Most of them, anyway.
“Justice demands integrity,” Hasworth said. “It demands that you give this court the truth.”
If only Kenna could see things so simply. But with the birth of her daughter, things had changed. Not only had her priorities shifted, but it seemed as if the rest of the world had also. “I have no intention of providing this court with anything but the truth. However, as I was not present, all I have is my impression of the events occurring that day in Chicago.”
“The court isn’t interested in your interpretation. Just the facts.”
What did the facts matter when the world had already decided the truth? That was what happened nowadays. The internet spread ideas, rumors, or straight-out lies. People believed what they heard, or what they wanted to believe. Unless a person was present and in possession of all the facts, how was the truth ascertained?
“I can only tell you what I know.” Kenna cleared her throat, shifting in her seat, wishing she could rub some warmth into the long sleeves over her arms. “It started a long time before Chicago.”
Hasworth waved a hand. “By all means, go back to the beginning and tell us what happened.”
Kenna’s mind drifted back to the days before her daughter. Before Jax. When her arms ached with a constant pain. When life seemed simpler, because she didn’t know then what she knew now. “Her name was Ellayna Feathers, and she was kidnapped by the Seventh Day Killer. When no one else could find her, her mother called me, and I took the case. That’s how I came to be in Salt Lake City that winter evening. Rescuing a terrified little girl from the basement of a theater.”
Chapter Two
Pueblo, Colorado
Fourteen Months Earlier
“The house is as it was when the police got here?” Maizie glanced over her shoulder, halfway down the hall, probably more excited than someone should be at a murder scene.
Kenna wasn’t going to dampen the young woman’s enthusiasm. She was simply going to walk slower due to the fact that she was just two or three weeks from her due date.
“That’s right.” Kenna followed her through the house with Jax and Zeyla behind them.
She could have had a local crime scene cleanup company come through but wanted Maizie to see the scene as it was after Shawn Terrance had been murdered. Unfortunately, that came with some unsavory smells.
Kenna tugged the small tin from her pocket and dabbed some menthol gel above her top lip, just enough to take the edge off the nausea. Thirty-six weeks of pregnancy meant she waslong past the perpetually sick feeling of the first trimester. But who knew how her stomach would feel about the combination of the breakfast she’d had this morning and a murder scene.
Not her first. It probably wouldn’t be her last.
However, Kenna wasn’t here to work this scene. They’d taken the case so that Maizie could get some hours in undertaking an investigation that seemed to be in her wheelhouse.
She leaned against the open doorway into the living room, where Maizie stood by the TV, surveying the scene. Jax squeezed Kenna’s arm and headed down the hall with Zeyla—who was, for all intents and purposes, Kenna’s sister. The two of them went in and out of rooms off the hall, this time looking for evidence. They’d already been through the house to clear it once, before Kenna and Maizie had even stepped foot inside, but this time would be a lot more methodical. Maizie’s job was to draw conclusions from the scene itself.
Kenna folded her arms. “Are you surprised the police ruled it a home invasion gone wrong?”
“Not really. But is that what the evidence led them to believe, or was it just the easiest explanation?”
Maizie was a college student, a tech genius, and Kenna and Jax’s adopted daughter. She also had more tragic history than anyone Kenna had ever met. The young woman wanted to learn how to investigate crimes. Kenna would be proud no matter what kind of life she carved out for herself, whether that was following in Kenna’s footsteps or not. Or maybe this was only about Maizie and Zeyla taking on most of the legwork of Banbury Investigations cases while Kenna was at the end of her pregnancy and, soon, when she went on maternity leave.
Things were changing.
Not only had their lives shifted over the past two years, but they would continue to shift in the months to come.
Her phone, tucked in her coat pocket, remained silent more than she wanted it to. Amara and Bruce were off doing who knew what. Literally and figuratively. Kenna was waiting for a callback, or some kind of update, but they were curiously silent. Ramon had gone to mutual associates, a group of former private security operatives on the front lines fighting their enemies. He was also supposed to report in but hadn’t.
Kenna was out of the loop—and trying not to get frustrated at being the pregnant one everyone safeguarded and, as a result, no one talked to.
She focused on Maizie and the murder scene, which amounted to a cushion on the floor, instead of on the couch, and a wide bloodstain on the carpet. “What are you thinking?”
Maizie lifted out of her crouch and looked around. “The police probably made the most logical assumption they could. We know now it might be more, because the victim’s sister asked us to look into it. If she hadn’t provided us with those published web pages detailing his issues with the tech company he worked for, we would never have known Shawn was a whistleblower.”
“Could just be a conspiracy with no basis in reality.”
“You’re the one who doesn’t like conspiracies, and neither do I,” Maizie said. “I get that from you.”
