Page 83 of Tracking Safety

Wyatt’s expression flattened. “He had him?”

“He says he found him wandering and was in the process of bringing him back home. Says he was being neighborly.” Luke heard the bitterness in his own voice and didn’t bother to soften it.

“You believe him? That he just found him?”

Luke had been turning over the same question. “I think Liam left on his own. He’s been internalizing a lot of his feelings, and I think he wanted to be somewhere quiet where he could think. I think Travis saw an opportunity to walk a King kid out of the woods and remind me how easy it would be.”

The back door opened again, and Caleb stepped inside. He took in the room, and some of the rigidness left his frame.

“Thank God.” Caleb scrubbed a hand down his face. “I had myself convinced⁠—”

“I know.” Luke grimaced. “Me too.”

Luke glanced across the kitchen, and his gaze found Jenna.

She stood near the corner, distanced from everyone else. She hadn’t tried to insert herself into the reunion. Instead she’d let Ruby hold Liam. At one time, that place had been hers.

He saw the sadness in her gaze and knew how hard this had to be for her.

He hadn’t forgotten what she’d said on their walk back. There’s something you should know. Something new. And I don’t want to keep any secrets from you.

He stepped back toward the kitchen and found his sister. “Naomi, can you and Mom get some food in these kids? I need a few minutes.”

Naomi followed his gaze to Jenna and understood. “Go.”

Luke caught Jenna’s gaze and nodded toward the front porch. She followed him there.

When the door closed, she pulled out her phone.

Luke braced himself for whatever she was about to show him.

CHAPTER 33

Jenna pulled up the obituary and held the phone out before she could talk herself out of it.

Luke took it. She watched his eyes move across the screen, watched him read the words that meant nothing yet.

“Gerald Moss.” She kept her voice low, despite the fact they were outside. “He was Roderick’s attorney. For years. He handled everything for him—his business filings, his estate—all the things that needed a lawyer who didn’t ask questions.”

Luke glanced up, his brow wrinkling. “It sounds as if he died from natural causes.”

“His cause of death isn’t the concerning part.” Her lips flicked down in a frown. “Scroll to the comments.”

He did, his eyes narrowing as he skimmed them.

“There’s one in particular.” Her throat tightened around the words. “Someone wrote: The work continues. Roderick said that phrase more times than I can count. It was how the Barone Syndicate told each other the machine was still running. It was their way of saying a problem had been handled, and they were moving forward.”

Luke studied the screen a long moment. “And someone left the words on a dead man’s obituary.”

“That’s correct.”

His jaw set, and something went still behind his eyes. “Wes told us Vito was still out there. Still looking for you. We knew that.”

“We suspected that. The marshals thought the organization had collapsed. Wes thought otherwise, but he didn’t have proof.” She nodded toward the phone in his hand. “That’s proof. They’re not scattered.”

Luke set the phone on the railing, screen down, as if turning it over could make the thing on it less true. “How long have you had this information?”

“Since this morning.” She forced herself to hold his gaze. “I was waiting for the right moment to tell you. But then everything with Liam happened, and . . . well, honestly, there is no right moment for this.”