very funny," Rachel shot back, the corners of her mouth twitching involuntarily into a genuine smile. This was their life now—a patchwork of moments stitched together by resilience and the stubborn refusal to remain heartbroken. That, and a bit of well-placed sarcasm.

"Alright, you two, keep the couch warm for me," Rachel said. "I'll be back before you can say 'fashionably late.'"

The climb back up felt heavier than before, each step a reminder of the weight she carried—the weight of a loss that she had kept contained and had, somehow, hardened into rage. But for now, she would shelve the anger; she'd don the mask of normalcy and pretend, if only for an evening, that she was as close to healing as Jack and Paige were.

In her bedroom, the mundane task of getting dressed couldn't distract her from the maelstrom of thoughts swirling in her head. Alex Lynch, the cunning serial killer who had haunted her dreams and waking hours for so long, had snatched away Peter, in a nightmarish echo of violence and loss. Now, the face of Alice Denbrough, as clear in her mind as if she was standing right before her, reignited that all-too-familiar blaze of vengeance within her.

She picked out a skirt, laying it on the bed with mechanical precision. The entire ordeal felt like a grotesque mirage of her past—a cycle of hunting and heartbreak that refused to end. She could almost feel Alex's sinister presence lurking in the shadows of her memory, his legacy now embodied by Alice. Rachel knew this hunger for justice was bordering on obsession, but that was fine with her. She'd lived with cancer in her body for over a year. Surely an all-consuming anger couldn't be as bad as that, right?

In the mirror, Rachel caught a glimpse of herself, but it wasn't just her reflection staring back. It was the embodiment of every case, every chase, every life she'd touched as an agent. With a resolute breath, she snatched her favorite perfume from the dresser, spritzing it into the air and stepping through the fragrant mist.

She headed back downstairs, the heels of her shoes clicking sharply against the wood. The sound of more laughter from downstairs seemed foreign, too light against the weight of her emotions.

"Jack, no cheating!" Paige's voice was a melody Rachel hadn't heard in six weeks. The kid in her voice was coming back, edged with actual, authentic joy.

"Who, me? Never!" Jack's reply was playful, but his eyes met Rachel's with a silent understanding as she entered the room. They knew the roles they were supposed to play, the pretend game where everything was alright, even when the world had tilted off its axis.

"Okay, you two," Rachel said. "What's the hold up?"

She watched as Jack hit pause on the game console, Paige bouncing up in frustration. Clearly, she'd been winning and wasn't ready to close out the game. Still, they turned off the television and gathered their things—a scene so domestic that Rachel found herself aching for the wedding in two weeks.

The wedding—her wedding to Jack—loomed like a lighthouse in a storm. A date that should have been circled with joy was now shaded with the gray of mourning. Grandma Tate should have been there, her laughter mingling with the clinking of glasses, her wisdom imparting strength. Instead, Rachel wore her absence like a shroud, heavy and suffocating.

They stepped out into the cooling evening, the sky painted in strokes of pink and orange. As they climbed into the car, it was yet another moment of total domestic normalcy. She'd felt this with Peter in the past but thought she'd lost it forever. Catching whispers of it again, as if promising what was to come with Jack was encouraging.

"Mom, are we going to the place with the chocolate lava cakes?"In the rearview mirror, Paige's smile was beaming, the smile she used when she was trying to get her way.

"Absolutely," she answered, the word hollow, yet spoken with feigned enthusiasm.

Jack smiled and started the car. As he pulled out of the driveway, Rachel stared out the window and wondered if Jack was sensing the new, lurking anger in her. More than that, she wondered if it would ever go away.

Of course it will , she thought to herself. It will go away just as soon as Alice Denbrough is in a prison cell…or six feet deep in the ground.