“We should be able to track the contract killer from this bank account number, right, Maizie?”
She nodded in answer to Jax’s question. “I’ll track it down.”
“Did MSI say why they sent it?” Kenna asked.
“The email just says that we probably want to see this.” Maizie tapped the screen of her laptop and showed Jax something.
He said, “They have to be letting us know why they did what they did.”
“Because we’re interested in digging into it, or because they want us to ignore the fact thattheyare the ones who did the kidnapping?” Kenna breathed through a couple more kicks. “They can just tell us where to find the family, and we can call it even.”
“I would like to know who hired the contract killer. Then we’ll know where the threat is actually coming from.”
Kenna made a face.
Jax smiled at her. “I’ll see if I can set up a meet, get the guy to tell me who hired him.”
“Assuming it was a man.” Kenna shrugged. “I suppose I’m sitting at home during this operation? Probably waiting for the police to show up with a warrant for Zeyla’s arrest.”
Maybe she was just grumpy. It wasn’t that she was feeling sorry for herself, necessarily. More like she felt kind of blah, and it was self-soothing to be annoyed at everything.
Lord, there are things that could be resolved before this baby comes. I’m not trying to tell You when she should be born, but there’s probably a sweet spot here somewhere.
It wasn’t out of the question for a woman to go over her due date, even by two weeks, but Kenna didn’t really want to be pregnant for another month.
Jax came over and leaned down, kissing her in way that successfully distracted her from being grumpy. “Maizie can be in charge while I’m gone.”
Kenna gasped, shoving at his shoulder playfully.
Maizie giggled.
“Don’t get distracted,” Kenna told her. “We need to find a contract killer, I guess.”
Jax smiled at her. “It’ll take some finesse to get a face-to-face meeting. Maizie and I can work on a dialogue with the person who was paid to take Ellayna and then work on the plan.”
Kenna realized the shower was still on, which wasn’t like Zeyla. The woman took the fastest showers Kenna had ever known—and she shut the water off halfway through. Even Zeyla couldn’t pretend nothing bothered her. She was likely in there figuring out what she was going to do about the police issuing a warrant for her arrest.
While Jax and Maizie talked over their plan and navigated the dark web message boards they knew, Kenna read through another short section of Scripture. It wasn’t about what to do when your close family member was going to be wrongfully accused of murder, but it gave her a sense of peace anyway.
Was this email from MSI a lead on the real case here or just another way to keep Kenna busy while they did…whatever they were going to do?
Jax said to Maizie, “We can say we want a job done.”
“Do we say we’re…us? Or do we pretend to be someone else?”
“Do you have alt accounts you can use?”
“I’d set a new one up now, but it’ll be too suspicious that it has no history.”
Jax asked, “Do you have history on this message board?”
“I interact on occasion, just to keep the username active. Mostly just asking questions about companies we’re investigating.”
“Like the software company in Pueblo?”
Maizie leaned back in her chair. “You think that’s how someone knew we were working it?”
“Not necessarily,” Jax said. “I doubt you blew our cover. But it’s possible that at least MSI is monitoring what you’re doing online. Even on the dark web.”
