Family Counsel (The Samuel Collins Series Book 2) by Debra Trueman Page B

until I
exhaled loudly.  “Good.  Call me when you get home.”
    “Okay, sweetie.  Bye bye.”
     
    *    *    *    *
     
    When I got home at 5:30 and Maddie wasn’t back, I got this sick
hollow feeling in the pit of my stomach.  If they had left when we talked, they
would have been home hours ago, even with a couple of pit stops and a break for
lunch.  This was not good.
    I called Maddie’s cell phone and it went straight to
voicemail.  She was either out of range, or she had the damn phone turned off. 
I left a message for her to call me, trying to keep the anxiousness that I was
feeling out of my voice.  A part of me wanted to jump in my car and drive
straight towards Serenity, but rationality overruled the idea. 
    I sent my mother-in-law home.  She’d been with my kids for
almost six hours, punishment enough for someone I liked; and I didn’t let on
that I was worried.  But when it got to be almost 6:00 o’clock and I still
hadn’t heard from her,  I knew something had to be wrong.  I called Niki
Lautrec.
    “Okay, let’s think it through,” he said, always grounded in a
crisis.  “We need to rule out an accident.  Or jail.  Hold on a second.”  When
he got back on, I could hear him shuffling papers.  “Okay.  The closest
hospital to Harmony would be in San Angelo.  I’ve got a guy checking that, and
I’ve got someone else on the phone with the Franklin County Sheriff’s Office
and with Department of Public Safety.  I honestly don’t think Maddie would have
gotten herself thrown in jail though.”
    “She’s with Felicia,” I reminded him.
    “Even so.  She can’t be that bad an influence,” he asserted.
    “Beg to differ.”  It occurred to me that Felicia was not unlike
Niki in that respect.  I’d come way too close to being thrown in jail on
several occasions because of Niki.  He liked to live on the edge and he’d take
down anyone with him who was stupid enough to get talked into one of his little
escapades.  I considered calling him on the similarity, but I knew he’d deny
it. 
    “Do you think they would have tried to go back inside?” Niki
asked.
    “I don’t know.  The last thing Maddie told me was that they
were coming home.  That was at 11:45 this morning.”  Call waiting beeped in.
“Hold on a second, Niki.  Maybe that’s her.”  I clicked over to the other
line.  “Hello.”
    “Samuel, it’s me.”
    I was so relieved that my knees buckled.  The gamut of emotions
coursed through me so quickly that I didn’t know how to react.   I was worried;
I was relieved; I was pissed.  “Are you okay?”
    “I’m fine.  We’re about an hour from San Antonio.” Being pissed
swooped to the forefront. 
    “Where the hell have you been?  It’s after 6:00, Maddie! 
Didn’t you think I’d be worried?”  I’d forgotten about Niki on the other line. 
“Hold on.”  I clicked back to Niki.  “It’s her. She’s fine.  I’ll call you
back.”  I clicked back to my wife.  “Maddie.”
    “I’m here.”
    “Where have you been?”
    “I’ll explain it when I get home.  I don’t want to talk about
it on the cell phone.”  She pronounced it sale phone.  “I tried to call
you earlier but I didn’t get any answer.  And I’ve been in a dead zone for the
last 40 miles.  This phone is useless.”
    “You went back inside, didn’t you?” I asked, already knowing
the answer.  Long s ilence.   “Are you there?”
    “We went back inside,” she admitted.
    I was livid. “I’ll see you in an hour,” I said. 
    I went to hang up on her but before I could, I heard her
saying, “I love you, Samuel.”
    I hung up without responding, but it made my guts churn.  I
called her right back, and she answered on half a ring. 
    “I love you too,” I grumbled, and hung up on her.
    I was glad she was still that far away so I’d have a chance to
cool down before she got home.  We hardly ever fought and I couldn’t remember
ever