HER LAST PROMISE by Blake Pierce

Author:Blake Pierce [Pierce, Blake]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2025-04-29T18:30:00+00:00

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

The conference room had transformed into something out of Rachel's early days in the bureau—when sleep was just a luxury for lazy people and the entire world seemed to buzz over the potential of the next break in a case. The room was positively thrumming with the controlled chaos of an active investigation hub. Steam rose from paper coffee cups scattered across the mahogany table, mingling with the sugary scent of glazed donuts that nobody had touched. The pastries sat in their pink cardboard box like exhibits in their own right, casualties of concentration. A half-eaten bear claw left abandoned on a napkin had begun to grow stale, its layers of pastry curling at the edges. The fresh coffee and snacks had been brought in Eloise Carter, a member of the staff who had come in and decided to stay, wanting to help nab whatever bastard had attacked Harrison.

The whir of laptop fans and the soft murmur of voices created a white noise that reminded Rachel of late nights at the bureau, the kind that stretched into early mornings when the trail was hot and sleep was a luxury they couldn't afford. She watched a young officer shuffle past the glass walls, his arms full of file boxes retrieved from Harrison's office. Each box represented more data to sift through, more potential threads to follow or dismiss.

Rachel rubbed her temples, studying the laptop screen before her. Her coffee had grown cold, a thin film forming on its surface, but she couldn't remember when she'd poured it. The list of missing persons cases had come through, and it was smaller than she’d expected. There were seven in all, each one a potential thread in this increasingly tangled web.

In the midst of it all, Novak gave an exasperated sigh as she sat his phone down for a moment. "Still no luck with Harrison's wife. The next-door neighbor is taking all the calls to help out. She's currently at the hospital in a state of shock, and Harrison's daughter is being watched over by an aunt."

Rachel nodded, placing a temporary strike through Harrison’s wife as a potential source of information. Which was fine, really. She felt they would get the information they needed through their current approach...eventually.

Her phone buzzed against her hip, and she allowed herself a momentary distraction. It was Jack, sending a photo of Paige outside her school, crossing her eyes and sticking out her tongue while wearing her new purple backpack. The message with it read: Paige says have a nice day!

The normalcy of it caught in Rachel's throat—how her daughter could be having such an ordinary morning while she sat here hunting a killer. She traced her thumb across the screen, noting the small details: the wispy hair that had escaped Paige's ponytail, the slight scuff on her new sneakers, the way her smile still showed the gap where her last baby tooth had finally fallen out just weeks ago.

"Agent Gift?" Eloise Carter's voice cut through her reverie.

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