Page 123 of Long Road Home

Kobrinsky snorted.

“There’s no feed,” Gingrich said. “We have no cameras.”

“How do you keep an eye on the cells?”

“I have a call in to get it repaired, okay? They haven’t called me back.” Gingrich’s cheeks pinked. “It’s only been a day or so.”

Kenna glanced at him. With everything that was going on, he didn’t think that was relevant?

Gingrich shifted, like the male equivalent of an eye roll. “It happens intermittently, and I call them. Usually by the time they show up, it’s working again! It’s not like I plan it that way!”

Jax moved. “Kobrinsky, where’s the camera? I want to look at your wiring.” He was thinking the camera had been messed with. If so, it was possible someone turned it off and on whenever they needed to. That meant someone in the office had regular business in the cells they didn’t want anyone seeing.

Kenna closed her eyes and let out a breath.

One of the guys—she didn’t know which—asked, “Where is she?”

The question swam around her. She opened her eyes, blinking to clear the disorientation. She needed to go and see for herself.

Lord, what is going on?

God knew this situation was a mess of bits and pieces. Neither she nor Jax were at a hundred percent. What was new there?

Kenna pushed through to the cells and walked down the hall. Her boots thumped the floor. Forrest’s cell was empty.

She looked in the next one.

“Lance.” Kenna hammered on the bars. “Lance, wake up! The trailer’s on fire! Wake up!”

He started awake, rolled on the cot, and thumped onto the floor with a grunt.

Kenna winced.Ouch.“Lance, you good?”

He rolled to his back and blinked. “Where am I?”

“Where do you think?”

He lifted his chin and looked over his mountain belly at her. “Who are you?”

“Doesn’t matter right now. Where’s Forrest?”

“Who?” He blinked at her.

“The woman in the cell next to you. You must’ve seen her when you were brought in. Or when you left the other day?” By her count, he’d been here more than once this week. They couldn’t hold him longer than twenty-four hours before they had to charge him or cut him loose. If this was his rehab, it wasn’t working.

But he might’ve seen something.

She turned to the state officer who’d followed her into the hall. “Go grab a cup of black coffee. The stronger the better.”

Lance said, “Sheriff makes it in his office. That’s the one I like, not the swill in the pot.”

Kenna turned back to him. “Tell me what I want to know, and I’ll get you the good stuff. Otherwise, you drink the swill.”

“You’re a mean woman.”

Kenna bit the inside of her lip to keep from grinning. “Don’t you forget it.” She leaned both palms on the bars. “Now tell me, who was in here a bit ago?”

“I smelled food, but Paulette’s meaner than you. She didn’t bring me nothin’.”

---