Page 20 of Tracking Safety

Cora had been four. She was six now, gap-toothed and bright-eyed and so full of motion that she never seemed to fully stop. She looked so much like Jenna that it startled her every time she caught a glimpse of her daughter.

She only knew these things because she’d been watching her family from a distance ever since she arrived back in town.

What did Cora remember? Anything? Probably impressions more than specifics, Jenna realized. Maybe Cora remembered her mom’s voice, or the smell of her rose-scented perfume. Maybe not even that. Maybe she remembered just the absence, which was its own kind of memory.

And Jonah. Jonah had been two. Most likely, he wouldn’t remember Jenna at all.

Her heart panged at the realization.

Would Luke even give her a chance to see the kids?

That was the question underneath all the others. It wasn’t just whether her children could forgive her. It was whether Luke would allow her close enough to find out.

He had every reason not to. Her family had built a life without her in it. Whatever fragile stability Luke had managed to construct, Jenna was a threat to it just by being here.

She looked back at the street again.

The car she’d been wary of was now gone.

She hadn’t even seen it pull away.

Probably because it was just someone passing through. She had to keep reminding herself of that. She was out of danger. The threats on her life were gone.

She stood at the window a moment longer, her own reflection looking back at her from the dark glass. Then she let the curtain fall and stepped away.

She had no idea what her future looked like. If it would be here with her kids a part of her life or if she’d be banished and forced to start over again.

The thought caused a physical ache in her chest.

Luke had given up on sleep somewhere around two in the morning.

He’d lain in the dark for hours, staring at the ceiling, his mind running the same loop it had been running since he’d seen Jenna.

He couldn’t stop thinking about her. About the hollow look in her eyes. About the way she’d handed him her phone number on an old scrap of paper.

Finally, at two-thirty, he’d gotten up and sat in the kitchen in the dark. Then he’d moved to the back porch because the house felt too small. Then he’d come back inside because the night was too quiet.

He’d made coffee at four-thirty and sat at the kitchen table and watched the sky outside the window go from black to gray to the pale, uncertain blue of early morning.

He was on his third cup by the time the birds started their morning songs.

He wrapped both hands around his coffee mug and looked out at the backyard. The swing set he’d built two summers ago stood in the early light, dew on the grass, everything still.

This was the property he and Jenna had picked out together. They’d had dreams about raising their family here. About having six kids. About living on this piece of land even when they were old and gray. They’d pictured grandkids and endless memories.

A sour taste filled his mouth at the recollections. Those dreams had died a quick, painful death, and he needed to remember that.

In an hour, Cora would be up. In an hour, the house would be loud and full. He’d be breaking up arguments and doing all the things he did every morning to keep things moving forward.

But right now, it was quiet.

He imagined Jenna staying at Hollow House. Had she slept? Or had she lain awake the same way he had, in an unfamiliar room across town, going over and over the same ground?

He didn’t know what her nights looked like anymore. He didn’t know what her life looked like anymore.

That was the truth he kept circling back to.

He’d spent so much time not knowing where she was or what had happened. Now he knew she was alive. He knew she was across town.