Page 8

Chapter Eight

K enna stood by the sink in her RV because, aside from being closest to the coffee pot, it was the one place not occupied by another person. Ramon, Bruce, and Stairns sat around her table, located between the kitchen and the two front seats. Maizie was back in the bedroom, sitting up on the bed with a tray table desk over her lap and her laptop on it. Cabot, the mutt Kenna had rescued years ago, lay beside her favorite person on the bed.

“Okay, someone start.” She took a sip of her drink. “What do we have?”

Bruce shifted in his seat, blocked in by Ramon. The former spy said, “Stairns and I spoke with the restaurant management company. What footage they have is useless. She never looked at the camera.”

“She doesn’t want to be ID’d.” Or found.

Kenna wasn’t looking for her, even if she was the woman Kenna considered her mother. If she’d ever wanted to be a part of Kenna’s life for the long term, she could have been. At any point.

Kenna hadn’t yet written the whole thing off as being too late, but it was close.

She’d had nothing and no one. Now, why would she need a family when this RV was already full of people?

Ramon sat on the edge of the seat beside Bruce, his legs stretched across the aisle. “The asset is getting orders. Doesn’t look like CIA stuff to me. They only speak in code. So, are we thinking this is that company? They’re telling their asset what to do? She might be part of the resistance, but she’s not going to let on to them that she’s some kind of double agent.”

Across the other side of the table, Stairns lifted one knee onto the seat and leaned back against the window. “That’s what I’d guess. If it is her. Could be someone else talking to them. If it isn’t the victim, then it might be the lady you met at the wedding show.” He raised his voice and called down the aisle, “Maze, did you confirm with the resistance whether they sent that Roxanne woman?”

The teen called back, “They said no one was sent here. They don’t currently have any assets in the US that are anywhere near us.”

Kenna glanced at Maizie, then back at the guys. “So she’s with the company and came to me specifically because I’ll want to find this woman. Find her for them.”

And if the missing woman wasn’t Amara—because she’d been at the restaurant—then who was it?

“Maybe they figure you know the terrain,” Ramon said. “This is what you do, so you’re the fastest route to locating this woman they need to find.”

“And she’s one of them? Or an enemy I’m going to locate so they can take her for themselves or kill her?” Her stomach turned at the idea of any of those things happening.

“So, you’re gonna let her be a victim?” Maizie asked.

Kenna knew that tone. “If she is one of them, I have no reason to want to find her. Except that she’s family by DNA. But for all I know, they could’ve manipulated that to get me to help them.”

As far as she was concerned, her family was here. Plus, she was marrying into another family. None of them were related to her by genetics. Kind of like the man she’d grown up believing was her father, the only one who’d taken care of her.

“We’re not taking the case?” Bruce asked.

“Of course we’re taking the case.” Kenna wasn’t walking away from this mystery. “I want to know if there have been any similar cases. Everything Roxanne told me needs to be confirmed. The company doesn’t want the police looking into this, so they’ve stalled the whole investigation and given the detectives little to work with.”

Bruce said, “Maybe your girl Roxanne is the one who did it, and it’s a cover-up. A way to string you along so you’re distracted investigating this case that’ll go nowhere, and they can do whatever they want in the meantime.”

Ramon glanced at him. “You’re a very suspicious person.”

“I’m astute.”

Stairns looked over at his old friend. “It’s not paranoia if they really are out to get you.”

Bruce chuckled.

“I feel like I’m in a sitcom about grumpy old men.” Ramon shook his head, his attention on his phone. “Pizza is on its way.”

Kenna tugged out her phone, but she hesitated. Her mind spun with all the questions she had surrounding the missing woman, the person responsible, and how she was going to find them. Not to mention the woman from the restaurant and the company. But she didn’t call Jax. Yet.

Better to think through the implications of what was happening first.

Maizie was here with all of them only because Elizabeth had gone on a cruise with a friend of hers. With Stairns here, the teen understandably hadn’t wanted to stay home alone with only the dog for company.

