No Second Chance

Rachel leaves DC immediately and arrives in Newark, NJ within 5 hours. Marc is instantly attracted to her again as he walks her to his car. Rachel asks him about the situation with the kidnappers in her professional guise, stating, “We have to make some tough decisions, Marc” (119). She questions whether Marc should call the police again, but Marc still refuses. In the parking garage, Rachel advises Marc to force a direct exchange of the ransom money for Tara: “No ‘Here’s the money, call us later.’ We get your daughter when they get the money” (120). She also advises Marc to use the surveillance equipment she has brought along to gather as much information as possible.

When they are in Marc’s car, Rachel tells him that he needs “a reality check” (120). Rachel does not have the authority of the FBI behind her anymore, and Marc needs to understand that Tara is likely dead, despite the preliminary matches on the baby hair DNA. Rachel points out that if those samples match, it only proves that the same child was used for both ransom demands, not that the child was ever Tara.

Marc is taken aback that Rachel is approaching his case from this angle and worries about their complicated shared history, but he thinks to himself, “at the end of the day, I trusted her.