Page 27 of Her Last Warning (Rachel Gift #21)
The hardwood floor beneath Rachel's knees had grown warm from her body heat as she maintained her vigil over David Shook.
His chest rose and fell in an uneven rhythm, each breath accompanied by a slight wheeze that made her wince.
Purple bruises were already blooming across his neck like watercolors bleeding into paper, telling the story of how close he'd come to becoming the Reynolds' fourth victim.
"Stay with me, David," she murmured for what felt like the twentieth time, though she wasn't sure he could hear her. His eyelids fluttered occasionally, consciousness coming and going like a weak radio signal. Each time his eyes opened, they held the same confused panic, darting around the room before sliding shut again. Rachel was no medical examiner but she was quite sure his report would include things like partial crushing of the larynx, severe bruising to the trachea, and micro-fractures in the hyoid bone. She’d seen more than her fair share of similar attacks and knew how the playbook went.
Through the windows, red and blue lights began to strobe across the walls, casting strange shadows that made the crime scene feel somehow both more and less real.
The lights caught the silver threads in Michael Reynolds' hair as he lay subdued under Novak's steady grip, no longer fighting but reduced to quiet sobs that seemed to come from somewhere deep inside him.
Nelson and his partner were checking the rest of the house, looking for any clues or indicators that might help to provide further evidence to nail the Reynolds’…
not that anything else would really be needed.
Even if Michael turned out to be difficult, Linda had seemed more than happy to admit to their crimes back in the interrogation room.
The change in Reynolds was immediate when the sound of approaching ambulance sirens penetrated the house.
His head lifted slightly from the floor, eyes suddenly alert despite the tears that continued to track down his face.
"Is Linda okay?" The question came out raw, desperate.
"Will you... will you take me to Linda?"
Rachel felt something twist inside her chest. The evil this man and his wife had perpetrated was undeniable – three lives snuffed out in some twisted attempt to balance the cosmic scales.
And yet... She knew the peculiar madness of loss, how it could reshape a person's entire world until they barely recognized themselves. The Reynolds’ had watched their daughter Emma pulled back from the brink of death by medical miracle, only to lose her to random violence hours later.
Rachel could trace the crooked line from that moment to this one, could see how grief might curdle into something darker than darkness itself.
"Please," Reynolds whispered, his voice cracking. "She's all I have left. She's all I—" His words dissolved into fresh tears.
To her horror, Rachel felt tears pressing against the backs of her eyes.
Not here, she thought fiercely. Not now.
FBI agents didn't cry at crime scenes. She blinked hard, focusing on the sound of car doors slamming outside.
She thought of Paige, safe at home, probably sprawled on her bed doing homework or texting friends.
Maybe watching TV with Jack by now. How many times had Rachel come close to leaving her daughter motherless?
How many times had fate rolled the dice and somehow come up in her favor?
The front door opened with a creak that seemed thunderous in the tension-filled house; it hadn’t been shutting normally ever since Novak had kicked it in.
Two officers entered – a tall male officer with salt-and-pepper hair and a shorter female officer whose movements spoke of years of experience.
They swept the room with practiced efficiency, taking in Novak restraining Reynolds, Rachel kneeling beside the semi-conscious victim, the signs of struggle evident in the overturned furniture.
"Officers Martinez and Reeves," the female officer announced, moving toward Rachel and Shook. "Ambulance is right behind us. Saw them turning onto Park as we came up." Her voice was steady, professional, but held an undercurrent of gentleness that made Rachel's throat tighten further.
Officer Reeves moved to assist Novak with Reynolds. "You want to tell me what happened here, sir?" he asked, though it was clear from his tone he already had a good idea. He was simply trying to find what he could do to help.
Reynolds just shook his head, still crying. "Emma," he whispered. "My Emma."
In the distance, the wail of the ambulance grew louder, a countdown to the moment when this case would pass from their hands to others'. Rachel watched Shook's face twitch at the sound. His eyes opened again, clearer this time.
"You're safe now," Rachel told him softly. "Help is here."
His lips moved, trying to form words, but only a painful rasping sound emerged. Rachel placed a gentle hand on his shoulder. "Don't try to talk,” Rachel told him. “Just focus on breathing."
She caught Martinez watching her with knowing eyes.
"We can take it from here if you need to move," the officer said quietly.
