Chapter 36
Friday arrived blanketed in gray as the sky pressed low over the mountains like it hadn’t decided yet whether to rain.
Jenna had been up since before five. She’d showered and dressed in her nicest outfit. Then she’d sat on the edge of the bed and watched the window go from black to charcoal to flat pewter. She wanted to go support Naomi at the hearing.
She didn’t know what Luke would say. But she felt it in her bones that she should be there. Naomi had been good to her. The least she could do was to help support her also.
By seven the house was in motion, and Ruby was cooking bacon and eggs.
Jenna looked up from buttering some toast as Liam appeared in the kitchen doorway. He wore a collared shirt, and his hair was damp and combed flat.
Her heart squeezed. “You look very handsome.”
He glanced at her. For a second, Jenna thought he’d say nothing.
Then he tugged at his collar and muttered, “It’s itchy.”
“They always are.” She kept her voice light. “It’s a rule. Dress shirts have to itch.”
The corner of his mouth twitched. It wasn’t quite a smile, but maybe it was the ghost of where one might someday be.
The action was gone as fast as it came, and he turned to find his shoes.
Liam wasn’t going to court with them this morning. It appeared he’d just decided to dress up anyway.
A few minutes later, the rest of the gang joined them downstairs, and Wes arrived at the house.
She knew before he stepped inside that he had an update. She saw it in the set of his jaw.
He paused in the kitchen and got right to business. His gaze went to Luke, then Jenna. “Is there somewhere we can talk?”
“This way.” Luke nodded toward the porch.
The three of them stepped outside.
“I told you I’d have the thread nailed down by today. I do. Most of it.” Wes looked at Jenna. “I wanted you to hear all of it as soon as possible.”
Jenna’s stomach tightened. She didn’t like the sound of that. “Okay.”
“I’ve been trying to figure out where a twelve-year-old WitSec placement sprang a leak. Somebody had to connect the woman who disappeared from Virginia to the woman the Barones were hunting. That somebody had to be close enough to this town to make the connection in the first place.”
Luke’s expression tightened. “You found whoever did this.”
“I found where the leak started.” Wes’s eyes moved to Luke and stayed there. “It started in prison with Richard Harding.”
The porch went silent.
Jenna watched the news as it hit Luke.
Richard.
The man who’d married Luke’s sister. The man who’d designed the farmhouse they were standing in and then murdered the woman it was built for. The man whose violence was the reason this place existed at all.
Something behind Luke’s eyes went still and dark.
“As you probably know, prison is a place full of people who trade information for protection and money,” Wes continued.
“We believe that Richard ran his mouth about the King family. He said enough that another inmate—one connected with the Barones—put together Jenna’s disappearance with that of Ellie Barone.
From there, the information must have gone up the chain. ”
Jenna pressed a hand to her sternum. She’d never once imagined she might be discovered through the King family’s own heartache. Through the man who’d already taken so much from them.
“That’s how they found me?” She ran a hand through her hair. “Through Richard.”
“That’s what we believe,” Wes confirmed.
“But Richard, obviously, is locked away in a cell. That explains how they found her. It doesn’t explain the phone.
A man talking in a cell block can’t hand anyone a number the service scrubbed six months ago.
That came from somewhere else. Somewhere I haven’t gotten to yet. ”
“You’ll keep working on it?” Luke asked.
“I will,” Wes said. “And there’s also the fact that someone on the outside has been behind the incidents this week.”
Wes didn’t say the name. He didn’t have to.
Jenna felt the truth close around her like a fist.
Dale Harding. He may not have done the dirty work himself, but he could have definitely found people to do it.
Dale, who’d changed her tire in a parking lot her first morning back and looked at her like he already knew something she didn’t.
Dale, who’d been circling Refuge Cove for months.
Dale, who was fighting for Grace—and who, in less than two hours, would be sitting across a courtroom from all of them with that easy, untroubled smile.
The local trouble and the Barones weren’t two threats. They never had been. They were one machine. Richard had been the seam where they joined, and Dale was the hand that worked it.
Luke stared at Wes, his gaze intense. “You can prove this?”
“I can prove the leak traces to the prison. I can prove Dale’s been visiting.” Wes’s mouth tightened. “I can’t prove what was said in those visits. Not yet. If we move on this before it’s airtight, we tip Richard off, and he goes quiet. We lose the one thread we’ve got.”
“So we pretend to be ignorant?” Jenna asked.
“That’s exactly what we do.” Wes glanced between Jenna and Luke. “You give him no reason to think you know. You let him believe he’s still three steps ahead. It’s the only way.”
The county courthouse stood two stories of old brick with wide stone steps and tall windows. Every legal family matter in this part of the mountains eventually ran through this building. Today that meant Grace.
A week ago Luke wouldn’t have given the area a second look. Now he searched for danger in every shadow without meaning to, the same way Jenna read every room she walked into.
Naomi was here to defend her guardianship of Grace against the man trying to take her. Luke was here as a character witness. Micah was meeting them, though he’d be here in an official capacity. Wes had shown up to offer another set of eyes. And Jenna was here because Luke wanted to keep her safe.
The children were at Refuge Cove. That had been Luke’s call before dawn, and he’d never been surer of one. His mom and Wyatt had agreed to stay with them—and Grace. A guardianship hearing didn’t need a baby in the room.
They climbed the steps toward the front door, the family bunched close, with Wes at the back. Luke didn’t breathe easy until the heavy doors swung shut behind them and the noise of the square cut off.
Inside, the building was cool and dim, and it smelled of old wood and floor polish. They went through security before heading toward the courtroom.
Down the corridor, a bailiff stood outside the courtroom doors. Near him waited a woman in a gray suit with a folder tucked under her arm—the guardian ad litem, Luke guessed, the one the court had appointed to speak for Grace.
Naomi drew a breath and squared her shoulders. Caleb set a hand at the small of her back, and the two of them started toward the courtroom.
It was time for this hearing to start.
Luke prayed this went well.