“You can’t lie to him, Agent Hunter,” John said solemnly. “One way or another, he’ll find out.”

He dropped the knife.

Gabe surged forward in an instant as John raised his arms in surrender.

Dana darted forward out of John’s reach and straight into Ruby’s arms. With her sobs came a flood of exhaustion and relief.

*

Ruby held onto Dana’s hand as the paramedics wheeled their gurney toward the ambulance.

“Thank you for coming,” Dana said weakly, “I thought I was alone.”

“You’re a fighter,” Ruby replied. “You’ll be okay.”

The paramedic slipped a mask over Dana’s face, signaling the end of their conversation. Dana was loaded into the back of the ambulance. Ruby waved until the doors closed and she watched until the spinning lights of the vehicle melted into the soft morning light on the horizon.

Morning finally dawned on a long, eventful night.

“Now you can finally get some medical attention of your own,” Gabe said, coming up beside her.

Ruby looked down at her arms. She had staunched the bleeding temporarily with scraps of fabric, but as adrenaline started to fade from her system, her injuries throbbed with a deep ache.

“I told you to find the other potential victim,” Ruby said.

Gabe threw up his hands in exasperation.

“I told you to not go and get yourself killed,” he replied. “For the record, I did manage to call up Amelia Brady. I sent a beat cop to go stay with her because I had this sneaking suspicion my partner might be onto something and might need some back-up.”

There had to be truth to that. Gabe really must have believed her to follow her out to Dana’s location.

Ruby turned away.

“You caught him,” Gabe said. “A woman would be dead tonight if it weren’t for you.”

Ruby looked back to the trailer out back, visible between the emergency vehicles.

She just got lucky. Either John or Vallejo had picked Dana out to mock Ruby. She could feel it. That trailer was an echo of her own upbringing. Whatever Ruby and Dana had in common, it made Dana a fighter. The woman refused to be an easy target. That was John’s mistake. If he’d gone for a meeker victim, he could have gotten away before Ruby even arrived.

“She saved herself,” Ruby said. “You should have seen her. She hit John with a badminton racket.”

Gabe raised an eyebrow.

“Doesn’t matter how tough she was,” he said. “I think she appreciated some help.”

Ruby shot him a knowing look. She caught his drift loud and clear. Even though she had given him different orders, she was glad he came.

“For a second, I thought I was going to lose my first partner on my first Quantico case,” Gabe said. “You of all people should know what that feels like.”