Underwater: The Silent Luna novel Chapter 109

Chapter 109

And Adam kept asking questions.

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Joseph understood why, but that did not make the pressure easier. The investigation had been difficult enough before. Now it felt

poisoned. A man willing to kill once to bury the truth about a crime committed twenty years ago had just proved he was willing to kill

again to keep it buried. That changed everything. It changed the atmosphere. Changed what people would risk. Changed how many would

stay silent even if they knew something.

Joseph sat looking over the papers on his desk, jaw tense, wondering what must have gone wrong, what they had missed, and how the

culprit had moved ahead of them so effectively.

He also knew something else now.

With Wilde dead, nobody would want to come forward.

Π

That was the whole point of it, wasn’t it? It was not only about removing a witness. It was about sending a message. Joseph almost

wished the matter had been kept quiet, but somehow the news had leaked. People knew a man had been murdered on his way to tell what

he saw about Alpha Cain’s death. That was disastrous. Terrible for the investigation. And Joseph was not stupid enough to think the leak

had happened accidentally. No. The culprit wanted it known. Wanted fear to spread. Wanted everyone who might be holding a memory

from twenty years ago to think twice. To think of their own throat. Their own family. Their own chance of ending up like Wilde.

People feared death.

That was simple truth. And when the fear was attached to an old crime most had already convinced themselves was best forgotten, silence

became easier. Joseph understood that with grim clarity. Getting another eyewitness would be difficult now. Very difficult.

He was still in the middle of those thoughts when Amber came to his office.

She had noticed he missed lunch. That alone was enough reason for her to check on him. But there was more under that, something

deeper and sadder. She knew, on some level, that her time was limited, though she was hiding the extent of it. Because of that, she

wanted to spend as much time as possible with her sons. She wanted to keep moving through the spaces where they lived. To look in on

them. To ask questions. To hover in small, ordinary ways that felt like mothering and therefore like a kind of comfort.

She knocked.

Joseph did not need to ask who it was. He knew his mother’s scent well enough that he recognised her before she opened the door.

“Come in.”

Amber entered, and Joseph looked up to greet her before returning to the papers in front of him. But the second he glanced at the page

again, his eyes pulled back to her, and this time he actually looked, Really looked,

Her face was pale.

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12:00 Wed, Jun 17

Chapter 109

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Too pale.

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There were dark circles under her eyes too, and not the kind that came from one bad night of sleep or some small tiredness she could shrug off. She looked drained. Unwell in a way that made him sit up a little straighter. He had noticed something off earlier at breakfast too. The smile had been there, but the colour in her face had not. He had chosen not to press then. He did not want to embarrass her or

make her feel watched. But now, with the two of them alone, he could not ignore it.

||

“Are you sure you are feeling alright?”

Amber smiled at him and nodded.

“Why won’t I be alright? I have a grandchild on the way, and Ethan is happily married. What more should I ask for?”

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12:00 Wed, Jun 17

Underwater: The Silent Luna