Page 35

Chapter Twenty-Six

K enna walked into the conference room first. Lisa Romeo was nowhere to be seen. Instead, the younger one who’d shown up to the park that day rose from her chair.

“Where is she?” Kenna opened her hands, looking around even though there was no one else in here other than this woman.

She cleared her throat. “In case you don’t remember, I’m Beth Potter.”

“Right. Ms. Potter.” Kenna nodded. “I thought Terri Fleming was going to be here?”

She heard a commotion in the hall behind her. Ramon strode into the room, muttering. Kenna asked, “Where’s Bruce?”

“Right behind me.” Ramon dragged out a chair and slumped into it.

“Problem?”

Ramon said, “Nothing an apology won’t fix.”

Ms. Potter seemed a little flustered at Ramon’s appearance. Because she was only five-one, and he was a much taller, broad-shouldered Hispanic man who looked like he’d worked for a cartel for years—because he had—and still had that edge to him.

“Oh,” she said. “Well, I’m sure whatever happened, there’s been some kind of misunderstanding.” She looked at Kenna. “Ms. Fleming should be here shortly.”

“We don’t have time to waste,” Kenna said.

She had people to save and no idea where to start looking. A wild-goose chase wasn’t a good use of her time. Nor was lying on the bathroom floor and crying.

Her head was pounding. She refused to even think about Jax and what kind of situation he was in right now.

She couldn’t do anything to change it, so wallowing wasn’t going to help.

Actually, she could change it by finding Doctor Santorini, Marcus Buzard, and any of the other missing people.

Her phone rang. The screen said Special Agent Herron .

Kenna didn’t pick up. She had already sent the woman an explanation text and mentioned that she had nothing more to say until she’d figured out how to get Jax back.

Probably, the FBI wanted to help her, but the risk they wanted to hold her responsible was far too high.

Ramon huffed. He probably thought she was referring to him and whatever had happened on the way over, but she wasn’t. Just these lawyers, giving her half answers and constantly leading her where they wanted her to be.

Because they all worked for Dominatus .

She pulled out a chair and slumped into it, sitting next to Ramon. She reached over and squeezed his forearm.

“Ow.”

She frowned at him.

“Don’t worry about it.” He ran his hands down his face. “I’m supposed to be reassuring you, not the other way around.” He paused for a second, like it made his point more effectively, then said, “We’re gonna get him back.”

“I know we are.” If she said more than that, she’d start thinking about Jax again. Thinking would lead to crying, and then where would she be?

This was a case to solve.

She could try and think of it like any other, but that wasn’t ever going to be true, so she didn’t bother.

She looked at Ms. Potter, who had sat at the table again. Ruffling papers while they all waited.

Kenna asked, “How many of them do you think are resistance?” She spoke loudly enough Beth would’ve heard her, but it still sounded like she might be talking only to Ramon. Trying to have a private conversation.

The young lawyer stiffened.

“I figure at least one. Otherwise, I’d be dead by now. All of us, probably.” She leaned toward Ramon a little more. “They can’t have been working on this for long because Doctor Buzard hasn’t been found yet.”

“Maybe they want you to find him just like the Santinos,” Ramon said. “Get you to do their dirty work for them. If we’re lucky, they’ll keep Bruce until we’re done.”

She glanced at him, wondering if that was for real or if he was being sarcastic, and she spotted a gleam of humor in his gaze.

She hadn’t seen that in a long time. Not that their lives were conducive to much laughter, especially lately.

She was happy. Kenna wasn’t going to say otherwise since she finally had the life she’d been after for a long time.

But the kind of carefree laughter that came with no worries?

Not so much a part of her life.

Ms. Potter got up and left the room, leaving the door open.

“You think she left anything good in those papers over there?” Ramon asked.

Bruce strode in. “What are you two doing?”

“I could ask you the same thing,” Kenna said.

Bruce shook his head. “If there are any resistance fighters in this organization, you just put it in the head of a true believer that it’s a possibility.”

