Chapter 7 - The Man Andrew Trusted Most
Andrew moved without thinking.
He stepped in front of Rachel.
Marcus raised the gun.
“Don’t.”
Andrew stopped.
Detective Ortiz’s hand hovered near her holster.
Marcus noticed.
“If you pull it, Rachel dies first.”
Ortiz froze.
Julian began shaking in the hospital bed.
“You idiot.”
Marcus glanced at him.
“You should have kept driving.”
Andrew stared at the man who had protected his family for seven years.
Marcus had driven Evan to kindergarten.
Carried Ben into the house after he fell asleep at baseball games.
Stood beside Andrew at Rachel’s funeral.
And Marcus was Samuel Hale’s son.
“How?” Andrew whispered.
Marcus’s expression barely changed.
“My mother’s name was Reed.”
“Victoria knows?”
“She has always known.”
Rachel stood behind Andrew.
“You were at the house.”
Marcus looked at her.
“Yes.”
Memory flashed across Rachel’s face.
A man near an ambulance.
Younger.
Without a beard.
But the eyes were the same.
“You carried me.”
Marcus nodded.
“From the snow to Cynthia’s ambulance.”
Andrew’s fists clenched.
“You helped kidnap my wife.”
“I kept my father from killing her.”
“You want credit?”
“No.”
“Good.”
Marcus almost smiled.
“I’m past needing forgiveness.”
Ortiz spoke calmly.
“Marcus, there are officers outside.”
“I know.”
“You won’t leave this building.”
“We’ll see.”
He backed toward the door.
“Rachel comes with me.”
Andrew shook his head.
“No.”
Marcus pointed the gun at his chest.
“That isn’t a negotiation.”
Rachel stepped around Andrew.
“I’ll go.”
“No.”
She looked at him.
“My sons need one parent who isn’t being threatened with a gun.”
Marcus gestured.
“Smart.”
Andrew grabbed Rachel’s arm.
She whispered, “Trust me.”
Those two words stopped him.
Trust had destroyed them once.
Maybe now it could save them.
Rachel walked toward Marcus.
He pulled her against him and pressed the gun near her ribs.
They moved into the corridor.
Officers backed away.
Marcus had prepared.
A fire alarm sounded.
Sprinklers erupted.
Patients screamed.
Staff poured from rooms.
In the chaos, Marcus dragged Rachel toward a service stairwell.
Andrew followed until Ortiz caught him.
“You’ll get her killed.”
“He’s taking my wife.”
“I know.”
Andrew tore free.
“Then move.”
Security cameras tracked Marcus into the basement.
Then went dark.
He had inside knowledge of emergency systems because Calloway Security had consulted on the hospital’s renovations.
Every piece fit.
Marcus had not merely entered Andrew’s life.
He had positioned himself there.
Rachel was forced into an ambulance bay.
A black SUV waited.
The driver was Victoria.
Rachel saw her through the windshield.
Something inside her became calm.
Three years of fear condensed into one clear thought.
Not again.
Marcus opened the rear door.
Rachel stumbled deliberately.
His grip loosened.
She slammed her elbow into his injured ribs.
Marcus cursed.
Rachel ran.
Victoria accelerated toward her.
Rachel jumped behind a concrete pillar.
The SUV clipped a cart and crashed into a parked ambulance.
Airbags exploded.
Marcus grabbed Rachel’s hair.
She twisted.
A gunshot echoed.
Marcus dropped.
Detective Ortiz stood near the stairwell, weapon raised.
The bullet had struck Marcus’s shoulder.
Andrew reached Rachel.
He pulled her against him.
This time she did not recoil.
She buried her face in his chest and shook.
Police surrounded Victoria’s SUV.
She was bleeding from the nose but conscious.
When officers dragged her out, she looked directly at Rachel.
“You ruined everything.”
Rachel stared.
“No.”
She finally understood.
“You did.”
Victoria screamed as officers cuffed her.
“You think he wants you back?”
Andrew stiffened.
Victoria laughed.
“He loved me.”
Rachel’s face did not change.
Victoria continued.
“He was going to marry me.”
Andrew started forward.
Rachel touched his arm.
“Don’t.”
Victoria smiled cruelly.
“You can’t erase three years, Rachel.”
Rachel nodded.
“No.”
The smile faltered.
“I don’t intend to.”
That answer hurt Victoria more than anger would have.
Police arrested Marcus.
Victoria was detained on attempted kidnapping, conspiracy and obstruction charges while investigators built the older case.
But the worst discovery came hours later.
Marcus had not stolen the Grand Central evidence.
He had arranged for Victoria to retrieve it.
And the records were now missing.
Victoria refused to reveal their location.
“I want a deal,” she told prosecutors.
Rachel laughed when Ortiz relayed that.
“She always wants leverage.”
Andrew sat beside Rachel in a police interview room.
Evan and Ben were safe with Andrew’s sister.
“What happens now?” he asked.
Ortiz answered.
“We build the case.”
