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Chapter Eleven

D aylight seemed harsh after the dim light of that dining room in the basement.

Wherever they’d been, she was glad to be out of there.

Even if they’d been summarily dismissed.

No more conversation. No more exchanging information.

Thanks and goodbye. The rest had disappeared through different hatches in the walls, leaving Four to walk them up to the surface.

Kenna had tried to ask him questions, but he hadn’t answered. Not even a “goodbye” or “nice talking to you.” Not one word.

As soon as they stepped out, he closed the door behind them.

“What did One give you?”

Kenna opened her hand. How her husband knew that man had given her anything with just a handshake was anyone’s guess. “A card with a phone number on it. Nothing else.”

Jax asked, “Are you okay? I know you were hoping they might give you answers as to what happened to you.”

“They also gave us an address.”

“You remember it?”

She nodded, pulling out her phone. She sent the address and the phone number to Maizie so her assistant could run down both and then grabbed Jax’s hand. “Let’s get Bruce and get out of here.”

“We’re checking out that address? They all but admitted they killed that woman just so she didn’t give away anything about you.”

“They wouldn’t have said they killed someone in front of an FBI agent. That would have led you to arresting them.”

“You think I would’ve been able to do that?”

He didn’t like feeling powerless any more than she did. Something else they had in common. “I don’t think they’re bad guys we need to take down, but they’re definitely not harmless.”

“Neither are you, and I haven’t arrested you yet.”

She grinned at him. “What do you think Bruce has been up to while we were led on a goose chase and given the runaround?”

Jax smiled back. “With Bruce, I’m not sure I want to guess.”

“Probably a good call.”

“You really trust him? I mean, he hasn’t exactly let you down before, but you’ve been in situations where he should’ve had your back, but he didn’t.”

“The people I trust are…less than the fingers on my hand.” Was he one of them? “I guess there are degrees even of that. Full trust? You. Ryson and his family. Maybe it’s just you since I don’t see him much.”

“We should go visit them at the holidays.”

“I’d like that.” There were others, like Maizie and Ramon. People she put a whole lot of faith in. But she’d been burned before.

She squeezed his hand and pulled open the door for the main hall. Moving from the outside scorching temperature into the air-conditioned indoor space made bumps appear on her arms.

“Your arms do seem better with all this.”

“I know.” She looked down at her forearms while they were tucked in this little entryway together, between the exterior doors and the ones that led into the dining hall.

A small alcove with a noticeboard covered with event flyers, one about a missing cat.

“I’m trying not to think about it, but they almost feel… fine.”

“That’s a good thing.” He touched her shoulder, his hand sliding over so his thumb could swipe her cheek. “The stronger, the better. Considering you expend your life to help people and right the wrongs of the world. If you can do that with a little less pain, I’m okay with it.”

“Even if the trade-off is that evil wins?”

He leaned close. “Don’t let it.”

“Easy for you to say.”

“Then join the FBI. It’s what we do.”

Kenna rolled her eyes. “Been there, done that.”

“You could be a consultant for real, though. Not just because I have the paperwork already.”

She pushed through the interior doors. If she did that, it would mean she’d be stuck working his cases and not her own. She would have no autonomy if they dictated what she was supposed to be working on all the time.

Not that working with Jax would be bad. But living and working together?

She might not be ready for that. Far as she could see, a man had to have his thing.

He might like the idea of her being part of it, but he wouldn’t want her there when he had to be the boss, and he’d know she wasn’t going to like it.

Jax snagged her elbow, and she nearly ran into Bruce’s back.

“What’s going on?”

The older man said, “Nothing.” He ushered them out. “Time to go, I guess.”

They stepped outside and strode to the path that would take them to the parking lot.

Kenna asked, “What happened?”

“I was gonna ask you guys the same thing.” He looked her up and down, then did the same to Jax. “You both seem like you’re in one piece.”

She gave him a rundown of their encounter downstairs. “How about you?”

“Explains why I didn’t find them at lunch. Everyone in there…” He paused to shake his head, blowing out a breath. “Stepford. Isn’t that the movie?”

“Happy, plastic? Super fake?”

“That’s it. Everything’s great. It’s all wonderful. Meanwhile, they’re eating mashed potatoes that taste like sawdust and the chicken was… I don’t even know what it was.” He shuddered. “There’s something wrong with those people.”

