Chapter 17
Luke watched Kori Hutchins climb out of her SUV and scan the site. She was dressed for court rather than a construction visit—fitted blazer, dark slacks, heels that had no business on gravel.
She crossed toward them without slowing. “Where did Fenn go?”
“Left about twenty minutes ago.” Luke fell into step beside her as she moved toward the cottage frame. “Said his report would be ready Monday.”
“Of course, he did.” She stopped at the cottage and scowled. “Walk me through what he flagged.”
Luke kept his explanation concise—the setback claim, the foundation depth, the electrical rough-in. Kori listened without interrupting, her eyes moving over the build the whole time, missing nothing.
When he finished, Kori straightened and locked her gaze with his. “You asked him about Dale Harding.”
“I did.”
“Did he deny it?”
“He neither confirmed nor denied.”
Satisfaction moved across her face. “Good to know. I’ll need your survey documentation, the approved plans, and the electrical inspection sign-off.”
“I’ll make sure Caleb sends it.”
“I don’t like bullying, and I fully believe that’s what this is. Someone is purposefully making your life more difficult, just because you made someone mad. Politics is maddening when people take advantage of the system. I’m not going to let that happen.”
“Thank you.”
She glanced at her watch. “Right now, I’ve got to get back to work. But I’ll look for that information—as soon as possible.”
“You got it.”
Kori headed for her car. As Luke watched her go, some of the tightness across his shoulders eased.
He turned back to the construction site.
The framing crew had picked back up, and the sounds of the build returned to normal. Luke crouched near the nearest cottage and ran his hand along the foundation.
It was solid. He’d made sure of that.
Fenn knew this had been done properly. He just didn’t care.
Luke straightened and walked the row out of habit, the way he did at the end of every day—checking corners, checking his crew’s work, checking the thousand small things that added up to a building that wouldn’t fail the people inside it.
He almost missed it.
In unit three, where the electrical rough-in ran up the back wall, one of the junctions hung open. A wire had been worked loose of its connector and left against the stud, the copper bright where the cap should have covered it.
Luke stopped.
He stood there a moment, running the explanations. Fenn had flagged the electrical. But Fenn had inspected units one and two. He’d never made it back to three. Even if he had, an inspector noted problems. He didn’t create them.
Had his own guys done this?
No. His electrician didn’t leave live-adjacent work undone. Not ever. Not in fifteen years of working together. It was the first thing Luke drilled into every crew he ran. You did not leave a connection open overnight.
He crouched and looked closer.
The wire hadn’t backed out on its own. Something had worked it free of the cap—cleanly, deliberately. The kind of small wrong thing that wouldn’t show up on any inspection and wouldn’t matter for months.
Until one day it would.
For a long moment, Luke just stared at it.
Then he capped the wire, sealed the junction, and told himself it was nothing. He had a dozen ordinary explanations.
He almost believed them.
But the unease that had been riding him all afternoon settled a little deeper. And it didn’t leave when he walked away.
“Hey.”
He turned and saw Caleb approaching, hands stuffed deep into his pockets.
Luke gave him the update on Fenn’s visit and Kori’s assessment of the situation. When he finished, Caleb studied him a moment too long.
“What’s the update on Jenna?”
Luke turned the conversation over in his mind, trying to find the short version. There wasn’t one. Every version was complicated and—unbelievable, he supposed.
So he gave it to him straight. Ellie. The mob. WitSec. Wes knowing the whole time.
Caleb stared at him through all of it. When Luke finished, his brother was quiet for several seconds.
“Wow.” Caleb exhaled through his nose. “I . . . I don’t know what to say.”
“I know.”
“And you believe her?”
“I wasn’t sure at first. Then she told me to ask Wes.”
Caleb froze as realization flickered through his gaze. “Wes knew.”
“He was a marshal. He was aware.”
“I didn’t see that one coming.” Caleb shook his head slowly. “What about the kids?”
“They’re with Mom. They don’t know Jenna’s in town.” Luke’s jaw tightened. “I want to keep it that way until I figure out what’s best for them.”
“Tell me what you need,” Caleb said. “I’m there for you.”
“I appreciate that.” Luke turned back toward the cottages, his eyes settling on unit three a beat longer than the rest. “Right now, I need to check on my guys. We can’t afford to make any mistakes. Because if we do, the county will jump on it and shut this place down.”
