Page 29 of Her Last Doubt

Rachel opened her mouth and then closed it again. Jack made a quiet sound into his coffee cup. She was pretty sure it was the sound of a man choking back a laugh.

"That was different," Rachel said.

"How?"

"I wasn't on that case. I was commenting on something I'd read."

Paige considered this for a moment, and Rachel could literally see the moment her daughter decided not to pursue it. She ate another spoonful of cereal and, while chewing, said, "Fine. Can you at least tell me if it's the apartment building one? Because Lila's mom said she heard something about it on the news."

"You know I can't confirm or deny what I'm working on."

"That's a very bureaucratic thing to say."

"Yes," Rachel agreed, trying not to seem impressed with not only the use of the word, but how accurate it was. "It is."

Paige looked at her directly across the table. "Is it dangerous?"

"No."

"You'd tell me if it was?"

"I would tell you that it wasn't," Rachel said, which earned a long-suffering sigh from across the table and something that was almost a smile.

The truth was that Rachel didn't mind the questions as much as she let on. She'd spent enough time worrying about Paige's interest in true crime that she'd started to notice the distinction between the interest itself and where it seemed to be going. Paige didn't fixate on the violence. She fixated on the methodology, on the gaps in investigations, on what people missed and why. She saw it like a puzzle rather than a morbid form of entertainment. It was, Rachel knew, exactly the thing she would have done at thirteen if podcasts and Netflix had been a thing.

What worried her more was the sheer volume of it. The podcasts had become a kind of ambient noise in Paige's life, something she returned to the way other kids returned to music. The organized notes, the color-coded spreadsheet by crime type and jurisdiction — those were not the habits of a casual listener. They were the habits of a person committing themselves to something.

She was able to clearly sift through all of this because she had slept reasonably well the night before. Still, she'd moved through dreams that she couldn't hold onto when she woke, but the feeling left behind was specific: long carpeted hallways and amber light, the brass accordion gate on the elevator opening and closing on empty floors, the Hargrove rearranging itself around her in the slow illogic of a building that had decided not to let her leave. She'd thought, half-awake at some point around three in the morning, of the Overlook Hotel from The Shining, that same sense of a place with its own interior agenda. She'd gone back to sleep and hadn't dreamed again, but the feeling had followed her into the morning.

Jack set his cup in the sink and picked up his bag from the back of his chair. "I've got to head out," he said. He kissed Rachel on the top of her head and then crossed to Paige's side of the table and kissed her as well, which she tolerated with minimal protest. "Be good. Both of you."

"We're always good," Paige said, reaching for her orange juice.

Rachel listened to the car back down the driveway and watched Paige pick up her phone. "No phones at breakfast," she said.

"Breakfast is essentially over," Paige said, gesturing at the bowl.

"Then put your bowl in the sink."

Paige put the bowl in the sink and came back to the table with the phone still in her hand, which was a negotiation Rachel decided not to continue. She drank her coffee and watched her daughter scroll with one thumb and thought, not for the first time this week, about the version of Paige that might exist in fifteen years. Where that focus would land. What it would do.

It was the thing Jack had said at the sink a few nights ago…she’s going to be you. And she honestly didn’t know how she felt about it.

"Ready in ten minutes?" Rachel said. "I'm dropping you on my way in."

Paige looked up from her phone. "Yeah. I just need to get my bag."

"And finish your hair."

Paige reached up and seemed to register that she had only done one side. She disappeared toward the stairs with just enough speed in her step to tell Rachel that ten minutes probably wasn’t going to be enough.

Rachel sat with the last of her coffee. The morning light was coming through the window over the sink at a low angle, the kind of light that made everything look a little more serious than it was. She was thinking about the Hargrove's service entrance, about the section of interior corridor the camera didn't reach, and what she wanted to ask Pruitt when she got there.

Her phone buzzed on the table. The caller display showed that it was Novak. She picked up before the second buzz. "Good morning,” she answered.

Novak cut right to the chase, skipping pleasantries. "There's a fourth victim," he said, his voice steady and matter-of-fact. "It’s Irene Baxter this time. A resident went by to have a chat about a book they’d both read and found her door ajar...and Irene, dead on the floor. Hale called it in about forty minutes ago."

Rachel was already on her feet. She thought of Irene Baxter, of the small amount of time she’d spent with the woman yesterday. "How long ago did she die?"