Rachel nodded, suddenly desperate to escape the weight of that understanding gaze.
"Can you...?" She gestured to Shook, embarrassed by the slight tremor in her voice.
“Sit with him for just a second, please?”
Martinez smoothly took her place beside the victim as Rachel pushed herself to her feet, her knees protesting the long minutes spent on the hard floor.
She caught Novak's concerned glance as she headed for the hallway but couldn't bring herself to acknowledge it.
The bathroom had to be this way – these older homes all followed similar layouts.
She found it at the end of the hall, a small powder room with pale blue walls.
The face that looked back at her from the mirror above the sink was a stranger's: pale, drawn, with something wild lurking behind the eyes.
A storm of emotion—too many conflicting, rampant feelings.
Rachel gripped the edge of the sink and forced herself to take deep breaths.
It made sense that Director Anderson had assigned her this case.
Who better to understand the miracle of unexpected survival than someone who had walked that path herself?
But she hadn't anticipated how it would affect her, seeing these lives destroyed not by illness but by the inability to reconcile with fate's cruel randomness.
The Reynolds’ had lost their daughter twice – first to a diagnosis that proved false, then to violence that proved final.
In their grief-warped minds, anyone who survived when Emma hadn't was an affront to the natural order of things.
Rachel understood that kind of thinking all too well, remembered lying in her hospital bed during the worst days of her cancer treatment, wondering why some lived while others died, searching for patterns in chaos.
She thought of Peter, taken from her by Alex Lynch’s cruel vendetta.
She thought of Grandma Tate, who died protecting Paige.
How close had she come to following the same path as the Reynolds, letting grief twist her into something unrecognizable?
There had been moments, in the depths of her illness and loss, when she'd felt that same rage at the unfairness of it all, that same desire to make sense of senseless tragedy.
But understanding didn't equal acceptance. The Reynolds’ had murdered three people – Marcy Connors, Robert Hayes, Michelle Lester – all of them just beginning to embrace their second chances at life.
They'd tried to kill David Shook, whose only crime was surviving against the odds.
Every victim had family who loved them, dreams they'd thought they'd finally get to pursue, futures that had been violently stolen.
From the hallway, she could hear the arrival of the ambulance, the controlled chaos of paramedics entering the scene. "Through here," Martinez's voice directed. "Partial strangulation, periods of consciousness and unconsciousness…."
"BP's one-forty over ninety," a new voice reported. "Pulse is ninety-three percent."
"Sir? Can you hear me? Can you squeeze my hand?"
Rachel splashed cold water on her face, watching droplets fall back into the pristine white sink. This should feel like a victory. They'd caught the killers, prevented a fourth death, brought an end to the string of murders. So why did it feel like she had lost?
Because some wounds couldn't be healed, she realized.
Some losses couldn't be avenged or balanced or made right.
The Reynolds would spend the rest of their lives in prison, but it wouldn't bring Emma back.
David Shook would recover, but he'd never again feel completely safe in his own home.
And Rachel... Rachel would add this case to the weight she carried, another reminder that survival wasn't always the gift it was supposed to be.
She heard a knock at the bathroom door. "Gift?" Novak's voice, concerned but professional. "They're about to transport Shook. Reynolds is secured. You okay in there?"
The ambulance siren had gone silent, but she could hear the rumble of its engine idling outside.
Soon they'd load David Shook into it, begin the process of documenting the scene, take Michael Reynolds into custody.
The machinery of justice would grind forward, turning tragedy into paperwork, pain into procedure.
"I'll be right out," she called back, proud that her voice remained steady.
Rachel straightened her shoulders and dried her face with a hand towel that hung beside the sink.
She had a job to do. The time for processing her feelings would come later, in the privacy of her own home, maybe with Jack beside her to remind her that not every survival story ended in such darkness.
But as she reached for the doorknob, her hand trembled slightly, and she knew that this case would stay with her long after the reports were filed and the trials concluded.
Because sometimes the hardest part of surviving wasn't the struggle to live – it was figuring out how to carry on in a world where life and death followed no rules, where miracles and tragedies both balanced on the same precarious line.
Rachel squared her shoulders and opened the door. This case may be wrapped, but the ripples of it would cause would go on for quite some time. And while she was helpless to stop those particular ripples, it was her job to prevent as many others from forming as she possibly could.