Page 3 of Veil of Silence

People don’t stay awake until three when they’re at peace.

They stay awake because something is bothering them. Because they’re asking questions. Because a thought won’t leave them alone.

And Nora Loveless has already lived through enough to know that sometimes the thing keeping you awake is the thing you should be paying attention to.

Nora is going to be a problem. That’s why I have to keep an eye on her.

I glance once more at the Homecoming flyer.

October 18th.

It will be here before I know it. And it will be glorious.

Chapter

Two

Nora’s mother had rearranged the kitchen again.

The colander now lived under the sink. Nora had hung it back on the hook Sunday. By Monday, it had migrated back.

She didn’t say anything about it.

Nora hadn’t said anything about a lot of things lately.

Her quiet mornings were gone. Most days somebody was coming or going, the phone was ringing, or one of her sisters was showing up with food, questions, or both.

And Christian was home.

Her little brother had returned three weeks ago after ten years of praying, wondering, and trying not to hope.

His return was an answered prayer. It was also unsettling. There was so much Christian couldn’t remember. So many ways he’d changed.

Special Agent Prudence Prine had interviewed him twice, but Christian hadn’t been able to give her much. A few sounds. Flashes of places he couldn’t identify. Nothing that told them where he’d been for the past decade, who had taken him, or how he’d gotten away.

At Prine’s suggestion, Christian and both of their parents had submitted cheek swabs for a kinship test. The lab had warned them the results could take several weeks.

But Christian was back, and that was the important thing.

Mom was humming again. Cooking again. She’d spent more nights here than at her own place. More and more, she was the woman Nora remembered from childhood.

Nora was grateful.

She was also tired.

Stress lived beneath everything, bubbling where nobody could see it. Nora made sure it didn’t show. Wren had been through enough after her son, Mason, had been kidnapped a few weeks ago, and she still looked as if she hadn’t caught up on sleep. And Marlowe . . . well, Marlowe was the youngest.

Nora had spent most of her life protecting her younger siblings, whether they wanted it or not.

Maybe especially then.

Her mother stood at the stove stirring spaghetti sauce while Nora tore lettuce into a wooden salad bowl. Mom had once been the kind of woman who turned heads without trying. But ten years of grief had left her caring little about her clothes, her hair, or whether anyone noticed her at all. Since Christian’s return, though, traces of the woman she used to be had begun to reappear.

The kitchen smelled of garlic, tomatoes, and the bread warming in the oven. Christian was somewhere upstairs, and Mason had already been in and out twice asking when they were eating.

The familiar chaos should have felt comforting.

Mostly, it did.