Page 28 of A Burning Rage

Sam and Cooper both look at me, their identical expressions a mix of anger and disbelief.

“When?” Cooper asks.

“A couple of weeks probably. Troy said we’ll be notified of the exact date.”

Cooper shakes his head. “Andrew Morton has no business walking around a free man. Who the hell did his parents bribe?”

“You might not be far off,” I say. “Tyler’s looking into it.” I glance at Sam. “You’ll have your work cut out for you. Miguel will be joining you once Andrew is out. I want Beth to have two bodyguards anytime she leaves the compound.”

I leave the guys to their movie snacks and return to our bedroom, where Beth is lying in bed flipping through channels on the TV mounted to the opposite wall. “Anything good?”

“Not really.” She sighs. “I’m just not in the mood for anything. What do you suggest? Dragons? Action? Sci-fi?” She pauses. “Zombies?”

Now I know she’s desperate for a distraction because she hates zombie shows. They scare her to death.

I close our door and turn off the bedroom light. I’m not really in the mood to watch anything either. I crawl onto the bed and loom over her, caging her in.

“I’m in the mood for you,” I admit.

She turns off the TV, lays the remote on the nightstand, and slips her arms around my neck to pull me close for a kiss. “I can get onboard with that,” she murmurs against my lips.

Chapter 11 – Beth

A week later, as we’re sitting together on the sofa after putting the kids in bed, Shane receives a phone call.

He picks up his phone to check the screen. “It’s Troy,” he says, accepting the call. “Troy, you’re on speaker. Beth is here with me.”

“Hi, Beth,” Troy says over the line. “I just received word that Andrew is going to be released Monday morning at ten.”

My stomach knots.

On Monday morning my life unravels at the seams.

“I’m sorry,” Troy continues. “I wish we’d gotten a different outcome on this. I’m still hoping Tyler can come up with something that will make a difference. In the meanwhile, I’m still pursuing an appeal of their decision, but I’m afraid that process takes time.”

“Thanks for the update, Troy,” Shane says, never taking his eyes off me. “I’ll talk to you later.” He ends the call and quickly sends a brief text message. “I let the guys know—Sam, Cooper, Tyler.” He sets his phone aside. “Are you okay?”

I shake my head. No. Before it was just talk, but now it’s really happening.

“Come here.” He pulls me into his lap, holding me in his arms and kissing my temple.

I lay my head against his chest, wondering how I can possibly function knowing there’s someone out there, walking free, who might want to hurt me and my family.

Shane runs his hand up and down my arm, doing his best to comfort me. “I promise you, if it’s the last thing I do, I’ll make it okay.”

* * *

Now that we know the day and time of Andrew’s release, everything feels so much more real. I do my best to hide my anxiety from Shane and our kids. The stress is definitely getting to Shane. More and more often I find him off by himself at home, holed up in his office or sitting alone on the back patio staring at the trees behind our house. He seems distracted and distant, and I can’t blame him because I feel the same way.

Luke is starting to take notice. Our son may be only three years old—going on twelve—but he’s very observant and intuitive.

“Where’s Daddy?” he asks me one night after dinner.

After we finished eating that night, Shane and I cleared the table and put the dirty dishes in the dishwasher, as we normally do, but he seemed distracted. He didn’t say a word the entire time, just stared out the kitchen window, lost in thought. And instead of hanging around to play with the kids afterward, like he always does, he disappeared from sight.

“I can’t find him,” Luke says. “I looked everywhere.”

“Maybe he’s in his office,” I say, not entirely sure. He usually tells me where he’s going.