tousled her daughter’s blond hair and smiled back. “Of course! What’s pizza without ice cream for dessert?”
Happy again, Bethany skipped beside the shopping cart.
Annabelle hurried as much as she could. She couldn’t shake the thought that someone was watching again. She turned her head suddenly. Her eyes were pinned by the stare of the young man she’d seen earlier.
Bethany had been right. That was not the face of someone shopping. The cold stare she encountered made her shudder. All thoughts of shopping left her mind. She needed to get her daughter home, where they’d be safe.
“Bethy, come with me.” Grabbing her daughter’s hand, she abandoned the shopping cart and made for the exit. A glance over her shoulder confirmed her fear. The man was on his cell phone, watching her. She moved quicker.
“Mommy, what about the ice cream?”
“Honey, I will see if we can get it somewhere else. But we need to leave. Now.”
Bethany was a very bright girl. She didn’t argue with her mom. Looking down at her daughter, Annabelle could see that she was pale and her eyes were wide. She hated that her daughter was afraid. Better scared and safe. That was the important thing.
She tightened her grip on Bethany’s hand and left the store. The little girl was trembling now. Who was that man? An image of him grabbing Bethany and running off flashed through her mind. Annabelle paused to lift her daughter in her arms. Bethany didn’t question it but wrapped her legs around her waist while winding her arms around her mother’s neck.
The parking lot was crowded. Annabelle ducked between two cars, crouching low. She set down Bethany, motioning her to keep low. Bethany squatted next to Annabelle. “Shh. Don’t make a sound. Okay?” she whispered in Bethany’s ear. The child nodded, burying her face in her mother’s shoulder. Moving as if in slow motion, Annabelle raised herself enough to peer across the parking lot through the windows of the car on her left. The man was standing outside the store, talking on the phone while his eyes searched the parking lot.
For her.
What did he want?
Settling back down, she considered her options. Her car was three rows away. It would be practically impossible to get there without being seen. Or worse.
She peeked again. Oh, no. He was heading this way. Now what?
Putting her finger to her lips to let Bethany know to keep silent, she crouch-walked away from the row, heading toward the next one. Her daughter stayed close to her side. She glanced back. Not good. He’d seen them and was picking up his pace. His eyes were glued to her as he moved toward her.
“Run, Bethany!” Grabbing her daughter’s hand, she ran as fast as she could with a five-year-old in tow. “Please, God. Keep us safe. Protect my baby.”
A police car turned down her aisle and pulled in two cars away from her.’
“Thank You, Jesus!”
The officer stepped out of his car.
“Officer!” She ran up to the man. “Help! We’re being followed!”
She pointed to the man who’d been following her. He was gone.
“Ma’am?”
She shuddered. “There was a man. He’d been following us around the store. When we left, he followed us out here. We hid, and tried to get to our car, but he saw us and was chasing us.”
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
