Page 23 of Protecting Maggie
“Preacher? What do you know about the guy? It was an ex, right?” Kevlar asked.
Preacher stood, along with the rest of his team, and headed down the beach at a fast jog. He might complain about these early-morning workouts, but he secretly loved them. They got his heart pumping and his blood flowing. Helped him think more clearly.
“Yeah, it was an ex,” he confirmed. “But Maggie and I haven’t really talked about it. She’s extremely sensitive about everything that happened, and I can’t blame her. She lives her life in fear of doing even the smallest thing wrong and ending up back behind bars. It sucks.”
“I can imagine,” MacGyver said. “Is her ex still around? Like, could he do something that would put her back in jail? Like make a false report to her probation officer?”
Preacher stopped in his tracks. The rest of his team kept running for a moment, before stopping and turning around to stare at him.
“Preacher?” Kevlar called out in concern.
He felt like an idiot. He hadn’t eventhoughtof that. Preacher was aware that Maggie wanted to get out of California, but he hadn’t pushed her for details. He simply figured it was the bad memories and the high cost of living here that made her desperate to leave. But now that MacGyver had brought it up, she had to be terrified that her ex would do something to send her back to prison.Especially if he’d been the one to put her there in the first place.
And she had hinted during one of their conversations that he was someone pretty high up in the Navy.
His teammates came back to where he was standing.
“What’s wrong?” Smiley asked, his brow furrowed.
“He could absolutely do something that would put her back behind bars,” Preacher said, answering MacGyver’s question. “I think she’s terrified of that exact thing happening.”
“So what do we do?” Safe asked. “To help prevent that?”
Preacher swallowed hard. “I don’t know. Without knowing who this guy is, we’re kind of flying blind. Shedidtell me that he’s in the Navy.”
“What?”
“He is?”
“Shit. That complicates things.”
Preacher had thought all the same things his teammates were expressing when Maggie had first admitted her ex was a naval officer.
“You need to find out who he is. Get her to tell you his name,” Flash said.
“I don’t think it’s that easy.”
“It should be. Is she protecting him for some reason? Does she still love him?” Safe asked.
“No,” Preacher practically growled. He knew that without a doubt.
“I don’t know. Sometimes it’s hard for abused women toleave their abusers. They think they love him, or her, and want to change them,” Kevlar said.
“That’s not Maggie’s issue,” Preacher said firmly. “She’s afraid of him. And she’s been getting phone calls. She doesn’t tell me who they’re from, and she hangs up almost immediately, but I can see they’re affecting her. Scaring her. Now…I think they’re from the ex.”
Kevlar frowned. “That’s not good.”
“No, it’s not,” Preacher agreed.
“If this guyisin the Navy, we’ll need proof of anything before we can go to NCIS,” Flash said.
“Can’t we just bring our concerns to them and have them investigate?” MacGyver asked. “And you don’t even have to ask Maggie for a name. If he testified against her, his name should be in the court documents, right?”
“Yes. But I don’t want to go behind her back. Not when we’ve just started seeing each other. It would feel like a huge betrayal of trust. She wasveryreluctant to even tell me that he was in the Navy. If I start investigating her case and find out who this asshole is without her knowledge, I have no doubt it’ll kill whatever it is we’ve started together. I want her to trust me enough to tell me who he is freely,” Preacher told his friends.
“I can understand that,” Kevlar said. “But if he’s threatening her…” His words trailed off.
“Fuck,” Blink said under his breath. “It’s a no-win situation.”
