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Kenna bit her lip. “The architect told me where to find the silo. I need to know how to get in?—”
Noise over the line cut her off at the end.
“One?”
He said, “What are you…?”
He might have been talking to her or someone else. “One?”
A crackle burst against her ear. She winced.
One said, “No, you’re not going to—don’t. Don’t!”
One gurgled. He cried out.
Kenna lowered the phone and said to Ramon, “Call Maizie. I need to know where he is.” She listened to the call but heard nothing more. “One? One!”
Ramon had his cell to his ear, driving with the other hand. He tucked it between his shoulder and his chin, grasped the steering wheel with both hands, and changed lanes fast. He got off the freeway at the next exit, pulling into a gas station parking lot. Bruce pulled up behind them.
Ramon and Bruce got out, talking between them while Ramon made the call.
She checked the call with One was still open on her phone, but she still couldn’t hear anything. “One?”
He would be dead before they got there. But she had to try.
Ramon slid back into the driver’s seat. “Okay, got it. Thanks, kid.” He dropped his phone in the cup holder and hit the gas.
Kenna grabbed the door handle, holding on while he swung out of the parking lot. Ten minutes later, they pulled off the main street into the parking lot for a flooring store. He drove around the back, unlocking his phone with his thumb. He handed it to her.
She still had her phone connected to the call with One, but she laid it in her lap. On Ramon’s screen, a dot blinked. “Up a little farther, almost to the next building.”
“Never mind,” Ramon said. “I see him.”
He pulled off to the side by a chain-link fence behind the big warehouse building. It looked almost new in front, with gleaming windows and a fancy sign. Back here, cardboard and Styrofoam overflowed the garbage.
What she wouldn’t give for a nice cooling breeze.
It wasn’t going to fix the gritty, hot feeling and the dirt all over her. She needed a shower after being left on that trail, but who cared when there was a job to do. Going home would feel so wrong without Jax there. She might be able to wash herself and snuggle Jolene for a second, but that wasn’t what would get her husband back.
She shoved her door open and ran over to the dark lump in the shape of a man lying in the road. “One!” Kenna collapsed beside him and rolled him to his back. She gasped. Blood coated the front of his shirt. “One.”
He inhaled a rattling breath that sounded like some of the blood was in his lungs. “You.”
“I’m so sorry.” Of course, he had been killed because of her.
Because he’d been about to betray his friends and the doctor to help her. They had to have known somehow—heard him on the phone with her—and understood his intent.
“I’m so sorry,” she repeated.
That rattling sound felt like it moved through her. Maybe it was the sound of her heart, unable to handle all the pain of what was going on. Too much grief. Even though she knew what loss felt like, it surprised her all over again with how much it hurt every time.
“Silo,” One croaked out.
She winced, her hand on his shoulder. “Don’t try to talk. We’ll get an ambulance.”
Ramon had a knife out. He cut One’s shirt open, pulling back the sides to reveal his chest. A number of stab wounds leaked blood in steady streams. Ramon leaned down with his head turned so he could listen. He knocked in different places on One’s chest and then shook his head.
“Hold on.” She leaned close to One, refusing to admit defeat. “We aren’t going to let you go.”