The Forgotten Widow

by Layne, Kennedy

  There wasn’t a chance in hell that Agent Malone was leaving anytime in the foreseeable future. Kenna didn’t want to ponder why that had the tension easing from her shoulders. She’d been forced to become an independent woman, and she wasn’t going to give that up at the mere threat posed by some psychopath hellbent on targeting widows. With that said, her body had quickly adapted to the security of Dean’s embrace when he’d taken her into his arms. It had been a very long time since she’d been in a man’s embrace, even if it had only been for a moment, and only then for protection.

  “We should go back inside,” Kenna replied, huddling inside the winter jacket she’d snagged from the front closet. Agent Malone advanced toward the downed portion of the tree. “Wait. You aren’t seriously considering trying to move that thing, are you?”

  He stood still for a moment longer, as if actually contemplating such a laborious undertaking. For a moment, she thought he was going to ask if she had a chainsaw. She might very well have something of that nature, but it would be somewhere in the numerous boxes she’d had stored above the garage. If it was there at all, she highly doubted that it was serviceable.

  A sudden gust of wind practically knocked Kenna off her feet. She’d only planned to be outside for a brief moment, so there had been no reason for additional accessories. All they’d been going to do was take a quick look at the damage. In this case, it was more like a road block. She was more than ready to head back inside after quickly surveying the outcome.

  “Agent Malone, you—”

  Kenna broke off urging him once more to return to the house when she caught sight of something in her peripheral vision down the street. She lived on a cul-de-sac, but she was closer to the entrance than the circle. The snow was coming down in what seemed like a sheet of white, and whatever she’d seen must have been from one of the houses with an emergency generator. There were actually quite a few on this street.

  “Kenna?”

  “Sorry,” Kenna muttered, tightening her arms around her waist, though there was no warmth to be had outside in the cold wind. She tried to see through the falling snow, but it was useless. “I guess I’m just a bit on edge from your warning.”

  Agent Malone grimaced, likely accepting that he wasn’t leaving this neighborhood anytime soon. Either that, or he felt responsible for her apprehension. He motioned for her to walk back to the house, but she stopped when Bob Silicon materialized through the snow wearing his red ski jacket. With him were Rocky and Adrian, his two English bulldogs who were currently outfitted in matching sweaters. He was a huge fan of the Rocky movies.

  “I heard your tree break apart all the way over near the front entrance,” Bob called out from underneath his large hood. “Make sure you call and leave a message with the city tonight, Kenna. They usually use the first come, first serve routine after they clear the major roads. They should handle it since most of the tree ended up in the street.”

  “Will do, Bob,” Kenna called out, not bothering to wave to him as Rocky and Adrian were already pulling him toward his house. Her teeth had begun chattering. She didn’t want to risk what warmth she had left in her hands, so she just called out, “Have a good night.”

  “You, too.”

  Bob did seem to linger on the other side of the downed tree, pulling on the dogs’ leashes. It was almost as if he was waiting for an introduction. By this time, a thin layer of snow had already collected on his hood. She didn’t want to get into why the FBI was paying her a visit in the middle of a blizzard, so she turned and began walking on the path to her front door.

  “I apologize for this,” Dean said with a frown once they were back inside the foyer. She opened the closet and took out two hangers. He reluctantly took one of them. “I’ll make some calls and see if I can’t make it a priority to have that hulk cleared out of your driveway and the road first thing after the storm clears.”

  Kenna figured he wouldn’t have a problem making that happen, especially considering the fact that he was a federal agent working an active serial case. The newly elected sheriff would make sure that any help from the outside in something like this was given priority.

  The power hadn’t even been out for twenty minutes, yet there was already a chill in the house. She rubbed her upper arms, wondering if the cold settling in her bones was even from the weather. The longer she had to think about Agent Malone’s reason for ringing her doorbell on a night like tonight, the more fearful she became at the thought of becoming a target.

  “Well, it looks like you’re stuck here with me,” Kenna replied with a little relief, though he’d already pulled out his cell phone. She had a feeling that it was going to be a long night, but at least she wouldn’t have to ride it out alone. She tried another route to engage him in conversation, not one to let uncomfortable silence go on for too long. “Um, the fireplace is gas. It normally works on a built-in electric blower, but I think we can remove the glass and get it to pull off enough heat without it. At least that way we won’t freeze to death. I also have extra blankets in the linen closet that I can bring out.”

  Agent Malone seemed to finally realize that she was attempting to smooth over the situation, but he’d already connected the call he’d dialed. She gestured that she’d give him some privacy, even walking off through the living room and into the kitchen to prove her point. There was enough light from the fireplace that she went about making them two fresh cups of coffee. Her eyesight had adjusted well enough from being in the shadows to see what she was doing. She decided to gather two clean mugs instead of using their old ones, listening in on every word exchanged.

  “…stuck here for the night,” Agent Malone said, his tone grim. Kenna tried not to take offense as she spent several seconds twirling the coffee pod holder to waste time. “I’d appreciate that, Chaz. How did your interviews go?”

