Page 141 of Trouble Comes in Threes

I knew Jed had been sleuthing, but I thought it had been to help Dermot. Maybe he was working with both of them.

“You two are a force to be reckoned with,” I said. “You’ll find who’s responsible in no time.”

“And now we have the added incentive of protecting the people we love more than anything in the world. There’s no motivator more powerful than that.”

I gave him a grim smile.

“Ready?” Jed said in a rough voice from the doorway into the kitchen.

“Walk me out?” Joe asked with a hopeful look in his eyes.

“Of course.”

He took my hand, and we headed through the living room to the front door. Jed had already gone outside, and there was no sign of Witt until we walked onto the porch and found the two men huddled at the back of Neely Kate’s car.

Joe cupped my cheek and tilted my head back, then gave me a kiss that expressed his love and fear.

“We’ll be okay,” I said when he lifted his head.

“I brought the shotgun. It’s locked in a case in the garage. Don’t hesitate to get it out if you feel threatened.”

My stomach roiled. “Okay.”

He kissed me again. “Keep your phone with you so I can check on you regularly.”

“I will.”

He nodded, dropped his hand, and walked down the steps. He got into the car as Jed climbed into the driver’s seat. Joe kept his eyes forward and didn’t look back.

I watched the car travel the long gravel driveway, and as they turned onto the main road and their brake lights disappeared, I realized Joe hadn’t said goodbye.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

The next morning was chaos. The kids had no idea what was going on and were excited to be somewhere new—especially on a school day. Uncle Albert told them he’d take them on a tractor ride after breakfast, so they wolfed down their scrambled eggs and bacon, took their plates to the sink, and met Uncle Albert at the barn. Witt said he wanted to see what the fuss was about and insisted on carrying Liam out with him. Liam was thrilled to be outside with everyone else.

Once the house cleared out, Neely Kate and I told Aunt Bessie that we had the kitchen cleanup covered, and she should go relax. She started to protest, then said she’d take her knitting out to the front porch and encouraged us to join her when we finished.

As I started rinsing dishes and putting them into the dishwasher, I realized I hadn’t told Neely Kate what I’d learned about the box.

“I think I found out who buried the box.”

She stopped in the middle of the kitchen, two plates in one hand and a syrup bottle in the other. Wide-eyed, she asked. “When? How?”

I told her about the call and the suspected identities of J and S.

Her face brightened with excitement. “So we just need to find Sarah.”

I grimaced. “There’s a problem with that. The woman said Sarah died a while back, and her sister Luna moved to California.”

“How’d she die?”

“She didn’t know. She’d heard it secondhand. But it sounds like maybe we’ve hit the end of the road.”

She was quiet for a moment. “What about the boy? Jason? Maybe he’d want it back.”

“Maybe,” I agreed. “But we don’t have any last names.”

“If they went to school together, we could look up their names in old yearbooks.”

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