Chapter 51
Luke drew in a deep breath, gratitude rushing through him. Things could have turned out so much differently.
A moment later, he pulled out of the huddle—one he never thought would happen. His family. Back together. All of them.
As Cora started asking questions—unrelated to the fire—Luke stepped back.
Naomi edged closer, her brow furrowed. “What happened out there? Why is Travis Henderson here?”
“He set the fire.” Luke kept his voice low, watching the ranger snap a cuff around Travis’s wrist before the gurney rolled. “Whatever he was trying to do tonight, it got away from him and turned on everybody. Even him.”
Her eyes widened. “You’re sure?”
“Micah told me on the drive here. The medics had Travis pretty loaded, and apparently half of what he said didn’t make sense.
” Luke’s jaw tightened. “But that part did. Travis was almost bragging about it. Said he only meant to give us a scare. Said he never thought it’d jump the road and get big so fast.”
They both let that thought sit for a moment. There was nothing else to say about it.
Desperate men did desperate things. They’d all seen that firsthand from more than one angle lately.
Psalm 34: 15–16 came to his mind.
The eyes of the Lord are toward the righteous and his ears toward their cry. The face of the Lord is against those who do evil, to cut off the memory of them from the earth.
Righteousness. That was the path he needed to walk—even when everything was against them.
He would continue to work on overcoming evil by doing good. Even when the path was hard. Even was doing the safe, easy thing was his first inclination.
Because God hadn’t failed him yet—and He never would.
Several minutes later, Wes found Jenna and Luke. He nodded toward the edge of the lot where they could have some privacy to talk. He and Jenna joined them.
He had an update on something, Jenna realized. Maybe they’d finally have more answers.
“I know how someone got Jenna’s number,” he started.
Jenna tensed. “How? Tell me.”
“It was Deklan.” Wes watched her face as the name landed. “Your handler. The number came straight off his terminal. He pulled your file, copied the clean line, and sold it. Took a payment routed through three accounts to bury it, but it traces back to him.”
She’d braced for a stranger. Some clerk, some breach in a system she’d never see.
Not the man who’d been charged with protecting her.
“He told me it was over.” Her voice sounded flat as she murmured the words. “He looked me in the eye and told me I could come home.”
“He told you what they paid him to tell you.” Wes’s jaw worked. “Get you to surface. Get you somewhere they could reach you. The all-clear wasn’t a mistake, Jenna. It was the setup.”
The ground shifted under everything she’d believed. Coming back hadn’t been her stepping out of safety into danger. The danger had reached into the one place she trusted and invited her out.
“Is he—?”
“In custody.” Wes finally let something like satisfaction into his voice. “He’ll have a long time to think about his betrayal.”
Jenna looked out at her family around her in the parking lot. All of this was nearly lost because a man she’d trusted had put a price on where she was.
She let the anger move through her and out. It had no place here, not tonight. But she let herself feel it first, because pretending it didn’t exist had cost her too much already.
Jonah picked that moment to announce from across the parking lot that he was hungry. The simpleness of his request seemed to reset the scene back to normal and ordinary—if that were possible.
One of the rangers insisted he had some snacks inside.
Caleb scooped Jonah onto his hip, and Cora towed Freya by the collar like the dog might evaporate if she let go. Ruby herded everyone toward the building.
Luke held back half a step and caught Jenna’s hand again.
She looked up at him, her heart racing when she saw the look in his eyes.
“I’m glad you’re okay,” he murmured.
“Me too.”
“We’ll talk when we get back to the house?” He stared at her, watching her response.
She nodded. “Yes, I’d like that.”
He didn’t let go of Jenna’s hand as they walked into the station.