  There was a bit of silence behind her, so Kenna took two plastic pods out of the round metal rungs. She opened the top of the machine, pulling out the used container so that she could toss it in the garbage.

  “No luck with mine, either.” There was a slight pause in Agent Malone’s conversation. “Really? No, I didn’t know that. I’ll pass that on to my profiler.”

  Kenna was reminded of that unexpected restlessness that she’d experienced outside, and it didn’t set well with her. Three women had been murdered, and all they had in common was that they were widows? She couldn’t imagine that such a tragedy in someone’s life would cause someone else to make it tenfold, especially for all those left behind.

  “I didn’t know that your Keurig was battery-operated.”

  Kenna had been so deep in thought that she hadn’t heard Agent Malone end the call. She spun around to see him loosening his tie, which she must admit had been perfectly knotted. His back was toward the fire, so his eyes were hidden in the shadows. Her reaction, on the other hand, had been very visible.

  “I didn’t hear you finish,” Kenna finally admitted with an uneasy laugh. She let out another breath, hoping to slow down her racing heartbeat. “Um, no batteries. I honestly don’t know what I was thinking. What about a bottle of water or an apple juice, Agent Malone? I stocked up yesterday after hearing the weather report.”

  “A bottle of water sounds fine. And considering you’re gracious enough to let me seek shelter here for the night, please call me Dean.”

  Kenna nodded albeit jerkily, though he’d already turned around to head back into the living room. He went about removing his suit jacket, revealing the firearm she’d known all along would be secured in a shoulder holster. The sight of it brought back memories that she’d thought were long gone and buried. It also chased away any thoughts that might have been taking a more intimate route than what was proper under the circumstances.

  To give herself something to do, she retrieved two bottles of water from the refrigerator. She made her way back into the living room to find that Dean had taken the overstuffed chair. His fingers were flying over the screen of his phone, but he mus
t have been at the end of his message. He sent it before reaching for his drink that she still held in her hand.

  “Kenna, are you sure you’re okay with me bunking here until tomorrow morning? I could easily redirect one of the snowplows to take me back to the station.”

  Kenna didn’t take long to consider his offer. Actually, she didn’t ruminate over it at all. She was still quite tense from mistaking her neighbor walking his dog for something more sinister. There was one thing that would help ease her mind, and she didn’t believe it was asking for much considering he was the one who’d come searching for her tonight.

  “I’m actually relieved that you’re here for the night,” Kenna reluctantly admitted, walking over to the gas fireplace so that she could remove the glass from its frame. It was best to allow as much warmth to radiate into the living room as possible, and that was quite a feat considering the open layout into the kitchen. “What else can you tell me about this Widow Taker suspect?”

  “Kenna, I’ve told you all I can at the moment. Anything else would just be sheer conjecture at this point in time.”

  “You and I both know that’s not completely true,” Kenna replied, having heard that song and dance too many times to count. “Seeing as you’re a federal agent, I’m assuming you didn’t come here without doing a bit of research on me. You know that my father was a police officer, so please share with me what it is that you’re keeping from the public. I hope after tonight that you know you can trust me to keep it to myself.”

  Chapter Six

  Dean took a few deliberate moments before setting his phone on the arm of the overstuffed chair, even though Kenna probably recognized his effort as a stall tactic. She was sharp as a tack, and he wasn’t going to be able to get much past her through evasion. He had not been aware that her father had been in law enforcement. Her familiarity with cases such as the one he was working on meant that she would be aware of his regular routine of bullpen diversions.

  Generally, smoke and mirrors were enough to distract the average civilian, but there were always exceptions to that rule. Most often, it was the jailhouse lawyers or cons with extensive experience in and out of the justice system. Those were the second hardest individuals to either pry information from or placate with false promises. Rarest of all were people who had been educated by someone on the inside of the system, generally family members or spouses of law enforcement officers. They understood their rights and obligations, which made them impossible to bluff.

  Given that Kenna had been prepared enough to dial 911 into her phone before allowing him to enter her home should have been a dead giveaway, although she had forgotten to chain the door before opening it. At this point, Kenna was as close to an enigma as he’d seen in quite some time. He wasn’t used to not being able to size someone up within minutes of meeting him or her, and that intrigued him.

  The research he’d requested on her did mention that her parents currently resided in Florida, but the thin file mostly contained details about her more recent life here in Winter Heights. With Frank being tied up with the domestic terrorism case involving one of the colleges, Dean had been forced to utilize one of the deputies under Chaz for help in putting together some information about the five women who could potentially be targets. Only time would tell if they chose correctly after sorting through the numerous women whose names had been collected over the past week.

  Dean waited for Kenna to take a seat on the couch, not surprised when she grabbed the cream afghan that had been lying over the back and pulled it over her shoulders. It was probably as much to feel a semblance of protection as it was for warmth at this point. He fought the urge to give her false promises of protection.

