Page 8

The late autumn sun cast long shadows across the dashboard as Rachel and Novak drove toward Alana Townsend's house. The weather had taken a turn, bringing with it the kind of gray skies that made 2:00 PM feel like dusk. Rachel watched the neighborhoods gradually improve through the passenger window, from working class to something a little more comfortable. She couldn't help but think about Sandra Mitchell, about how someone had lured her out into the darkness with a simple text message. The thought made her fingers curl into fists in her lap.

"It doesn't sit right," Novak said, breaking a silence that had stretched for several minutes. He was gripping the steering wheel too tightly, his knuckles white. "EndLight might not be directly involved, but they have to know something…right?”

Rachel took it all in, but her mind was elsewhere. "The booth feels secondary somehow. Like window dressing. Someone wanted Sandra Mitchell dead and found an elaborate way to do it." She watched a mother pushing a stroller along the sidewalk; it seemed like an almost eerie sight, given the things they’d seen and heard so far today.

"To make it look like suicide," Novak added. He turned onto a street called Sycamore Ridge, where cookie-cutter houses spread out before them in neat rows. "But why go through all that trouble? A simple gunshot would have been easier."

"Unless the method was part of the message," Rachel mused. "Or maybe they wanted to make absolutely sure it would look like suicide."

“But that doesn’t quite make sense,” Novak pointed out. “It goes back to the idea that someone put that pod out there…in a very strange place. We need to figure that out, too.”

Rachel nodded, starting to get the feeling that this case might just be too big for the two of them. There were too many questions…too many moving parts.

The houses in Alana's neighborhood were all variations on the same theme—two stories, brick facades, manicured lawns, and two-car garages. They had that mass-produced quality of developments built in the early 2000s, but time and individual ownership had given each one subtle characteristics. Some had garden beds. Others had bright shutters. Children's bikes lay abandoned in driveways, and Halloween decorations clung to some porches in preparation for trick-or-treaters in six days.

The Townsend house was distinguished by a red door and carefully trimmed topiary flanking the entrance. The bushes had been shaped into perfect spheres, suggesting either a professional landscaper or someone with too much time on their hands. A silver BMW sat in the driveway, its pristine condition at odds with the subtle signs of wear on the house itself—aging gutters, a few missing roof shingles, paint beginning to peel around the window frames.

Rachel's knuckles had barely left the door when it opened a crack, held in check by a security chain. A man's face appeared in the gap—early forties, clean-shaven, with the kind of tension around his eyes that suggested recent sleepless nights. His gaze darted between them, then past them to the street, as if expecting more visitors. It was clear he did not want to let them inside.

"Can I help you?" His voice was guarded, almost hostile. Rachel noticed his left hand was hidden behind the door, and she wondered if he was holding something.

Novak held up his credentials. "FBI, sir. I'm Agent Novak, this is Agent Gift. We need to speak with Alana Townsend."

The chain scraped against metal as Mike Townsend reluctantly undid it, the sound sharp and grating in the quiet afternoon air. The interior of the house revealed itself gradually: hardwood floors that had seen better days, walls painted in safe beiges and grays, furniture that was chosen for comfort over style but still managed to look presentable. A large sectional dominated the living room, facing a mounted flatscreen TV. Family photos lined the walls—happy moments frozen in time, featuring Mike, Alana, and two young children who weren't currently present.

The house smelled of lemon cleaning products and fresh coffee, but underneath there was a tension that seemed to permeate everything. A half-eaten sandwich sat abandoned on the coffee table, and a laptop was open but dark on the kitchen counter. Signs of a normal day interrupted. It made Rachel think of her own interrupted Saturday—Monopoly board and all.

"Alana," Mike called out, his voice tight. "The FBI is here." He stood aside to let them in, but positioned himself between them and the hallway leading deeper into the house. Rachel noted the protective stance, the way his shoulders remained rigid.

As they made their way into the house, Rachel heard small footsteps running around somewhere upstairs. One of the Townsend children, she assumed.

Alana emerged from what appeared to be a home office, her face pale and drawn. She appeared to be in her mid-thirties, wearing business casual clothes that suggested she'd been working from home on a Saturday. Her hands were visibly shaking as she gestured for them to sit. Dark circles under her eyes matched her husband's, and she kept glancing at her phone as if expecting bad news.

"Mrs. Townsend," Rachel began, settling onto the edge of the sectional, "we need to ask you about a text message sent to Sandra Mitchell last night."

"What text messages?" The words came out sharp, defensive. Alana's right hand clutched at her collar, a nervous gesture that drew attention to a simple gold necklace.

“Please don’t play dumb,” Rachel said. “If you have no idea why I’m talking about, why have you not been answering your phone. The local police have tried calling, as did I.”

“I…I have my reasons.”

“Good,” Rachel said. “Now explain them.”

“How about you lighten up?” her husband said, trying to put some bass in his voice but failing.

“Fine,” Rachel said. “Let’s start over. You are aware, correct, that Sandra Mitchell was killed last night?”

