Page 31 of Wretched Thorns

Jasper was in the hall, pacing the house with the kind of careful quiet that set Eli’s teeth on edge.

Playful, fun-loving Jasper was gone. Had been gone since the truck rolled onto the 37 mile property and the man waiting on the porch hadn’t run. This version of his brother moved differently. Stealthy. Apex predator. Like violence was already sitting just under his skin waiting for permission.

Rowena was out on the porch.

Her voice drifted through the screen door in fragments. Bodie must’ve been on speaker or video call. His voice carried clearly. Hers stayed low. Careful.

Eli caught a few things anyway.

“Mel is coming up from town tonight. She’s closing the shop early.”

“And the property?” Rowena asked.

“Sheriff’s calling it electrical. Payroll runs deep enough up there to keep it electrical through the inquest. Mel pulled the local press contact for me on Saturday. There won’t be a story before Tuesday. After Tuesday I won’t be able to hold it without burning a favor, I’m not ready to burn.” Bodie’s reply was clear.

“Do what you can. We need to keep my boys’ names as far from all of this as possible.”

“Agreed.”

“And our suspicions? Did your sweep find anything?”

A pause.

“Yes, Glenn was an archiver. Fireproofed lockbox buried under stone in the smokehouse the fire missed. Three notebooks and bone tools. I can give you twenty-four hours of access and then I have to turn these in.”

“Understood.”

Up.

Eli frowned at the notebook in front of him. Mel had lived in town the entire time he’d known her. Nobody in Magnolia Creek said coming up unless they meant Thornwood land.

Then Rowena said, quieter this time, “Three more confirmed sightings at her service spots in the last two weeks. The contact rate has jumped. Something’s changed.”

Eli’s pen stilled.

Service spots.

Not her job. Not her route. Service spots. Like this woman had regular locations they monitored closely enough to build language around. Who was she? Why was she being monitored? And how long had Bodie been using his mother for surveillance?

***

The pen had been on the wood for less than ten seconds when the silver thread in his chest jerked.

His whole body went still. The pen dropped out of his hand and rolled across the wood. He did not notice it.

The silver thread had never done this before. Not warmth. Not hum. It had gone wire-tight, like something on the other end had grabbed it and pulled. Hard.

It was her.

He knew before his brain caught up. The heart of him knew before he did. Serena.

Two words came through without sound. Help me. Like she had run out of options and reached blindly into the dark, and the dark had turned out to be him.

His hands shook. He stood up. The bench knocked back against the floor.

He had a half-second to be aware of his own body — the way the silver thread was singing at the heart of him, the way the air in the kitchen had gone too thin, the way his glasses had slid down again — and in that half-second, before he could decide what to send her, the onyx thread fired.

The spark went from his own chest the way a spark jumps a gap. Callum.