Page 68

Help us, Lord.She meant them right now, but also everything else.
Kenna stared at Stan. “Call for an ambulance before you leave.”
He chuckled. “Theo’s car didn’t get in contact with the dispatcher yet?”
Did he have that set up? She hadn’t heard anything.Maybe help was already on the way. If someone was coming, hopefully that included the police. She could keep Stan talking, and they’d be able to arrest him for attempted whatever this was with his truck. Murder. Vehicular manslaughter. She didn’t know which it was.
Kenna blinked more than she needed to, so she came across as helpless. Which she kind of was, but that wasn’t the point. “They say you knew my father.”
Stan surveyed her. Finally, he said, “We all have a story. Mine is classified.”
“So you served, and they redacted the good stuff?” She hadn’t tried to find out what her father had done during his time in the Marine Corps. She’d always thought more about him as an FBI agent, even though his military service was only part of the life he’d lived.
“They wrote me off. Left me for dead, discarded and forgotten about. Like I was nothing to them. Just trash.” He stared at her. “Your father did that to me.”
Cold crept over Kenna. She shivered, but inside there was a whole lot of numbness she didn’t like. This man had been sidelined. Stan Tilley knew what it was like to be wronged. Maybe she could use that. “An innocent woman could go to jail because you did this.”
He barely reacted, but he’d heard her. And he didn’t like it. “How about I kill the sheriff for you? That should stall the investigation.” Just like that, he offered to murder?
“I don’t want you to kill the sheriff.” She just wanted him to show up and arrest Stan instead. “Did you kill the pastor? Or Mr. Wells?” He might’ve been the one who had cut off Marion’s husband’s head. Or killed him so she could cut off the head after. Whichever it was, hopefully the pathologist could point the sheriff’s department in the right direction.
Stan chuckled. “Never been to Wisconsin before a few weeks ago. Don’t know the pastor.”
“How do you know Mr. Wells was killed before you got here?”
“Because I read the papers.” He sneered. “And I listen to the police band. It’s not that hard to find out information in a place like this where folks will still talk to strangers. But can’t you go somewhere I can chase you where it’s warm?”
Kenna wanted to look at Theo. Or Alonzo. Find out if they were still alive. Would help get here fast enough, or were they already dead? Surely one of them would’ve woken by now.
“Did you hear me, or are you gonna pass out? I’ll take some more pictures.”
“Chase me? You’ve caught me now.”
Stan looked around for his phone. “This was fun and all, but the instructions are pretty specific.” He turned to the left and started to move.
A gunshot went off from inside the car.
Kenna’s whole body flinched, and pain pounded in her head. Stan stumbled back a step, blood blossoming on his upper arm on the right side. He moved left, taking a few rushing steps, and grabbed his right arm with his left. No weapon. No phone.
This was her chance to take him down.
But she couldn’t move.
Stan ran toward the woods, moving southeast. She followed him so far—straining to keep him in sight—that her head swam and her eyes rolled back in her head.
Before she passed out, she thought she heard a vehicle.
When Kenna awoke, she still felt numb, but it was a warm numb and she was comfortable. The hard ground and the cold outside of the car were gone. She seemed to be in a bed. Covered in blankets.
A clock on the wall ticked.
She turned her head to it but couldn’t figure what the numbers meant. Her thoughts swam, and her mind didn’t want to process what she was seeing.
Consciousness retreated, then returned later.
The door opened, and the sheriff entered. “Good. You’re awake.”
She cleared her throat. “What’s going on?”