Page 5 of Long Road Home

Kenna hit Send on the text.

Suspect in custody. Girl alive.

She set the phone on the chair beside her so the persistent buzzing of notifications for the group thread with Charlayne, Betty, and Forrest didn’t get annoying. She needed a breather when she spent too much time with people, and her mind was spinning still about the pride thing. Destruction was more than a trip and fall. She didn’t want pride to cause her to lose what she had.

Things were good. She had a man in her life, and she’d found a family in dear friends—people who understood her and still cared.

Forrest weaved through the hospital waiting area holding two cups of coffee. “Confession, I drank a full one and then ordered these two. It’s terrible, but it’s hot.”

Kenna took the one Forrest handed over. “Thanks,partner. I’m freezing.”

Forrest snorted. “I rescind my offer. I don’t think I want a life of fighting crime.”

Kenna smiled over the rim of the cup.

“You think it’s adrenaline, not just the cold?” Forrest settled a seat over, leaving an empty one between them. She stretched out her legs in Kenna’s direction and crossed her ankles.

“I don’t know.” But she didn’t like it, because it felt entirely too much like the person she had been. Not who she was now. “I was in Mexico for a few weeks at the end of last year. Maybe I haven’t acclimated to winter yet.”

“You wanna acclimate to Wisconsin, you’ve gotta stay longer than just a case. Thankfully, it was summer usually when your dad was here for that writer’s conference.”

Kenna ignored the comment, lifted her phone, and checked the thread. “Betty says the police have taped off the house as a crime scene. She overheard one of the deputies talking about a cadaver dog.” She wanted to know when they’d be doing that. Finding those bodies was the priority now, so the families could have that huge part of closure. Not that she would stick her nose in—the local cops didn’t want a private investigator hanging around, as though she was ensuring they did their jobs correctly.

“So we’re gonna talk about work and not personal stuff, I see?” Forrest’s question had a tone.

Kenna glanced over, since she’d said pretty much that exact thing to Forrest more than once.

“You knew your dad better than I ever did.” Forrest shrugged. “Why would my experience of him make any difference?”

“It’s complicated.” Like…Vegas Mafia, trust funds, Washington state cults, secret societies, and murder complicated. It almost seemed like every time she turned over a rock in her father’s past, there was something under it she would’ve rather not known.

Forrest snorted. “Yeah, it’sfamily.Of course it’s complicated. When you live with someone, you see their mess, their bad habits.”

“Then why does anyone ever get married?” Her friend wasn’t making it sound appealing.

Forrest laughed. Which in itself was progress, even if it was short-lived. “Thank you. It helps to remember the good times.”

“It was good?” Kenna hadn’t asked her about the husband she’d lost.

Forrest nodded. “He was a good man, and he was good to me.”

“I can say the same about Bradley, even if it wasn’t ‘right’ according to God’s idea of right living.” Kenna had reconciled that one, and concluded she hadn’t known better. Ignorance had both hurt her and given her an incredible gift. Things she would cherish in her heart and grieve for as long as it beat.

Partners.

Lovers.

“None of us are perfect.” Forrest sighed.

“But it seems like we’re expected to do the right thing.” Like not being prideful about solving a case when no one else had been able to.

“What’s the point in expecting that of us when we’re just going to fail?”

Kenna shrugged. “I’m figuring it out.”

“I can see why you do what you do,” Forrest said.

“And you’re good?” Kenna eyed her friend.

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