Page 34 of Veil of Silence

“Stretched across the doorway like a furry barricade. I nearly broke my neck getting out of the room.”

“Good.”

After everything they’d learned tonight, neither of them wanted Wren and Mason sleeping in the cabin. It was only a hundred feet from the main house, but it suddenly felt much farther.

Wren leaned against the counter. “Mason wanted to know if the FBI man was coming back.”

“What did you tell him?”

“That I didn’t know.” Wren rubbed her thumb along the counter’s edge. “Then he asked if the FBI man’s dad got taken like he did.”

Nora froze with another plate in her hand. “He heard us talking?”

“More than I realized. I thought he was playing with his Legos.”

“What did you tell him?”

“That nobody took Austin’s father.” Wren rubbed her jaw. “I stayed beside him until he fell asleep, but every time the house made a noise, his eyes opened again.”

Since Mason’s abduction, ordinary sounds didn’t feel ordinary anymore.

“Mom’s asleep?” Wren asked.

“She took her pill at nine.” Nora placed the last plate in the dishwasher and closed it. “Christian’s upstairs. He hasn’t come down since Austin left.”

Wren pulled out a chair and sat sideways in it, one arm hooked over the back the way she’d sat since she was twelve. “Did you see his reaction when we mentioned the note about the Renshaws?”

The muscles across Nora’s chest tightened. “I did.”

“He nearly dropped his glass.” Wren glanced toward the hallway as if making certain no one had come downstairs. “Marlowe was upset when she left. She thinks we’re all keeping things from her.”

“We aren’t.” Nora folded the dish towel over the handle of the oven. “At least, not intentionally.”

For most of Nora’s life, protecting her sisters had meant standing between them and whatever might hurt them. Somewhere along the way, she’d started deciding what they could handle without ever asking. The habit was hard to break.

“I can’t believe Agent Donnelly is dead,” Wren said after a moment.

“Me either.”

“You don’t have to carry it all by yourself, you know.” The exhaustion beneath Wren’s eyes had deepened since Mason’s abduction. She still checked the locks twice. Still watched her son whenever he wandered more than a few feet away. Yet she sat here asking Nora to give her more to carry.

“I thought I was helping,” Nora said.

“I know.” Wren rose and crossed the kitchen. “But sometimes you protect us so hard that it feels like you’re shutting us out.”

Her words landed because they were true.

Nora stared at the closed dishwasher. “Marlowe said that?”

“Not in those words. There were more motorcycle-related threats in her version.”

A small laugh escaped Nora as Wren wrapped her arms around her. Nora held on, and for a moment, neither of them said anything.

“You don’t have to figure everything out before you tell us,” Wren murmured. “Sometimes you can just tell us what you know.”

Over Wren’s shoulder, movement beyond the window above the sink caught Nora’s attention.

A dark figure stood at the edge of the woods behind the barn. A man, maybe. Facing the house.