Page 24 of Her Last Promise (Rachel Gift #19)

"One clear shot," Rachel muttered, eyes fixed on the road ahead as Novak guided the sedan through evening traffic toward Saint Mary's Hospital. Traffic was thick but manageable, thankfully not at a stand-still.

“Clear shot?” Novak asked.

“Hospital parking garages are usually equipped with security cameras. If Jessica Martinez was indeed abducted by our killer, I don’t know how security feeds would have missed it. So…one clear shot. That's all we need."

Novak nodded as he took a right at a red light. They could see the tops of some of the buildings around the hospital from where they were. Rachel's hope was that they'd at least have a clear shot of the man's face. She was, at this point, fully expecting it to be Michael Mitchell. But if she was wrong (again), they'd at least have something to go on. And it made her wonder why the killer would have done something so reckless. Was he getting more desperate to finish whatever work he had begun?

As they pulled into the hospital's main entrance, Rachel's suspicions about the increased security presence were confirmed. Two police cruisers were parked at awkward angles near the entrance, their presence drawing curious glances from hospital visitors hurrying past. A security guard sat in the small check-in booth, gesturing animatedly as he spoke with two officers. The single light inside the booth made it look as if a light from Heaven itself was shining down upon him.

"Looks like we're not the only ones with this idea," Ethan remarked as he parked their car.

Rachel was already unbuckling her seatbelt. "Good. Maybe they've already found something."

They approached the group, and Rachel noticed the guard was older than she'd expected, probably in his sixties. He wore thick glasses and a baseball cap. His weathered hands seemed to move constantly as he spoke. His name tag identified him as Walter.

As she and Novak approached the booth, one of the cops took a step toward them as if to stop them. But Novak showed his credentials and nodded his appreciation.

"Agent Novak, FBI,” he said. "And this is Agent Gift. We're here about the Jessica Martinez incident."

“Really?” the cop asked. “The feds are on this?”

“Yes,” Rachel said. “It’s very likely related to a case of multiple murders we’re currently investigating.”

From the booth, Walter nodded, his expression grim. "Well, come on over because I'm about to have a look at this footage."

“Were you not here when the incident took place?” Rachel asked.

Walter shook his head and looked genuinely sad. "Nope. I was just telling these officers – nobody mans this booth during the day shift. Nine to seven, it's all automated." He gestured to an array of screens behind him. "Come to the sensor, get your ticket, pay when you leave. Or, with the employees, wave your ID at the scanner. Anyway…we do have cameras. I've been going through the footage from the second floor where Ms. Martinez was parked."

Rachel leaned forward, her heart rate picking up. There was no room to stand in the booth—it was already crowded with Walter inside—so she and Novak poked their heads in through the opened sliding glass door.

Walter turned back to his monitors, his fingers moving across the keyboard with surprising dexterity. "I've got it queued up. Just give me a second to..."

The screen flickered, showing the stark concrete interior of the parking garage. The timestamp in the corner read 6:38 PM. Rachel held her breath as Walter advanced the footage, frame by frame. The garage seemed eerily empty, the fluorescent lights casting harsh shadows between the concrete pillars. They watched as a woman she assumed was Jessica Martinez walked by, reaching into her pocket.

"There," Walter said suddenly. "Behind that column. See him?"

Rachel's eyes locked onto the screen. A figure emerged from behind a concrete pillar, moving with deliberate purpose. The man's movements were smooth, practiced – nothing about them suggested hesitation or uncertainty. He had a goal in mind, and he would not be stopped.

The attack itself was brutally efficient. He burst from his hiding spot, closing the distance between them in seconds. Jessica's reaction was immediate—spinning away, her survival instincts kicking in with admirable speed. The struggle was brief, hardly a struggle at all, really. Rachel spotted the flash of the man’s gun, ghostlike in the security camera footage, as he shoved Jessica into the car. He kept the gun pointed at her while he opened the back seat and got in.

"Back it up," Rachel requested, her voice tight. "Right to when he first comes out from behind the pillar. Can you zoom in?"