“With what?”
“We have Rachel.”
Rachel looked up.
“You’re evidence.”
Ortiz immediately corrected herself.
“You’re a witness. A very important one.”
Rachel nodded.
“There’s Cynthia.”
“Also cooperating.”
“Julian.”
“If he survives his injuries and continues cooperating.”
“Charles?”
Andrew’s expression hardened at his father’s name.
Ortiz nodded.
“Your father’s cover-up makes him a potential defendant and witness.”
Andrew leaned back.
Every person who had surrounded him after Rachel’s death was now either a suspect, witness, victim or conspirator.
Ortiz continued.
“There is another issue.”
“What?”
“The body in Rachel’s grave.”
Danielle Price.
The woman Samuel Hale had substituted.
Her family had believed Danielle disappeared after relapsing into drug use.
She had a mother in Pennsylvania.
A sister.
A son.
Rachel looked sick.
“We have to tell them.”
“Yes.”
Andrew took her hand.
Rachel let him.
The police exhumed the grave two days later.
Andrew stood at the cemetery with Rachel.
They watched from a distance.
The February wind moved through bare trees.
Rachel stared at the headstone.
RACHEL ELIZABETH CALLOWAY
BELOVED WIFE AND MOTHER
Seeing her own grave nearly broke her.
“I came here every Sunday,” Andrew said.
Rachel looked at him.
“For how long?”
“Two years.”
“Every Sunday?”
“Usually.”
“What did you say?”
Andrew gave a weak smile.
“Mostly complained.”
She almost laughed.
“About the boys?”
“Constantly.”
“Evan’s stubborn.”
“Like you.”
“Ben?”
“Like me.”
“That seems unfortunate.”
Andrew laughed.
The sound felt strange in a cemetery.
Rachel looked at the headstone again.
“Did Victoria come?”
“Sometimes.”
Rachel nodded.
Andrew heard the question she was not asking.
“Nothing ever happened here.”
She turned.
“What?”
“With Victoria. Not at your grave. Not in our house while I was still—”
“Andrew.”
“I need you to know.”
Rachel looked at him carefully.
“You don’t owe me a defense.”
“I feel like I do.”
“You thought I was dead.”
“I still feel guilty.”
“That is yours to work through.”
He nodded.
She was right.
Again.
Workers lifted the coffin.
Rachel gripped Andrew’s hand.
He squeezed back.
“This woman deserves her name,” Rachel whispered.
Danielle Price had been buried beneath someone else’s.
Just as Rachel had lived beneath Mara Lewis.
The symmetry was cruel.
Three days later, DNA confirmed the body belonged to Danielle.
Her mother came to New York.
Rachel asked to meet her privately.
The woman was named Linda Price.
Sixty-four.
Small.
Tired.
She entered the room carrying a photograph of Danielle at seventeen.
Rachel immediately began crying.
“I’m sorry.”
Linda looked at her.
“For what?”
“She was buried under my name.”
“You didn’t put her there.”
“I lived.”
Linda’s eyes filled.
“So should she have.”
Rachel nodded.
The two women held each other.
Andrew watched through a glass door and understood something.
Rachel had returned.
But she was not returning to the life that had existed three years ago.
That life was gone.
Everyone had been changed by the years between.
Later that night, Rachel tucked Evan and Ben into bed.
Ben asked the question nobody else had dared.
“Are you going away again?”
Rachel sat between them.
“No one can promise never.”
His face fell.
She touched his cheek.
“But I can promise something else.”
“What?”
“If I have to leave, you’ll know where I am.”
Evan asked, “Are you Mommy or Mara?”
Rachel smiled sadly.
“Both, I think.”
“Can we call you Mommy?”
“If you want.”
They did.
After they slept, Rachel stepped into the hallway.
Andrew was waiting.
Not intentionally.
He had been unable to go downstairs.
“They’re afraid,” she said.
“So am I.”
Rachel leaned against the wall.
“What happens to us?”
Andrew knew what she meant.
He could have said he loved her.
He did.
But love was no longer enough to answer complicated questions.
So he told the truth.
“I don’t know.”
Rachel nodded.
“Good.”
“Good?”
“I’m tired of people pretending they know what my life is supposed to be.”
Andrew smiled.
“Then we can not know together.”
For a moment, she smiled too.
Then every light in the mansion went out.
Andrew reached for Rachel.
The emergency generator did not activate.
His phone vibrated.
A security alert appeared.
SYSTEM OVERRIDE — REMOTE ACCESS.
Andrew’s blood went cold.
Marcus was in custody.
Victoria was in custody.
Julian was under guard.
Whoever had entered the system was someone else.
Upstairs, Ben screamed.
Andrew and Rachel ran.
They reached the boys’ room.
Empty.
The window stood open.
On Evan’s pillow lay one thing.
Rachel’s wedding ring.
And beneath it, a note:
May you like
YOU REMEMBERED THE FIRE.
NOW REMEMBER THE LAKE.
