Chapter 35
Jenna’s heart pounded harder, and she pressed a hand to her mouth.
Someone had been standing back there. Listening to her conversation. Watching her tell Luke the truth.
And taking a photograph to prove it.
She made herself look at the screen again. Made herself breathe.
This was her fault. She’d walked back into Luke’s life telling herself the threat was finished. Choosing to believe she was safe. Now her family was in the center of it.
Nausea swirled in her stomach.
The phone buzzed again.
A second message appeared, from the same number. Words this time.
Tell Luke I said hello, Ellie.
Her name. Her real one. The one almost no living person was supposed to know.
The room tilted.
She set the phone face-down on the blanket, pressed both hands flat against her knees, and breathed. In through her nose. Out through her mouth. Once. Twice.
Think, Jenna.
Her first instinct—the one trained bone-deep into her—was to run. To pack the bag she hadn’t fully unpacked and slip down the stairs and out the gate. To disappear before she brought any more of this down on the people sleeping in this house.
But doing that had cost her everything she loved once already.
She couldn’t listen to that instinct. She’d promised Luke she wouldn’t. She’d promised herself she wouldn’t make a frightened decision in the middle of the night, the way she always had.
Tell Luke I said hello, Ellie.
She picked the phone back up and looked one more time at the photo—at Luke, leaning toward her.
Then she stood, pulled her sweatshirt straight, and went to find him.
Luke sat in the dark kitchen and let the house be quiet around him.
He should have been sleeping. He’d told himself that twice already, and twice he’d stayed exactly where he was—at the end of the table with his back to the wall and his eyes on the dark window.
Sleep wouldn’t find him. Every time he’d closed his eyes, he rehashed everything that had happened.
He’d learned to manage the fear of losing the people he loved. He’d built both routines and prayers around it.
Now, everything was beginning to slip. He didn’t know how to stop it or how to protect himself and his children.
A floorboard shifted in the hallway.
Instantly, his chair scraped back as he stood.
Then he saw Jenna in the doorway, and his pulse settled by a fraction.
Her face looked pale in the thin light coming off the range hood. She had her phone in her hand, held against her chest with a tight expression.
He knew that look. Something had happened.
“What is it?” he rushed.
She crossed the kitchen and held the phone out to him. “I got this twenty minutes ago. From an unknown number. No one’s supposed to have this number, Luke. This phone was issued through the marshal service. It’s clean.”
His breath caught, and he took the phone.
The photograph filled the screen, a picture of him and Jenna talking in the church yesterday.
Something cold slid down the back of his neck.
He stared at the image. At his own shoulders leaning toward her in the pew. At the few inches of space between them.
“There’s more,” Jenna said. “Scroll down.”
He did.
A second message, beneath the photo. Six words.
Tell Luke I said hello, Ellie.
Luke’s hand tightened around the phone until he made himself ease his grip.
His mind went to the room down the hall. To Jonah’s blanket and Cora’s nightlight and Liam lying awake staring at the ceiling.
“Luke.” Jenna’s voice was very quiet. “I’m so sorry. I came back thinking it was over. I painted a target on you, and I didn’t even—”
“Stop.” He looked up from the phone. “You didn’t do this. They did.”
“You’re in the picture because of me.”
“I’m in the picture because I sat down to talk to my wife.”
Wife. He hadn’t meant to say that word.
His heart raced. Somehow, hearing it out loud seemed like an acknowledgement of their past . . . and maybe even their future.
But he didn’t want to evaluate that slipup right now.
Jenna went still.
He studied her in the dim kitchen. Studied the careful way she held herself together.
Something in his chest tightened, and he felt a pull toward her.
He didn’t move closer, but he didn’t step back either. “You came straight to me.”
Her gaze held his. “I told you I wouldn’t sit on things anymore.”
He held her gaze. “Thank you for staying true to your word. It means a lot to me.”
She pressed her lips together and nodded.
For a moment neither said anything. The range hood hummed. The house slept on around them, unaware.
His mind drifted back in time to their late-night conversations when they were together. They’d run through their days. She’d been his partner, the woman he loved. The truth was, he’d never stopped loving her, despite everything that had happened between them.
Luke forced himself to snap from his thoughts. Thinking like this would get him nowhere. His only priority right now was keeping his family safe. Nothing else mattered.
“I’m sending this to Wes.” He picked her phone back up. “Maybe this is the lead he’s been chasing.”
“Maybe we’ll finally get some answers.”
He handed the phone back, his thoughts still racing. There were questions he hadn’t asked—questions that pressed down on him.
He studied Jenna’s face a moment before asking, “When this is over, what’s your plan?”
She stared up at him, a wrinkle of confusion on her brow. “What do you mean?”
“I mean—do you stay? Go somewhere else? Start over again somewhere new?” He kept his voice even. “I need to know what I’m working with here, Jenna. The kids need to know.”
“I want to stay. If that’s even . . . if that’s something that’s possible.”
“I don’t know yet what’s possible.” He said it carefully because it was true. “But I needed to hear you say it.”
She nodded. Then, after a beat, she looked at him with something careful in her expression. “Can I ask you something?”
“Go ahead.”
“Did you—?” She paused, seeming to choose her words. “While I was gone . . . did you date anyone? I know I don’t have the right to ask, but—”
“No,” he interrupted. “I didn’t.”
She absorbed his answer. Didn’t smile exactly, but something in her expression shifted. “I didn’t either. In case you were wondering.”
He hadn’t let himself wonder. But he was glad to know.
Neither of them said anything else for a moment. The house slept on around them, unaware.
“Try to get some sleep,” he said finally.
She nodded and pushed off the counter.
At the doorway she paused, just for a second, like she might say something else.
She didn’t. She just went.
He stood there in the dark kitchen a little longer, turning the night over in his mind—the photo, the text, the word wife that had slipped out before he could stop it, and the answer she’d just given him to a question he hadn’t asked.
No. She hadn’t dated anyone either.
He didn’t know what to do with that yet. But he couldn’t quite make himself put it down.