  “The only thing I can add is that the profiler assigned to the case believes we’re looking for a Caucasian male, single, between the ages thirty and thirty-five whose mother or a relative whom might have raised him was left a widow during his formative years.” Dean leaned back in the chair, honestly wishing he was stuck anywhere but here. He hated crossing the line between investigator and something more familiar. She was having an effect on his ability to maintain a personal distance. Hell, he’d even offered for her to call him by his first name. “By taking the lives of these women, the unsub feels as if he’s somehow giving them peace.”

  Kenna grimaced at the way he’d so easily summed up the behavior of their unsub, as if the serial killer needed to be humanized in some fashion. The truth of the matter was that the most sadistic killers rationalized their kills in a way that sane individuals could never be able to comprehend.

  “My dad had this case once where two nurses had been killed a week apart.” Kenna shifted so that she was sitting sideways with her legs tucked safely underneath a portion of the blanket. “When the suspect was finally apprehended, all he could say was that his sister had been vindicated. It came out after his arrest that he’d lost a sister when he was younger to leukemia. All he could remember of her was the chemotherapy visits. He blamed the nurses who provided her care before her death, but he truly believed that he was saving others by his actions. The reality of it all was those women were no longer here to help their patients through the most difficult time of their lives.”

  Dean studied Kenna, clearly having underestimated her ability to relate to the case. He still couldn’t divulge certain aspects of the investigation to anyone who wasn’t officially involved with the case, though. This world they lived in was cruel, vicious, and downright evil at times. Murders such as these brought the worst of the worst out of the gutter.

  Serial killers actually gathered a fan base once they became well-known. Oddly enough, there were women who were attracted to psychopaths, going so far as to marrying them once they were caught and imprisoned. Claims would also be made by other men that they were the ones who killed those women. When the time came for a confession, law enforcement needed an ace up their sleeve to separate the wheat from the chaff.

  “I’m sure your father would agree with me when I say staying with them for a while might be the safest thing for you,” Dean said, already knowing her answer. That didn’t mean he wouldn’t use this time to convince her otherwise. “There’s nothing wrong with taking a few simple precautions.”

  “I have a fingerprint safe in my bedroom that holds a .40 Smith & Wesson. I keep it with a federal hydra-shok round in the chamber,” Kenna replied with a small shrug. “My husband wasn’t comfortable around firearms. I am. I didn’t own one myself until the week after he died, but I grew up around cops. My father taught me how to shoot and maintain a weapon as a teenager. They’re second nature to me, and I know full well that a woman alone presents a nice target to a lot of scumbags roaming the street.”

  Kenna reached over the bottle of water she’d set on the side table for one of her hair ties. He’d noticed quite a lot of them throughout the room.

  “What were the victims’ names?”

  The question had come out of left field, but Dean should have been expecting it.

  He’d been watching Kenna take her thick hair and wrap it inside the hair tie so that it was piled high on top of her head. The lone strand that liked to caress her cheek had somehow remained stubbornly loose to cradle her heart-shaped face.

  “Tamara Johnson, Viola Chambers, and Meghan Vance.”

  Dean didn’t have to look at his notes to recall their names. Hell, he knew them better than he’d known his high school girlfriend of four years. He’d spent an unknown amount of hours reading through their files, desperately trying to find any hint of commonality. The high school girlfriend comparison didn’t say much about his private life. Two of the victims had been Caucasian, whereas the other had been African American. Race, hair color, and eye color were thrown off the table in terms of similarities, as well.

  “Were they all my general age?” Kenna asked, settling back in as if this was going to be their topic for the remainder of the evening. He highly doubted that she wanted to hear the graphic details, especially consideri
ng that she’d already decided that she wasn’t going to take time away for her safety. “Younger? I recall the segment of the news that covered the Tamara Johnson murder, but not the others.”

  “The victims’ ages ranged from twenty-six to forty-nine, crossed racial lines, but they all resided in the town of Winter Heights,” Dean replied, giving in when it was evident that Kenna wasn’t going to let go of this subject. Considering that he didn’t know her all that well, the only other safe area would be the weather. That made for a very long night. He could bend the rules for her benefit. “You mentioned the south side, but that was the site of the first murder. The second murder was on the east side of Winter Heights.”

  “And the third?

  “Meghan Vance,” Dean responded, wishing there had been some type of battery-operated coffee machine. He could really use a shot of caffeine right about now. “She resided on the outskirts of downtown.”

  “Old money,” Kenna replied without judgement, tugging the blanket a little tighter around her shoulders. “Wait a second. Vance. Why does that name sound so familiar?”

  Dean had no doubt in his mind that Kenna would look up everything she could on the murders the second he was out the door and her access to the internet was restored. He figured there were only two reasons why she hadn’t done so yet, and that was to save the battery life on her phone and the fact that she had her own walking, talking dossier sitting in her living room.

  “Meghan Vance was the governor’s niece.”

  There was nothing more to say on that subject. Meghan had done her best to stay out of the limelight, distancing herself from politics. No matter what lengths she’d gone to, her wedding had still been quite the event that particular year. She’d gone on to live a quiet life with her husband, not relying on her family for anything other than renting one of the multitudes of family homes from her parents. Meghan and her husband wouldn’t accept anything that they hadn’t worked for with their own two hands.