Page 101 of The Thief
“Don’t be scared.” I kissed her, stroking her hair and giving her a gentle smile. “We’ve got you. You don’t need to worry about a thing. You’re okay. We’re all gonna be okay. The rest we can talk about at home.”
“Am I in trouble?” she asked, panic flaring in her eyes as she tried to control her sobs.
“No. You’re not in trouble. But we need to talk about some things. I think there’s a few rules I need to go over...”
“Jess,” Tyler cut in. “Not here. I think we’ve been through enough for one day.” He reached up to stroke my cheek, and I nodded, leaning into his touch.
“I’m sorry I made you fall over,” Ava said, looking at Tyler with her puppy dog eyes.
“You didn’t make me fall, princess. I just tripped.”
He’d shielded her from it all, even the impact of Dan knocking into them. He’d been there when she needed him. He was always there.
Adam came to kneel beside us, and he handed Tyler a set of keys. “Getthem out of here,” he commanded. “Take the van. Don’t worry about what happened here, I’ll call in clean up. We’ll take care of everything. Go home and look after your family.”
Your family
Hearing those two words made everything clearer, sharper, and suddenly, I couldn’t wait to get up and out of there.
“I can come back,” Tyler told him, but Adam shook his head.
“Not this time. You have more important things to take care of.” Adam glanced at Ava and me, gently stroked Ava’s head, then stood up, walking back to the others who were gathered around Dan’s body.
Tyler stood up, protecting Ava from seeing what’d happened as he held her close to his chest.
Together, we walked back towards the trees without looking back. We’d just fought our way through hell, faced the devil himself, only to claw our way back out again barely intact but surviving. I limped as I walked, but the pain was something I could deal with. It was pain I’d gladly accept in return for having my family safe.
Quietly, Ava whispered to Tyler, “I knew you’d come. I wished you here and it worked. You always make my wishes come true.”
Tyler didn’t say anything. I guessed he was too emotional to speak. But he hitched Ava up to hold her on his hip, and as he did, she leaned closer to him and kissed his cheek.
“I love you,” she said to him, and he stopped, wrapped his arms around her and buried his face into her blonde curls.
“I love you too, sweetheart,” he whispered back. “I alwayswill. I’ll always be here for you. For Mummy, too. I love you both so so much.”
I wasn’t sure my body or my heart could cope with the swing of emotions going on right now. How could the worst day of my life end with the sweetest memory.
He loved her.
He loved me.
And I loved them both more than words could ever say.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
TYLER
We spent the next few days holed up together at Jess’s. We didn’t want to be apart after everything that’d happened. After a lot of hugs, whispers of love and being thankful, Jess had words with Ava. Told her that under no circumstances was she ever to go anywhere with anyone other than Jess, me, or her grandma and uncle. We didn’t want to scare her, but we needed her to understand that there were rules. Rules that she had to follow to be safe.
Jess spoke to the police and gave them a statement, and they seemed happy with her explanation that Ava had wandered off through a gate at her mum’s house. That she’d gone to the park, and Jess had found her in her favourite spot by the pond, trying to look for tadpoles. I told her I didn’t mind if she wanted to tell the truth. We’d deal with it. But she thought about it and decidedjustice had been served. Ava was continuing her counselling, and I think the appointments were helping Jess as well. Slowly but surely, we were getting there, because we had each other.
As for Con Hinds and Dan Armitage, the others had taken care of everything. They’d moved the bodies away, cleared the area so no one would know anything had happened in that wasteland. The place was far enough away from any occupied buildings, that there were no witnesses. Hinds had picked his location perfectly. Lucky for us, that had worked against him.
I had to admit, I wasn’t happy about the ending he got. It was quick, brutal, but he didn’t suffer the way I wanted him to. Time hadn’t been on our side, and Ava’s safety was all that mattered, that’s why he was gunned down. But if I’d had my way, I would’ve tortured that fucker for days. Strung him up and used every sick and twisted method I could think of to make him pay. I guess the others felt the same way, because they told me later how parts of him had been buried in the four corners of the town. He wasn’t laid to rest peacefully, he was dumped in pieces, left in places that no human would ever want to be left. He was dead and rotting in filth, and knowing that made me feel a little better.
But at the back of our minds, something bothered us about The Ghost, Armitage. Sure, his crew had fucked up at the bank robbery, but he wasn’t the villain of this story. Not really.
So, we made a vow of our own.
