Chapter 9
Chapter Nine
Sitting outside was preferable at any time, but in the winter on the outskirts of Boston?
Not so much. Kenna had the heater in the RV running, a mug of steaming decaf coffee in front of her, and the laptop open on the small dining table.
On the screen she dragged facial features onto a blank canvas she was using to build a composite sketch of the man she’d seen in the hospital waiting area.
“Who is he?” Maizie’s voice came through her laptop speakers. Kenna had the volume turned low because she was up early but Jax was still asleep. In the corner window of the video meeting, Maizie peered closely at the image.
“Someone I thought was dead. Or hoped was dead.” Kenna deleted the eyes because they were too far apart and scrolled down the list. “Maybe I didn’t see him, I just thought I did.”
“That happened to me a lot.” Maizie’s gaze shifted to something else on her screen as she typed on her laptop keyboard.
The view around her was the Airstream trailer Kenna had grown up in, the one her father had owned, currently parked on a hillside in Colorado on property owned by Kenna’s former boss from the FBI—now retired—where he lived with his wife.
“Elizabeth helped you work through it?” Kenna found eyes that were close enough and dragged them onto the face.
“You could talk to her. Let her help you.”
“I’d rather forget the whole thing.”
“Is that a good idea?” Maizie asked. “We’re not supposed to stuff it down. We’re supposed to deal with it so it doesn’t come back up and bite us when we least expect it. Because trust me, trauma—I hate that word—always resurfaces at the worst possible moment.”
“Want to talk about it?”
“You’re the one that’s supposed to be talking about it!”
Kenna glanced at the slider separating the bedroom from the living area of the RV, then to the window over the kitchen sink.
There weren’t more than a handful of occupied spaces in this campsite.
Either they lived here year-round, or they were in town to visit relatives and didn’t mind braving the cold.
Jax had mentioned Florida, and she had to admit that didn’t sound too bad right now.
Except that it would feel like trying to run as far from Dominatus as she could get and that’s what being in Boston was supposed to be.
“I’m not running.”
“Well, yeah,” Maizie said. “But you’re avoiding all of it, even if you think you aren’t running away. But I think you are.”
“The case connected to them, but I didn’t drop it. I stuck with it, and now Megan and Joseph are safe.” Kenna took a sip of her coffee and scrolled through the images of lips.
“Hmm.”
Kenna ignored that. “Zeyla and Ramon are going to go and see Samantha Ambrose’s parents today so they can relay what Megan said about her death. They’ll probably want to do a DNA test and find out if Joseph really is her child.”
“We should all do that. Find out if any of us are related.”
“Might be better not to know.” Kenna tried to keep the conversation light. “I’m not sure I can handle any more surprises.”
Maizie laughed gently. “It’s probably just wishful thinking. I mean, you and Jax are basically my parents now, but that doesn’t have anything to do with genetics. Could be cool though, with you and Zeyla. Her mom, and Bruce and Ramon, and all of us.”
“You think Ramon and Bruce will turn out to be brothers?”
Maizie laughed louder. “Maybe not.”
“We’re family. We don’t need to be blood relatives,” Kenna said. “But I get what you’re saying. It would be nice to know we’re connected like that as well.”
Maizie let out a sigh. Her phone pinged, and she looked at the screen. A smile pulled at her lips, and she actually blushed a little.
“That looks interesting.” Kenna tried not to sound like she was prying. “What’s his name?”
Maizie blushed a darker shade of pink. She brushed a hunk of thick blond hair behind her ear and cleared her throat. “Uh, no one.”
“Right. Just a school thing? You’re in a group project together.”
Maizie rolled her eyes. “Fine, his name is Travis.”
“Have you done a deep dive background check yet?”
“No, Mom.”
Kenna smiled. “I can do one. What’s his last name, date of birth, and social security number?”
“If I knew those things, I wouldn’t tell you.”
“I’ll find out from Zeyla.”
“No, you will not.”
Kenna chuckled. “Fine, I’ll back off.”
