Page 66 of Storm and Tempest
Ramon was the one who dug in there and tossed them to him. Jax handed them out, grudgingly giving one to Zeyla as well.
Maizie clicked the mouse on her laptop. “Check?”
Jax nodded. “I copy you.” But he didn’t walk away. “You’re good?”
“I’m good.” She looked like she wanted to say more, but the quicker they got this done, the sooner they could get back to the RV.
As he and Ramon strode to the elevator, Jax said, “I’m leaning more and more toward the way Kenna is with her RV.”
“Feel like hitting the road and becoming a freelance investigator?”
“No one gets the deal Kenna got with private investigator licenses.”
Ramon hit the button to go up. “I don’t have any. She’s got a dozen or whatever. Doesn’t make any difference to us.”
“I think I just want to hide. Or ignore all the bad in the world.” With her there, too, of course.
They’d spent their honeymoon in the RV, making their way from Colorado back to Phoenix. Over those couple of weeks, they’d stopped in a few places and burned all his vacation days looking at Zion National Park and the Grand Canyon. Their troubles hadn’t been over—fightingDominatuswasn’t just a one-time thing, it was an ongoing case. But the trip had been a reprieve from their lives.
Jax sighed. “Or we could just drive with no destination in mind.”
“You’re looking for peace.” The doors opened, and Ramon stepped in. “We all are.”
Jax stepped in behind him. “Have you found it?”
“Don’t start talking to me about Jesus. I’ve heard it.” Ramon leaned against the wall of the elevator.
“So what’s your hangup?”
“A million tiny things I don’t have answers for because there are none.”
When the doors opened, they stepped out. There was a breezeway between the main building and the wing named afterJax’s father. A few pieces of trash and a newspaper had piled on the concrete up against the wall.
Jax looked around. “Different out here than in the hospital.”
“I was getting fancy private hospital vibes back in there, but this is more inner city.” Ramon grabbed the handle for the Edward Russell Jaxton wing, but the door stuck. “Huh.” He drew a lock pick kit from his pocket. “Maybe you should look away.”
“Don’t worry about it.”
“And if I don’t want an FBI agent watching me commit a crime?”
Jax turned away. “Fine.”
Back on the other end of the breezeway, through the small porthole door, he saw a woman walk by and glance at them. Dark hair. He didn’t get a good enough look at her face to know if he’d seen her before.
“We’re in.” Ramon hauled the door open, and they stepped through.
Jax frowned at the state of disarray. “Wasn’t there a ribbon-cutting ceremony two years ago? Looks like this place was never finished.”
“They did a tour of the first couple of floors, but not the rest. It was still being worked on so they could expand later.”
“So we might be in the unused portion of the hospital?” Jax paused. “We should’ve gone in downstairs.”
“It’s boarded up. Locked up tight with guards and everything. This is the only way in.”
Ceiling tiles lay discarded on the floor. Wires and metal piping for HVAC hung down below the ceiling. Plastic sheeting had been put up to cover the exposed walls but now hung down from the corners and flapped in some unseen breeze from the air current.
“Split up?” Ramon glanced over.