“Yes,” Alana said, her bottom lip trembling.

“Okay. Well, local PD managed to unlock her phone. And on her phone, there was a text message she received last night that told her to go to the location where she was killed. That text came from you. Or…your phone, at least.”

"That's impossible." Alana's voice cracked. She fumbled in her pocket and produced her phone, fingers trembling as she unlocked it. "I never sent her any messages that night. Look—you can check. I've had my phone with me the whole time." She thrust the device toward Rachel, nearly dropping it in her haste.

Rachel leaned forward, studying Alana's face more than the phone she was frantically scrolling through. The woman’s hands were shaking and her fear was genuine, but there was something else there too—guilt, perhaps? But Rachel could see that there were indeed no texts to Sandra last night. The last text she’d sent Sandra had been two days ago, and it had been a gif of a tired, cartoon cat.

She could have simply deleted the text, Rachel thought. Or I suppose her phone could have been hacked remotely…

"Okay…so then tell me this,” Rachel said. “Why would Sandra believe a text asking her to meet you in such a remote location at night?"

Alana's eyes darted to her husband, who had taken up a protective stance behind her chair. She seemed to be weighing something in her mind, and Rachel could almost see the moment the decision was made. The woman's shoulders slumped slightly, as if surrendering to inevitability.

"We found something," she said quietly. "At work. Carson Industries—they're one of our biggest clients. The numbers... they didn't add up. Sandra was the one who noticed it first." She swallowed hard. "We've been meeting in private to discuss it. Large-scale embezzlement, cooking the books. Millions of dollars. It was really big, and we had no idea how to properly approach it…no idea where to go or what to do. If she got that text…maybe she thought I wanted to meet here there to talk about something new? I…God, I don't know…"

Mike's hand found her shoulder, squeezing gently. The gesture seemed to give her strength to continue.

"It started small," Alana went on, her voice barely above a whisper. "Discrepancies that could have been clerical errors. But Sandra kept digging. She was always thorough, always..." Her voice caught. "She found a pattern. Money being moved through shell companies, fake vendors, inflated expenses. All the hallmarks of systematic fraud."

"You were going to report it?" Novak asked.

Alana nodded, then seemed to collapse in on herself slightly. "I was getting scared. The amounts we were finding... people kill for less. Sandra wanted to move forward, but I..." She pressed her hands to her face. "And now she's dead. Oh God, she's dead."

Rachel gave the woman time to collect her thoughts and her breath before going on. “Alana, I wonder…have you ever heard of EndLight before?" Rachel asked, watching carefully for any reaction.

"No," Alana said, dropping her hands. Her mascara had smudged slightly, leaving dark smears under her eyes. "I mean…not until today. Not until I saw the news this morning. Those... those suicide pods? Is that really how—" She couldn't finish the sentence.

Mike spoke up for the first time since letting them in. "We've got kids. Upstairs, playing. Should we be worried?" His hand hadn't left Alana's shoulder, and Rachel noticed how his fingers tightened protectively.

It took Rachel a moment to process the question. But then she realized that Mike and Alana had come to the conclusion that Sandra had died as a result of whatever financial fraud they’d stumbled across. He saw no reason why they might not be next.

Rachel and Novak exchanged a look. "We'll speak with local PD and have a patrol car drive by regularly," Novak assured them. "And Mrs. Townsend, we'd like you to forward any unusual messages or calls directly to us. Right away."

She nodded as Novak handed over a business card.

“But we do need to ask one last time,” Rachel said. “You’re certain Alana wasn’t acting out of sorts these last few days?”

“No. Just…just sacred about what we’d found.”

Rachel nodded, but she was wondering if a woman who had been suicidal roughly two years ago could have been pushed by enough stress to try ending her life again. It was a theory that she thought had some wheels to it, but it all came back to how Sandra had been directed out to the woods to that pod. And, of course, it raised the even bigger question of how the pod had gotten there in the first place.

“Thank you,” Rachel said. “Please let us know if anything else comes to you.”

They left the house under the weight of the Townsends' fear. The afternoon had grown older, the weak sunlight failing to warm the chilly air. Houses cast long shadows across their perfect lawns, and somewhere a dog barked, the sound echoing off vinyl siding and brick facades.

Rachel checked her watch: 2:57 PM. The day was slipping away faster than she'd like.

"Carson Industries," Novak said as they reached the car. It wasn't a question.

Rachel nodded, already pulling out her phone to look up the address. "Someone there knows something. Sandra Mitchell didn't just stumble onto fraud and then coincidentally end up dead in a suicide pod." She paused, considering the Townsends' fear. "We should put a tail on Alana. If someone's cleaning house..."

As they pulled away from the curb, Rachel noticed Alana watching from behind her living room curtains, Mike's silhouette visible behind her. They looked like prisoners in their own home, waiting for the other shoe to drop. The curtain fell back into place as they drove past, hiding the frightened couple from view.