20. Rachel
20
RACHEL
M y duffle bag hung heavy on my shoulder, and I stopped to rest. I shouldn't have come up here with Derrick's family this weekend.
It was late, nearly eleven. I hadn't thought this through when I rushed out of the cabin into the night. Now I was on a country road, surrounded by forest on either side.
There were no lights. Nowhere to even tell an Uber to come and pick me up. Not that there were any Ubers. I checked.
My frustration wasn't about Derrick's mom. I mean, yeah, she needed to get a clue and stop being a homophobic jerk, but Derrick was right. It was his family's business, not mine.
What was crawling under my skin was what I heard Derrick say ten minutes before that on the dock. I hadn't meant to eavesdrop on Tina and him. I was walking down to the water to look at the stars when I heard my name.
All that stuff he said about me playing games and being manipulative wasn't true. I'm not that forward-thinking. I react in the moment. And I'd been wound up because of my grandfather stalking me.
Stalking probably wasn't the right word.
Curiously watching?
I didn't know.
And that shit about how I pushed Eva into an "ill-advised" relationship. Her ex had cheated on her, and I regretted nothing. Joe got what he deserved and was still living with his parents licking his wounds the last I heard, while Eva was blissfully in love.
So fuck you, Derrick Jacques.
Behind me, lights came around the bend. I hopped into the tree line and waited for the car to pass. I thought about waving it down, but I'd seen enough true crime docs not to be that stupid.
It passed and I stepped back out onto the road, hiking my bag onto my other shoulder. I walked a half mile when another car drove down the road. It approached slowly, like the driver was searching for something. I tucked into the trees again and watched it approach. The window was rolled down, and as the Mustang got closer, I spotted Derrick behind the wheel.
I could have stayed hidden in the trees and continued walking all night to the train station, but that was stupid. In my haste, I had forgotten I was in the country, not the city, and I couldn't jump in a cab or on the subway.
I stepped into his headlights and let him see me. The brakes screeched as the car came to a halt, and he flung the door open and rushed toward me. I braced myself for a reprimand but instead, he wrapped his large arms around me.
I didn't have time to react. Not that I could do much but accept it. My arms were pinned at my side, my nose smooshed against his chest. He smelled like pine and soap and an earthy scent that was exclusively him.
"I'm fine," I said, my voice muffled against his solid pecs.
He released me and walked to the car. Without a word, he held the passenger door open and waited for me to slide in.
After several minutes driving in silence, it finally got to me, and I spoke.
"I'm sorry?—"
"Don't," Derrick snapped. His hands gripped the steering wheel so tightly that his knuckles were white. That's when I looked at him. A muscle ticked under his skin where his jaw hinged together. His gaze blazed ahead.
"Don't ever do that again," he gritted through his teeth. "Do you know how many women—how many cases I've had where…"
His voice faltered, and my gut clenched. He wasn't angry, he was scared.
"I shouldn't have run out like that," I said softly, reaching for his arm.
He flinched at my touch, and I shoved my hand back into my lap.
"You don't think, Rachel. That's your problem. It's late. You turned your phone off. I wouldn't even be able to track you if something happened. Half of the cases I worked...they were crimes of opportunity. That was really dumb."
Fear bubbled into my chest. "I'm not dumb."
"You're careless. You react without thinking."
I crossed my arms over the icky feeling in my chest as he berated me. "I know. I know. I'm a fucking mess and childish."
He whipped his gaze to me, alarmed. "You heard that?" Understanding washed over his features. "That's why you were upset."
"Partly," I admitted. We turned down the winding drive to the lake house. "Your mom's beliefs are fucked up, and I'm not okay with how y'all enable her, but"—I put my hand up before he could interrupt—"it's Valeria's business. Not mine."
Derrick's shoulders relaxed, the tendon in his jaw softening. "I'm sorry you heard all that stuff I said. Do you want to talk about it?"
He stopped the car behind the black F-150 his parents drove. Leave it to Derrick to be all reasonable and want to talk it out.
"You made yourself clear." I hugged my arms tighter around my chest. "You think I'm manipulating you."
Derrick ran his hand over his bearded cheeks. "You're not conniving, Rachel. It's a defense mechanism. To keep people at arm's length."
"So I don't get hurt, right?"
"It sounds like you're close with your mother and have a loving relationship with your family, but being abandoned as an infant will mess with you. Psychologically."
