Page 67 of Luke

Paisley

“I can’t believe it,” Paisley muttered to herself for the tenth time since Luke had gotten back.

“I think we are all still in shock,” Luke said, bouncing Garrett on his shoulder.

They had gotten back and then told everyone what had happened. When they had gotten there, their father had already been pronounced dead. Not sure if they believed it or not, Cade and Luke had made sure they were able to verify that it was him and then had headed home.

“Is it over?” Paisley asked.

“We think so,” Cade admitted. “There’s no way to know what he had in motion before this happened. We also know that Julian is still trying to find Ashley so not for her.”

Paisley sighed. It was really crazy the things that happened in this different society that would never have happened the way she grew up. It truly was like two completely different worlds.

Stalkers existed, sure, but not like this, not because of a need to keep lines pure or whatever archaic way they were explaining it now. It was utterly stupid.

“Do we need to make arrangements?” Catherine asked.

Luke shrugged. “I’ll help with anything you guys want to do, but I am not attending.”

“To be honest, I don’t want to either. I don’t know if many would since he lost a lot of friends when he was arrested and convicted.” Catherine hugged Ryker. “Should we even have a service?”

“I think we should still bury him respectfully, but no to a service. I don’t have it in me to stand there and pretend that he was a good man and accept the condolences of people that show up just to be curious.” Cade echoed what Paisley was thinking.

“I’ll have my lawyers handle it all and we can do a small press release on it and bury it with the other things going on. I don’t want to talk to a bunch of people about it either,” Catherine added without looking up from Ryker’s chest.

Catherine being on the same page was surprising to Paisley. She had expected her to want something more despite everything that had happened.

“Tomorrow, I’ll call Mother’s doctors and let them know. They can decide what to do about telling her or not.” Catherine looked up then. “I don’t know if it will matter if she knows.”

Cade shrugged. “Do what you want there.”

Clearly, there was no love lost between Cade and his parents.

“I’ll let Ashley know, but I don’t think she will care. She wasn’t concerned this morning.” Luke handed Garrett to Paisley.

“You can’t,” Paisley said as she settled Garrett on her hip. “Carter made her leave her phone behind.”

“What?” he snapped.

“Matt called and said that he thought she was being tracked. Once they found Julian again, he appeared to know exactly where he was headed and that was straight here. So they drove her car to the airport, parked in long-term parking, and left her phone there before renting a car and heading out,” Paisley explained.

“They found Julian?” Cade asked.

“Sorta?” Paisley answered and then looked to Ryker to fill them in.

“Matt gave us what he could but he’s working on something else right now. What Paisley said is the long and the short of it. Matt was able to hack his phone and track him to just outside the city. Then he must have turned it off or something because there’s been nothing since,” Ryker explained.

“Can’t Matt do anything else?” Luke asked.

“He’s already dividing his time and without the phone, I don’t know how else we could track him. Carter got a burner, though. We should get a text when he makes it to the cabin.” Ryker was calm about it, which helped make Paisley less anxious, not by a lot but some.

“I better hear from them soon,” Luke ground out, clearly angry about it.

“Luke,” Paisley attempted to soothe. “Carter will keep her safe. Taking her phone was going to put them in danger potentially. Besides, even Ashley didn’t fight him on it.” Truthfully, it was the first time that she’d seen Ashley look actually worried about what was going on.

“I never said he wouldn’t,” Luke said in defense.

“I’ve got it handled,” Ryker said. “I know where they’re going, and despite all the trouble Ashley has given him, I do trust Carter to take care of her or I wouldn’t have put him on it.”