Page 17 of Long Road Home

She took the file of blank paper and stepped out into the hall.

“We’re not done here, Kenna!”

Jerry stepped out of a room halfway down the hall. “Did you mean for me to sweat you out? I wasn’t sure.”

“I wasn’t in the mood to freeze.” Marion had beenuncomfortably chilled, and Kenna had needed a way to establish her authority.

“You think that’s what got her to tell you where they are? Compassion, or something?”

Another deputy appeared behind him, along with the sheriff. The older guy had GINGRICH on his name badge, even though everyone in town likely knew his name. They had probably been watching and listening to the conversation on a computer screen. Kenna acknowledged all of them. “Does it matter? She said where they are.” She wasn’t going to give them a seminar on all the interrogation tactics she’d used over the years.

“You’re going up there to take a look, I suppose?” Sheriff Gingrich asked.

“Nope.” She took a step back, watching the surprise flash on their faces.Enough with the assumptions.“Not my case anymore, but I would like to know when you find them all. So don’t delete my number just yet.”

If she hung around to see them unearth the oldest body, someone might eventually put it together that she had a connection to the victim’s big brother. Ramon Santiago had been a ghost since Mexico. She might be here to clear this up for him, and work a case everyone had considered cold, but his name didn’t need to be splashed over the news again. His departure from the FBI as a supposed traitor—or the fact that had come after his betrayal by a female agent who had been Kenna’s roommate at Quantico—was something no one knew. Cecilia Warren would find the same justice as Marion Wells.

In due time.

She checked her surroundings outside, scanning the parking lot behind the sheriff’s office and the surrounding area while she walked to her Subaru. Just another car. Nothing special. As much as people seemed to refuse to believe it, shedidn’t seek out attention. If the Walker—the serial killer Jax and his team were hunting—wanted to bait her into coming after him, then he was going to have to show his face.

Make a move.

Hopefully a mistake, as well.

Kenna drove through the town. For the first time since she arrived in Wisconsin, she wanted to leave and go home, rather than simply to the next town or the next case. She’d spent a chunk of time at Stairns’ cabin before the holidays. Then she’d come here, so she could have work as the legitimate excuse not to go and meet Jax’s mother or the rest of his family. Forrest’s idea of Christmas hadn’t been much to speak of, and that suited Kenna just fine. She and her father had never made a big deal of it, though she had watched a certain Christmas-themed action movie nearly every year then and since.

Right now, rather than contend with the police here and their assumptions about her intentions, she found the desire to seek solace in something familiar.

Why was that?

Maybe becoming a Christian had changed her in that way as well, so that she was more prone to want to go see the people she cared about. Visit her friends. For better or worse, she had more than just work to keep her going these days. Her life had shifted. She was changing—hopefully in ways that were better, even if they weren’t so comfortable.

She spotted the local favorite spot two streets over. After the deputy had been there when she got back from her run, she hadn’t eaten anything. She’d just showered, dressed, and come straight here. They hadn’t even offered her coffee.

The bell above the door jingled when she stepped inside.

Across the diner she saw Betty slide out of a booth and stand. Charlayne slid out after her, and both women metKenna by the hostess stand that had probably been there since the mid-’80s. Their husbands, in a heated conversation at the table, didn’t seem to have noticed their exit.

“Care to explain why you didn’t tell us about Marion?” Betty furiously whispered the words, her face close to Kenna’s. “How we had to find out someone we thought was our book clubfriendis the county kidnapper?”

Kenna took a step away from the hostess and glanced between the two women. “You’re as surprised as I am that she had a kid in her closet. I’m just glad we got to her in time.”

“We?” Charlayne set a hand on her hip. “Marion nearly cut my throat!”

“You should’ve told us you knew what she was up to,” Betty said. “Not keep us in the dark and string us along like chumps.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you,” Kenna said. “But if all four of us were pretending, she’d have seen through it.” She paused. “Both of your husbands were suspects.”

“That’s why you gave us a front row seat to nearly getting killed?” Charlayne ran her fingers across her neck.

“I’m sorry if you were scared.”

Charlayne huffed away, back toward her husband and Betty’s while Kenna tried to figure out what else she could say. The two gray-haired men made as interesting of a pair as the two women, opposites who had become friends. Kenna was about to apologize to Betty when one of the men said, “Why do I even bother?” and sat back.

The other tossed a water glass at his friend. “I’ll kill you myself for this.”

Chapter Six

---