Page 78 of Tracking Safety

It felt like the most familiar thing he’d done in months.

He felt her chest rise and fall. Rise and fall. Slower. Slower. Slower.

Finally, he loosened his hold. She stepped back, and their gazes locked.

“Liam is okay,” Luke murmured. “We’re going to find him.”

Jenna nodded and pressed her lips together.

He looked at her a second too long. Two years of not knowing where she was, whether she was alive, whether she’d chosen to leave or been taken . . .

And now she was right here. She was close enough to touch. Their son was missing in the woods.

None of this felt real.

What he wanted to do was pull her in and hold on until the world made sense again.

He didn’t.

He turned back to the path instead, his throat burning with emotion.

He found the prints again and moved forward. Jenna fell into step behind him.

The woods had gone quiet in a way that felt deliberate. No birds. No wind moving through the canopy. Just the soft give of leaf litter underfoot and the flat gray light pressing down through the branches.

“Liam!” Luke kept his voice even, carrying but not panicked.

Nothing.

“Liam!” Jenna called.

More silence pressed back.

Luke stopped and listened.

Then he heard it.

A footstep. Somewhere ahead, in the heavier growth where the light didn’t reach.

CHAPTER 31

Jenna saw two figures in the heavy growth to the left of the path—one tall, one small. They stood still in the gray, filtered light between the trees.

Her heart slammed against her ribs.

Liam. It was Liam!

The relief hit her so hard her knees almost buckled.

He was upright. He was still. He was whole.

Then her eyes moved to the man beside him, and her relief curdled into something colder.

He was twentysomething, tall, and broad through the shoulders. A toothpick moved slowly from one side of his mouth to the other.

She froze and took in all the details. His size. His stillness. The way he stood just close enough to Liam to make a point without making a move.

Her hand found Luke’s arm.