Page 84 of Tracking Safety

He was quiet before finally asking, “Does Wes know?”

She shook her head. “No, not yet.”

He nodded slowly. “Okay.”

That was all. Okay. But she heard the emotion underneath it.

He didn’t reach for her. Jenna didn’t expect him to.

But he didn’t step back either. In the narrow space between them she felt the divide separating them change by some fraction she couldn’t measure or name.

It wasn’t forgiveness. It wasn’t trust restored.

But it just might be the first brick laid back down.

“We’ll tell Wes,” Luke said. “And Micah when he gets here. If the Barone Syndicate is organized enough to do this, then the shooting outside the B&B yesterday wasn’t a loose end. It was a beginning.”

The words sat in Jenna’s chest like a stone. A beginning.

She’d come back to Blue Ridge Hollow believing the worst was behind her. She’d held her children and let herself imagine that the running was finally over.

It wasn’t over. Danger had followed her up the mountain and through the gate and into this house full of the people she loved most in the world.

And that wasn’t okay.

Luke watched Micah’s expression harden as he listened to Jenna’s update.

The kids were upstairs. Ruby had herded them up with the promise of cookies and a pillow fort. She’d taken Cora and Jonah by the hand, and she’d steered Liam ahead of her without a single question.

Now it was only the adults. Luke, Jenna, his brothers. Micah. Max. Wes leaned against the counter with his arms crossed and Remington lying alert at his feet. Naomi sat at the table with Grace asleep against her chest, one hand resting over the baby’s back.

Jenna had set her phone in the middle of the table.

She told her story to everyone. As she spoke, her voice stayed level. But her hands didn’t. She kept them folded in her lap where she thought no one could see.

“In other words, the organization Jenna helped destroy is actually still running,” Wes said when she finished. “I believe the events of the past few days have been orchestrated moves by an organization that’s still fully functioning.”

“All right.” Micah nodded slowly. “Then let’s lay it all out. Because, in my perspective, I’m looking at three different problems, and I’ve got six deputies for the whole county.”

Luke didn’t like the sound of that.

Micah started counting on his fingers, his voice flat and unhappy. “I’ve got a professional shooter who may be Barone-connected. I’ve got Travis Henderson, who possibly cut your power and wrecked your cottages—and was found alone with your eight-year-old in the woods.”

“That about covers it,” Naomi murmured.

Micah dropped his hand. “Tell me which of those I’m supposed to be most worried about because I genuinely don’t know.”

“All of them.” Caleb crossed his arms. “That’s the problem.”

Wes uncrossed his arms and rubbed a hand along his jaw. “Since the shooting, I’ve been working one question. Not whether the Barones are active. We knew that was possible. The question I can’t stop chewing on is how they found her.”

His words stretched through the room.

Wes’s gaze moved to Jenna. “WitSec relocations don’t just spring leaks. Not after twelve years of nothing. Somebody had to put your name and this place together. Recently. And I want to know who.”

Jenna went pale. “You think there’s a leak.”

“I do. And we need to find whoever that person is.”