“Maybe they’re just trying to make the best of it,” Jax suggested. “But I can call the health department.”

“You do that.” Bruce nodded.

“Nice to know you care about people.” Kenna was almost impressed by it.

“I’m gonna end up in one of those places someday. Lord willing.” Bruce frowned. “It had better be a good spot.”

“Start saving now. That’s all I have to say.”

Bruce said, “Maybe I’ll just get a cabin in Wyoming and go off the grid. No one needs to worry about me.”

“But we are going to worry about you.”

“Then come visit. Your feelings aren’t my problem.”

Jax looked a little offended, but Kenna just laughed. “Leave some instructions on what to do in the event of…”

“Yeah, yeah. I’ll give you the password for the safe deposit box. All that stuff needs to come out into the open so people know what’s going on. Better if that happens after I’m gone.” Bruce took a step back. “Got a job for me?”

“Not right now. Jax and I can check out the one lead we have.”

“I’m gonna track down those kids. Make sure they’re all right.” He looked at her husband. “Keep her safe?”

Jax just nodded.

Bruce wandered off to his car. Jax drove, and she entered the address One had given her into the dash screen map.

Those men had been mysterious. Maybe like her, and maybe not.

Definitely covering for the doctor. Or they had no choice in the matter, and they had to protect him whether they liked it or not.

Either way, they were going to find themselves at odds with her if she went after Buzard to take him down.

She didn’t want to put their lives in jeopardy, but justice had to be served. This doctor couldn’t continue to operate without someone exposing him. He was destroying lives by working for a deadly enemy with international reach.

If she didn’t take him down, who knew what might happen. He could take anyone. Kill without consequences and target whoever he wanted. If she did nothing, it would be at least partially her fault because she could’ve stopped it.

Her phone rang. Kenna put it on speaker. “Hey, Maze.”

“I got an answer on that phone number they gave you, but it isn’t one you’re going to like.”

Jax turned onto the ramp for the freeway, their destination twenty minutes away.

Kenna asked, “What is it?”

“The number comes back as registered to a pay phone in New York City. But the number was discontinued years ago, when the whole network was taken down.”

“Do they even have pay phones anymore?”

“All of them were taken down except for a few phone booths and some private phones. The system was dismantled. Who knows how they have access to one of the numbers, if it wasn’t just reassigned to a regular phone.”

“Access to government resources, or they know someone they can bribe that gave them the number.” Kenna had a few other ideas, but that was the gist of it. “They got it somehow, and apparently, it’s how we get ahold of them.”

“Maybe I should call. Introduce myself.”

Hopefully, she was joking. “Let’s leave bringing them on board with the team for a while yet. We don’t even know if we can trust them.”

“But they’re like you, right?”

“I have no idea, Maze.” No reason to discuss this anyway. Whether they were the same or different didn’t matter. She lived her life, and they’d chosen theirs. She probably wouldn’t be able to sway them from what seemed like the tenets they lived by.

Rules that had kept them alive for years.

“Anything on the address they’re sending us to?” Jax reached over and squeezed her knee.

“Only that it’s all over the police band. A pizza restaurant, some kind of franchise place. It burned down last night. The cops are there now because they found something, but no one has said what it is on the radio. Yet.”

“Thanks,” Kenna said. “We’re almost there.”

“Keep me posted. Anything else? Stairns just showed up with pizza.”

Maizie probably didn’t want to be on the phone when she shared her dinner with Kenna’s dog, Cabot, who lived with her in the Airstream. The dog who wasn’t supposed to eat pizza.

“Nope. Thanks, Maze.” Kenna hung up. “A pay phone? Seems like an old-school way for people to find you.”

“Maybe the number goes nowhere. Or it’s a prank number they give out when they don’t want someone to be able to contact them.”

Kenna let out a sigh. Up ahead, she spotted several unmarked police cars, a coroner’s van, a fire truck, and a fire chief’s SUV, along with another vehicle with Fire Marshal written on the side.

“This looks interesting.” Jax pulled over a distance from the incident scene on a suburb street with a strip mall on one side and a row of apartment buildings on the other.

Two lanes of traffic had been reduced to one due to all the emergency vehicles.

