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Kenna marched right up to Hunt and shoved right past him, a woman on a mission. Or more likely, a woman hell-bent on getting this done and over with so she could leave.
Hunt stepped aside.
Max walked in, completely unprepared to see all the damage. Kenna’s once tidy little place had been wrecked. The living room and kitchen were completely torn apart, drawers and cabinets opened, contents strewn everywhere.
In the bedroom, the mattress had been pulled off the frame, the bedding dragged off the bed and draping onto the floor.
Kenna stood in the midst of the chaos and staredat the only empty spot on the floor between the living room and short hallway to her room.
Hunt came up beside Max. “While the door was being fixed last night, I used the cleaning supplies I found under the kitchen sink and cleaned up.”
Max heard what Hunt didn’t spell out. He’d cleaned up the blood. He clamped his hand on Hunt’s shoulder and squeezed, letting him know Max appreciated that he’d spared Kenna that added horror.
Agent Gunn joined them, looking around the room. “Kenna. Can you find what we’re looking for?”
She didn’t move. She didn’t say a word. A silent stream of tears ran down her cheeks and landed on her chest.
He couldn’t take it anymore. He stepped in front of her, put his hand at the back of her neck, and pressed her face into his shoulder.
She went perfectly still. She didn’t reach for him. She didn’t say anything.
It felt like time stopped.
He whispered in her ear. “It’s over. You’re safe.”
A tremble went through her body and into his.
“Let’s find the thing, so we can leave. You don’t need to come back here ever again if you don’t want to.”
She didn’t move.
He cupped her face and made her look at him. “You can do this.” He couldn’t help it. He brushed her tears away with his thumbs, her soft skin under his, reminding him of a time when he could touch every inch of her and she’d welcome it.
Now she was too distraught to even care.
“Find the thing.” He released her, hoping she’d get to it so he could take her to the ranch, where he could put some distance between them.
She shook herself out of the trance she’d been in and turned to the bookcases that flanked the TV stand. She went to the one on the left, closest to the slider, and looked through the contents that had been shoved around and spilled onto the floor. She squatted and sifted through the broken shards of cat figurines and a broken pot, the plant’s long pointed leaves so bent and broken it probably wouldn’t survive.
Kenna scooped up the bits of plant and roots and stared at it, her eyes watery again. She raised her hands up and out. The pathetic plant dropped back to the floor. She picked up one cat figurine after another and threw them at the wall in utter frustration and anger. “It’s not fucking here!” She stood, her arms rigid at her sides, hands fisted, and stamped a foot. “Aaaaah!”
Hunt looked at Max, one eyebrow raised.
Max had never seen her this pissed.
“He came here pretending to say goodbye, because he was scared someone was following him. But that was just a ruse to hide something here. And what he really did was lead them right to me. He got Marcus killed. He stole something everyone wants back. He stole my safety and my life right out from under me. And now I’m just supposed to sit and do nothing while he’s out there hiding because he doesn’t want to give back what he took.”
She stood with her back to all of them, not really talking to them, but herself and the wall in front of her, where a painting she’d loved and bought with him at a flea market hung off-kilter, the canvas torn, looking like the guy who broke in punched his fist through it.
He mourned the loss of the painting and the memory it brought back of happier times he shared with her. He wondered if she did the same, looking at it now.
So many of the things in her apartment they’d picked out together.
He didn’t wonder if she looked at them and remembered him. How could she not?
But it was the pain of their breakup they both lived with now.
They’d both moved on, even if they still held on to the memories of the good times.
