Chapter 29
An hour later, Jenna stood at the counter sliding her spatula beneath some gooey chocolate chip cookies while Naomi sliced homemade bread. Ruby, meanwhile, bounced between the refrigerator and the table like a woman who’d fed large groups of people for decades.
The kitchen was warm and smelled like cookies, savory soup, and homemade bread. Outside on the screened porch the children’s voices rose and fell.
“I think everything is done,” Ruby announced. “Jenna, would you call the children and men inside? They’ve got to be hungry. Feel free to use the dinner bell. It’s old fashioned but very effective.”
“Of course,” Jenna murmured.
She set the spatula down and went to the back door.
Jenna stepped out on the porch to call the kids in and stopped at the door.
Cora sat cross-legged in the grass a careful distance from Freya—close, but not too close—talking in the low, steady voice she used on things she’d decided to love.
A strip of bacon lay on the step between them, an offering.
“You don’t have to,” Cora was telling the dog. “I just left it there. It’s yours if you want it.”
Freya watched her. For a long moment she didn’t move.
Then she rose, crossed the grass, and took the bacon. She didn’t retreat with it the way Jenna expected. She lay down where she was. A few feet from Cora.
Cora looked up at the porch, triumphant. “She likes me.”
“I see that.” Jenna kept her voice even, but something in her chest pulled tight. Her daughter had a gift for finding the wounded thing in a room and sitting with it until it trusted her. She’d gotten that from someone. Jenna wasn’t sure she wanted to claim it.
She told the kids it was time for lunch. Then she used the bell and listened to its loud clang as the sound stretched over the property.
It didn’t take long for footsteps to pound across the porch as everyone rushed inside.
Jenna counted. Then she counted again.
Tension crept up her spine. “Where’s Liam?”
“He said he was going to play with the chickens,” Cora said as she reached for a piece of bread.
Her heart pounded faster. “When?”
Cora shrugged. “Earlier.”
Jenna walked to the door and peered out. The yard stretched empty, all the way to the tree line. She glanced at the chicken coop, but she didn’t see Liam there.
She stood with her hand on the door frame, trying not to panic.
Had he run?
Or . . . had someone taken him? The thought chilled her to the bone.
No, she couldn’t jump to worst-case scenarios. Maybe he’d slipped back inside. He could be in his room right now.
She excused herself and went upstairs.
His room was empty. So were the bathrooms.
Where had he gone?
She had no idea.
She only knew he was no longer here.
“Jenna,” Luke said behind her in the hallway. “What is it?”
She turned, her heart pounding out of control. “Liam . . . he’s not here.”
Luke blinked, unsure if he’d heard Jenna correctly. “What? Are you sure?”
“He’s not outside or in his room,” Jenna rushed.
“I’ll double-check the rest of the house.” Luke’s mom took off before anyone could respond.
Luke darted out the back door, needing to look for himself.
The screened porch was empty. The yard—empty. The path between the main house and the cottages—empty.
He crossed the open space in long strides, scanning as he went.
He checked the chicken coop first. Liam loved hanging out there.
The door was latched from the outside. He unhooked it and pushed it open.
The hens shuffled and murmured in the dim interior, and a rooster eyed him from the far corner with the usual suspicion.
No Liam.
He latched it again and turned.
Then he checked the kennel.
He wasn’t there either.
Caleb was already crossing from the direction of the cottages, reading Luke’s face. “He’s not in the chicken coup?”
“No. Where’s Wyatt?”
“Up at the cottages with Thunder.”
“Get them both.” Luke looked at the woods, then at the gate at the back of the property. “If Liam went into the trees, Thunder finds him in ten minutes. We don’t, not in this light.”
Caleb followed his gaze. “Don’t you think we would have seen him if he came out this way?”
“Maybe. But we were inside the cottages. He could have slipped by. He’s quiet like that.”
“True.”
Luke paused and forced himself to think clearly.
Liam was eight years old. He knew this property. He’d been coming here since before the shelter existed. He knew where the paths went and where the creek ran and how far back the tree line extended.
He also knew—because Luke had made sure of it, repeatedly and without softening it—that he was never to go into those woods alone.
Which meant he’d either gone somewhere on the property Luke hadn’t checked yet or he’d gone somewhere he wasn’t supposed to go.
Or . . . there was a third possibility. But Luke didn’t want to face that one yet.
Instead, his jaw tightened.
Jenna appeared beside him, pulling on her coat. “He didn’t take his jacket. But his shoes are missing.”
Luke turned to Caleb. “Take the east side of the property—the path along the fence line toward the creek. Check the equipment shed while you’re at it. I’ve found him hanging out there before.”
Caleb was already moving. “Got it.”
“Max.” Luke raised his voice toward the porch where Max had appeared in the doorway. “North end, past the cottages. Check there.”
Max nodded and stepped off the porch.
Luke turned toward Jenna. “You’re with me.”
The truth was that he didn’t want to let her out of his sight.
She didn’t argue or ask where they were going. Instead, she just fell into step beside him as he turned toward the south end of the property—the long stretch of open ground that ran down to the fence line.
Liam knew he wasn’t supposed to go past that fence.
Which made Luke’s anxiety skyrocket even more.
They walked fast, neither of them speaking. There wasn’t anything to say yet that wouldn’t make the other person’s fear worse.
Luke’s mind kept running the same loop it always ran when something was wrong with one of his kids. Location, time elapsed, possible scenarios.
He was good at managing fear when it was other people’s fear. His own was harder to run to ground.
His gaze drifted to Jenna as they walked.
Her face looked tight. Most likely, she was doing the same thing he was—running the loop, keeping the worst of the possibilities below the surface, putting one foot in front of the other.
Whatever else she was, however the last couple of years had changed both of them, she was still Liam’s mother. She was still worried—deeply worried. He could see that plainly in the set of her jaw and the way her eyes darted around them.
They reached the fence and stopped.
The woods in front of them were quiet. No sound of movement, no snap of branches, no small voice answering a question no one had asked yet.
“Liam!” Luke’s voice carried through the trees and came back as silence.
Beside him, Jenna called too. “Liam!”
Nothing.
Luke looked at the woods and then at the fence. Finally, he found what he was looking for—a small disturbance in the moss on the other side.
“There.” He pointed the area out to Jenna.
She studied it a second before closing her eyes—probably lifting up a prayer.
He hurried to the locked gate and opened it.
If Liam was out here, Luke was going to find him.