“Ms. Potter?” Kenna didn’t figure her for a Dominatus operative, following orders even if that meant giving her life.

Bruce said, “Scared her to death, the two of you did.”

“I’m the one who gets an apology.” Ramon shifted in his seat. “They asked for my middle name.”

Before Kenna had time to ask what on earth he was talking about, more people came in. A couple of operatives, er, lawyers that she’d already met and then Terri Fleming.

Considering that the last time Kenna had seen her, Terri had been trying to jump off a downtown high-rise building, she looked good. But definitely less bright than when she’d hired Kenna to investigate her business partner.

Terri took a seat on the opposite side of the table, and Lisa Romeo sat beside her.

The lawyer said, “We’ve apprised our client as to the situation and have advised her that if she answers your questions, it’s possible you could have the FBI pass on a good word to the district attorney to explain how she aided you. ”

Ramon reached over and squeezed her knee, probably harder than necessary. She bit the inside of her lip and said nothing.

Bruce leaned against the wall to Kenna’s right, where she could see him, and he could see everyone in the room.

He folded his arms. “Ms. Fleming, we’re aware you are the architect of a decommissioned missile silo that has been refurbished into a medical research facility.

We would like to know where it was built. ”

Fleming stared at the table.

What was with this woman who had hired her to investigate her business partner, Marshal Hapsworth, when she’d been embezzling herself the whole time? She’d put Kenna in the middle of a grab for whatever face they could save. One or both of them would go to prison soon.

This woman clearly knew her future wasn’t too bright. Otherwise, she wouldn’t be so downcast. She’d been exposed, ruined, and arrested. After trying to commit suicide, she was going to have to find reasons to live.

Reasons to keep on fighting.

“A group of men took my husband,” Kenna said. The words tumbled out without thought. But she’d played this wrong. She should’ve started talking about this woman’s business partner and then talked her around to doing this out of spite or even for revenge.

Sympathy didn’t work as well as sticking it to the other guy usually did. But it was too late now.

“They are going to kill him if I don’t find a woman, a doctor who was kidnapped, and the man who took her.

The same man who hired you to design that silo.

Or maybe he purchased the plan from you?

” Kenna let that hang in the air for a second.

“I need your help, Terri.” She leaned forward and put her elbows on the table, lacing her fingers together in front of her.

All of them would be able to see the ugly scars on her forearms.

She was also covered in dirt.

Kenna had reconciled how she felt about her scars.

She followed a Savior whose scars were evidence that He had set the whole world free.

She had, in a very small and very individual way, found a way to fellowship in His sufferings as the Bible said to do.

Because she understood what it meant to give of yourself so that someone else could live.

Bradley had done it for her years ago. She hadn’t realized what it truly meant then.

God had paid the ultimate price for her eternal destiny.

Now Jax might shadow that in this life. But if Kenna had any ability at all to create the future she wanted—needed—then she was going to move heaven and earth if God allowed it. She was going to get him back.

She stared across the table. “Terri, I need to know where that silo is.”

Even Ms. Romeo looked moved. One of the lawyers standing to the left, almost like guards in the room in the same way Bruce was standing, wiped under her eye.

Ms. Romeo held her pen poised over a notepad. “We’re all after the same goal here. I’m sure we can come to some kind of arrangement.”

Kenna shook her head. “We’re not on the same side, and you know it.”

“My company would like to speak with this Doctor Marcus Buzard.” She read the name from the pad as if she’d never heard it before.

Kenna didn’t buy it one bit. “For what purpose? He’s a kidnapper, and he uses his medical knowledge to experiment on people.” She looked at Terri. “These are the kind of people you want to represent you?”

Maybe this law firm was the reason Terri Fleming was in trouble in the first place. What if they’d arranged for her to work with Buzard because she had already designed the silo, or they knew she could? Their firm could have made the professional connection.

Terri cleared her throat.

Ms. Romeo said, “Please limit your questions to the matter at hand.”

“Because you don’t want her to realize she’s been played?

” Kenna shifted her gaze from Romeo to Fleming.