“You just want me to think you’ve backed off when you have no intention of doing that.”
“Who me?”
“Pregnancy is giving you this real mama-bear thing.”
“And as a result, you’re safe. We’re all safe.”
But Dominatus is still out there.
She knew what everyone in their family unit of friends was thinking. They expected her to be gung-ho on board with taking the big evil organization down when they had no idea how to do that.
“Hey.” Jax put his hand on her shoulder.
Kenna flinched so hard coffee spilled on her lap. She winced, set the mug down, and rubbed the thigh of her leggings.
“Sorry.” Jax handed her paper towels, then wiped the table and under the mug.
She pressed the bundle to the wet fabric on her leg.
“Did I burn you?” he asked.
She shook her head. “I should’ve heard you coming.”
Instead, she’d been deep in her thoughts and distracted by the cold terror of facing Dominatus.
Everything she’d buried in her mind and was currently actively trying to avoid thinking about—let alone facing.
Let alone actually going up against. All of it swelled up like a wave that threatened to drown her every time she even thought about any of it.
“Hi, Maze.” Jax gave her a wave, then turned his head and kissed Kenna. “Hi.”
“Good morning.” She smiled. “Don’t worry, I’m good.”
He nodded, and the assessing gaze dissipated from his expression. “What are you working on?”
“Proof I’m not ignoring this. I’m just not sure if I really saw this guy or not.” She shifted on the seat, moving toward the window so Jax could sit by her after he’d poured his first cup of coffee.
It wasn’t six thirty yet, but these days it seemed like she didn’t sleep nearly as much as she used to, and then a day or two later she made up for it.
As if the baby had decided on her own rhythm already and Kenna was along for the ride.
When it happened, she enjoyed the quiet morning by herself, and when she slept, Kenna enjoyed the peace of being curled up in blankets alongside her husband.
Either way, she didn’t have to face life outside the door of the RV.
“Who is he?” Jax put one arm along the back of the seat, his fingers on her shoulder in a reassuring touch.
“A bad guy. If this guy is loose in the world, we have mega problems. There will be a trail of ugly murder scenes behind him.”
“Then we need to find out so he can be shut down before he comes after you.”
Jax was probably right about that, but still she said, “We don’t know if I would be the target.”
“Not something I’m willing to wait and see on.” He said it so matter-of-factly.
Kenna found it hard to argue with him. “Not going up against a serial killer would be great.” Especially not one who hurt people because he got a kick out of suffering. “I’d rather not to do that anytime, let alone pregnant.”
The fact she was even saying that was a testament to how much in her life had changed. Things had shifted, and life became more complicated. The stakes of the work they did were higher—much higher—when they went up against the shadowy organization that her family wanted to take down personally.
She wasn’t exactly dragging her feet. More like flat out refusing to engage, past the work she’d always done. Work like saving Megan and Joseph from the situation they’d been in.
“So how do we find out who this is?” Maizie peered at the sketch now. “I can’t search every DMV database in the country and the military, and every other facial recognition program. It could take weeks, and he might’ve killed a hundred people by then.”
“I’ll touch base with Amara,” Kenna said. “See if she knows him.”
Jax made a hmm sound in his throat, shifting on the seat. He took a sip of coffee but said nothing.
“Anything else, Maze?”
“Isn’t there always?”
The young woman was right, but Kenna didn’t know how else to change the subject. “Hit me with it.”
Maizie’s gaze shifted in a way Kenna could tell she was looking at other screens.
Kenna focused on the sketch for a second, long enough to decide she’d put it together as close to the real thing as she could.
“Bear messaged me again. He wants to talk to you. They’re working on a plan, and he needs your input.”
Kenna wasn’t sure she could avoid it much longer. “Put something on the calendar. How are things going at the platform?”
Jax shook his head. “I’m still surprised Dominatus hasn’t just blown the thing away.”
“Or they don’t consider it a breach of security to leave it there.
” Kenna shrugged. “Could be they have a different plan for the security team who took it over and we just haven’t seen what it is yet.
