Chapter 39
Chapter Thirty-Nine
“Whoa.” Maizie shifted to the edge of her chair, all her attention on her computer.
“What is it?” Kenna went over to the passenger’s seat and sat so her feet could get a break.
Zeyla got up from the dinette. “I’m going to shower and pack. Hopefully, the police don’t come here with an arrest warrant before I’m done with that.”
Jax watched her go, his expression like he wanted to say something to her but didn’t know how to convince her to stay.
The truth was, Zeyla might be right. It would be far better to avoid the fight entirely than risk life in prison.
Even if it meant living the rest of her life on the run, a fugitive from the US government.
It wasn’t much different from the life she’d lived so far. If anyone could make that situation work, it was Zeyla. But it also meant they would never see each other again. Zeyla would never get to be an auntie to Kenna’s baby.
“Take a look at this.” Maizie stood and placed her laptop on the dinette table. Jax shifted so he could see.
Kenna said, “Someone tell me what it is.” She closed her eyes, praying for Zeyla, since asking for a slowdown in the work of a police department didn’t sit quite right.
She respected too many cops in this city to be comfortable asking for them to meet roadblocks in bringing Zeyla in for questioning. Or arresting her.
Still, she took a moment and told God how she felt. He knew, but it was part of the process that she let her thoughts have airtime. So she could articulate her fears and ask for wisdom.
“MSI sent you this?”
Jax’s question brought her attention around to the others in the RV. Maizie and Jax, the two people she was closest to in the world right now.
Kenna laid a hand over the baby, who was currently playing soccer with her insides. She shifted in the seat. “This kid is trying to bust out.”
Jax looked at her with a kind of wonder. “I don’t want to work this case. I want to drive to the cabin and forget all of it.”
She said nothing because she agreed, but they both knew they wouldn’t do it. At least not without knowing for sure that Ellayna and her family were safe…and Zeyla. “What did MSI send?”
The shower switched on in the bathroom.
Maizie slid across from Jax. “It looks like a contract, right?”
Jax nodded. “This is an invoice paying for the contract. Which is interesting in itself, since this isn’t what happened.
” He scrolled down the page. “It had to have been a dark web transaction, and this is the paper trail. Maybe they found it and intervened.” He looked at Kenna.
“Someone was hired to capture Ellayna Feathers from her home, and the orders include a note to dispatch anyone else in the house.”
“What does that mean?” Maizie asked.
“It means Abe and Crystal were going to be killed.” Jax looked at the screen again.
“If MSI came across this, maybe it’s the reason why they sent their people to take the whole family.
They knew there was a threat in play, and they stopped two murders, plus whatever was supposed to happen to Ellayna after she was taken. ”
“Any way to know who hired whoever they hired?” Kenna didn’t bother explaining. They would know what she meant.
“We should be able to track the contract killer from this bank account number, right, Maizie?”
She nodded in answer to Jax’s question. “I’ll track it down.”
“Did MSI say why they sent it?” Kenna asked.
“The email just says that we probably want to see this.” Maizie tapped the screen of her laptop and showed Jax something.
He said, “They have to be letting us know why they did what they did.”
“Because we’re interested in digging into it, or because they want us to ignore the fact that they are the ones who did the kidnapping?” Kenna breathed through a couple more kicks. “They can just tell us where to find the family, and we can call it even.”
“I would like to know who hired the contract killer. Then we’ll know where the threat is actually coming from.”
Kenna made a face.
Jax smiled at her. “I’ll see if I can set up a meet, get the guy to tell me who hired him.”
“Assuming it was a man.” Kenna shrugged. “I suppose I’m sitting at home during this operation? Probably waiting for the police to show up with a warrant for Zeyla’s arrest.”
Maybe she was just grumpy. It wasn’t that she was feeling sorry for herself, necessarily. More like she felt kind of blah, and it was self-soothing to be annoyed at everything.
Lord, there are things that could be resolved before this baby comes. I’m not trying to tell You when she should be born, but there’s probably a sweet spot here somewhere.
It wasn’t out of the question for a woman to go over her due date, even by two weeks, but Kenna didn’t really want to be pregnant for another month.
Jax came over and leaned down, kissing her in way that successfully distracted her from being grumpy. “Maizie can be in charge while I’m gone.”
Kenna gasped, shoving at his shoulder playfully.
Maizie giggled.
“Don’t get distracted,” Kenna told her. “We need to find a contract killer, I guess.”
Jax smiled at her. “It’ll take some finesse to get a face-to-face meeting. Maizie and I can work on a dialogue with the person who was paid to take Ellayna and then work on the plan.”
