Page 28

An hour later, Rachel found herself returning to yet another familiar building—not the New Horizons building again, but the small police precinct where they'd interrogated Jason Dewalt. Rachel and Novak led Richard Aldridge through the entryway doors with Rachel doing her best to pretend that her shoulder wasn’t hurting immensely.

And just like the time before, Deputy Dunphy met them at the entrance, his round face brightening with recognition.

"Agents Gift and Novak," he said, nodding to each in turn. Rachel had called ahead once again and Dunphy had been all too eager to help. "Same room as before is all yours."

"Thanks, Deputy," Rachel said. Her voice sounded hollow in her own ears, the weight of what they'd discovered pressing down on her chest.

Novak pulled the car keys from his pocket. "There's evidence in the trunk that needs processing," he told Dunphy, his tone deliberately neutral. "A lead pipe wrapped in an evidence bag. We need a forensics unit to run tests to see who the dried blood belongs to."

Dunphy's eyebrows shot up, but to his credit, he simply took the keys with a quick "No problem," he said and hurried off. A few other officers within earshot watched him go. Several others seemed to be more interested in the two federal agents and the suspect they’d brought into their quiet precinct.

Rachel watched Aldridge as they entered the interrogation room.

His composed exterior was beginning to crack.

His hands—which were surprisingly well manicured, she noted—trembled slightly as he lowered himself into the metal chair.

The room was unchanged from their earlier visit: same drab walls, same water-stained ceiling tiles, same two-way mirror reflecting their faces back at them.

The only difference was the man sitting on the other side of the table.

"Mr. Aldridge," Rachel began, settling into the chair across from him. "You've been silent since we found you in that hotel room. You refused to answer our questions on the ride over. So let's start over here, okay? Why were you hiding on the second floor with a lead pipe in your possession?"

Aldridge's jaw worked silently, but his eyes—those were speaking volumes. Rachel watched as emotions flickered across them like shadows: fear, resignation, and something deeper. Something that made her own chest tighten with recognition.

"Nothing to say?" she pressed. "Then let me tell you what Deputy Dunphy is doing right now.

He's processing that pipe you swung at me.

The one with dried blood all over it." She leaned forward slightly.

"Want to guess whose blood we'll find? Maybe it’s blood from Peter Wells? Thomas Whitman? Diana Foxworth?"

The change in Aldridge’s face was subtle but unmistakable. Aldridge's shoulders sagged by a fraction of an inch, and his carefully maintained facade cracked. A tear welled up in his right eye, then tracked slowly down his cheek. He made no move to wipe it away.

Rachel felt her throat constrict. She'd seen that look before—in her own mirror, during those dark days when her diagnosis felt like a death sentence. The desperation, the rage against fate's cruel lottery. The man looked trapped.

"We know about the cancer," she said softly, surprised by the tremor in her voice. Novak shifted beside her, probably sensing her emotional investment. He may also have been shocked at the sudden change in direction of the conversation.

But she pressed on. "Terminal diagnosis.

Pancreatic cancer, right? But what I don't understand—" She had to pause, gather herself.

"What was your endgame? Even if New Horizons had fast-tracked you, even if you'd eliminated every other client ahead of you.

.. what if they never find a cure for what is killing you?

Were you planning to just stay frozen indefinitely? "

Aldridge's composure shattered completely. More tears fell, and his hands clenched into white-knuckled fists on the table, jangling the cuff chains. When he finally spoke, his voice was raw with emotion.

"At least it would have been a chance." The words came out in a broken whisper.

"These people—these rich, entitled people—they were banking spots for some hypothetical future need.

Just throwing money down because they could.

Meanwhile, I'm dying now. " His voice rose, cracking with desperation.

" NOW ! And I…I just wanted a chance. One chance. Is that so much to ask?"

Rachel's vision blurred. The familiar smell of antiseptic cleaner, so much like a hospital, brought memories flooding back: the cold examination tables, the endless scans, the moment she'd had to tell Paige about her diagnosis.

She remembered lying awake at night, trying to imagine a world that would go on without her in it.

The knowledge that there was a very good chance she was going to die and there was nothing she could do about it.

The swelling of emotions surprised her, catching her completely off guard.

"Agent Gift?" Novak's voice seemed to come from far away.

She stood abruptly, her chair scraping against the floor. "Finish the interrogation, please," she managed, already moving toward the door. "I need a minute."

She exited the room as quickly as she could without seeming distraught.

The hallway felt too narrow, the air too thick.

Rachel found the women's restroom at the end of the hallway and darted inside.

There, she gripped the edges of the sink, staring at her reflection in the spotted mirror.

Her hands were shaking. She took one deep breath, then another, trying to center herself.

The worst part wasn't that they'd caught him. That, she knew, was a very good thing. The worst part was understanding him. Rachel had been lucky—experimental treatments, a second chance at life. But Aldridge? He would spend his remaining months in a prison cell, watching the clock run down, knowing there would be no miracle cure, no last-minute reprieve. He’d made awful decisions and deserved what he got, but she still felt sorry for him in a way she could not describe.

She splashed cold water on her face, trying to wash away the memory of his tears, of the desperate hope in his voice when he'd talked about wanting just one chance.

The water dripped from her chin, and she watched it spiral down the drain, remembering all too clearly how it felt to have your future suddenly narrowed to a vanishing point.

Back in the hallway, Rachel could hear Novak's steady voice through the interrogation room door, methodically building their case.

She should go back in. It was her job, after all.

But she needed another moment to rebuild her professional facade, to push down the empathy that threatened to overwhelm her.

Because that was the cruel irony of it all: Aldridge's desperate bid for survival had ensured he would spend his final days in a cell.

His fear of death had led him to take lives, and now both justice and karma would collect their due.

Rachel pressed her palm against the cool wall, steadying herself.

She'd beaten cancer. She'd survived. But standing here, listening to a dying man confess to murder, she felt the weight of that survival pressing down on her shoulders like a lead blanket.

Finally, she straightened her jacket and squared her shoulders.

She had a job to do. The victims deserved justice, regardless of how much she understood and sympathized with the desperation that had driven their killer.

Taking one last deep breath, she turned back toward the interrogation room, carrying her hard-won perspective like armor against the emotions that still threatened to overwhelm her.

Because sometimes survival came with a price. Sometimes it meant having to face the darker reflections of your own past, your own fears, your own desperate moments. And sometimes it meant having to be strong enough to carry empathy in that same heart, no matter how much it hurt.