“O’Malley is being executed today.”
I looked up sharply at my father and inhaled deeply. “No shit?”
The trial had been a slam dunk.
Rader, as well as ten other cops, had been serving an arrest warrant when things had gone downhill with Jorgan O’Malley.
Jorgan O’Malley had missed his court date. The court date that would also be for the murders of over sixteen people. All over six states.
The icing on the cake had been the murder of Rader, Avery’s father.
Where Jorgan might’ve stood a chance before, all the unknown, unnamed people he just so happened to kill that he came into contact with as he hitchhiked across the South couldn’t condemn him fully. However, with the death of an officer trying to bring him in with an arrest warrant, Jorgan signed and sealed his fate.
They’d sentenced him to death.
That death, apparently, was happening today.
“When?” I asked curiously.
My father looked at his watch.
“Four in the afternoon,” he answered. “They usually take place in the morning, but apparently someone asked for an afternoon death, and the warden granted it. I’m not sure why.”
Interesting.
“Is anybody going?” I asked curiously.
Dad shot me an amused look.
Of course, there were people going.
The man had killed a cop. There would be cops there out the ass.
Not to mention the fact that Texas hadn’t executed someone in a really long fucking time. That was going to bring the curious people out just to witness the execution.
“Do you want to go?” I asked.
I wasn’t sure that I wanted to go.
To be honest, I’d seen plenty of men die. Plenty of men be executed for their supposed crimes while overseas.
I wasn’t really interested in going.
Not unless my father was, and only then if he thought he needed me there.
“Can’t,” he said. “I have a meeting with the town council this morning about staffing, budget cuts and new laws they’re putting into place.”
I winced.
“That sounds like a whole lot of fun,” I said as I shoved the rest of my toast into my mouth. “What time do you have to leave?”
It was an hour and a half later after leaving my dad’s place that I found myself parking my bike.
I walked into the bank with my eyes firmly on the teller that was my favorite.
She was an older lady with graying brown hair, a sweet smile, and the understanding that I wasn’t a child anymore. The other two still treated me like I was Luke Robert’s kid. Not my own entity.
That, and they talked a whole fucking lot. And I didn’t have time to sit there and chit chat.
I had about a half million things to do today, one of those being running to the hardware store before they closed for lunch.
And, seeing as it was now eleven fifteen, I’d be pushing it since they closed at eleven-thirty for lunch.
“Hello, dear,” my favorite teller, Dorrie, said. “How are you?”
I handed her a check that my father had made out to me for buying him a couple of new packages of golf balls. I hadn’t really intended for him to pay me back, but the man was insistent.
And I knew that if I didn’t go and cash the check, the damn man would just write me another one and do it himself.
So that was what I did.
“…really sorry, Avery. I don’t know how he let this happen. But…just know that I’m here if you ever need anything.”
I turned around at the familiar sounding voice.
Gordon Bishop, the branch’s loan officer and a man I’d graduated with, was talking to a crying woman. She had her hands over her face and she was sobbing into them.
I felt something in my gut clench at her sorrow, and absently took a step forward, not sure what I intended to do, but knowing that I needed to do something.
Then she removed her hands from her eyes and my heart skipped a beat.
Because that sobbing woman was actually Avery. My Avery.
I’d, of course, heard Gordon call her Avery, but I hadn’t put two and two together until I’d seen her face.
What the hell?
“What’s going on, Gordon?” I asked, not sure how I ended up where I was, but glad that I’d subconsciously done the thing I was going to do anyway.
Avery’s breath hitched, and she burst out crying all over again.
I looked at Gordon, feeling something sick crawl into my gut.
He shook his head. “It’s private.”
I couldn’t stop myself from what I did next.
I had to do it.
Reaching forward, I drew Avery’s small body into the curve of my arms, wrapping her up tight.
She only cried harder.
I’d seen this girl cry way too much.
Way too fucking much.
The first time that I’d witnessed her crying had been the day that her mother had been taken back into surgery to harvest her organs. I’d been coming to visit my dad, unsure why he was at the hospital but determined to see him first since I’d just arrived home from deployment. Hell, I’d still been in my fatigues and had sand in places there shouldn’t be sand.