Kenna realized the shower was still on, which wasn’t like Zeyla.
The woman took the fastest showers Kenna had ever known—and she shut the water off halfway through.
Even Zeyla couldn’t pretend nothing bothered her.
She was likely in there figuring out what she was going to do about the police issuing a warrant for her arrest.
While Jax and Maizie talked over their plan and navigated the dark web message boards they knew, Kenna read through another short section of Scripture. It wasn’t about what to do when your close family member was going to be wrongfully accused of murder, but it gave her a sense of peace anyway.
Was this email from MSI a lead on the real case here or just another way to keep Kenna busy while they did…whatever they were going to do?
Jax said to Maizie, “We can say we want a job done.”
“Do we say we’re…us? Or do we pretend to be someone else?”
“Do you have alt accounts you can use?”
“I’d set a new one up now, but it’ll be too suspicious that it has no history.”
Jax asked, “Do you have history on this message board?”
“I interact on occasion, just to keep the username active. Mostly just asking questions about companies we’re investigating.”
“Like the software company in Pueblo?”
Maizie leaned back in her chair. “You think that’s how someone knew we were working it?”
“Not necessarily,” Jax said. “I doubt you blew our cover. But it’s possible that at least MSI is monitoring what you’re doing online. Even on the dark web.”
“You think Hazel has my usernames?”
Jax shrugged. “She might even have put a worm in your computer last time you guys were together.”
Maizie went quiet.
“We don’t need to rehash anything. We’re good.”
“Okay.” Maizie nodded.
Kenna didn’t love how soft her tone was, and it was clear she still felt guilty for withholding information she knew about Kenna’s captivity from Jax when he could have used the lead.
But at the same time, it hadn’t given anyone a lead about where she was being held.
It was all meant to be leverage to force Maizie to do what the bad guys wanted.
Purely so that she would be torn up inside about it.
Yet more insidious tactics. The kind MSI seemed happy to have employed to get what they wanted.
Kenna’s phone alarm sounded at the same time that Jax and Maizie had alerts go off on their phones. “The perimeter?” Kenna asked.
Jax swiped through his phone. “Yes.”
Maizie said, “It’s a lot of cops. A lot.”
“Stay where you are.” Kenna held out a hand. She knew why they were there, and unfortunately, Zeyla hadn’t managed to get away. She was still in the shower with no idea the police were currently surrounding the RV.
Kenna lifted her foot and stretched it far enough that she could nudge down the latch on the door, and then she pushed it open two inches. The startled face of a police officer stared back at her through the gap between the door and the frame.
She lifted her chin. Lifted her hands and showed him her empty palms. Her leg didn’t want to be up that high for much longer. “Get the door.”
Thankfully, he grabbed the door and caught it before it shut.
“Kenna Banbury?”
She said, “You already know that, or you wouldn’t be here.”
“So, you know who I’m looking for.”
Jax got up and came to the door, and she knew he would have rather been between her and the armed cops, but there wasn’t room for that. “Do you have a search warrant?”
“No, sir. Only an arrest warrant for Zeyla…” The cop frowned. “What’s her name?”
“The paperwork says Zeyla Adams.”
Kenna said, “Better than Smith, I guess.”
The cop was still frowning. “Excuse me?”
One of the other cops, currently out of sight, said, “This also says she might be known as Zeyla Smith or Zeyla Clarke. So who knows? There’s a photo, and we can confirm her ID when we have her prints.”
And then she’d be nailed for two murders. Arrested officially and, down the road, sentenced to decades in prison, if not the rest of her life.
Kenna blinked away the burn of tears.
“I’ll go see if she’s going to be done in the shower anytime soon.” She shifted to the edge of the seat. Jax held out his hand, and she clasped his elbow. “Thanks.”
She squeezed his side with her other hand as she passed and nodded her head to Maizie to go with her.
“What are we going to do?” Maizie asked as they moved down the aisle in the RV to the bedroom. The bathroom was between, but she wanted Maizie out of sight of any eager cops.
“I don’t know. But I’m guessing by now Zeyla has a plan.” Kenna knocked on the door. “Zeyla!”
She did it loud enough that the cops heard, giving Zeyla a second to think—or prepare—once she realized what Kenna’s tone meant.
Jax said, “This is my residence, and you do not have permission to enter.”
Kenna bit her lip. She knocked again on the door while Maizie stood by her, worry in her features.
No answer.
Kenna tried the door latch, and it swung open toward her. Steam billowed out of the bathroom, revealing an empty shower. No Zeyla. Just a cell phone on the edge of the sink.
She’s gone.