Chapter 10
Chapter Ten
Later that same afternoon, Kenna entered the hospital room right after Jax.
“Hey, Megan.” She smiled at the young woman tucked into the bed sheets and blankets.
Dressed in a gown that revealed the angry bruises on her forearms, and places where she had been grabbed by someone with a punishing grip. “You asked to see us.”
The girl nodded, wringing her fingers together. “Thanks for coming.”
“How are you feeling?”
Jax hung back by the door, leaning against the wall. Probably trying to look unobtrusive. Or at least, nonthreatening.
Kenna went and stood by Megan’s bedside, tugging off her coat and laying it on the chair because the hospital had the heat cranked.
Megan shrugged one shoulder. “They want me here for observation. Whatever that means.” She shook her head.
“Are you worried about Joseph?”
“The social worker came by and explained. He brought the family who are going to take Joseph in. Church people. They seem nice. He’ll be the first kid they’ve ever fostered. And the wife is a therapist, so she’ll be able to help Joseph.”
“That’s good.” Kenna leaned against the side of the bed, today’s outfit of stretchy jeans and a T-shirt not complete until she’d pulled out a pair of Converse she hadn’t worn in years. “That’s really good.”
Her effort to feel like herself today might have worked on the outside, but inside she still felt like someone else. Which meant she was a fraud. Pretending she was fine, or at least on the road to recovery.
But nothing she did was going to change what had happened to her.
“Anyway,” Megan said, “that’s part of why I wanted to talk to you. The doctor brought in a therapist to see me, but what’s the point? It isn’t like I’ll get better.”
“You don’t know that.” Kenna shook her head. “I happen to know from personal experience that things do get better.”
“Because you know about being held against your will?” Megan laced her words with sarcasm.
Kenna just looked at her.
The hardness in Megan’s expression dissipated. “Oh.”
“I know it gets better.” Kenna paused. “You just have to keep moving forward.”
“That’ll be difficult,” Megan muttered.
“Yes, it will be. Don’t think this is going to be easy. It might be some days. But others, the whole thing will hit you like a freight train. You’ll feel like you can’t breathe. Like you’re right back there, trapped with no way out.”
“Doesn’t matter. What matters is Joseph, and they’re going to take care of him.
” Megan sniffed. “But you should know, it was a family thing. The reason Mitch and Carl were able to stay in the military as long as they did, even with all the complaints and times they were written up in their personnel files, or whatever they’re called. ”
Kenna’s ears pricked. “Someone in their family protected them?”
“Yeah, and for the record they’re both psychopaths. I thought Mitch was nice, but he killed Samantha and left.”
“The last time he was deployed?”
Megan nodded. “Someone covered it all up because they’re family. I think like an uncle, or someone like that. That’s why Carl will never go to prison for keeping me for years. It doesn’t matter, though. He’ll kill me anyway.”
From the door, Jax said, “The police can protect you.”
“Someone already came here and stuck me with a needle.” Megan rubbed the outside of her arm.
“It’s too late. I’m already dead. I just figured you should know that there’s someone in the military, or the government, or whatever, and they’re going to fix it all for Carl, so he doesn’t face charges or whatever. ”
Kenna stared at the girl. “Carl came here?” He should still be in prison, not free and coming to this room and…sticking a needle into his victim?
“Not Carl. Another guy did it. He had a nurse badge, but I knew he was one of them. He had the same look in his eyes that Carl always got.”
Kenna didn’t know what to say.
Jax moved to the end of the bed and showed Megan his phone. “Is this the man who came in here and stuck a needle in you?”
Kenna’s sketch. “The ghost.”
“That’s him. Now it’s me who’s the ghost,” Megan said.
“He was here in the middle of the night. He told me not to bother telling the nurse about what he did. He said I’d be fine for a while, but it would come on quickly when he was long gone.
Far enough away that no one will catch him. He was happy about it.”
Kenna wanted to reach for the girl but wouldn’t put it past Dominatus to infect her with a virus that would kill anyone who came into contact with her. It was possibly too late for her and Jax—proximity might’ve already signed their death certificates.
Kenna laid a hand on her belly. “You could have the doctors test for infectious disease, or something else. If he poisoned you, it would show up in tests.”
