“I found her,” I said softly, and walked low to the ground but swiftly. “The property directly next to his on the west has a dirt driveway that heads back to a small guesthouse. Rachel’s Jeep is peeking out of the side. I’m walking up.”
“No, wait for us! We need to think about the best way to go in there first, and besides, you don’t have on a vest or anything—did they even give you your gun back?”
“Mason, the last thing I heard from her was her screaming before the call was lost. I’m not waiting another minute. Either get your ass over here with me, or I’m going in alone!” I hissed, and continued making my way up the drive.
“Shit! Ryder, Mackey, Barnes, come with me now.” I could hear the wind in the phone and Mason’s breathing pick up. “We went out the back, we’re coming. Where exactly are— Never mind, I see you. Just stay there.”
I shoved my phone in my pocket and kept going. I wasn’t stopping yet; I was barely halfway there. By the time the guys made it over to me, no one looked exactly happy to see me, especially Ryder. But Mason’s anger was fighting with his fear for Rachel, and right now I couldn’t figure out which one was winning.
Detective Ryder cleared his throat until I focused on him. “Mason said she screamed. And then what happened?”
“The call was dropped. She had been trying to make a run for it. This is our guy; I know it is. She said in the room there are screens and on them are live feeds coming from different men watching people closest to her. While we were talking, the feed stopped and all that was on the screen was a bouquet of carnations.” I began moving toward the house, but Ryder put a hand on my chest and stopped me.
“We’ll take it from here.”
I swallowed hard and shook my head. “With all due respect, sir, there isn’t a chance in hell you are stopping me from getting my girl out of that house. If I lose my job over this, so be it. But she’s my world, and the only reason she’s in here is because I f**ked up and didn’t do my job in protecting her.” I pushed past his hand, only to stop again when Mason held something in front of me.
A gun.
Good thing, because I hadn’t ever gotten mine back at the station. I looked at my best friend, and with a nod, he pulled out his second duty weapon and we quickly moved in on the house. All the curtains were closed, and as the five of us quickly set up to kick in the door, muffled screams came from somewhere in the house and Mason didn’t waste another second.
The door went in easily, and I rounded the frame followed by the others.
“Austin Police Department,” I yelled as I charged into the open room, “show me your hands!”
“Travis County sheriff, drop your weapon!”
My blood boiled as my eyes narrowed in on Blake leaning over Rachel’s body on the bed. He straightened on his knees and slowly lifted his hands in the air, a scalpel in one hand and what looked like a sickle in the other.
A disturbed smile covered his face as we closed in on him. He looked completely at peace, even with five guns pointing at him. I chanced a glance at Rachel and it took me a moment to realize that the roar that filled the room had come from me. She had blood covering her bare upper body and running down her arms, which were cuffed to the bed. I automatically took a step in her direction before I could remember the safest way to go about this for her—to keep my eyes and weapon on the shitbag still straddling her knees.
“Drop your weapons,” I said through gritted teeth, and forced my eyes not to move from Blake’s hands. I wanted nothing more than to keep my gun aimed right at his head, but training took over and I put it at his chest instead. My finger itched to move closer to the trigger. Mason was right. I was too close to this and I wasn’t thinking clearly. But I couldn’t have left someone else to save Rachel.
Blake started lowering his body over Rachel again.
“Freeze or I will shoot you!”
“You really don’t want to do that,” he said calmly.
Want to f**kin’ bet?
“If my men don’t hear from me every fifteen minutes, they have orders to kill. Since I was listening to Rachel during your touching phone call earlier . . . I know you know who will die. So you decide. Shoot me or arrest me and have the deaths of Rachel’s loved ones on your hands . . . or let me go and we can hope you can get an ambulance out here fast enough so that our poor Rachel doesn’t bleed out.”
My eyes betrayed me and flashed back over to Rachel, running over her blood-covered body. There was a lot of blood, and she was pale and drenched in sweat. I prayed one of the guys was calling in an ambulance; I didn’t even have a radio on me and wasn’t about to reach for my phone. Just before I looked back over at Blake, I caught her gaze and wished I hadn’t. She wasn’t even looking at the man practically lying on top of her with knives. She was looking at me as tears poured rapidly down her face. And it was a look I’d been dreading for months. Like she had no idea who I was.
I could hear the other sheriffs and detectives trying to get Blake to put down the knives, but I couldn’t stop looking at her. I had failed her. And I hated myself for it. When I came to Austin, I’d had one job to do: find the Carnation Killer before he found another victim. When I met Rachel, I was given a new job: love her and keep her safe. Not only had I let her go with the killer I was supposed to find, I’d kept a part of my life from her to keep her safe, and in doing that had ultimately put this look in her eyes. This look of distrust mixed in with the fear. My chest ached and I prayed that one day she would understand why I’d kept all of this from her.