Walter rewound the footage, then began the painstaking process of trying to capture a clear image of the attacker's face. The first attempt was too blurry, the second caught only his profile. Rachel felt her frustration mounting as they went through the footage again and again, each failed attempt adding to the weight of urgency pressing down on her.

“Sorry,” he said. “Never was too good at this stuff.”

Rachel was about to volunteer to take over when the footage came to a promising spot. “Right there!” she said.

Walter let his hands off the controls, and the footage went still. He had zoomed in on a moment just before the attack, when the man had turned slightly toward the camera. The image was grainy, but the face was unmistakable – it looked very much like Nathan Mitchell…but it was not Nathan Mitchell.

"That's our guy," Novak said from behind her.

Rachel nodded, pulling out her phone to capture the image. The face on the screen bore an uncanny resemblance to Nathan Mitchell, but Rachel knew better now. This was Michael Mitchell, the true predator they'd been hunting all this time.

Rachel snapped the image from the screen, capturing the image on her phone. The pieces were finally falling into place, but the satisfaction she usually felt at this point in a case was overshadowed by a gnawing urgency. Somewhere out there, Michael Mitchell had two people trapped, their lives literally in his hands. Every minute they spent chasing leads was another minute those victims spent helpless, trapped in their own bodies.

“Walter, you’ve done a damned good job,” she said. “Just for the sake of covering all the bases, do you think you could email that shot of the man to my email?”

“Yeah,” he said proudly. “Might take some time, but sure.”

“Thanks. Good job.”

As they left the small shed-like structure, they nodded to the officers, then hurried back to their car. The evening sky was nearly all black now, making the stripped trees along the side of the garage look positively skeletal. Rachel felt the familiar tightness in her chest that came with cases like this – when the end was in sight but still just out of reach…and the scenery wasn’t helping at all.

"We should talk to Nathan again," Novak suggested as they got back in the car. "Now that we can prove his brother isn't in France, maybe he'll be more cooperative."

Rachel considered this, turning the phone with Michael's image over in her hands. "Maybe. But I think we might get more from his Aunt Tanya. She might know something about where Michael would take his captors – old hangouts, abandoned properties, places that meant something to their mother. And I think at this point, Nathan might be done with us. And I wouldn’t blame him."

"We could call her," Novak offered, already reaching for his phone. “Save some time.”

Rachel shook her head. "Nathan's house is only fifteen minutes from here. She's still staying there, and this—" she held up her phone with the security footage image "—this will have more impact in person. People tend to be more forthcoming when they can't hide behind a phone call. This is proof, and I think it will pry up whatever information she has."

Novak nodded, though it was also one of those times Rachel almost wished he’d argue his point a bit more. Just because she had nearly eight years more experience than he did, he was always quick to just agree with whatever she suggested. Still, she could feel the shift in energy between them – the same electric anticipation that always came when a case was nearing its end. But this time, the feeling was tinged with something darker. They weren't just racing to catch a killer; they were racing to save lives at the same time.

As they pulled away from the parking garage, Rachel found herself studying the security footage image again. Michael Mitchell's face stared back at her, unremarkable yet somehow menacing. This was a man who had watched his mother suffer, who had transformed that suffering into a mission of revenge. He was clever, patient, and, worst of all, he believed in what he was doing. That made him more dangerous than a mere killer.

The streets passed by in a blur as Novak navigated them toward Nathan's house. Rachel's mind was already formulating questions for Tanya, looking for the thread that would lead them to Michael's victims. She thought about James Harrison and Jennifer Martinez, trapped somewhere with this madman, waiting for either rescue or death. The image made her hands clench involuntarily.

"We're going to find them," Novak said quietly, as if reading her thoughts.

Rachel nodded, her jaw set with determination. "Yes, we are." She looked out the window at the deepening twilight. "But I’m afraid we’re running out of time to do it."

The world outside their car had taken on the darkened hush of that odd moment between evening and night, but Rachel knew the night ahead would be anything but peaceful. Somewhere in this city, Michael Mitchell was watching over his victims, playing God with their lives just as he believed others had played God with his mother's life. Rachel's fingers tightened around her phone, the image of his face now burned into her memory. They were close – so close she could almost taste it.

But in her experience, these last steps were often the most dangerous.