Page 101 of Tracking Safety

Of course, he had. Caleb never let Luke take a meeting like that alone.

Neither of them said anything until the kitchen door shut behind them.

“So that’s how it’s going to be.” Caleb leaned against the counter, arms crossed. “He didn’t come here to inspect anything. He came to start a paper trail.”

“I know.” Luke set his copy of the Wednesday sign-off on the counter.

He wanted to believe the worst of the day was behind them.

But he’d wanted to believe that yesterday too.

The truth was—this was all far from being over.

By the time the supper dishes were done, the sun had dropped behind the western ridge and the light had gone soft across the property.

Luke found Jenna on the porch, and the words were out before he’d decided to say them. “Walk down to the pond with me? Before the light goes?”

He heard himself and almost wished he could take the offer back—not because he hadn’t meant it, but because he had. That was the problem. All week he’d held a careful distance between them, telling himself his guardedness was for the kids, for his own sake, for the trust Jenna still had to earn back.

But he was tired of careful. He’d been careful since Jenna left, and it hadn’t kept a single thing from hurting.

“I’d like that,” Jenna murmured.

So they walked. Not far—he kept the house in sight the whole way.

The pond sat at the bottom of the front yard, still and silver in the dusk, far enough from the windows to feel like somewhere they could talk. Freya trailed them, keeping Jenna in her sights. The dog certainly had taken to Jenna.

They stopped at the water’s edge. A few early peepers had started up in the reeds, and the surface held the last of the color leaking out of the sky. For a while neither of them spoke. It was the first easy quiet he could remember having with Jenna since she came back, and he didn’t want to be the one to break it.

Then his eyes went to her arm.

She’d pushed her sleeves up against the warmth of the kitchen and hadn’t pulled them down. In the fading light he saw the scar—a pale, raised line across the inside of her forearm.

He’d noticed it days ago when he’d cleaned the cut on her forehead after the shooting. A scar that hadn’t been there in all the years he’d known her. He’d asked. She’d called it a long story and looked like she’d rather face anything than tell it.

“How did you get this scar?” he said.

She turned her arm over and studied the mark like it belonged to someone else.

“You don’t have to tell me,” he said. “But I’d like to know.”

For a long moment he thought she’d deflect again. Then she drew a breath.

“Last year, I took a job working in a restaurant kitchen. Prep line. The place paid cash and didn’t ask too many questions.” She offered a faint, tired smile. “I was good at it, actually. You learn to make yourself invisible, and a prep cook is about as invisible as a person gets.”

Whatever Luke had braced himself for, it hadn’t been that.

“One of the slicers caught me. The blade went deep.” She traced the line with one finger., then shrugged as if it were nothing. “I butterflied it shut myself. It healed crooked. That’s all this is.”

That’s all this is.

Luke didn’t trust himself to speak.

He hadn’t imagined this. The smallness of it undid him in a way a knife in the dark never could have.

“How many times did they have to move you?” His voice sounded gravelly, even to his own ears.

“Over the past two years? Four. It was so lonely that . . . well, honestly there were days I didn’t even want to go on. Only my faith kept me going. I missed my family so much that it hurt. I felt . . . hopeless. And that’s a really bad place to be.”