Now, she would get what she’d been saying she wanted since almost the first time they’d met. To be in the field with Kenna, working a case.

The time they’d spent in England didn’t really count since they hadn’t been tracking a killer.

If her team accepted this case, then they might be.

“I’ll go outside and wait for the food.” Kenna grabbed the door latch before anyone could object, carrying her phone and her coffee mug. She stepped out into the still night, stars visible overhead but not many. They weren’t all that far out of Denver, so light pollution from the city meant the full spread of natural light was hidden.

She sank into one of the plastic chairs on the rug she’d laid under the step. Maizie had insisted they put up the awning, and she’d strung fairy lights around the edge so that Kenna could sit in the yellow glow of those lights.

The phone rang once and then connected with the hum of being on speaker. “Hey.”

“Driving home?”

“Finally.” Jax sounded tired. “But it was all meetings about new procedures for logging time spent working on a case.”

Kenna leaned her head back on the chair. “Sounds exciting being the boss.”

He chuckled, the sound warm against her ear. “Tell me about your day. From what I heard, it was a whole lot more interesting than mine.”

She recounted the wedding show, crime scene, dinner story. Her mom. The note. The case, and how it might be connected to other disappearances.

“A serial?”

Kenna bit the inside of her lip. “That’s what I’m afraid of.”

“Are you really?”

“It’s an expression. I’m understandably cautious, as opposed to the rest of them who think this is business as usual.”

“Isn’t it?”

Kenna said, “You’re supposed to be on my side.”

“Oh, I thought I was challenging you to be a better person.”

“That, too.” Kenna blew out a breath. “Maizie is here. This morning, she said that when you and I get married she wants us to adopt her so she can have your last name. Am I really going to let her go chase a killer?”

“I’m more worried about the rest of you than the one person all of you are determined to keep safe. And adopting her is a great idea.”

“I didn’t ever say my worry was gonna be rational.”

“Ah.” He paused for a second. “Laney said wedding dress shopping might not have been a light and breezy experience.”

Kenna was about as excited to talk about that as she was to talk about Maizie helping chase a dangerous person who could target them. “I’m good.”

“It can’t be easy to be reminded of things you’ve already grieved. Reminding you of what you lost.”

“It was more like realizing what I have now,” she said. “And realizing what I was supposed to have had.”

“You lost a lot. It has to hurt, and there might never be a day when it’s gone.”

“I was supposed to have Bradley here. It’s not a loss I want to be okay with, but I have you now, and it’s a circumstance I’m content with. Otherwise, I’d still be alone.” She watched a car drive by slowly, a single occupant in the front. “Is it weird for you? You were married before, and now you’re doing it again.”

“I’d love to say that was a disaster from start to finish, but there were good times in the beginning.”

“There had to have been something, or you wouldn’t have married her.”

“Everyone was so excited—more excited than me. It was weird.”

Kenna said, “So because this time we’re taking a more measured approach?—”

“You might be.” He chuckled.

“Fine, I am. And your mom isn’t totally convinced about me. Your dad certainly isn’t.”

“Green flags,” he said. “And for the record, Mom came around. She’s a hundred percent Team Kenna.”

“Really?”

“You were worried.”

“No, I wasn’t.”

“It’s cute.”

“I’m not cute. I catch killers.” She smiled to herself but refused to let the humor bleed into her tone.

He said, “We all change. We grow. New experiences and new people in our lives leave an impression on us.”

“I was fine on my own.”

He didn’t argue because he knew how she felt about it. Solitude wasn’t a character failing, and it hadn’t been about licking her wounds. It had been about having her own space to carve out her own life after she’d lost everything. Slowly, she’d built that back up to where she was now. It didn’t mean that time was half of a life or something she needed to “fix” about herself.

He said, “I’m never going to object to you having backup on hand.”

“How about pitching in and helping?”

“You want to tap me for my FBI access?”

“Absolutely,” she said. “Or I’ll need another confidential informant in the bureau. I’ll have to cozy up to someone else and get them to spill federal secrets to me.”

