Page 81 of Every Which Way

ChapterTwenty-One

“This is the address?” Kenna pointed at the screen of Maizie’s laptop. They were on the picnic bench between the two vehicles with Ramon sitting across from them. Bruce was asleep in a plastic Adirondack chair by the fire pit, his hood up on his sweater mostly covering his face—or shading his eyes from the sun—and Cabot curled up on his lap snoring even though she didn’t really fit there.

The air had a morning chill, but there was no breeze moving the trees. All was still at the RV park except for a lone older man walking a tiny dog. The sight of them made her want to contact her friend Dixie, whom she hadn’t heard from in a while. And Forrest Crosby. Maybe even Taylor, her psychologist friend at the FBI in Salt Lake City.

Friends. People who had influenced her life in the last few years and stuck around in emails and texts and infrequent phone calls. Women she would go to for advice or just to chat.

Was she really going to invite them to her wedding?

She didn’t even have a wedding date. When Jax got here, they could probably figure it out. But when one of them was constantly in the middle of a big case, it was hard to find time to plan like that. Even just thinking about getting married and the overwhelming amount of decisions involved made her heart start to beat faster.

Ramon asked, “Why are you freaking out?”

“I’m not. I’m just thinking about wedding planning.”

Maizie and Ramon shared a cryptic glance. She was about to ask what it meant when Maizie said, “I don’t think you need to worry about that right now. I mean, we’ve got so much going on with this. You have your dress, so you’re good.”

“Weddings are more than finding a dress. There are athousandthings to figure out.”

Ramon shrugged it off. “You have time, right? You’ll figure it out.”

“Do you think your mom will come?” Maizie asked.

Kenna groaned. “Great. Now I’m thinking about that and how awkward it’s going to be. I mean, it’s not like she’ll be all overwhelmed and happy for me.”

Ramon’s expression softened. “She’s not going to get emotional. How can she when her existence is life and death, protecting her children. Keeping people alive and safe, and trying to take down the company. She’s been at war her entire life. No rest. No downtime.”

“She had it with me.”

Ramon nodded slightly. “That’s true, but that might be exactly why she knows it won’t work. That taking time off costs someone their life. She may not be prepared to go so far as to take a day off because it could have disastrous consequences.”

Kenna looked away, watching the tall pine trees around them. The mountains in the distance, and the expansive Colorado sky with the sun rising, bringing with it an orange glow that stretched across the horizon.

She could understand what it felt like to know to your soul that letting go of the struggle for even a second would cause someone pain—most likely her. She’d felt that way about letting people in, going it alone for two years after she left the FBI. She had needed that time to heal. To figure out what she wanted. To process all the things she was feeling after losing Bradley. She’d worked out what she wanted the rest of her life to be and pieced together a life she loved out of the ashes of what she’d thought she would have. Who she thought she would be. The years she thought she would live.

God had directed her back to Salt Lake City, giving her that Joseph moment where what had been intended for evil He had used for good. Her good. She’d met Jax, reconnected with Ryson and his family, and started working with Stairns. Maizie had come along. Her friends, Dixie and Forrest. Then Ramon. Now Bruce as well. And Jax’s family.

That was a lot of people to add to her Christmas list.

It was enough to make her want to shed a tear of gratitude that she had so many people in her life. Even if occasionally she needed a break from them in favor of some solitude.

Ramon continued, “And her daughter is missing. She managed to save you, but this girl might as well be everyone she’s ever loved. If she loses Zeyla, then she loseseverything.”

“I get it.”

“Do you?”

Kenna rolled her eyes. “Maizie, tell me about the house. If Amara is going to try and trade Clare and Roxanne for Zeyla, I want to be there.”

Maizie looked at her, tucking hair back behind her ear. “Are you going to call the cops or the FBI?”

“I’m not sure yet. Tell me what you’ve got.”

Maizie looked back at her laptop. “Okay, from the top. The company we infiltrated has properties owned by companies, shell corporations, subsidiaries, all those words that mean they’re companies inside of companies that are parent companies of other?—”

“We get it,” Ramon said.

“So I have a list of addresses of places they own. The address Amara sent is on the list. I’m still working through Hadley’s information and the phones those two brothers had on them. All communication was on the dark web, so it’s not searchable, and the threads are gone now. The number the brothers contacted is a dead end. The phone is unregistered, and it’s either off or out of battery. My guess is they turn it on periodically when they’re expecting contact.”

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