Page 75 of Long Road Home

“For when I look him up.”

“You need to focus on helping Forrest,” Kenna said.

“And finding that guy I winged,” Theo added.

“That’smyjob.”

“Being bait is never a good idea. Trust me.”

The irritating part was that she did. He could be a criminal who turned against everyone, or he’d been burned but Alonzo still needed protection. Either way, he was a good man and she did trust him. “I’ll be okay.”

A plane came into view. Far enough away she’d never be able to read a tail number until it was almost on the ground. She could barely tell it was a small white plane. Pointed nose. Half a dozen windows.

Snow swirled in the air.

Kenna pushed off the vehicle and looked around. She was on protection detail after all. “I should go. The plane is here.”

“Tell your boy I said hey.” The line went dead.

Kenna stowed her phone, shaking her head. She took a few steps away from the car, watched the plane for a second, and then checked the ground. The area around the airport was a flat snowy tundra. A huge hill behind her, the runwayin the valley. In front was nothing but horizon and a huge sky heavy with more snow.

Nothing out there.

Only a single vehicle passing on the road about a mile away to the east. The buildings had a couple of people working, and she’d checked them out already. Between Gingrich and Maizie, she knew who should be here and who shouldn’t.

Like that glint on the roof.

Kenna opened the back door and pulled the shotgun from the lockbox.Might as well mean business.She slammed the door, glanced at the plane, and jogged toward the hangar. Beyond that stood a portable office building where she saw something on the roof. Maybe someone.

She waited at the corner of the open hangar door. Someone moved behind her, but it was just a guy sweeping the floor since the last plane took off. Heat from the hangar’s interior rolled out in waves like the ocean crashing on the shore.

Kenna lifted her chin.

He stopped pushing the sweeper and stared at her. She turned enough to show him the badge hanging around her neck, and he shook his head.

Yeah, you and me both.

Life in a city with departments of hundreds of law enforcement officers was a whole lot different than tiny departments. Places that felt like the edge of the world. Or the vast wild north.

She looked back at the roof and saw a protrusion over the edge on the far side. A rifle barrel? She couldn’t be sure until she saw the rest—and the man holding it.

How did he get up there?

She crept up the wood ramp to the door, praying as she eased it open that it didn’t even creak.

The plane was coming in to land, miles to the left. Only slightly bigger now than it had been.

She rounded the jam into the office and heard a muffled sound. The door clicked shut behind her. It had to be eighty degrees in here, and she immediately started to sweat. Why did people pump the heat so high? It was below freezing outside, but that didn’t mean it should be T-shirt weather indoors.

Behind the desk, tied up and starting to come around, a heavy man lay on the floor. No shoes. Sweat under his arms, dampening the polo shirt he wore. Khakis. Glasses on the floor a foot or so away.

She could help him in a minute after she took care of a bigger problem.

There was no way to get to the roof from in here.

How had he gotten up there?

She stepped out the back door from a storage room, and icy air hit her in the face. A dumpster pushed up behind the portable building. Of course. That had to be how he climbed up. And she’d wasted time going inside when she could’ve walked around.

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