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He saw me and looked like he’d utterly deflated all over again.
His hair was in disarray—or even more than it had been earlier—and he looked like he was about to puke.
I pulled the vehicle to a stop and got out, walking to him.
He opened the back door of the car and started collecting…girl shit.
A pink pony that looked like it’d seen better days. A white fluffy chair with the name ‘Linnie’ monogrammed in bright pink letters. And then a suitcase with Minnie Mouse on it with bright pink polka dots.
He started walking to my truck with it, and I gestured for him to put it on the passenger side.
Tyson redirected himself and opened the side door, grimacing at all the dirt.
“Gross,” he muttered.
“It’s a work truck,” I told him. “What did you expect? It to be spotless?”
Most work trucks weren’t.
In fact, mine was better than most.
“It’s fine,” he said. “Linnie’ll love it. She’s all about dirt. I’m constantly cleaning her up.”
I smiled at that.
Tyson did love the kid, even if he didn’t show it outwardly when other people were around.
Once everything was transferred except for Linnie, who was silently playing on her tablet acting like her shit was taken from her vehicle every day, Tyson closed the door to his car and walked over to me.
With my work truck still running, and the powerful diesel motor humming, he had to step closer to me to be heard.
“My sister knows Theo is alive.”
I blinked, trying to mask my surprise, but doing a shit poor job at it.
“I know.” He shook his head. “I know that she’s with you.” He squeezed his eyes shut. “I don’t know how. I just…when she wasn’t found in the wreckage over the last couple of days, I got to thinking and I realized that she probably went to you. That you have her…or someone you know has her.”
I didn’t say anything.
“Tara has no clue about you. But she knows that Theo is alive…and she said she’d be picking Linnie up from school today.” He shook his head. “I have a couple of the people there that are loyal to me. To Linnie. They called me the moment that they heard, and I went and picked her up from school when I did.”
“You don’t know any more?” I asked.
He shook his head. “No. But I’m hoping that since I didn’t ‘know’ about it that Tara won’t think it was me that picked her up. I…I stole her out of gym class when she went to the bathroom.”
What I was going to do.
Holy shit.
“The teachers didn’t see me with her,” he said. “The only person that I passed was another little girl that was looking down at the sidewalk.”
“Okay,” I said. “What are you going to do when she doesn’t come home anymore? How are you going to work that?”
He shook his head. “I was thinking about filing a missing person report, but then I thought I might storm the compound, so to speak, and act outraged that they picked the kid up without asking me.”
I nodded. “That one might get them off your back for a while…or it might alert them that your sister isn’t actually dead. From there I’d just unenroll her in school. Don’t do anything. Nobody knows you have her but a few, anyway.”
He nodded, looking like he was taking mental notes.
“I can do that,” he said.
“You can’t know where she goes,” I said bluntly.
He was already shaking his head before I’d even finished. “That’s good, because I don’t want to know. I don’t want to ever see her again if you catch my drift.”
I was already nodding before anything else could be said.
“I’ll get Linnie.” He paused. “Take care of them, man.”
I didn’t say anything as he walked away, but I prayed that I was the right one for this job.
That for the next thirty-six hours, I could indeed keep them safe.
I would.
I wouldn’t allow anything to happen to them. At least while I was breathing and alive, anyway.
But hopefully it wouldn’t come to that.
My eyes took everything in as Tyson opened the door to his car and started speaking.
Moments later, Linnie started to emerge from the vehicle.
Up close, I couldn’t help but smile at what she was wearing.
Black sparkly long-sleeved shirt. Black leggings. Black miniskirt that covered said leggings. And a black pair of combat boots.
She looked like a mini-badass.
Her hair being so dark brown that it appeared to be black only added to the appearance.
She had tanned skin the color of Rome’s…and Jesus Christ. She did look exactly like Rome.
Down to the hair color.
The only thing that screamed ‘Theo’ about her were the bright matching blue eyes.
Linnie saw me and grinned. “Hey, Cupcake Dude!”
I grinned right back, not saying anything until she was at the side of my truck, her booster seat in hand.
