Page 49 of One More Chance

“Nothing?”

Kenna probably sounded as exasperated as Maizie when she said, “Nothing.”

“Isn’t that odd?” the teen asked.

They were back in the car, heading to a place where Kenna could get a bone density test. She’d already made the appointment, choosing an out of the way doctor’s office. She would have to use a fake ID, and paying in cash would help keep the test results off the radar of the wrong people. She needed to know for herself what had been done to her.

Jax pulled into the parking lot in plenty of time for the appointment. He stopped, leaving the engine running so they could keep talking to Maizie in the cool, air-conditioned interior.

Probably not the day off he’d been imagining, even if it was a normal day for the two of them.

Jax looked over at her, then said to Maizie, “Not super odd. People don’t purposely point their doorbell cameras at each other’s homes. There were no traffic cams in the area. No neighborhood surveillance. We knew going over there that it was a long shot.”

“I found a couple of cases. I sent them to Bruce so he could look over the files. In one, there’s a witness who reported exactly what Dana told Kenna. People in medical uniforms with freaky masks on. The guy is a neighbor, and he happened to be looking out of his window at the time. But the police didn’t put much stock in it.”

Kenna said, “They never found the missing person?”

“Nope. Scottsdale PD has one listed as a cold case. It’s eight years old now.”

“Who went missing?”

Maizie said, “Rebecca Hardy. Twenty-seven years old. Husband and one child.” Her tone softened, resonating with sadness. “No one ever saw her again.”

“And the other one?”

“Similar story, Melissa Graham. She was engaged, went missing just a few weeks before her wedding, but no one found her, and the police assumed she got cold feet,” Maizie said. “There’s more evidence on Mrs. Hardy. She went missing after a church service one night. She had stayed late to clean up. Next day, the church’s administrator showed up and found her car in the parking lot. The driver’s door was open, and her keys were on the ground near it.”

Kenna asked, “What about the husband? He didn’t report her missing?”

“He’d gone to stay with his mother for the weekend and took their child with them. Could be a coincidence, but it might not be.”

She looked at the time on the dash. “I need to get inside for my appointment, but can you find out if there are any similarities between these three cases—the two missing women and Nicola Santorini?”

“I’m digging in now.”

“Thanks, Maze.”

Jax told her bye and hung up. “Ready for this?”

“No.” She wasn’t going to lie. “I want to know, but I also don’t want to know.”

“I can understand that.”

“Whatever he did to me…it’s done. I doubt there’s any reversing it. And honestly, why would I want to go back? My arms are stronger. All of me is stronger. I have to learn exactly how much stronger and how to account for it. And what the drawbacks are going to be.”

“You think he did you a favor?”

No way to tell. “I just don’t want to keep being kidnapped if it means I need treatments. I don’t want to be someone who’s inexplicably missing or the subject of an experiment. I just want them to leave me alone. Preferably long enough that I can figure out how to destroy them.”

Jax squeezed her knee. “That’s my girl.”

She chuckled, shaking her head.

“You can go in by yourself if you want to. I don’t need to be in there.”

“I know, but you should come with me and hang in the waiting room at least.” Not just because she’d rather not face this alone. It was an odd mix of wanting to shield him from it and knowing she probably needed him there to help her deal with the test results. If only she could handle it herself.

Which meant she should pray that God gave her what she needed to get through this.

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