Megan shook her head. “He said it wouldn’t. He told me to make peace with the inevitable.”
“I’m sorry.”
Megan shrugged. “I knew this would happen. Maybe it’ll be quick and won’t—” Her voice broke. She cleared her throat. “Maybe it won’t hurt too much.”
Kenna sniffed back the tears gathering. Such a waste of the fresh start this young woman could’ve had, and the chance to heal from what happened to her.
She wanted the words to give Megan some peace.
A chance to walk her through regaining her life.
Instead, there was nothing inside her, no words forming on her tongue.
“Anyway, thanks for trying.” Megan sighed.
Kenna looked at the light above the bed, blinking away tears. What could she say?
Jax put his arm around her shoulder. “We’re glad you got out of there, Megan. And that you had the chance to discover what it feels like to be free. Even if it was only for a short time.”
She wanted to add something, but all she could think was that inevitably Dominatus would come for Joseph. They would destroy his life the way they had with so many others.
All that came out was, “Do you know who the family member was who protected them?”
Megan started to speak and coughed. After two or three coughs, she looked at her hand. Blood coated her fingers.
“We’ll get a nurse.” Jax led Kenna to the door with an urgency to his movements. As soon as they cleared the door frame, he yelled, “Nurse!” down the hall, loud enough Kenna winced.
She stepped to the side and leaned her head against the wall. “You think she’s contagious?”
Jax turned to her and before he could say anything, the uniformed officer sitting beside the door stood and glanced between them. His craggy features gave her the impression of a mouse with two days of stubble on his chin. “What’s this?”
Kenna glanced at him. “The young woman you’re supposed to be protecting?
She’ll be dead in a moment. Maybe the fake ID for the nurse who stuck her with a needle was excellent, but you let a killer in her room and she’s going to pay the price.
” She turned and walked away, heard him call after her, but didn’t stop.
Jax spoke to him, then jogged to catch up with her at the elevator. When they stepped in, he said, “The cop thinks we’re going to make a statement at the police station.”
“Wasn’t me who lied to him.”
Jax shot her a look. “I didn’t intentionally lie. I just wasn’t about to let you walk off. He could’ve chased us down and you’d have been in danger from a police officer because you’re being stubborn.”
“I’m still not going to the police station.” She leaned her head back against the wall as the elevator car descended to the lobby.
“I know.” He sounded disappointed.
“Regretting quitting the FBI?”
“Don’t ask dumb questions.”
She looked at him.
“Or if you do, don’t be surprised when you don’t get a smart answer.” He shot her a look that said he’d already resigned himself to the life he was living now. Opting to exchange a career with the FBI for being with her all the time. “What?”
“It would be another dumb question.”
Jax closed the distance between them and kissed her. “I’m very glad we’re both here, and I have the freedom to work with you. Protect you. Help you. Solve cases with you.”
“I get it.”
He kissed her again. “Get used to it.”
She wasn’t sure that would ever happen. “For the record, I’m glad, too. That I’m free and we’re together.” She laced her fingers with his. “That we’re having a baby.”
The elevator door opened.
“I wondered if maybe you weren’t so happy about the timing,” he said. “Given what’s going on.”
“And how I’m determined to avoid all of it?”
He squeezed her hand, but her phone started to ring in her pocket.
She glanced at the screen. “Amara. Probably about the sketch.” She swiped her thumb across the screen and put the phone to her ear. “Hey.”
“You have a minute?”
Jax led her down the last part of the hall from the elevator to the lobby and through the expanse of space where they had coffee only yesterday.
Nothing was amiss, but she noted he scanned the tables and people sitting chatting.
A guy by the reception desk to the right didn’t look up from his phone.
Kenna focused on the call and let her husband do the work of protecting them both. “Did you recognize the photo?”
“I’ve seen him before, but I don’t know his name. I’ll need access to one of their computer terminals to find out who he is. Maybe at the platform?”
“Worth asking MSI.” The security company that had taken over the platform where she was held during the rescue would likely let Amara have a moment with their computers.
“Maybe they have access to files we don’t know about.
But I did hear that the system was erased when it became clear Dominatus was going to lose the fight. ”
“Hang on.” Amara relayed the info to someone else.
