Jack followed after Rachel, sprinting into the front yard and making his way around the side of the house. His eyes were already on the back yard, a little strip of green that connected with a row of sickly hedges along the side. But then, within just a few more steps, he saw a body on the ground.
It was Rachel.
She was on her hands and knees, pushing herself back up. Apparently, she’d fallen while giving chase. Jack had only ever known her to fall or give out on two separate occasions—and both of those had come after she’d discovered the tumor.
“Christ, Rachel,” he said. He was more irritated with himself than he was concerned for her. He stopped to help her up but she swatted him away.
“No. Go after him. He’s out back. I saw him cutting across the yard.”
“Are you su—”
“Go, dammit!”
Angry now, Jack continued on toward the back yard. As he got there, he looked to the back of the house. The porch was small and rather rickety, but he could see the woman he’d spoken with standing at the back door, looking out through a window. She was on the phone with someone, speaking very animatedly.
On the far end of the yard, there was a man running into the neighbor’s back yard. He had to jump over a small flowerbed that separated the two yards. When the man landed, he stumbled a bit but kept his balance. He then cut around behind the neighbor’s garage, making a direct path back to the street.
Moron, Jack thought. The instinct, he supposed, was sound. He was probably cutting back over to the street to get into a car and then speed away. But Jack had no intentions of letting things get that far. Instead of leaping over the flower bed and taking the same route as the assailant, he cut hard to the left, dashing back up toward Charlie Foster’s front yard. He pushed himself hard, unsure of which direction the man—presumably Charlie Foster—had gone.
Jack came to the front yard, his eyes already scanning the neighbor’s yard and the sidewalk along the street in front of it. Sure enough, Charlie Foster was heading for an old, blue Mazda. When he saw Jack already coming his way having cut him off, Charlie stopped dead in his tracks and tried to quickly change directions. In doing so, his left foot slid slightly in the grass and he almost fell again. It was more than enough of a stumble to allow Jack to catch up with him. Charlie made it no more than three additional steps before Jack reached out, grabbed his shoulder, and threw him to the ground.
Charlie hit pretty hard, nearly bouncing as he rolled over. He attempted to get to his feet, but Jack was there in an instant. He fell on top of Charlie, doing everything he could to pin him down rather than engage in a fight. Charlie tried to wriggle out from underneath him and Jack did end up throwing one attack out. It was a simple knee to the ribs, nothing hard enough to do any real damage, but just enough to make him stop squirming long enough for Jack to pull the man’s arms behind his back. He cuffed him quickly and then got to his feet. He looked around, glad that no one had seen the exchange, though he thought he saw movement along the front window of Charlie’s house.
“Come on up,” Jack said, reaching down and helping Charlie to his feet.
“What the hell do you want me for anyway?” Charlie asked in a slurred, southern accent.
“Well, first, we just wanted to ask you some questions about your little outburst with Life Fulfilled. But given that you and I just had a little footrace, I think there’s a whole other conversation we need to have now.”
As he pushed Charlie along toward his bureau sedan, he spotted Rachel coming around the side of the house. She looked embarrassed but seemed to be walking perfectly fine. Maybe, Jack thought, she legitimately just slipped.
But he knew that wasn’t the case. Rachel would probably try to deny it, but he knew the truth.
“Good work,” Rachel said. “You good?”
“I’m fine,” he said as he opened the back door to the sedan and forced Charlie inside. The man still had some fight in him but seemed mostly resigned to how things had worked out. “The question is: how are you?”
“I’m good. Really.”
“I’ve heard that a lot from you lately,” he said. “And it’s mostly been lies.”
“No it hasn’t. And you know, I’d really rather not have that conversation right now.”
“Fine. Why don’t you stay here and make sure Mr. Foster doesn’t try making a run for it. I’m going to head inside and have a talk with his lady friend to see what the hell is going on.”
“Sounds good.”
Jack moved toward the house to do just that and realized that this was the first time in the course of their five-year partnership that he was actually mad at Rachel. It felt odd and he resented her for making him feel such a way, but he also had to once again remind himself that he had gone to her this afternoon. She had not called him up and begged to be part of the case. No, he had gone to her. And now this was what he had to deal with.
As he walked up to the porch again, he looked back to the car. Rachel was standing her ground, not yet inside the car but keeping her eyes on Charlie Foster from the outside. And as he watched her standing in the gathering dusk, Jack couldn’t help but wonder what other secrets she might be keeping rom him and just how bad her condition truly was.