Page 4 of Now or Never
Kenna held tight to Jax’s hand all the way to the door. Outside wasn’t a place she could relax. That only happened in their valley in Wyoming. The five-acre piece of property he had bought when he sold the townhouse in Phoenix.
A black-and-white police car passed them on the street, lights and sirens going. In a hurry to get…somewhere else.
Before they got within fifteen feet of the car he clicked the locks and turned on the engine using the button on his key fob. Just in case someone had set an explosive device in their car.
Meanwhile, Kenna was walking a fine line trying to balance the truth she knew with what her husband needed to do to make himself feel secure. To do what he felt he needed to do to protect her and their baby.
Jax didn’t open the door, but turned and leaned against it instead. He pulled her into his arms, and she stood between his feet. Kenna hugged him because she could, and she wanted to. In his embrace she couldalmostforget all the crap that swirled around them on a constant basis.
“That was a lot.” His voice rumbled under her cheek. “Do you want to talk about it?”
“Not really.” She sighed.
He chuckled, and she enjoyed the feel of it, smiling to herself. Soon enough it would be time to reconvene. But not on the streetwith people and traffic. In a spot where he felt the need to pay half of his attention to her and the other half watching her back for any potential threats.
He tipped her chin so he could see her face. “We need to call Maizie back. My phone rang a couple of times while we were in there.”
Each time he mentioned the young woman they had officially adopted, Kenna always watched for the nuances of what he wasn’t saying. Maizie lived in Colorado in an Airstream under the watchful eye of trusted friends. The teen had escaped a horrifying situation and become a friend and the kind of family they watched out for.
He’d told Kenna everything that happened while she had been a captive of their enemy,Dominatus.How Maizie had been manipulated into withholding information from him that had been used to coerce her. She wasn’t the only one who didn’t show him the footage and images of Kenna being held. He and Maizie had worked through what they needed to work through and were getting back on the right footing, but she still wanted to know where he was at with the young woman they’d adopted.
Kenna had turned down both the offer to look at the images and footage and the invitation he’d given her to talk about the experience beyond some of the basics. Jax had been there, on the same deep-sea platform, when he’d come to rescue her and been captured himself. He knew a lot, or thought he knew enough, and she was grateful he wasn’t going to push her if she didn’t want to talk about it.
As far as Kenna was concerned, the rest didn’t matter.
Kenna was determined to live this life on her terms. To focus on her husband, on keeping their baby safe as much as was within her power, and on solving the cases that made her feel most like the person she was supposed to be.
“Maybe she has information about this case.” Kenna kissed her husband because she was free, and she could. And even if she woke up back in captivity, she was going to enjoy the dream.
He held the car door for her, and she slid in.
Kenna grabbed the bottle of water in the cup holder and twisted the cap open. Not something she ever took for granted, considering how many times in her life she’d been unable to do even that much with her hands.
“Good?”
She glanced at Jax and nodded. “I’m good.”
It was getting easier to pretend.
Whether he noticed or not, she didn’t know. Either way, he pulled into the flow of traffic and told his phone to call Maizie.
It rang a couple of times, then she picked up. “Hey, guys. How did it go with the ME?”
Kenna could picture Maizie’s face, all that thick blond hair in whatever style she was trying this week—the latest was diffused curls. Huge blue eyes and pale skin. The girl was gorgeous, but on the list of things Kenna had to worry about, it was a distant cousin to future problems.
Jax turned a corner with one hand and reached over to hold hers with the other. “Someone left her a note, and the boss corroborated what she was supposed to do.”
“The guy who died in that car crash? I can’t believe no one thought that was suspicious.”
Kenna turned her hand over and laced her fingers with Jax’s. She’d already finished the entire water bottle. “People see what they want to see. Could’ve been a busy week for the state police, or whoever responded treated it as an accident and didn’t ever consider anything else.”
“I could send everything I have to…someone. Get them to reopen the case,” Maizie suggested. “Should we do that?”
Kenna paused. “It might come out in the course of the investigation. But right now, I’d rather focus on finding the person who killed Samantha Ambrose.”
“I’ve been working on that. When you guys didn’t pick up, I called Ramon, and we tossed around some ideas. I’m not saying I hacked the military, or that it’s even possible to do it, but I happened upon a list of soldiers who lived in the area around the time of the murder. Based on your parameters of height and weight, and age, I narrowed it down. But it’s still a long list.”
“How are we going to narrow it down even further?” Kenna asked. “I’d rather not have to knock on all those doors and see if a murderer greets us.”
