Page 26 of Long Road Home

In tenderness He sought me, weary and sick with sin. And on His shoulders brought me, back to His fold again.

Forrest nudged her arm, and Kenna realized everyone had started to sit. She settled on the cushioned pew beside her friend.

The preacher wore a buttoned shirt, no collar or robe, with the sleeves rolled down even though the room was warm. His head was shaved clean, and he looked at least fifty. Thick neck, wide-set dark eyes. Pastor Bruce Kilborn had a lightness to his expression but wasn’t the kind of guy she’d want to meet in a dark alley.

“Before we get to the Word,” he began, “I just wanted to pass on a warning from the mayor about the incoming storm. It’s been unseasonably mild the past few weeks, but that’s about to take a turn. We’re supposed to get a cold front from Canada that will bring down snow and icy temperatures. So get stocked up in the next couple of days and stay safe. We have a list of those in need if you’d like to help a brother or sister who could use some extra supplies or a meal.”

Forrest leaned over and whispered, “You should make a few trays of your lasagna and freeze some.” Her father’s lasagna hadn’t lasted one evening even though she’d made a whole dish of it. Forrest had scarfed down several helpings.

“Sure,” Kenna whispered back, chuckling.

The lady in front of them turned back and gave them a glare for whispering too loud.

The preacher read a few verses from Isaiah about holiness, talking about the sin nature versus God’s instruction to be holy as His people.

Kenna wrote some notes in her phone—references to look them up later, and a couple of questions to ask Jax.

“You are a new creation. So consider yourself dead to the sin nature inside of you. It is dead. It is no more. So live in Christ. Live for God.”

Kenna wrote a lot down, because there was so much she didn’t fully grasp yet about what it meant to be a Christian. This journey would end up being the most important case of her life.

The case that sawherrescued and brought home.

Pastor Bruce prayed, and people started to disburse from the sanctuary. The lady who’d glared saw Kenna’s phone in her hand and huffed.

Kenna turned to Forrest and found her making a face. “Did I need to tell her I was using my phone to make notes?”

“I would’ve, but it wouldn’t have been as holy as a pen and paper.”

“Do you have stuff you need to get before the storm?” Kenna asked.

Forrest nodded. “Are you going to make sure they get all those bodies out before the snow hits?”

“I can pray they do,” Kenna said. But she was pretty sure if the sheriff needed help, he wouldn’t ask. She didn’t need to wade back into that again today. Not to mention it really was safer for everyone if she didn’t get close to the people in the police department. She’d already met her quota of dead or corrupt cops she’d known in her lifetime.

“I’ll hit the store on the way home,” Forrest said. “You touch base with Kobrinsky. Get an update.”

Kenna lifted her brows. Apparently, her friend was getting comfortable enough to give her orders—or wanted an afternoon alone running errands. She then eased along the pew, into the aisle, at the same time Theo and Alonzo exited their row on the other side. She had seen them come in with their wives and waved to them, but they hadn’t spoken. “Gentlemen.”

Alonzo paused to make way for her. “So you took our advice and ended up saving two more lives to add to the one from before.”

Two beating hearts in a field of cold corpses didn’t seem like an upside to her. “I’m just glad her dog didn’t decide to take a bite out of me.”

Alonzo eyed Forrest, like maybe he shouldn’t talk in front of her, but said to Kenna, “You showed up just in time, like you did at the house. Right?”

“I guess so.” Just like at the house that hadn’t been why she was there. She had placed the necklace she’d taken from the body in her RV, in the lockbox with one of her father’s oldguns. When she saw Ramon, she would be able to give him that small bit of closure.

She’d found his sister.

Theo turned to Forrest. “Heard about your troubles. You think there’s something to it?”

Was he really asking about the note?

Kenna didn’t want Forrest being harassed. After all, Kenna was the one who’d asked the two men about Forrest’s husband and son’s deaths. “We don’t need to?—”

“Want us to take the case?” Alonzo asked, cutting her off. “Find out if there’s anything to it. We don’t need to trouble you with it unless there’s any weight to it.”

Forrest pressed her lips together, as though biting them on the inside.

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