Page 32 of Now or Never
“So let’s find it. Together. Rediscover what you believe and why and start to put that armor back on one piece at a time. When the next attack comes, you’ll be better protected.”
She knew he was talking about spiritual armor, but how that worked was something that—yes—she was going to have to learn how to put on. In a way she did feel like a child relearning how to tie their shoes, or how to button a coat to keep out the chill.
“What if it just falls apart again next time?” She bit her lip. Apparently, this was a day for her to voice all her worst fears aloud. Speaking the hidden things into the dim light of theirprivate space, where only he could hear. “What if it happens again, and I’m not strong enough?”
“You won’t be facing them alone. We’re going to be together.”
She’d expected him to tell her that she was the strongest person he knew. He’d said that to her before. But in her brokenness, she didn’t feel strong. She felt…
Wrecked.
“Promise me I don’t have to do this alone.”
“I’m not going to let you do any of this by yourself.” He kissed one cheek, then her other. “We’re in this together from here on out. I promise you that.”
Kenna held on tight to her husband.
He shifted far enough away that she knew he was going for his phone. Before she could wonder why, he tapped the screen, and a voice spoke in a soothing, melodic tone.
“O Lord, You have searched me and known me. You know my sitting down and my rising up…”
Kenna’s eyes drifted shut, and she soaked up the words in the comfort of his arms.
“Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence?”
Chapter Thirteen
Kenna climbed out of the car shortly after four in the afternoon the next day, in a parking lot half a block from the scene of the bombing. The Washington Monument stretched up from above the trees at the end of this street, apartment buildings on one side and trees on the other.
“How long has it been since you were here?” Jax came over, clicking the locks on the car and holding out his hand.
She took it. “Years, I think.”
They set off in the direction of the scene while traffic buzzed past them in both directions. Low clouds hung in the sky, and she thought it might rain tonight but didn’t mention that aloud. After the past couple of days, small talk about the weather shouldn’t come from her. It would seem too much like she was purposely deflecting.
On the drive down from Boston, they had talked through a lot of what happened to her, things she’d determined to keep for herself. Driving allowed Jax to do something rote while he absorbed her story, though a few times she caught him strangling the steering wheel with his grip.
Talking about her time in captivity definitely helped. The others were right about that. But she hadn’t wanted to processher experience with anyone but him. Now that she’d told him everything, she expected it to feel like a wound exposed to the air. But it didn’t. It was more like its power had diminished. He knew some of the worst things she could remember, and she didn’t have to feel like she was hiding what happened on top of everything else they were all dealing with.
He’d helped her by playing more Bible passages and talking to her about how he found peace during the time she’d been missing. About his own crisis of faith and how he’d come back to the Lord.
She couldn’t help feeling like a bit of a fraud, with how fast it seemed like she’d lost it. But if he could lose the grip on his own beliefs at the same time, and he’d been a believer for years, then her own crisis of faith might be a little more understandable.
He glanced over at her.
She didn’t want to talk about anything heavy, though. “I always thought at some point I’d end up on a taskforce. The FBI would come up against someone I had experience with, and I’d be called here as a consultant to work with them tracking down a dangerous killer.”
“Is it weird to wish for the days when the worst we had to deal with was a serial killer?”
“Ah, the good ole days.” She chuckled. “Like that?”
“Something like it.” He squeezed her hand. “What’s the plan here?”
“I just want to look at what happened. See if there’s anything to learn.” She shrugged one shoulder. “Even if they’ve cleared away a lot of the evidence already and they’re going to release the scene soon, I still want to get a feel for it.”
“Agreed. Even poring over the file doesn’t give you an impression of what happened the way being at the scene does.”
Along with sending over a stolen copy of the federal case file for the bombing, Maizie had sent a copy of the report on MeganTiller’s death. Kenna wasn’t sure they could put much stock in the official cause of death when the medical examiner who signed off on the certificate was none other than Eleanor Walsh. Even the statement of the officer on the door wasn’t something she’d have sworn to. Cause of death had been listed as a pulmonary embolism, whatever that meant. Certainly nothing suspicious, apparently.
