Page 8 of Long Road Home

“Me, too.” Maizie sighed audibly over the phone line. “And I’ll look into the accident.”

“Run down what you have so far.”

“Good thing I downloaded it all months ago before you made the booking, or you’d have to wait five minutes for me to hack the police department network.”

“You think it would take you that long?” Kenna said.

“If I was inclined to engage in illegal activity, perhaps it might only take me three minutes.”

“If.” Kenna didn’t like the methods Maizie sometimes employed, but Stairns had written out an honesty code between the two of them and both had signed it. If there was anything he didn’t feel comfortable with, Kenna would know.

Maizie rattled off a date in late October twoyears ago. “They were traveling back from a football game in Green Bay when a semi coming the other direction veered across the double yellow center line. Forrest’s husband swerved to miss it and lost control. There was never any collision. Their car flipped, and both were mortally injured. Though, the coroner thinks it took longer for the child to die.”

Alone in the dark. Upside down, hurt. Fighting for breath and wondering what had just happened. Empathy wasn’t always a good thing. When it came to children, Kenna’s boundaries were a thing of their own. She didn’t know if they were stronger than steel, or non-existent. She saved children whenever she could, but otherwise tried to stay out of their lives because if she lost one it hurt too much.

“You think someone might have caused the accident on purpose?” Maizie said.

“There might be someone out there who believes it.” Kenna paused. “But the police went over the vehicle, right?”

“There’s a report in the file about the car. Nothing to indicate anyone messed with it. But if they were looking for an explanation as to why it flipped, maybe they weren’t thinking sabotage. Could be they were only considering contributing factors.”

“And the car now?” It had been two years, so it wasn’t likely to be anywhere Kenna could go look at it.

“There’s a note in the file that it was scrapped and compacted after the insurance company made their final assessment.”

The semitruck driver had gone to prison. Kenna could go talk to him and find out if he knew anything. After all this time, he might be inclined to open up.

“Are we making this a case?” Maizie asked.

Kenna didn’t want to stir anything up for Forrest when she was working so hard to put it behind her. At least most ofthe time. The rest of the time she was barely hanging on—which was how grief worked. “I’ll keep you posted,” she replied.

Kenna needed to find out what Forrest knew.

Then she’d decide if she was going to stick around and investigate a double homicide.

Chapter Three

Friday, 9:35 p.m.

San Diego, California

Special Agent Oliver Jaxton stood in front of his ASAC. He laid the stack of printed images on the desk between him and Assistant Special Agent in Charge Bill Clarke. “She should be warned.”

Clarke had loosened his tie hours ago. His gray combover had gone limp, and no matter how late it was, the guy didn’t seem to want to go home to his wife. Everyone in the office knew their relationship was colder than the Alaskan tundra. She loved her pug more than she’d ever loved him, even generating side income from the dog’s social media channels. Meanwhile, Bill punched a clock every day and carried his gray cloud around the office.

Clarke studied the top image. “Do you believe Kenna Banbury to be in imminent danger?”

“No.” That didn’t mean she shouldn’t be warned. “Ibelieve the serial killer we’ve been tracking is trying to bait her into coming after him and using us as the middlemen.”

Clarke’s saggy cheeks shifted, covered with three days of stubble. “We don’t need her help to catch this guy. Sooner or later he’ll slip up.”

Jax didn’t look at the pictures of Kenna. He’d stared at them longer than was necessary already. “I don’t like us being in the middle of it either, but if he’s got eyes on her, she should know to be careful.”

“How ’bout you catch him before anything happens…if you’re so worried about her.”

“We’re still processing physical evidence from the last body. The one that dropped in Hemet.” Jax sighed. “I need to nudge for those test results as soon as they can get them to me.”

So far it almost seemed as if their suspect had killed someone and between each murder paid a visit to Wisconsin, where Kenna had been for a few weeks, then came back to California to murder the next victim. While he was there, he took stalkerish photos of her.

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