Chapter 4
FOUR
Saturday
After completing a hard workout and tending the horses with Kane, Jenna jumped into the shower.
She dried her hair and dressed rapidly even though the house was toasty.
She wanted to spend as much time as possible with her boys before going into the office this morning.
As she stepped out into the hallway and made her way to the family room, giggling and loud shouts came from the front yard.
She went to the window and peered outside.
Her yard was a winter wonderland. Snow piled up all over and long icicles hung around the porch like ancient swords.
She reached for her phone smiling and, walking outside, started filming.
Kane and Tauri were in the middle of a snowball fight, and Jackson was doing his best to throw snow at both of them.
Steam rose in the air around all of them until they finally fell laughing in a heap and became snow angels.
Giggling, Jackson climbed slowly to his feet and ran to her.
Big for his age, he had started walking at ten months and, now at seventeen months, was getting around everywhere without any problems and also had a good vocabulary.
“Mommy, look, snow.” Jackson pointed to the ground. His red nose and pink cheeks damp with snowflakes.
She put away her phone. “Yes, it’s lovely. Are you cold?”
“No!” Jackson giggled and pointed to his feet. “Boots on.”
“Diamond days.” Kane brushed snow from his clothes and then helped Tauri. He smiled at her. “Our time with the kids will go so fast. We need to make the most of every second. You should have seen Jackson’s face when I opened the door and told him we could play outside.”
Nodding, Jenna took in the scene and sighed. “Yeah, I wish we could stay home today but maybe working out what happened last night will only be a few hours. I took a video of the snowball fight. We have that for our files.”
“Snow, cold.” Jackson grinned at Jenna. “Yummy.” He licked snow from his red gloves.
Scooping him up, Jenna brushed the snow from his clothes and blew raspberries on his cold cheeks until he giggled. “Come on, you lot. Let’s get you dried off so Mommy and Daddy can go to work.”
She left the boys playing trains on the family room rug, with Raya watching over them.
There were never any long tearful goodbyes, the children had gotten used to them leaving.
It was normal for her to tell them when she needed to go to work.
She always added what they’d be doing when she returned or planned something for them to look forward to if she and Kane needed to work a weekend.
Most times at work, Rio would take over to give them family time.
Like Kane had said, the diamond days with the kids flew by so fast—every second was precious.
They would have welcomed another baby or two, but they were thankful for the two healthy boys they had.
Having a big family had been a dream, but when she looked at her team, all like close family, maybe she’d gotten her wish after all.
“You look wistful.” Kane glanced at her as they headed for the office.
“I know it’s difficult to leave the kids, but we knew this going into having them, didn’t we?
” He squeezed her hand. “I turned out okay, well I believe I did, and I rarely saw my father. Although, I did have my mom and my sister.”
Dragging her gaze away from the snow-covered lowlands, flat and brilliant white stretching out for miles, Jenna smiled at him.
“It’s not leaving them I was thinking about.
I was just wishing that we could have had more.
Adopting Tauri was a big step and he’s added so much joy to our lives.
Having Jackson was so special. For me having him, it was like giving you back everything you’d given up for me. I know you wanted a ton of kids, I—”
“Whoa! Hold up.” Kane pulled the Beast to the side of the road and turned in his seat and stared at her.
“I figure you have our relationship a little skewed. You took me, a broken damaged man, and made me whole again. I gave up nothing to be with you, but you took on a whole lot of trouble when you married me. I figure I’m the luckiest man in the world.
Our boys make life perfect—don’t they? Two or ten kids makes no difference to me.
I’m content.” He bent and kissed her. “Now about Ellie McBride. We’re going to speak to her now, right? ” He pulled back onto the highway.
Noting how Kane skillfully changed the subject, Jenna nodded.
“Yeah, there’s something about her that just doesn’t sit right with me.
I’ve interviewed many people in the same situation and they all seem a little confused, and yet her story was so slick.
If she had been knocked unconscious as she claims, I would imagine she’d be a little disoriented, but she didn’t come across like that to me.
” She pulled her black cap down over her ears, tucking in her hair.
“Maybe she didn’t have a purse with her, and leaving the keys under the back of the SUV would make it appear as if she’d been attacked and dropped them. ”
“I have a few questions on the logic of this idea.” Kane flicked her a glance.
“Why would she do that? Why would anyone hit themselves in the head, and how did she get to the Triple Z Roadhouse afterward? The SUV parked at the pumps in the CCTV footage wasn’t there when we arrived, so if she is trying some type of scam on us, for whatever reason, there has to be more than one person involved.
The other driver who pumped the gas and stopped for a meal”—he sighed—“it couldn’t have been her, because at the time, she was hammering on the back door of the roadhouse to get help. ”
Jenna shook her head. “There’s no footage of the person going into the roadhouse, is there?”
“No, but she did have a nasty cut on her head.” He glanced at her. “Sure, she could have run around the back from there, but if she did, who drove her SUV back to the convenience store?”
What Kane was saying made sense, but Jenna still had a niggling feeling that something was not right.
She’d witnessed so many strange behaviors in her lifetime that anything was possible.
“What if she’s setting up some type of alibi?
I mean, what if she and her boyfriend are planning on kidnapping women and maybe murdering them—or have already?
If she pretended she’d been kidnapped, and women start showing up dead, we wouldn’t consider her as a suspect. ”
“I figure that’s a little farfetched but nothing people do surprises me these days.
” Kane blew out a long sigh. “I just can’t imagine how anyone would consider that a grade-school teacher would be considered a suspect in a kidnapping murder.
For me, it doesn’t make sense. I guess we talk to her again this morning and see if we can work out what’s going on.
” He glanced at her as they took the turn toward the hospital.
“I’ve always told you to trust your gut instinct, and if you figure there’s something wrong with this woman’s story, we’ll make sure we put her on the suspects list if anything else happens.
In the meantime, if she is telling the truth, she might be in danger of being kidnapped again.
We don’t know why she was abducted in the first place and why the perp has her purse, her credit cards, and her phone. ”