Her Last Breath

Book 6: A Rachel Gift FBI Suspense Thriller

by Blake Pierce

Genres: Female Sleuths; Suspense

Synopsis

When a serial killer strikes a seemingly random group of middle-aged men, Rachel’s skills are truly put to the test. She must enter the killer’s twisted mind and find the thread connecting them all—before time runs out.

FBI Special Agent Rachel Gift is among the FBI’s most brilliant agents at hunting down serial killers. She plans on doing this forever—until she discovers she has months left to live. Determined to go down fighting, and to keep her diagnosis a secret, Rachel faces her own mortality while trying to save other’s lives. But how long can she go until she collapses under the weight of it all?

“A MASTERPIECE OF THRILLER AND MYSTERY. Blake Pierce did a magnificent job developing characters with a psychological side so well described that we feel inside their minds, follow their fears and cheer for their success. Full of twists, this book will keep you awake until the turn of the last page.”
--Books and Movie Reviews, Roberto Mattos (re Once Gone)

HER LAST BREATH (A Rachel Gift FBI Suspense Thriller) is book #6 in a long-anticipated new series by #1 bestseller and USA Today bestselling author Blake Pierce, whose bestseller Once Gone (a free download) has received over 1,000 five star reviews.

FBI Agent Rachel Gift, 33, unparalleled for her ability to enter the minds of serial killers, is a rising star in the Behavioral Crimes Unit—until a routine doctor visit reveals she has but a few months left to live.

Not wishing to burden others with her pain, Rachel decides, agonizing as it is, not to tell anyone—not even her boss, her partner, her husband, or her seven-year-old daughter. She wants to go down fighting, and to take as many serial killers with her as she can.

A string of seemingly-unconnected murders has Rachel baffled—but she can’t afford to freeze. Facing a case more difficult than any she’s seen before, Rachel must use her brilliant mind to piece together the clues before time runs out.

Can she find uncover the connection between the victims before the killer outsmarts her?

A riveting and chilling crime thriller featuring a brilliant and flailing FBI agent, the RACHEL GIFT series is an unputdownable mystery, packed with suspense, twists and shocking secrets, propelled by a page-turning pace that will keep you bleary-eyed late into the night.

Books #7-#8 are also available!

Release date: September 20, 2022

Print pages: 226

Sample

 

 

 

CHAPTER ONE

 

 

When Emma arrived at home after pulling a fourteen-hour workday only to find that her power was out, she wasn’t even all that surprised. It had just been one of those terrible days that seemed to have no limits. It had started with spilling coffee on her favorite blouse and arriving at work ten minutes late because she’d had to go back inside to change clothes. It had continued with a two-hour meeting with state police at the governor’s office as they worked towards a resolution on a potential pardon concerning an immigrant family. The afternoon had brought with it a computer crash that had affected half of the network at the governor’s office and one final late meeting with two lawyers that were working to make sure a drug dealer wouldn’t walk because of evidence that had been tampered with.

And now she was home sweet home, only with no electricity. The porch light—which was on a timer—wasn’t on. Neither were the decorative lights on the side patio. And the familiar purple glow of the UV light for her indoor plants was also not shining through the patio window as it usually did. It seemed fitting. A perfect way to end this terrible day. She was so tired and fed up that she didn’t even realize that the loss of electricity would not allow her to open her garage door. She pressed the button on the device attached to her sun visor twice before this occurred to her.

With a deep sigh, she parked outside of the garage, on the little strip of concrete driveway. She then walked through her side yard, her nice heels poking holes in the ground as she made her way to the front door. She unlocked it, finding it hard to remember the last time she’d actually used a key to get inside her house.

As she opened the door, she was able to see through her irritated fugue and noticed that her neighbors to the left, the Gaughans, had power. Lights were glowing through the windows and their outside security light along the back of the house shown down on the grass. The same was true of her neighbors on the other side. Over the tall and well-manicured hedges, she could see the upstairs lights on.

