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“Stirling,” I said with a breath. Then I related what Molly had seen on her camera.
“Sounds like he was scoping the area hoping to find ye, then delivered whatever’s in that envelope. I just wish we knew this yesterday. Talk to me about Molly’s place.”
“It’s a small, three-bed terraced house on a cul-de-sac. She has three kids and is a single mother. She used to live closer to my old home, and our daughters went to the same toddler groups and preschool. She moved away, but we kept in touch.”
I stopped talking, realising he needed tactical details, not commentary on our friendship.
Valentine hummed acknowledgement, his gaze on the road where his headlights pierced the dark. We were far off dawn, which could only be a good thing.
“It’s a quiet road,” I continued. “Everyone knows each other.”
“Any footpaths going onto it?”
“There’s a few that run behind the houses. They exit onto other streets.”
“When we’re closer, show me on a map. Now, I realise ye might not want to talk about this, but I’m going to ask anyway. What happens if these people find ye?”
Valentine knew barely anything about my situation, yet he’d been willing to jump into action. I couldn’t be more grateful, but I could definitely be more forthcoming.
Taking a deep breath, I demolished the wall I’d put up around my trust. “I told you they were controlling. The Winchesters. That’s their family name. Vanissa is Tobi’s father’s wife, and her sons are Greg and Simon. In the lead-up to me leaving, there was some kind of legal stuff they wanted me to sign. There was even a threat.”
“What kind of threat?”
“That they’d take Tobi from me.”
“On what grounds? You’re her ma.”
Shame pierced me, and I stared out the window so I didn’t have to look at him. “Of me being unstable. When my mother died, I was a mess.”
“Holy fuck. Of course ye were. That would break anyone.”
“I think I was worse than most. My grief came and went unpredictably. Some days I’d be coping fine, the next I’d be devastated. One night, after Tobi was asleep, I missed my mother so much that I just sat and sobbed. Vanissa came to see me. She had something to talk about, but I was inconsolable. She ended up calling a doctor to sedate me so I didn’t upset Tobi if she woke.”
“What the fuck? That’s the threat she’s using against ye?”
I raised my hands in a shrug. They shook. “That incident is on paper. Vanissa threatened me with it, but in a kindly-help sort of way. She said if I was unable to cope, they’d take Tobi off my hands for both of our sakes. It was the final straw and the reason we left. I hate myself for how long it took me to break away.”
“Fuck that bitch. She’s evil. Like land-a-house-on-her level.” He worked his jaw. “What was the legal shite she wanted from ye?”
“Something to do with winding up her husband’s business. Probate had taken years because he didn’t have a will, and I wasn’t in the right place to care about it so I didn’t listen.”
There was a pause. A comfortable silence. I’d shared so little of my story with anyone else, and nothing of the threat Vanissa held over me, not even to Molly. The act had me breathing easier. I’d needed this.
“Can I ask what happened to your ma?” Valentine said quietly.
“Cancer. It’s the reason we came back to Scotland. She’s from here originally but relocated with her gran, her only relative, to California years ago. She loved the life and went full American. She got pregnant, stayed with my dad while I was small, but they broke up, then she got sick. I was fourteen the first time it hit her. The second time, we came back to the UK for her treatment, and Mom beat it. When I was pregnant with Tobi, it hit again. She died last year.”
I kept my gaze away, lost for a moment in the abject sadness that had come with slowly losing Mom. Then one hand landed on my knee. Squeezed.
“We’ll get your girl back. I promise ye that.”
He didn’t offer platitudes about my mother, just gifting a simple truth of how the morning was going to go. I believed him.
I barely knew him, but I was certain Valentine delivered on every promise he made.
With my quietly whispered thanks, into the dark night we continued.
Valentine asked a few more questions about the Winchester family, their descriptions and what cars they drove, then asked me to hold up his phone. I unlocked it for him and navigated to the message screen he directed. He left a voice message to what I guessed was his team, stating that he was taking me to retrieve my daughter, and asking Raphael to check in with availability. I had no idea what that meant, but he was done and the message sent.
