After stowing her phone, she followed Zeyla to the upper floor. “This is where he lives?”
“According to Maizie. It’s apartment three.” Zeyla slid out the gun holstered at the small of her back and thumbed off the safety, holding it by her side.
Kenna stood to the side of the door and hammered with the base of her fist. “Marcus Neerwood! Open the door!”
Cars streamed by on the street. Trash had collected on the ground at the end of the balcony where they stood.
Nothing.
She hammered again, but no one answered. Kenna lowered her hand.
“Do you hear that? I’m pretty sure I heard a child or someone in there cry out in distress—” Zeyla lifted her knee and slammed the sole of her boot next to the door handle.
“Yeah, me, too.” Kenna bit her lip, trying not to laugh. Zeyla would make a terrible police officer but an exceptional marine—if she could handle all the rules and regulations. She would probably have been kicked out for punching a superior, so it was good that she was a private security specialist. Or whatever she was.
The smell hit Kenna in a noxious wave.
“Oof.” Kenna wrinkled her nose. “That’s not a good smell.”
Zeyla stepped into the house.
“Don’t touch anything,” Kenna said. “I’ll call the police. This is a crime scene.”
Chapter Nineteen
Jax stood at one end of the freezing cold room. Colder than outside, even. Each of the round tables, with the attached plastic stools, was empty, and they would stay that way until the guard brought Gerald Rickshire in.
He reached for his phone, but of course, he’d given that to the desk sergeant before coming in here. Same with all his weapons.
A buzzer sounded, and the door opened. Gerald shuffled in, arms and legs shackled with a chain stretching between them. An old man, a shell of who he had been. A piece of garbage, who kidnapped little girls and did horrific things to them. Who tortured and murdered. He didn’t even look like the same man whom Jax had talked to in this very prison years ago.
Since then, so much had happened in Jax’s life. He’d fought fights he didn’t think he’d survive, convinced Kenna to marry him, and now they were about to have a baby. He was going to have a daughter.
Faced with a man who targeted girls, Jax found he wanted to walk out right now. Just turn and leave. Forget this whole thing.
But another girl, Ellayna Feathers, and her family were in danger.
He had to swallow his disgust and have this conversation, so he walked to the other side of the table where the guard left Rickshire.
The officer said, “I’ll be by the door.” To Gerald, he said, “No sudden movements.”
Gerald practically sneered. A man who thought he was above the law, who let his appetites dictate his actions and did whatever he wanted, destroying lives in the process. That sneer was a flash of a guy who thought he had power over life and death. The guy Gerald had been. But that wasn’t the man who sat and looked up at Jax.
Spending the past couple of years in prison had brought him to a low place.
“You remember me?”
The skin around Rickshire’s eyes constricted. “Mr. FBI.”
“Not anymore. Now I’m just Mr. Jaxton, but my role here hasn’t changed.”
Rickshire studied him, his thin frame hunched over in the orange jumpsuit. “You think I’m gonna confess to something. Like I seen the light, or what?”
“You can tell me anything you want, as long as it’s the truth.” Jax wasn’t going to be intimidated or baited. “But I have to ask you about Ellayna Feathers.”
His eyes flared at hearing her name. “What about her?”
“Have you had any contact with her or anyone in her family? Has anyone else contacted you to talk about her? Has her name come up at all since I saw you last?”