Bruce.
Kenna didn’t like that he was privy to the details, but Amara already knew not to trust implicitly.
The two of them might be aunt and niece, even though Kenna had thought for years that Amara was her deceased mother, but they still didn’t put total faith in each other.
The only person she did that with was Jax, and to a lesser extent Maizie and Ramon.
Maybe Stairns. The Rysons were her friends, but she didn’t want their little family to be targets, so she hadn’t called them in months and hadn’t seen them since she and Jax got married.
“Kenna.”
She held the warm phone to her ear. “Yes?” Stepping off the curb beside Jax, she remembered the night shortly after they’d met when someone tried to run her over. Jax had been in her orbit since, and now they never needed to be apart.
“I asked if you were ready for the next most pressing issue.”
“Hit me with it.”
“Moments ago, Maizie received an encrypted packet in her email. She needs a key to get into the packet. I’m working on that.”
“What’s going on?”
“Our friends from Hann, Anthony & Associates are being rounded up and arrested as the perpetrators of yesterday’s bombing in DC.” Amara paused. “You know who the target was?”
Kenna nodded. “I know.” Jax held the car door for her, and she ducked her head, climbing in. “The Croatian prime minister.” She watched Jax round the front of the car to the driver’s side.
“Actually, the president,” Amara corrected. “Their prime minister is over the executive branch of their government. The president is their commander in chief, basically the boss of their military.”
“Sounds complicated.”
“The president is the one here to nail down the details of the treaty with our president. Someone tried to take the Croatian guy out.”
“What does it have to do with our lawyer friends?” Kenna asked.
The call muted for a second, then connected to the car speakers.
“Three of the lawyers were already arrested,” Amara explained. “The taskforce is moving quick. They pinpointed them as the prime suspects and they’re rounding them up and making arrests.”
Kenna bit her lip for a second. “Did they do it?”
Jax glanced at her but said nothing.
“Of course not!”
“And you’d know that? We haven’t heard from them in months.”
“You were captive. We made plans without you because we didn’t know when you’d be back.” Amara paused. “They were the ones who went with Bruce to rescue Jax.”
Kenna didn’t want to hear how they’d left her in FBI custody and Ramon hadn’t been able to save her. “I was there. I know what happened.”
“They’re being wrongfully accused.”
“Then the evidence will bear out the truth of the matter.” Kenna squeezed the phone. “They won’t be convicted because there isn’t going to be a case. If they didn’t do it, there’s nothing for them to worry about it.”
“You know as well as I do that the truth means nothing to these people.”
Kenna had been in their facility so long she’d forgotten what the truth even was. Their tactics had turned her mind inside out. She closed her eyes, trying not to remember.
“They’ll get their pound of flesh one way or another.”
“I’m not getting involved.” She’d said it so many times it should be easier, but the words tasted sour on her tongue.
“You know what this is.”
“How could I? I’m not part of the organization.
” No matter how much they’d tried to get her to come over to their side.
She wanted to say she’d resisted. Stood strong.
But life was never that cut-and-dried. She and her baby had survived—that’s what she had to remember.
“They leave me alone, and I leave them alone. That was the deal.”
Too bad Dominatus wasn’t in the business of making deals.
“Kenna, your friends are going to die or spend their lives in prison. And those are the best-case scenarios. They’ll be scapegoats. Paraded through the media like they’re terrorists with no conscience.”
Kenna said nothing.
Amara didn’t stop. “Did you know an eight-year-old girl died? Her school bus wasn’t far from the limo when it blew. The bus flipped, and all three kids on board were tossed around. The driver and one girl died, and the other two are in the hospital.”
Kenna clenched her teeth and stared out the window, unsure what to say to resolve the question in her heart and mind.
How to find some semblance of peace in the middle of all of this.
She had far too many doubts. Maybe they were good, and meant she should make a change, but she couldn’t even tell that much. She had no light to guide her.
Amara sighed. “You can do something to help.”
Kenna managed to say, “I’m protecting this baby.”
“And in the meantime, what kind of world will she be born into?”
In the background, she heard a man’s voice.
She tapped the dash screen and ended the call.