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“I don’t understand.”
“We agreed we’d have you and the girls go on with your lives here as if nothing happened,” Luke gently reminds me as he comes closer. I spot Fallon in one of the armchairs, a muscle ticking furiously in his bearded jaw. “We need to lure Daniel out. He won’t come here; he probably knows that the place is heavily guarded. So, we need you at the Masons’ house, working on it as you have been, and the girls in school every day like normal.”
“I’m bait. Annie and Miley are fucking bait,” I bite out, my cheeks burning red.
“It’s the only way to catch him. Legally speaking,” Fallon growls from his seat. “I don’t like this any more than you do, Avery, but we have to be careful. We have to catch this fucker attempting to do something to you or the girls, and that’s when the entirety of hell will rain down on him.”
“Emphasis onattemptingto do something,” Luke says. “He won’t be able to get close enough to do any actual harm.”
“I have the entire sheriff’s department combing the district for him,” Kellan adds. “Every motel, hotel, bed and breakfast, Airbnb, boarding house, and rental property in North Platte, Hershey, and beyond. He has to be staying somewhere. We’re checking parking lots and gas stations, too. Bars and pubs. Everywhere with a CCTV system. Trust me, Avery, we will find him.”
As much as I hate to admit it, they’re actually making sense. We never really discussed what we would do if and when Daniel showed up again. It’s not the best way to go about it, but it is effective. Kellan is right— I will need an ironclad case in court. I need to make sure Daniel can never come near me or the girls ever again.
“Is there any way to make sure he can’t be in the same state as me or the girls ever again?” I ask, my voice low and trembling.
“In court,” Kellan says. “You could ask the judge for that. There might be the possibility of a restraining order with a radius wide enough to cover an entire state. We’d have to discuss this with a specialized attorney.”
Luke nods in agreement. “Then it’s time for me to make some calls of my own, get the firm involved.”
“What firm?” I ask.
“Hanson & Hart,” he says. “They work with me on personal issues, as well as Wolfhound Security issues. They have a huge roster of attorneys and paralegals, each of them perfectly capable of handling this situation.”
“Five hundred bucks an hour type of lawyers,” I mutter. “I can’t afford that, Luke, it’s too much.”
“You don’t need to worry about that,” he says.
But I snap again. “Idoneed to worry about that and about everything else, too! I can’t keep mooching off you like this.”
“That should be the least of your concerns right now,” Kellan says, half-smiling. “I’ve said it before and I will say it again, what matters to us is that you and the girls are safe and well-taken care of until you get back on your feet. Until that day comes, Fallon, Luke, and I have taken it upon ourselves to provide whatever it is you need to put that miserable bastard behind bars and out of your life, forever.”
“And I appreciate it, I really do,” I tell him, “But I feel so fucking helpless right now and I hate it.”
Fallon gets up and walks over. He towers over me with his massive shoulders and those dark green eyes that can pierce holes into my very soul. “You’re one of the most capable women I’ve ever met, Avery Madison. You just need a moment to rest in between battles. Helping you, it’s barely any effort for us to do it. Besides, you’ve given back plenty by simply being here. Don’t think we’re not happy to have you around, to see your girls happy and carefree, just like they deserve to be. Set your pride aside for one damn minute and let us take care of you.”
I want to. I honestly do.
They have the resources, the funds, and the manpower needed to get rid of Daniel. The fact that they insist on doing everything through the appropriate legal channels should be nothing short of commendable, but my desperation is pushing my own reasoning past its limits. I’m in that dark place in my mind where I’d rather see Daniel dead and gone forever.
21
Kellan
As much as I try to hide it, I am worried about Avery and her daughters. I’ve done and I will continue to do my best to keep them safe, but Daniel has proven himself infinitely more capable and more elusive than I had originally anticipated. Every day, I go over the CCTV footage, personally scanning every available feed, and I even roped a couple of deputies in with access to facial recognition software in order to cover as much ground as possible.
Even with potential disguises, I should’ve seen something by now.
Part of me worries that Avery might flee if she feels infinitely threatened. If she did indeed see him, then he wanted to be seen solely for the purpose of messing with her head.
But if she onlythoughtshe saw him, and it was all in her head then the stress is getting to her on a whole new level. I secretly hope she imagined it—at least then I’d feel more at ease. Yet at the same time, we all know that the sooner we apprehend the fucker, the better for everyone, especially the girls. I’m not a fan of using them or Avery to draw him out, but it’s the only way, particularly since he’s been so good at covering his tracks so far.
Luke comes into my office just as I’m about to open another camera feed with footage from the past twenty-four hours. None of our markers have been picked up by the software, so I’m having to do a manual search, one of many in the past couple of days.
“What’s up?”
He gives me a sour look and settles into the chair across from my desk. He’s wearing one of his black suits—a color and style usually reserved solely for meetings with state authorities or his law firm, Hanson & Hart. Given our more recent discussion, I reckon he just came back from a meeting with his lawyers. “I wanted to talk to you about Avery,” he says.
“You have my full attention,” I reply, though I do keep one eye on the computer screen, watching as various people pull in and out of a popular gas station in North Platte. That bastard has to pop up somewhere eventually unless Avery has had it wrong this whole time, and Daniel has no interest in coming after her. But I don’t think that’s the case. “What about Avery?”