And as she peered down the street in both directions, she saw that the security lights were on, situated along the street in a pattern of one pole after every eight houses. She found this strange, but not strange enough to stay out on the porch. Maybe her breaker had tripped somehow. She had, after all, just hooked up a used chest freezer in the garage just a few days ago.

Emma stepped inside and closed the door behind her. She dropped her purse on the foyer floor and pulled her phone out of her coat pocket. Switching on the flashlight, she made her way across the foyer and into the kitchen. She grabbed a banana from her fruit bowl on the counter, realizing that she’d never finished her lunch seven hours ago and hadn’t had a single bite to eat since then. She sat the phone down as she peeled it and then walked through the living room, heading to the garage with her phone in one hand and the banana in the other.

She hated how quiet the house was in the darkness. Without even the hum of the fridge or the ticking of the wall clock in the living room, it felt like she was traipsing through a tomb.

Ah crap, she thought. The fridge. She wondered how long her power had been out and how much food in the fridge she might have to throw out as a result. Before she concerned herself with that, of course, she wanted to find out why she had no power while both of her neighbors did.

She entered the mudroom and opened the door that led to the garage. It was mostly empty, containing just a few shelves with household cleaners, some old paint supplies, and a pair of skis she hadn’t worn in over a year because her job at the governor’s office hadn’t allowed for such excursions in a very long time. The space where she’d usually park her car seemed almost abstract and she realized she hadn’t seen the space empty from the vantage point of the garage door since she’d moved in.

The empty space also helped her to see what the problem was right away. Near the back of the garage, on the right side, the breaker box was open. It was just a few inches, but it was open. And she couldn’t recall the last time she’d even opened the thing. She knew it closed tightly with a little lock-and-catch system and her mind wad focused on this as she headed across the dark garage to see what had happened.

It wasn’t until she was halfway across the garage that her tired mind zoomed in on what this could mean, though. It wasn’t as if the little metal door to the box had opened on its own. No, someone had to have opened it and—

She stopped just a few feet away from the panel box as the reality of this settled in. Someone has been here. Someone may stillbe here…

Slowly, she made a small circle, taking in the garage. She turned her phone over in her hands, intending to call the police. but as she turned to the right, she saw another door that had been opened. This was the thin door against the back wall, the door that opened up onto the space that held the water heater. And just as she realized this door was open, she saw the figure come rushing out of it.

Emma didn’t even have time to scream before the figure was on her. Her flashlight shined on the shape for just a moment, long enough for her to see the features of a man with dark hair. But that was all she saw before a hard punch landed in her stomach. The wind went rushing out of her and as she fell to her knees, she was caught. The man grabbed her by the hair and dragged her over towards the panel box.

She opened her mouth to scream but the man seemed to sense this. To stop her, he threw her hard against the wall. The side of her face slammed into it and, again, more breath was knocked out of her. As she fought for breath, she felt him grabbing her head again. He seemed to be pointing her face towards the panel box, as if he wanted her to see something.

She could just barely see one other thing she’d somehow missed: the cover to the box had been removed. She could see the inner workings behind the metal plate that was usually there, the wires, leads, and circuity barely visible in the darkness. She had no idea where her phone was, maybe somewhere back on the floor, but she could still make out the faintest little glow from her flashlight and—

She managed to cry out briefly as the man pulled her by the hair again. Her head felt as if it had been lit on fire, but she only felt it for a moment. He forced her head directly into the exposed panel box. She could feel her nose crunching up and she was pretty sure one of her front teeth was obliterated. But she felt none of it.

What she did feel was a sudden shock that seemed to both push her away and draw her close all at once. Her body shook as the garage lights flickered on and off. but those lights seemed dim and far away as an unspeakable amount of current passed through her body.

She had just enough time to realize that she was being electrocuted before her heart twitched and then stopped working altogether. And in those final beats, she felt the man behind her somewhere, filling that otherwise empty garage that she would never park in again.