She turned far enough to see him coming on her other side and showed him the screen. “New episode. Though, I’d rather talk about how we’re going to take down this software company and finish what Shawn Terrance started.”
She navigated to the text thread she had with Shawn’s sister Gabby, but there were no new messages. She’d told Gabby Terrance that she would contact her as soon as she had news. Hopefully, they would soon, because possessing the drive and it being more than a tiny paperweight were two different things. They needed the information from the storage device. But pointing that out would just put undue pressure on Maizie, and it was clear from watching the girl that she was all in to solve this puzzle.
“Want me to skim it?” Jax held out his hand.
She slapped her phone into his palm. “I’d love that.”
The low-grade irritation she’d been feeling upon hearing a true crime podcaster recount every case she’d ever worked over the past couple of years wasn’t going to let up until they figured out who he was. Hopefully, that happened before this guy realized where Maizie had joined their group from, and how she’d been raised.
“He knows entirely too much about you.” Jax thumbed the screen, still reading the transcript, and reached over with his other hand to squeeze her knee.
“Question is, how did he find out?” She glanced at Preston, who was finishing his smoothie. Jax probably needed a plate of food after his grueling workout. She shifted in her seat, uncovered a couple of the platters the housekeeper had prepared, and dished food onto Jax’s plate.
Preston set his empty glass on the table and reached for the carafe with regular coffee. “Maybe someone gave him all the information. I mean, it isn’t readily available like in police reports. There’s no log of all the cases you’ve ever worked.”
She’d been wondering about that. “Unless someone tracked my movements for years, watched what I was doing and kept that log for me.”
“You think it wasDominatus?” Preston stabbed a single sausage with his fork and ate just that to accompany his morning coffee.
Kenna shrugged. “Who else knows more about us than we do? The only other option that makes sense is that the president wants all the information out there for some reason. I don’t know why she’d feel the need to undermine me by telling everyone everything about what I’ve done, unless it’s to toot her own horn and take the credit…” She decided she wasn’t making sense and just sighed.
Jax squeezed her knee again. “Okay, here’s the highlights. You took a cold case, missing girl from Ogden. There was no reason to believe she was still alive. Pretty sure the police had given up hope, but the family still wanted answers. They gave your number a try, a referral from someone else you’d helped.”
Kenna nodded. “That’s how I found cases for a long time. Just word of mouth.”
“You tracked the guy from Ogden, where he’d taken her, and managed to find him in Montana. You left him on a bench for the police to find, handcuffed with a box of all the evidence next to him.”
She remembered that. “He wasn’t happy. But neither was anyone else, considering the little girl he took was long dead and buried. I left the information in the box because he told me where he’d left her. The police dug her up so the family could bury her.”
Kenna placed a protective hand over her pregnant belly. Everyone would know why, and they’d all be so sympathetic to the plight of motherhood. Wanting so badly to keep this new life safe, being responsible for a tiny thing. Protecting her every day of her life.
The dread was the worst part. And the dreams.
Every day was one day closer to the reality of being responsible for a baby. She wasn’t so much worried about feeding, changing, and sleep schedules, though she’d been doing plenty of research into those things. Kenna was way more worried about their enemy finding her with the baby and using the child as a pawn.
They would know she’d do anything to protect her family.
Which made her love a weapon they could wield to get whatever they wanted.
Jax covered her hand with his. “He mentioned a witness you never managed to track down, who originally provided the police with testimony about a car used by the kidnapper.”
She couldn’t remember specifics but did recall visiting an older woman. “The cops had the make and model of the car and a partial license plate. It was a matter of legwork at that point, and unlike them, I had no other cases and as much time as it took.”
She’d also had the freedom to go outside her jurisdiction, unlike the police, who had to coordinate with other law enforcement departments and agencies.
Kenna continued, “I remember talking to an older woman. She had sold her car to the killer, or at least she gave me a description of the guy who bought it. That part didn’t ever totally make sense.”
“Because she told you he had a scar above his eyebrow?” Jax asked.
Kenna nodded. “It was a private sale; he gave her cash. Years later, she got a ticket and realized the car was still registered to her. She was trying to get it out of her name.”
Preston said, “You tracked the car? Is that how you caught him?”
“I found the vehicle in a junkyard just outside Bozeman. Not far from where he got the parking ticket, actually.”
“And it led you to him?”
Kenna shrugged. “In a roundabout way, through a whole lot more legwork. Talking to the junkyard owner and his nephew, going person to person, trying to find out who they’d spoken to and where he went. Eventually, I found a cabin he’d been renting and staked out the place. I followed him for a few days and realized he was gearing up to take another girl.”