Or whoever was in charge is gone in a way they can’t report in.
Which means the head honchos don’t know the platform was taken back and everything going on there was shut down. ”
“Makes sense, in a way. But only if they really do run things so separately with different factions and groups like splinter cells and no cohesive leadership. If everyone is doing their own thing and no one reports to anyone else, I guess this could happen and they wouldn’t retaliate.
Or come looking for revenge.” Jax shrugged. “Just seems inefficient.”
“Or it’s the path of least resistance.”
Maizie said, “What do you mean?”
“They don’t have to have checks and balances, someone giving orders and everyone reporting in.
” Kenna paused. “Seems more like they have a general goal, and everyone goes about it in their own way, however they want to do it. So you’ve got a whole lot of rogue operations, and over the long term, they get where they’re going.
But it doesn’t make change very quickly. ”
“Like I said, inefficient.” Jax squeezed her knee under the table.
“They didn’t explain to me exactly how it works,” Kenna said. “It was more like one-world government propaganda trying to get me to buy in to the overarching plan.”
“That doesn’t sound like fun.” Maizie winced.
Kenna hadn’t shared even this much about her experience as a captive on that platform, but now that she’d started, she found she could say, “It did feel a lot like they were trying to brainwash me. Makes me wonder if they could trigger me and I’m suddenly mindless doing their bidding.”
They’d seen it before, but with the use of chemicals. Hypnosis or suggestion? Those were the things that kept her awake at night. Wondering if she was free, but still very much their pawn.
She just didn’t know how to be certain she wasn’t. Aside from staying as far as she could from any of their operatives. Living her life—her way. Relying on her husband to protect her, possibly even from herself.
Jax tugged her close with his arm and kissed her forehead. “That’s why, whatever we do, we do it together.”
She nodded. “Agreed.”
On the screen, Maizie started typing. “I’ll ask Bear to have his people go through the records they found when they took over the facility. Maybe there’s something in the files about that kind of experimentation.”
“Thanks, Maze.” Kenna smiled. “Don’t worry about me. Jax has it covered. Zeyla and Ramon are nearby if needed. We’re good.”
The girl didn’t look any less worried, but said, “Okay.” She looked at her phone again, but without the flushed cheeks. “I should go. I have some English homework to finish.”
“Have a good day.”
Maizie said bye, and the call ended.
Jax nudged her shoulder with his. “That’s what you’re worried about? Being brainwashed?”
“Among other things. I’m not writing you a list. We don’t have enough paper.”
“I can’t fix it.”
Kenna reached for his hand. “Fixing it might be what you feel like you should be doing, but it’s not what I need.”
He lifted his gaze, and she saw all the fear and turmoil in her reflected in her eyes. “What do you need?”
“Not to be corny, but you.” She smiled.
“That would’ve been corny.”
Kenna leaned into him. “I need you. Here, like this. I need us to be together, doing what we can. Trying to enjoy what our lives are and not getting too caught up in someone else’s war.
There’s a whole world out there. Why do we have to be the ones to sacrifice everything to fight this big bad evil?
It’s too much. We can’t possibly survive that fight, and it’s not giving up to say that.
It’s realizing we have too much to lose to go after them. ”
“It sure feels like giving up. But you’re right. We can’t risk this to take them down. Not when we don’t have a good plan, or a way to take them out.”
“I wouldn’t mind a plan to severely undermine them.” Kenna worked her mouth back and forth. “But I can’t figure out how to do that either. I don’t want to be near any of them for long enough to figure out how to get them to destroy each other.”
“Sounds like we need to pray.” He bowed his head and spoke aloud, giving all their fear to the Lord. Asking for wisdom on how to fight this evil, and protection for every member of their family.
To her ears, it sounded like clanging cymbals. Like the words hit the ceiling and bounced back down, going nowhere.
Kenna squeezed her eyes shut and just listened to the sound of his voice. She’d given up straining and groping in the dark for a peace she wasn’t going to find.
It had left her months ago.