I waved my hand at him. "I don't have abandonment issues and I never cared about knowing my birth parents. I don't take life so seriously. It's about having fun. And teasing the people I care about is part of that. I went too far with you, obviously. And I won't talk about your issue again. Not that it's an issue,” I quickly added. “I won't try and fix you if you don't try and fix me. Deal?"
I put my hand out and he turned in his seat and looked at me. I thought he was going to leave me hanging, but then he gripped my palm and we shook.
"What do you want to do now?" he asked.
I furrowed my eyebrows together, unsure what he meant. "Go to bed," I ventured.
"I mean, with the job. You ran away in the middle of the night. I assume you weren't planning to come back to work with me. But I'd like you to stay on." Derrick rubbed his jaw and swung his gaze at me. Actually, I hadn't thought that far forward. "Too many good people have left."
I shifted in my seat. "You mean like Eva?"
Derrick exhaled. "And Isaac."
"Oh, right. Your partner," I said. Derrick had never talked about his partner, and I knew little about their relationship. I had only met him in passing. "I thought he was only gone temporarily."
Derrick stared out the window into the black night, and I looked over his shoulder at the moonbeams casting shadows through the trees around the lake. The darkness brought a quiet melancholy into the car.
"Isaac never wanted this. The podcast was originally meant to be a side gig, a way to market and get the word out about the book he'd been writing on the Guereza case. That was the case we worked on solving together after I retired. And we did it." A small smile appeared on Derrick's lips. "After twenty years, we brought peace to that family. As much peace as you can have when your child’s been viciously murdered."
Derrick shook his head, lost in his thoughts.
"That case always stuck in my craw. It should've been a simple case, but inept police work and blatant racism turned it into a cold case. In the end, it was DNA and dedicated detective work that got it solved. And"—he turned to me—"it became a cultural phenomenon, hitting at the right time when the Me Too movement and true crime obsession was at its peak. We had every large network, publisher, and media company knocking at our door trying to find a way to make money off of it."
"It's amazing what you did," I said, my heart warming to him. It was the most Derrick had ever shared with me. "How you helped that family. I've always admired you for it. I'm not a huge true crime fan…too depressing…but it's obvious you didn't do it for ratings or to exploit the case. You wanted justice for that family."
Derrick smiled, his face brightening. I liked his smile. "When the book and the podcast blew up, we rode the wave and started Dreamary Media to elevate other like-minded, socially conscious podcasts. It was exhilarating and gave me a sense of purpose again. But more than that, it brought light to so many missing women's cases that had been pushed aside or ignored because of the unbalanced injustices for women of color, especially in the later part of last century."
I stared at him in awe. Not many people would take his fame and money and do something so unselfish. He was special, but I could tell he didn't think about himself this way. His humbleness made me like him even more.
"But this was never Isaac's passion. He loves to be in the field, researching, digging up the past, getting dirty. Not pulling up a case a week, giving our off-the-cuff but expert advice. I'm not looking to solve another big case. The podcast has now become a platform to bring these unsolved cases into the light and hopefully someone out there will come forward with information that was missed, or it'll spark enough interest for the case to be reinvestigated."
"You're a unicorn, Derrick Jacques. You know that? I'm blown away. You're amazing. Not many people would do what you've done." I smiled, then ducked my head, embarrassed by my open assessment. "And my plan was never to quit Dreamary when I rushed out of here. I didn’t have a plan. Obviously."
Derrick nodded and took a deep breath. "I'm glad to hear that. And for the love of God, let's try and keep things professional. Or in the ballpark of professional."
"So no more asking you to feel me up?"
Derrick laughed. "For medical reasons or otherwise," he confirmed.
I put my hand over my heart. "I promise to behave in a purely professional manner."
Uncertainty covered his brow. "You can still talk to me. About anything."
"Got it, Boss."
I wrapped my hand around the door handle, but I didn't want to leave the car. I wanted to know more about him. I wanted to know everything. Then I remembered what he said about me on the dock, that I was childish and immature, and the words twisted in my gut like poison.
"And I'm sorry about my mom," he said, breaking into my thoughts. "You raise them the best you can, but once you move out..."
He shrugged as if to say “What can you do?”
"Fair enough." I laughed at his joke, but I didn't feel the humor. I felt depressed. "I'll take the train back tomorrow. Will you drive me to the station?"
"Of course."
I left the car and went straight to my room, glad everyone else was asleep. This trip was meant to calm me, but I was more restless now than ever.