Chapter 13
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 process her 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 Megan Tiller’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.
“Okay, um…” He hesitated. “I wasn’t going to ask, but what are you thinking about?”
“I’m just thinking,” she said. “Trying to get my thoughts straight before we jump in and get to work on this. Like, did I really see the ghost in the lobby? I guess I had to have, since Megan said that’s who killed her. But in the moment, I really wondered if it was just my imagination.”
“Zeyla and Ramon are tracking down the man you made that sketch of. If there’s someone to find, they’ll get him.”
She nodded, trying to feel reassured. “And the military connection to Mitch and Carl, the duo kidnappers.”
Maybe they would never know exactly what had happened, but Jax had made a call to the district attorney’s office in Boston and jumped on a video meeting with the DA so he could explain their fears regarding Carl’s release and Megan’s worry that he would never be charged.
The DA had reassured both Jax and Kenna, who’d been listening from the passenger seat, that he wasn’t going to allow anyone to sway justice.
He had been planning a press conference ASAP to tell the world what Carl had done, and how Megan’s rescue had cost her life.
Even if the DA considered her death accidental, no one could deny that a horrific crime had been committed.
Who could stomach Carl being free after that?
The more people who heard the truth, the harder it would be to cover it all up. If Dominatus wanted to do that.
Jax glanced over. “Could be the connection ended with Mitch’s untimely death during his deployment, and they’ve got no loyalty to Carl whatsoever.”
“That’d be nice. But if they killed Megan, there’s a chance it’s Carl that needs protection now.”
He squeezed her hand. “Maizie will figure it out.”
A woman in a wool overcoat that hung to her knees stepped out from a building beside them, red hair and a dark-blue watch cap. Navy slacks and flat shoes. As she passed by, she pushed a folded paper into Kenna’s hand.
Jax reacted to the proximity of the woman and shifted Kenna to the building side just after the woman passed her. He turned and slowed to a stop. “What was that?”
Kenna hadn’t gotten a good look at the woman’s face. By the time Kenna turned around, she was gone. A black town car sped away from the curb and disappeared into traffic.
“She handed me something.” Kenna showed him the paper, which turned out to be a folded note.
Jax scanned around them and shifted closer, his entire being a protective stance. She touched his sides, not just to reassure him but also to remind herself of what he’d said. He was here, and they wouldn’t be separated. She wasn’t alone.
He unfolded the paper. “Tell Maizie FD-2769-CM.”
Kenna glanced around like she’d be able to see the woman who had slipped her the note.
She wasn’t going to think about how easily she could’ve been killed.
They don’t want me dead. That was the only thing that didn’t make her lose her mind with fear of what might’ve been.
The thing she couldn’t anticipate. The known unknown that kept her up at night.
“I guess we should pass it on.” He tugged out his phone.
“Maybe it’s the decryption code for the packet she got yesterday.” The young woman had been working on other tasks because she’d deemed it “impossible” to crack. “And that was one of the lawyers? Or a friend of theirs?”
“They want our help.”
Kenna groaned. “I’m not making anyone any promises.”
He nodded, pocketed the phone and the note. Any photo he took would upload immediately to the server Maizie had set up, and she would get a notification. She would see it right away.
“I agree with you about that.” He held out his hand again. “We see what we can do. That’s all anyone can ask of us.”
It occurred to her that he was treating her as if she were fragile. A little more breakable than usual. Which was completely correct.
She wanted to be robust and strong, able to withstand what life threw at them next.
But when that happened, she would shatter like she had before.
Even taking weeks out and recuperating hadn’t enabled her to put the pieces back together.
Nor had working a case—not just because that case turned out to be connected to all of this.
Kenna pushed out a breath. “But we’re going to work the case.”
“Yep.” He squeezed her hand. “We can’t let the lawyers at Hann, Anthony & Associates go to prison for something they didn’t do.”
“If they were behind it…”
“Seems more like they’re scrambling out of surprise,” Jax said. “They saw it coming, but it happened too fast for them to get safe.”
Kenna had thought the same thing while watching the news reports on the drive down. A change of scenery, and hours spent watching the world go by, had helped her find at least some of her equilibrium. But she wasn’t fixed.
She wasn’t even sure it was possible.
“If MSI is behind it,” Jax continued, “we might run into a problem.”
“Or we find the person, and they intended to do the world a favor, but they just missed.” She paused. “How do you shake the hand of someone who killed a child?”
“I should text Bear and ask, but I’m afraid,” he admitted. “Taking out Dominatus key players is in their wheelhouse right now. They’re on a tear trying to do what they can to shut the whole thing down.”
“I’ve been afraid to even think about that.” Kenna winced. “He’ll probably be mad that we aren’t doing it.”
“He hasn’t asked for help, so maybe he gets it. He lost Ally in New Orleans.”
“You spent more time with him, rescuing me.”
“Doesn’t mean I have an ‘in’ on what their plan is.” Jax shook his head. “If we ran into one of them out here, I wouldn’t be surprised.”
“I guess we need to know if they’re behind this.
” She stopped because they were at the yellow police tape that ringed the area around the black spot where fire had left ash burned into the street and the sidewalk.
The other side of the street had been cleared, cars now driving over where the bus had flipped.
People going about their business in a spot where children had died.
She pushed that thought away and watched the three—no, four—FBI agents in tan khakis, polo shirts, and windbreakers walk the scene with gloves on and evidence bags in hand. One final sweep for anything that might have been left behind.
“Huh.” The word was little more than a sound of surprise from Jax.
“What is it?” She looked from him over to what had his attention.
A female agent came over, and it was someone she recognized.
“Special Agent…” Kenna began. The name escaped her, but this agent had been there right before Kenna was kidnapped.
The agent stopped in front of the tape, surprise in her dark-brown features. “Jax. Kenna.”
“Special Agent Herron.” Jax stiffened. “You’re working this taskforce?”
Right. That was her name.
Andrette Herron had been working with Jax during the time Kenna was a captive, coerced by their enemy into manipulating what was going on at the FBI.
Jax had left the agent to her fate after he found out that her children were being used as pawns.
Andrette had worked to ensure their safety then, and Jax had a fight of his own.
They hadn’t been able to work together without jeopardizing both.
Was that what they were supposed to do now?
“I thought being sent here was a demotion,” Herron replied. “It all happened so fast that I’ve only been on the ground a day and a half. This is my first visit to the site.” She shook her head. “Now that you’re here, maybe there’s another reason I’m here altogether.”
“If there is,” Jax said. “I’d like to hear it.”