Page 114 of Back To Our Beginning

“Hey, Beau,” Maddie said, with a smile in her voice. “Any luck⁠—”

“Maddie, I need you to listen, okay? I’m going to conference in Roan.”

I pressed the button on my phone and confirmed that the three of us were on the line. “Maddie, Bruce is currently waiting for you in your office parking lot,” I said.

“What? How do you know that? Are you out there?”

“I put a tracker under his wheel well on his car,” Roan answered.

“Why did you— Oh, never mind. So, is he out to get me?”

“That’s what I’m thinking,” I said.

“No,” Maddie said excitedly. “I bet he intends to follow me to Eli.”

“Either that, or somehow get you alone, and get you to tell him where Eli is,” I said.

“Always with the positive attitude,” Roan commented.

“You’ve noticed that too, huh?” Maddie teased.

“Shut up, the both of you. This is not funny.” I tried to keep my voice calm, but it was tough.

“Why don’t we just call the police and say he’s harassing me?” Maddie asked.

“Because he really hasn’t harassed you,” Roan answers. “Instead, let’s see if we can do something that will get Bruce a longer prison sentence. Would you be up for that?”

“What the fuck are you talking about?” I demanded. “We’re on this call to protect Maddie.”

“Hold up, Beau,” Maddie said soothingly. “Let’s listen to what Roan has to say. Is there really something we could do to make sure that Bruce is put away longer?”

“If he’s caught trying to break into a place where he thought Eli was, thinking he could harm the kid, then yeah. I think the D.A. would have a huge case against him.”

I hate how excited Roan sounds.

I really fucking hate how right he sounds!

“Wouldn’t he need to have actually kidnapped him?” Maddie asked.

“Not if he broke into the house where Eli was staying with an intent to do harm,” Roan explained.

“But you’d only be able to do that if Maddie was a decoy,” I spoke up. “And that is a non-starter in my book.”

“Beau, that’s not your decision to make,” Maddie said. “Obviously, this is what Bruce has planned, and you’ve already fixed it so he can’t do it because you had Roan plant a tracker in Bruce’s car. Why not use this advantage and really put the wood to Bruce?”

She sounded so reasonable that it drove me up a wall.

“I’ll tell you why we won’t use this advantage. Because I already saw you in the hospital once, after you were almost killed. I refuse to let you be placed in danger for some stupid stunt,” I roared over the phone.

There was dead silence on the line. Neither Roan nor Maddie said a word. They were letting me play back what I had just said.

“Come on, Roan. Admit it. We should let this drop.” I prayed my friend would agree with me.

“It’s Maddie’s decision,” he said. “What do you think?”

She sighed. “Beau, if you really can’t deal with this, then we won’t do it. But what’s to stop Bruce from following me in the future until he pleads out and goes to prison?”

“I’ll tell you what,” I growled. “I’ll go have a talk with the motherfucker. Trust me, he won’t get within a mile of you after I’m done with him.”