Her cheeks heated. The officer probably thought she was being paranoid.
“I was scared,” Bethany offered in a shy whisper.
Fortunately, the officer seemed to believe them. “Ma’am, do you think you could give me a description of the man?”
An hour later, they arrived home. Bethany was happy. They’d stopped and picked up pizza and ice cream. Annabelle wanted to sleep for the next ten hours, she was so emotionally drained. Fear for her daughter still swirled in her head, but she wasn’t panicking anymore. Going around the house, she locked and dead-bolted all the doors and windows. She was probably overreacting, but she didn’t care. The whole situation had freaked her out.
She was cleaning up the dishes when her cell phone rang. She didn’t recognize the number.
“Hello?”
“Annie, it’s me.” There was only one person in the world who called her Annie.
Tyler.
Her husband. The man she hadn’t seen in two years.
“Annie? You there?”
She shook her head. “Yes, I’m here. It’s been a frazzling day, Tyler. What do you want?”
A pause. “Something happened last night, Annie. I can’t tell you everything, but the US Marshals are involved. I’m being put into witness protection.”
“Witness protection?” Stunned, she lowered herself into a chair at the kitchen table. “Tyler, people in those programs have to completely disappear.”
In her mind, she heard Bethany ask when she would see her daddy again.
“I know. It won’t be forever. At least I hope it won’t. I need to testify against someone. Maybe after that, I can go back to being me.”
A sudden thought occurred to her. “Tyler, the reason you’re going into witness protection... Would it affect me at all?”
“What do you mean?”
“Someone was following me today.”
“Someone’s following you?” Tyler exclaimed, horrified.
“Hey, don’t shout at me!”
“Sorry.” Keep it together, Tyler. “Where are you now?”
He heard an aggravated sigh. “I’m at home. I just put Bethany down to bed, and I’m exhausted.”
She sounded irritated, but he hadn’t lived with her for the first four of their seven years of marriage without learning something. She was frightened. She was covering it up, but he heard the tremble in her voice. Man, he hated that. She had always seemed so fearless.
“You never answered me. Could the man following me be related to what happened to you?”
That was a good question. He had the feeling she wasn’t going to like the answer.
“I don’t know. Annie, I will call you back.” He disconnected the call and went to the door of his room. He had no idea where he was. All he knew was that Marshal Mast and his team had hustled him out the back door of the police station the night before and driven for over an hour to this house.
An agent was coming down the hall. Tyler had met him briefly earlier. What was his name? Kurt? No. Karl. Karl Adams. That was it. “Could you tell me where I could find Marshal Mast?”
“Sure. Come with me.”
Tyler walked beside the agent, his nerves on edge. What was happening at Annabelle’s house right now? Was someone watching her? What about his daughter? Fear rose up inside him. How much danger was Bethany in? He was helpless to protect her, and it ate at him. He followed Karl Adams. A female agent with a tight dark bun smiled at them as they passed. He saw her gaze lingering on Karl. Karl left him at the office, then retreated to talk with the woman.
Marshal Mast was sitting at a laptop in an office at the back of the house. He glanced up from the screen as Tyler entered. Pushing back the headset, he allowed it to settle around his neck. “Something on your mind, Tyler?”
“Yes, Marshal Mast.”
The marshal waved his hand. “We’re going to be working together, Tyler. You need to get used to calling us by our first names. We don’t want to announce to others that we’re US marshals.”
Tyler nodded. “Jonathan, then. I called my wife to tell her I was going into witness protection.”
Jonathan frowned. Tyler had told the man that he and his wife were separated and wouldn’t be getting back together. He could practically read the man’s mind: So why is he calling her? He quickly headed off any questioning.
“She informed me that she and my daughter were being followed today.”
At this information, Jonathan jumped to his feet. “Karl!”
Feet pounded in the hallway. Karl Adams entered the room at a brisk pace. “Jonathan? What did you need?”
Jonathan glanced up at Karl, a frown creating grooves in the flesh beside his mouth. “Karl, I need you to make a trip for me to pick up Tyler’s wife and daughter. They may be in danger. Take Stacy with you. What’s the address, Tyler?”
Tyler recited the address. Would Karl and Stacy get there in time? How he wished he could go with them.
“Call her back, Tyler. Let her know he’s coming.”
She wouldn’t be happy. Nevertheless, Tyler dialed the number. Annabelle answered on the first ring. He knew at once she was steamed.
“What’s going on, Tyler? You call me out of the blue, tell me you’re going into hiding, hang up on me and now you’re calling me back? Do you know what time it is? What have you gotten yourself into?”
“Annie—”
He stopped. Jonathan held out his hand for the phone. Fine. Let him deal with her. She was too stubborn to listen to him, anyway. And too angry.
“Mrs. Everson? This is US Marshal Jonathan Mast. I am in charge of your husband’s case. He tells me you thought someone was following you today?” He listened for a minute. It drove Tyler crazy not hearing her side of the conversation. What exactly had happened? Had it been an actual threat, or some freaky coincidence?
He didn’t believe in coincidences. And he doubted that the marshals would buy that theory, either.
“Mrs. Everson, I need you to listen. I am sending a marshal to come get you and bring you to a safe house. Yes, it’s necessary. I have every reason to believe that your life and the life of your daughter are in grave peril.”
Grave peril. He’d failed his family again. Despite his best efforts, he’d brought danger to their door. If Annabelle was scared, his daughter was probably terrified.
The daughter that he hadn’t seen in two years. Guilt swamped him. He knew why he’d made the choice not to be a part of her life. It had hurt more than anything he’d ever done to distance himself from his family, but he knew it had been for their own good. He was saving them from heartache and disappointment. And possibly from danger.
Except now he wasn’t sure if he’d done the right thing, because danger had found them, anyway.
Jonathan got his attention when he set the phone back down.
“So, what’s the plan?” Tyler asked. “You’re going to protect them, right?”
“Let’s bring them here first. Then we’ll decide. I will do my best to see that you are all protected.”
It was a