He wished his words weren’t true.
But they were.
Jenna went still at Wes’s words. Vito was thought to be suffering from dementia. It was all an act. It actually appears he’s in his right mind . . . and he’s been calling all the shots this whole time.
“Vito has been secretly running the organization, using his mental health as an excuse so no one would look at him.” Wes looked at her.
“And apparently, he’s been searching for you for a long time.
He blames you for everything—sending his son to prison, tearing apart his crime syndicate, Roderick’s death. ”
She rubbed the edge of the fork near her plate. “Connelly told me it was over.”
His jaw tightened. “I know.”
“He told me I was safe to come back.”
“I know that too. I don’t think he intentionally lied to you. I think he made an assessment based on incomplete information and got it wrong.”
She looked at the fire as the low flames moved in an unseen draft. “So the shooter this morning . . . ? The SUV that almost hit us . . . ?”
“Almost certainly Barone-connected. Professional, stolen vehicle, in and out fast.” Wes nodded. “That’s not a local grievance. That’s contracted work.”
She pressed her eyes closed. When she opened them, the fire was still flickering. “I led them here.”
“We don’t know that for sure.”
She barely heard him. “I should have been more careful.”
“Jenna.”
“I walked straight back into my own life and brought this with me.” She kept her voice low and even. “My children are here. I came back thinking it was safe, but it wasn’t. And now—”
“Stop it.” Wes’s words were firm but gentle. “You can’t think that way right now. What you need to do right now is think about what comes next.”
She looked at him but said nothing.
His gaze locked on hers. “You can fall apart later. I’ll even give you privacy for it. But right now, we have a problem that needs solving, and I need you thinking clearly.”
She breathed in through her nose. Out through her mouth. Once, twice, three times.
Wes was right. She had to keep her emotions guarded. Falling apart would do no good.
She straightened with determination. “All right. What do we do?”
“In the meantime, even though I’m not officially a marshal anymore, I’d like to keep an eye on this situation. Since I left, I’ve been doing private security. Plus, if there’s a leak, I don’t feel comfortable with you reaching out to them.”
“I appreciate that. Thank you.”
“We also wait for Luke.” He glanced toward the window and back. “When he gets here, the three of us figure this out together.”
Together.
She turned the word over. She wasn’t sure she remembered how to do things together. She’d been doing everything alone for so long that the concept felt almost foreign, like a word in a language she used to speak.
Jenna excused herself to go to the bathroom. Really she just needed a moment to compose herself.
A server met her near the kitchen pass, a young woman with a dark braid over one shoulder and a smear of flour on her apron. She couldn’t have been more than twenty-five.
“Restroom’s just past the end of the bar.” She nodded toward the back hallway, then hesitated, her eyes flicking over Jenna’s face. “Can I bring you anything? Water, hot tea? You look like you could use a sit-down somewhere quieter than that table.”
The kindness caught Jenna off guard. After keeping her face blank in bus stations and diners, of being no one in particular to anyone, she’d forgotten what it was to be simply noticed by a person who meant her no harm.
“Tea would be wonderful,” she said. “Thank you.”
“Chamomile okay? It’s what I drink when I’ve had a day.” The young woman smiled. “I’m Emily. Just flag me if you need anything—I’ve got the whole back section today.”
“Thank you, Emily.”
The girl headed off toward the kitchen, and Jenna turned down the dim hallway toward the back of the restaurant.
That was when she smelled it.
Cedar and bergamot with something darker underneath it, something expensive.
She would know that cologne in her sleep.
It was Roderick’s.
Jenna stopped walking. Her hand found the wall.
The scent was gone almost before she’d named it. The hallway held nothing now but ordinary restaurant air—woodsmoke, garlic, the bleach tang of a recently mopped floor.
She pressed her eyes closed. Half the men in the world probably wear cedar-and-bergamot-scented colognes, she told herself. Someone had simply walked through this area with that cologne.
There were a hundred explanations, all of them more likely than the one her body had already leapt to.
Roderick was dead.
So why was she standing in a restaurant hallway with her pulse in her throat, certain—certain—that she’d just walked through the air he’d been standing in?