“Sooner or later, Terri is going to realize she’s just a patsy for Dominatus .

A group that doesn’t care when people get caught in the crossfire.

Especially abused children who fall through the cracks and go missing. ”

Terri gasped. “Children?”

Kenna said, “I’m trying to find a brother and sister. The police officers, who were supposed to take them to the hospital, handed them over to someone else. The officers are both dead. The children are gone.”

Ms. Romeo shifted in her chair.

“Hard to hear, isn’t it? That a man you worked with does things like that.

” Kenna sat back in her chair. “It can be hard when you realize you’re party to that kind of evil.

You sit up here in your fancy offices, and you believe you’re not fully a part of it.

Or you convince yourselves you’re doing what you can to fight it. ”

The lawyer stared at her with a hard expression, all of her discomfort gone. “You have no idea what we’re doing.”

“You’re not giving me what I need to put an end to this. Which is why it’s gone on so long. Because you haven’t done what’s necessary to finish it,” Kenna said. “And now my husband has been kidnapped, and you’re still hedging.”

The client looked at her lawyer, but neither said anything.

Until finally, Ms. Romeo set her pen down. “In my experience, finesse is far more effective in the long run. If it hadn’t worked, then none of my sisters would be alive, and neither would I.”

“I’m going to take them all down. But first, I’m going to do what it takes to get Jax back.”

“You’re part of the program he built. Doctor Buzard designed the modifications made to in vitro babies and the treatment that allows for successful birthrates.”

Kenna asked, “Are you…?”

Ms. Romeo said, “Some of us.”

“He really created it?”

“The Dominatus hired him for that purpose, for his groundbreaking research.”

Ramon leaned over to Kenna and said, “And his lack of morals.”

The lawyer’s lips pressed together into a thin line. “He needs to be shut down. Once and for all.”

“Agreed.” Kenna wasn’t going to trust any of them as far as she could throw them. Not that it would be impressive or anything.

This was a Banbury Investigations case. If anyone was going to help them, it would be the FBI.

Kenna said, “We need to know where the silo is.”

The client across the table started to hedge. “I’m not sure?—”

“Don’t bother,” Ramon said. “No one is going to believe you.”

“I don’t have much to offer. Just what I know,” Fleming said, but she wouldn’t meet Kenna’s gaze.

“Just answer the questions.” Bruce shifted off the wall but didn’t move closer. “Because it’s the decent thing to do.”

Her face scrunched up, but Fleming fought through whatever it was. “I thought… I mean, he was handsome. He asked me to come to his house, and I wore my nicest dress.”

Kenna winced inwardly where this woman wouldn’t see it. “A house?”

“When I got there, it was just dirt. There was a tiny hut in the middle of nowhere, like a shed. I knocked. I thought I was going to get murdered by some stranger, but the door opened, and he was there. He led me through the whole place, giving me the tour so I could see what I’d designed.

He seemed…giddy. The place was empty. I remember our footsteps echoed on the floor.

There weren’t any missing children or other doctors. It was just him.” She lifted her chin.

Kenna asked, “When was this?”

“Six years ago.”

Bruce said, “When the disappearances started. The ones where people saw men and women in old-timey medical outfits with scary white masks. He takes them and doesn’t care who might witness it and have to live with the nightmares for the rest of their lives.”

“I didn’t know!” Terri wailed.

Kenna looked at Ms. Romeo and saw zero empathy on the woman’s face. “I guess you can explain to her how she got caught up in this.”

“Representing her will be sufficient.” She turned to the woman beside her and said, “I spoke with the DA. They’re going to offer you ninety days in a minimum-security prison, and then you’ll have community service hours to complete. It’s a very generous offer.”

Bruce said, “Some of those prisons are like resorts. Golf. TV. Hobnobbing with rich people who are in there for insider trading.”

Kenna leaned forward. “Terri, where is the silo?”

“I’m sorry. I’m really sorry for everything.” She looked at Kenna and nodded. “I’ll give you the address.”