Beth was already gone. Having charged from the room in a rage, looking to confront Rip about either his involvement in the death of Rachel's ex or about him keeping secrets from her. It was hard to guess which of the two made her angrier. Rachel was still sitting on Dakota's bed, watching the video for the second time. As she listened, she was slowly going from numb disbelief to shocked and sickened by Jamie's behavior. Daniel deserved what he got. There was no doubt in her mind about that. But that didn't give Jamie the right to track her ex husband down and kill him in cold blood. The thought of him and Rip hunting Daniel and killing him like an animal made her sick. And without warning, she felt the bile rising up from her stomach. She made it to the toilet in time. But when she leaned over it, she vomited forcefully. Her stomach clenched again and she had to brace her hand against the wall to keep her balance as everything inside her came spilling back out.

"Mom?," Dakota asked, hovering nervously in the bathroom doorway. "Are you okay?" Rachel wiped her brow and held up a finger, indicating that she needed just a minute. Her head was spinning. And her heart felt like it was beating much faster than normal. It wasn't her first panic attack. But it was the worst one she'd had in years.

"Mom," Dakota said, her voice rising almost into a whimper. "I'm scared."

Rachel opened her arms, letting her daughter tuck herself into her side. She was still having trouble processing what she heard on the video. And she hadn't gotten to the point of worrying about what might happen to Dakota once Jamie and Rip found out she was recording them when they revealed their secrets in the barn. But as Dakota clung to her side, Rachel felt the fear starting to creep in around the edges of her mind. With it came the urge to run. Run far away and hide somewhere that these people would never find her or her daughter.

Rachel knew Jamie wasn't perfect. He had a lot of baggage and drama from his past relationship. Not that she really minded that. She had plenty of her own. Less now that Daniel's dead, Rachel told herself with a shiver. But Jamie was always gentle and patient with her. She was well past shocked to discover that he was capable of murder. And he didn't just kill her ex. There was mention on the video of some other past violent act. And Rachel could tell two men were talking in code when they mentioned a train station. It was really too much to process at once.

"What are we gonna do?," Dakota asked.

"I don't know," Rachel whispered. "Just give me a minute to think."

Rachel closed her eyes. She focused on slowing down her breathing. She loved her daughter. But sometimes she hated being the mother. She didn't know what to do any better than Dakota did. There was no parenting manual that told you what to do if your daughter caught your boyfriend on video admitting to murder.

"Rachel? Are you okay?"

Rachel opened her eyes, gripping Dakota tighter against her when she saw Rip in the bathroom doorway. His posture was casual. But when he held out his hand, it was obvious to both of them what he wanted. Dakota pulled her phone out of her back pocket and handed it to him without an argument. The moment Rip had a grip of the device she snatched her hand back, wrapping her arm around her mother.

"You didn't send it or post it anywhere did you?," he asked. Neither Rachel nor her daughter had to ask Rip what he was talking about. They knew he meant the video of him and Jamie in the barn. Dakota shook her head. Rip nodded, tapping the screen a few times with his finger. Once the video was deleted, he held the phone back out for Dakota. She snatched it back and tucked her face into her mother's shoulder.

"I'm sorry," Rip coaxed. "I just wanted to keep you both safe. He was gonna keep coming and eventually he was gonna kill you."

Rachel took another deep breath and nodded. She understood that Rip was trying to protect her. And Dakota. But her father always said that good intentions didn't excuse bad behavior.

"There had to be another way," Rachel said, her voice still shaky and hoarse. Rip sighed, his face turning sad and regretful.

"It's the only way I know," he said.

Rachel sucked in a hard breath. She blinked, letting the tears spill down over her cheeks as she looked at the only real family she had left besides her daughter. She knew what happened to Rip when he was still only a boy. Their father killed his entire family in front of him. And Rip was forced to kill him to keep from being murdered himself. There was a part of that man inside both of them. Rachel never became violent herself. But she married a violent man. Maybe because Daniel put up a front long enough to convince her he was a good person. Or maybe because Rachel knew deep down exactly who her ex husband was and chose him anyway. Maybe on some unconscious level she was seeking out the violence she narrowly avoided when her biological mother put her up for adoption. After what she just watched on Dakota's phone, Rachel felt her current relationship might also serve as evidence of that.

