Chapter 91: Locking Down

It didn’t take long for the ranch to shift into high gear.

Dustin called it being smart, but everyone knew what it really was — preparing for Walter.

By the end of the first week after the letter came, there were new motion-activated floodlights mounted on every corner of the main house, the guest house, and the barns. Travis and Caleb helped Dustin run wiring for extra cameras, the kind you could check from your phone. Caleb even welded a heavy-duty gate latch that could only be opened from the inside.

“Looks like Fort Knox out here,” Maisie muttered one evening, watching the men dig in a post for another camera by the driveway.

“That’s the point,” Dustin said, wiping sweat off his brow.

Inside the house, Jordyn always kept her pistol within reach — sometimes on her hip, sometimes in the diaper bag if she was out in the yard with the kids. The safe in the master bedroom held a shotgun, and Dustin had taught her how to load it in the dark by feel alone.

Sadie didn’t complain about the driving arrangement. In fact, she seemed relieved. She’d chosen to stick with Asher, and no one was surprised. They were officially “just friends,” but the way they lingered at the truck after school, or how Asher always seemed to have an extra hoodie for her when the evenings turned cool, told a different story.

The old farm truck Travis had handed down was nothing fancy, but Asher kept it clean, the bench seat covered with a worn saddle blanket, the glovebox stocked with gum and a small flashlight. After a talk with Dustin, he also kept a pistol hidden in a magnetic holster under the driver’s seat.

“I know how to handle it,” Asher said when Dustin went over the rules again.

“I know you do,” Dustin replied. “But knowing and doing are two different things. You only draw if there’s no other choice, understand?”

“Got it.”

Sadie, for her part, didn’t roll her eyes at the lecture — which told Jordyn just how seriously she was taking all of this. She’d grown up knowing the danger Walter posed, but now it was more real, and it was coming.

Saturday mornings on the range took on a sharper edge. Dustin still kept it light — a little teasing, a little competition — but he pushed her harder now. Tighter groupings. Faster reloads. No wasted movement.

“You don’t rise to the occasion,” he told her one morning as the sun burned the mist off the pasture. “You fall to the level of your training. So make sure that level’s high enough to end whatever comes your way.”

She met his eyes, steady. “It will be.”

The whole ranch seemed to breathe in unison, every adult tuned to the same unspoken agreement: if Walter came here, he wouldn’t leave standing.

But under all the preparation, life still had to be lived. The kids went to school, Maisie baked pies, the cattle still needed feeding. There were moments — watching the twins race their tricycles in the driveway, or catching Katie’s giggles as Harper tickled her — when it was almost possible to forget what was looming.

Almost.

Because every night, when the last porch light flicked off and the hum of the pasture settled into stillness, the same thought hung in the air:

He’s coming.

And we’ll be ready.

The new routine became second nature.

Sadie left for school with Asher every morning, her backpack slung over one shoulder and a travel mug of coffee in hand like she’d been doing it for years. Jordyn took the twins to preschool and came back to wrangle Katie, Wyatt, and Emery until nap time. Dustin made sure every latch, camera, and motion light was working before he left the yard.

It was strange, how quickly they adapted to a life where protection was muscle memory. The twins could climb into their own car seats now without help, which freed Jordyn’s hands for the pistol she carried on her hip when they were out. Even the kids knew the rules — don’t answer the door, stay in sight outside, and if anyone you don’t know pulls up the drive, you get an adult.

Days turned into weeks. Weeks turned into a month.

And then the calendar caught up to them. Walter was out.

The morning of his release came without ceremony. No phone call. No official notice beyond the letter they’d already received. Dustin checked the news, but there was nothing. Jordyn found herself listening for a truck engine that never came, scanning the road whenever she drove into town.

They kept to the precautions.

Sadie still rode with Asher, and the old farm truck’s hidden pistol stayed exactly where Dustin had put it. Jordyn still wore her own. Dustin still trained with her every Saturday, keeping her aim sharp and her reloads smooth.

But the quiet was worse than the waiting.

No one had seen him. No one had heard from him. Not in town. Not on the road. Not even in the gossip circles at the diner.

It should have been a relief, but it wasn’t.

Because silence wasn’t safety.

Silence meant he was somewhere.

At first, the ranch stayed locked tight, everyone sticking to the rules like gospel. But time is a slippery thing — the more it passed without a sign of Walter, the easier it was to believe maybe he wasn’t coming.

And that was when the edges started to fray.

The teens were the first to push back. Asher wanted to take Sadie into town for pizza after football practice. Sadie begged to drive herself to a friend’s birthday party. Dustin said no to both without hesitation, and Sadie sulked for days.

Travis and Kinley didn’t say it outright, but it was clear they didn’t feel the same constant threat Dustin and Jordyn did. They’d never faced Walter, never stood toe-to-toe with the kind of danger he brought. To them, the security cameras and daily check-ins felt like overkill.

Harper was quiet about it. Too quiet. She smiled, she helped, she followed the safety plans… but there was a tightness around her eyes that said she was scared, no matter how well she hid it.

Caleb wasn’t hiding anything. He was angry — angrier than he’d been in a long time. The idea of Walter out in the world, possibly near the ranch, had his temper running hot. He made excuses to work longer hours outside, always keeping a tool or something heavy in his hands.

Maisie noticed it all. She saw the rips forming in what had been, for a year, a strong and steady patchwork quilt of a family. And she knew, deep in her bones, that this was exactly what Walter wanted.

He didn’t have to show up to hurt them.

He could do it from the shadows.

And the longer they didn’t see him, the more he was succeeding.