Chapter 2
Chapter Two
“Are you bothering this guest?” The server turned to Kenna and Jax. “You shouldn’t be bothering our guests. Especially if you aren’t going to order food.”
Kenna glanced over at him. “We’re about to leave.”
“It’s fine, Philippe.” Dr. Walsh waited till he left, then said, “I reported the evidence. What conclusions are drawn from it aren’t my jurisdiction. I do autopsies, and I testify in court.”
“Now you run the entire medical examiner’s office for the City of Boston.” Kenna laced her fingers together on her knees.
“You were promoted just a few months after this case,” Jax said. “Seems like interesting timing to me.”
“What are you insinuating?” Walsh lifted her chin. “I earned the position I have through hard work and—”
“Dedication to your job,” Kenna said. “We caught the speech on YouTube. There’s no need to repeat it for us.”
“And yet you think I bribed my way, or slept my way, to the corner office?”
Kenna kept her expression impassive. “I think someone…encouraged you to report this as a random act of violence perpetrated in the heat of the moment.”
“I never said that’s what happened.” The Chief ME stared at Kenna, her jaw set.
Jax folded his arms. “Your conclusions, and the way you interpret evidence, sway the detectives. They draw conclusions from what you tell them.”
“And you told them this girl fought for her life but wasn’t strong enough to prevent her death. Which I suppose, in a way, was true,” Kenna said. “It’s simply that it happened over a period of weeks between her capture and her inevitable death.”
Walsh’s expression hit on a frown, just for a split second.
Yes, Kenna knew what she was talking about. She knew what it meant to be held against her will, convinced there was no way out. Waking up every day wondering if it would be the day she died. Being pregnant…
Not something she needed to think about right now.
She and the baby were safe. Or at least as safe as they could be given their enemy was a dangerous group of people whose entire goal was to manipulate worldwide events.
The reflex to comfort herself and her baby had her hand moving toward her abdomen, but she caught herself before drawing attention to the fact she was pregnant.
Jax took her hand and laced his fingers through hers. No matter who was paying attention, or if no one saw, they were a united front either way.
Kenna held tight to his hand and looked at Dr. Walsh.
“I am going to find the person who did this to Samantha Ambrose. Not because her parents are offering a reward, or because I might be able to spin it and have the district attorney file corruption charges against you. But because Samantha Ambrose can’t speak for herself. ”
“So the question is,” Jax said, “did you record the evidence in this way because you were pressured to do so, or because on this particular day you simply decided to rush through and cut corners?”
Walsh shifted, clearly uncomfortable. “If you believe me incompetent just come out and say it.”
“Who encouraged you to do this?” Kenna asked. “Seems like no one really cares about the victim. She wasn’t anyone important. Why brush it aside?”
“This is off the record,” Walsh said, her voice hushed.
Kenna didn’t bother explaining again that they weren’t reporters. She simply nodded.
“I don’t know who it was.”
“How did they contact you?”
“A note in my mailbox.” Walsh sighed. “I never learned who they were. I never met them.”
“What did you do with the note?”
“I destroyed it.”
Kenna tried not to be disappointed hearing that. “What did the note say?”
“Those who don’t fall in line—”
“—are cut down in their prime.” Kenna’s stomach flipped over. Or the baby was moving. Maybe both. Either way, the topic of conversation and the smell of hot roast beef was getting to her.
Walsh frowned. “How do you know that?”
“I’ve heard it before.” She squeezed Jax’s hand without intending to. “How did you know what to do, based on just that?”
“There were…pictures. Of Samantha Ambrose. Instructions to interpret the evidence in a way that would lead the detectives to believe it was random and vicious. The result of the victim’s choices.
” Walsh swallowed. “Then my boss used that same saying about falling in line. I knew they got to him as well, and we were both being manipulated. Three weeks later, he died in car accident.”
Kenna said, “Calling it an accident implies no one is at fault.”
Walsh nodded.
Jax squeezed her hand, and she took that as the signal to wrap this up.
Kenna glanced over at the server and saw him talking with a suited man who had slicked-back black hair threaded with gray.
The owner, or manager. She dug a business card from her leather wallet and put it on the table.
“If you think of anything that might help us find whoever did this to Samantha Ambrose, please call us.”
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 could almost forget 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 street with 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.”
Jax navigated the icy city roads, concentration on his face. He needed to be extra careful, as the salt mix laid down had been driven over and refrozen by fresh snow. All of it made a slushy mess.
“I think we should take a look at the scene again,” he finally said. “Unless we come up with a better idea.”
Kenna squeezed his hand. “Wanna get some sushi on the way?”
He grinned.
Maizie exhaled loudly. “You’re not supposed to eat raw fish while you’re pregnant!”
“I know that.” Kenna smiled. “I only eat the kind that’s cooked. It’s better anyway.” Giving up coffee was bad enough, though she just drank decaf instead so it wasn’t totally like she’d given it up.
“Yes, we can get sushi.” He squeezed her hand back.
“Maizie, send us the list you narrowed down,” Kenna said.
“I’m also looking at Samantha’s social media, back before her parents co-opted her accounts for their fundraising.” Her voice had a tone.
“What did they need money for?”
“Ostensibly, the funeral. Though, it seems like they cremated Samantha, so they probably didn’t need all the money that was raised.
At first, they were posting regular videos asking for information.
Gradually, that petered out and now it’s quiet.
But their personal accounts have a whole lot of vacation pictures.
” Her voice still had that tone. “I guess they kept some of the money as a reward for any information leading to the arrest of her killer. But within a few weeks, they were taking regular trips to Hawaii, or France, or England. Cashing in on people’s goodwill donations after Samantha went missing. ”
Kenna frowned. “They acted the part when we met with them. Offered us five grand to find her killer.”
“I don’t wanna be cynical.”
“Be cynical,” Kenna said. “It’ll keep you alive longer.”