Rachel took a shaky step forward. Dakota moved with her, clinging to her like a burr. She moved forward another step. And then one more, slowly closing the distance between herself and Rip. Lifting her hand, she set it gently on his shoulder. The small touch was the permission he seemed to be waiting for. He lurched forward, wrapping his arms around Rachel and squeezing Dakota between them.

"Uncle Rip," Dakota whimpered. "...Are you mad at me?"

Rip released his grip on the girls, dropping down onto one knee. He caught Dakota by the hand, gently turning her towards him and away from her mother.

"I'm not mad at you," he promised. "But I'm about to be if I catch you and Carter in that hayloft again."

Rachel snorted, covering her mouth and barking out a rough laugh through her tears. Rip pulled Dakota against him, wrapping his arms around her slim waist. He held her tight, savoring the moment before he looked up at Rachel and asked her the same question his niece just asked him.

"Are you mad at me?"

"Not mad," Rachel said. "...but I want to hear it from you. What really happened. I need to know."

Rip sighed and nodded his head. He rose back onto his feet, heading across the room and closing the bedroom door. When he gestured towards the bed, Rachel took a seat, pulling Dakota with her. She pinned one of her daughter's hands between hers, nervously waiting to hear what Rip was going to say. She already knew the worst of it. That he killed Dakota's father. But she needed to hear how it happened. Nothing could be worse than wondering and imagining the worst.

"Jamie knew where he was gonna be. I'm not sure exactly how. I think he hired someone to follow him. I had one of the ranch hands get me some drugs. Drugs that we knew were laced with something that would kill him if he took them." That was Jamie's idea. But Rip left that detail out. He wanted to confess. Not throw Jamie under the bus. "We went to the bar and chatted with him. Once he knew we had drugs he went outside with us. He took the drugs. We didn't make him do that. I should have just let him die. But I was so damn mad about what he told us inside the bar."

Rachel clutched Dakota's hand tighter, sensing that whatever was coming next was going to be bad. Daniel obviously told Rip something so horrible that he completely forgot about their well laid plan and killed Daniel right there on the spot.

"He said he followed your parents up to some restaurant they liked in the mountains and drained all the brake fluid out of their car. He was bragging about killing them. I just saw red after that. I choked him and slammed his head against the building."

"Oh god," Rachel gasped. She felt the room swirl around her. And then she was up, bolting for the bathroom again. There wasn't much left inside her. But she still puked, retching even though there was nothing coming out of her. When she came out, Rip was sitting on the bed with his arm around Dakota. She was crying into his chest, her shoulders heaving.

"I knew he was crazy," she sighed. "But I had no idea he would do something like that." Even as she spoke the words, Rachel realized they weren't true. She was just so used to covering for Daniel, it was a hard habit to break. "Actually, that's bullshit," Rachel said. "I'm not really even surprised. I found letters and photos in my dad's desk. He was blackmailing them too. Before he killed them."

The old guilt surged up inside her. If Rachel just went back and made nice with Daniel, he never would have killed her parents. Or if she had just listened to her father in the first place when he told her Daniel was bad news. This was all her fault. But before Rachel could start drowning in her guilt, another voice rose up inside her. One that had been steadily growing stronger since she divorced her husband. And that voice said the only person responsible for Daniel's crimes was him. New Rachel also said she was glad that asshole was dead.

"Thank you for telling us the truth," Rachel said, heading for the bed and sitting down on Rip's other side. He wrapped the arm he wasn't using to hold Dakota around her. She leaned into his embrace, pressing a chaste kiss onto his cheek.

"Does Jamie know anything about any of this yet?," Rachel asked, suddenly realizing that despite his obvious involvement, her boyfriend had yet to appear while the whole drama was playing out.

"I don't think so," Rip said, shaking his head. Beth yelled at him in their bedroom. And he came straight to Dakota's room to talk to her and Rachel. Unless Beth decided to go after Jamie and dish out another helping of what she just gave him, Jamie was still oblivious to the situation.

"Well then will you do one more thing for me?," Rachel asked. Rip nodded. He would do anything for her and Dakota. And already had.

"Of course," he agreed, waiting to see what Rachel wanted. And he didn't have to wait long before she stopped biting her full bottom lip and spoke.

"Don't tell Jamie anything until I get a chance to talk to him alone."