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Since before the holidays Kenna had been tracking a serial kidnapper who had stolen girls between the ages of six and nine. Eight girls had gone missing over nearly thirty years. Long enough the community grew numb. Leads dried up, and people forgot.
No one ever found a single body.
Plenty of folks around the county had ideas about the kind of man who would do this kind of thing.
Kenna had ideas of her own. Kind of like Forrest and her “partners” idea.
“Let’s get started, shall we?” Marion settled on the stool, which creaked under her weight. Though she looked thinner than the last time Kenna had seen her—a month ago, at the last book club.
Betty lifted a mug from the coffee table. “Who finished reading the book?”
Kenna smiled. “I liked it a lot.” And she was going to like this even more.
Forrest made a face. “Yeah, I don’t know that Ilikedit. Anton wasn’t a good guy.”
“Like that made him any less attractive?” Charlayne snorted into her bubbles. “Bad boys are hot.” Coming from a sixty-year-old woman, that was interesting. Forrest grinned. Charlayne lifted her glass in a salute. “She knows what I mean.”
Kenna frowned.
Forrest shook her head. “I’ve written a few bad boy stories in my time.”
All Kenna could think about was Jax. “I prefer good guys, I’ve gotta say.”
Some guys had an edge. Jax had smoothed his out with exercise, healthy living, and being an FBI special agent for years. He’d invited her to spend Christmas with him at his mother’s house, but in a way she knew he understood there was no way she’d have said yes. They were somewhere as a couple…but they weren’tthere.He’d flown out to Colorado and spent New Years with her, Stairns and his wife, and Maizie, who was basically Kenna’s teenage ward. Then they’d all gone back to work on January second.
Marion tried to smile. “Sounds like there’s a story there.”
Oh, she had no idea the stories Kenna could tell. They just wouldn’t be about Jax.
No one in this room besides Forrest knew she was a private investigator. Kenna had made sure they didn’t know, and most people didn’t run a web search on every new person they met.
Betty and Charlayne were friendships of convenience, but they’d figure out pretty soon why Kenna had invited them to begin a book club with her. They would get a front row seat to a real-life story that would clear their husbands of suspicion for good.
“We’re here to talk about the book.” Kenna grinned. She really wanted some of Forrest’s cheese tray but didn’t want to be the first one to flip off the lid and look like she had no self-control. “How about the fact he lied to her about who he really was? And she had no idea, so it’s kind of mistaken identity since she assumed who he was and ran with that. But it’s also the fact he never admitted the truth.”
“He wanted to believe the lie,” Betty said. “Maybe she knew. I got the feeling a few times that she might’ve known but didn’t want to admit to herself that the truth was right in front of her.”
“I think we do that, too. Don’t we?” Kenna stared at Marion, more convinced than ever that she was right. “Refusing to see what’s right in front of our faces, because it’s easier to not stir things up. We like the status quo.” She glanced around, then said, “You have to wonder, if he wanted to be someone else, why not just make the change? Why stay with his family when he could leave with her and be the man they both wanted to believe he was?”
Forrest tipped her head in agreement.
“Because they liked the danger. Both of them.” Charlayne saluted again with her glass. “There’s a rush in the risk andworrying about getting caught. Good guys, schoolteachers, doctors, or ministers aren’t risky. They’re boring.”
Kenna eyed her. Charlayne’s husband was at least twenty years older than her, and she was midforties. She kept herself painfully skinny but not a result of limiting alcohol intake. Her husband had retired but played golf in the summer and indoor sports this time of year. He had a tan—most likely from a membership that gave him unlimited tanning bed access.
Kenna turned to Marion. “What about you? What do you think about Anton?”
“Men aren’t worth it, but I can see the appeal of abad boy.Someone who does whatever he wants because he can. That’s power.”
Forrest stood, finally. “I need to use the bathroom. I drank too much coffee today.” She smiled and made her preplanned exit.
There could be no accusation without evidence. But a confession would be even better.
Forrest might have a point about their being partners. It was just that Kenna hadn’t had one in a long time, and they usually didn’t end well.
“Is that why you take them?” Kenna stared at Marion, feeling the rush of knowing she was right like a hum that energized her. And Charlayne and Betty would be her witnesses to whatever Marion said next. “Because you can? For the rush of power.”
Marion stared at her, a pinched expression on her face.