Page 86 of Tracking Safety

The one two blocks off Main Street. The one with the polished woodwork and the simple cross at the front. The one Luke had taken her to yesterday morning because it would be empty and safe.

The photograph had been taken from the back of the sanctuary.

Two people sat on a pew near the middle.

Jenna and Luke.

CHAPTER 35

Jenna’s heart pounded harder, and she pressed a hand to her mouth.

Someone had been standing back there. Listening to her conversation. Watching her tell Luke the truth.

And taking a photograph to prove it.

She made herself look at the screen again. Made herself breathe.

This was her fault. She’d walked back into Luke’s life telling herself the threat was finished. Choosing to believe she was safe. Now her family was in the center of it.

Nausea swirled in her stomach.

The phone buzzed again.

A second message appeared, from the same number. Words this time.

Tell Luke I said hello, Ellie.

Her name. Her real one. The one almost no living person was supposed to know.

The room tilted.

She set the phone face-down on the blanket, pressed both hands flat against her knees, and breathed. In through her nose. Out through her mouth. Once. Twice.

Think, Jenna.

Her first instinct—the one trained bone-deep into her—was to run. To pack the bag she hadn’t fully unpacked and slip down the stairs and out the gate. To disappear before she brought any more of this down on the people sleeping in this house.

But doing that had cost her everything she loved once already.

She couldn’t listen to that instinct. She’d promised Luke she wouldn’t. She’d promised herself she wouldn’t make a frightened decision in the middle of the night, the way she always had.

Tell Luke I said hello, Ellie.

She picked the phone back up and looked one more time at the photo—at Luke, leaning toward her.

Then she stood, pulled her sweatshirt straight, and went to find him.

Luke sat in the dark kitchen and let the house be quiet around him.

He should have been sleeping. He’d told himself that twice already, and twice he’d stayed exactly where he was—at the end of the table with his back to the wall and his eyes on the dark window.

Sleep wouldn’t find him. Every time he’d closed his eyes, he rehashed everything that had happened.

He’d learned to manage the fear of losing the people he loved. He’d built both routines and prayers around it.

Now, everything was beginning to slip. He didn’t know how to stop it or how to protect himself and his children.

A floorboard shifted in the hallway.