A couple of police officers stood in the center directing traffic.

The middle of the strip mall housed a wide restaurant with two stories, or it had. Now it was a burned-out shell that hadn’t spread to the neighboring storefronts, but she figured they had significant smoke damage. Enough that everything had been shut down.

Jax approached, digging out his credentials. He introduced himself and explained that Kenna was his consultant.

When the cop looked at her, she said, “Sarge.”

Jax tried not to react, but she knew he wanted to. It wasn’t like she knew every cop in Phoenix.

The sergeant said, “Hernandez.”

She nodded. “I remember. How is Ms. Fleming?”

“How should I know?” He motioned over his shoulder at the burned-out building. “Is this your doing?”

“Not so far as I’m aware.”

Jax said, “It’s possibly connected to a case we’re working, but we aren’t sure. If we could just have a look around and talk to your guys, that would be great.”

Sergeant Hernandez said, “This isn’t about jurisdiction?”

“It’s not currently an FBI matter.”

Her husband, so diplomatic. “Come on, Sarge. Can we look around?”

Hernandez frowned. “You can walk through with me. You don’t go anywhere without my escort.”

Kenna nearly snapped a salute, but if she did that, they would probably get kicked off the scene entirely. She pressed her hands together in front of her. “Promise.”

The sergeant sighed. “I’m gonna regret this.

” But he went to the front doors, where they all had to put on booties to cover their shoes so they didn’t contaminate the scene.

“The fire originated in the kitchen, or so the fire marshal tells me. Something about the accelerant used giving off more heat than would’ve ever been necessary to just destroy the place. ”

“It was arson?” Jax asked. “That’s his ruling?”

“Fire marshal says whoever set the fire intended to destroy what was in the kitchen beyond any chance of us retrieving evidence. Scorched earth. Hot and localized. It was a powerful burn, but it didn’t spread quickly. The perpetrator kept it contained so that nothing much else was damaged.”

“Considerate.” Kenna looked at the blackened interior of the building as they walked through, unable to distinguish tables or chairs.

There was an area that might have been a front counter, but it was impossible to tell.

Everything had been charbroiled to the studs.

It was all black, cracked, burned wood. Nothing left.

“What was in the kitchen that they wanted to destroy?” Kenna asked.

“Firefighters missed it. Whoever it is, they look like everything else in here.”

Jax asked, “One victim?”

“No way to ID them. The body was brittle, and the ME is still trying to figure out how to get it out of here aside from scooping the whole thing into a basin.”

Kenna winced. “If it happened fast, maybe they didn’t suffer.”

“I hope so.” Hernandez led them into a room in the rear.

What should’ve been the kitchen, most likely.

The huge industrial stove was distinguishable, now covered by the hood that had fallen down on it.

A brick oven to the right had an open metal grate.

It had to be crazy hot in here when the fire was going to cook the pizzas, let alone when this blaze happened.

“Where was she found?” Kenna had to ask, rather than guess.

“She?”

Uh-oh. “The victim.” She tried to brush it off. “Force of habit. Most of my cases involve female clients or missing women and children.” He couldn’t blame her for that, could he? Besides, they didn’t know for sure if this really was the abusive mother of those two kids.

“In the brick oven they use to cook the pizzas.” Hernandez didn’t seem convinced. “Do you know who the victim is?”

They weren’t likely to identify her otherwise, given the destruction. There wouldn’t be any DNA left to collect. The only way to find out who it was would be for someone to confess.

“We can’t be certain.”

Jax said, “We don’t even know for sure if it’s connected. What else can you tell us otherwise?”

Hernandez folded his arms, tightening the sleeves of his uniform shirt over his shoulders.

“The restaurant was about to declare bankruptcy and shut down. After this, they’ll be able to recoup their losses and get solvent again.

The fact someone chose this place to burn and dispose of a body actually did the owners a favor. ”

Kenna turned away, as if she suddenly needed to look at the room around her. She just needed some air.

The men she had met at that retirement home had taken a woman and disposed of her so thoroughly no one would ever know who she was, and they’d done it in such a way that would help out the owner of this place.

They probably thought they were like some kind of Robin Hood do-gooders, taking money from insurance companies and getting the little guy a payout they desperately needed.

She had to get Maizie digging into this to see if they’d done it before.