“I don’t think so.”

Kenna laughed aloud. “Roxanne, the company asset. Not sure whose side she’s on right now. She told me this is one of several cases that are similar.”

“You want to know if the FBI is aware. Or even investigating.”

“There’s not much to go on.”

He said, “I’ll see what I can do.”

“Thanks.”

“If you find something concrete that they can run with, pass it to me, and I’ll send it over to the Denver office. They’ll want to open a case if it needs investigating.”

Sure, she was going to just turn everything she had over so the FBI could have her case and do the investigation themselves? Right.

“Kenna.”

“Concrete evidence. Of course, no problem,” she said. “Pizza’s here, so I’ve gotta go.” She did the “love you” thing they did now and hung up so she could use her phone to pay for the food.

Kenna carried the stack of three boxes into the RV. “Why did we need this much pizza?”

At the same time, Bruce said, “You only got three?”

She set them on the table. “While you eat, you can tell us about your old friend.”

Ramon slid off the bench and took his slice to the front seat, which had been rotated so it faced in. He sat eating where he could see the whole RV. Like the way a dog in a pack would take his meal away from the others so no one tried to steal it. Whatever issues he had with food didn’t matter now. He had money and freedom, so he could eat whatever he wanted whenever. He would figure it out.

But she still prayed for him to find the kind of deep peace she’d found in Jesus. They could use some of that.

Bruce swallowed a huge bite. “My thing doesn’t matter. Revenge takes time and planning. If we have a case, then we’re gonna work that. I can figure my stuff out after.”

Stairns glanced at him. “That’s all you’re gonna say about it? All that bitterness is going to eat you alive.”

Bruce shrugged. “Doesn’t matter.”

“Whiskey isn’t going to solve your problems,” Ramon said. “Trust me, I know.”

“Maybe not, but it’s a decent distraction.” Bruce took another huge bite.

Kenna grabbed a slice for herself because fancy dinners were always tiny. She took what was left in the box to Maizie. “The dog doesn’t eat pizza.” She set the box on the bed.

Maizie looked at Cabot, then at her. “Um, sure.”

Kenna frowned. She pointed at Cabot and said, “No pizza,” then went back to the guys. “Bruce, what did this guy do to you anyway?”

When Bruce didn’t immediately answer, Stairns said, “The guy is shady as heck. He’s probably the one who got Bruce canned from the CIA.”

“Guess every time he said he had my back, he didn’t.” Bruce’s expression had a darkness to it that looked deadly. “If we can verify the theory.”

“Which is what will take time,” Stairns told Kenna.

“I’ll think on it while we work this case,” Bruce said.

She didn’t need to think about that one. “As long as you’re not distracted when we need your focus.”

“I’m good.”

“You do that, and as soon as we’re done with this case, all of us can help you. We’ll dig into this guy, find everything he’s ever done, and take him down.”

Ramon said, “There won’t be anything left of him when we’re done.”

She frowned. “That’s not exactly what I meant.”

Before she could continue, Bruce said, “But it’s how I like it.”

“Okay, then.” They could figure out how to mitigate the fallout of that later. Kenna leaned back against the counter. “We’re gonna work this like any other case. We find evidence and witnesses, we narrow our suspect list, and we find this person—and his victims.”

Maizie came to the door of the bedroom where the slider sectioned that room off from the rest of the RV. “You’re going to let me work a case?”

It could be that Maizie was only standing there to keep Kenna from seeing Cabot eating pizza out of the box, but Kenna didn’t ask. “Despite the fact it fills me with abject terror, yes. You’re here, so you can work with the rest of us.”

“I’ll have three bodyguards,” Maizie pointed out.

As if Kenna didn’t know that. “But when Stairns goes home because Elizabeth is back, you go with him. Deal?”

Maizie lifted her chin. “Fine.”

“That means we only have a few days to solve this case before the two of you go back home. So I guess we’d better get started.”

The first thing Kenna was going to do was pray this wouldn’t turn out to be a giant mistake.