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“It’s as we thought, Rox?” I ask.
“JJ, this is fucking gold.” Realising Rick is still confused, she stands and holds the laptop out to him.
His eyes scan the screen, then lift to me with his mouth agape. “Holy fucking shit, JJ. Where did you get this?”
“My mother. It seems that I really didn’t know her as well as I thought I did.”
Forty-Five
Rick
Two weeks later
“Max, are you ready? We need to leave in ten minutes.”
“Coming, Dad,” he calls back, appearing at the bottom of the stairs a few minutes later. He places the bag he’s carrying with the others before dropping to sit on the bottom step.
“Max, what’s wrong?” I squeeze in next to him.
“Nothing really, just sad to say goodbye to my friends, that’s all.”
“I know you are, but you’re going to make new friends, and we can come and visit.”
“I know,” he says sadly. “I’m going to miss this house too, Dad.”
I know he’s not just talking about the house. This is the house that Sam and I shared, if only for a short time, before he was born, it’s where he was conceived and the place where so many of our memories were made.
I pick him up, moving him to my lap. “You don’t need the house to remember all those things, Max. They live in here—” I tap his head gently. “And here,” I say, pointing to his heart. “They’ll always live inside you, and just because we have a new house doesn’t mean you have to forget those memories. You’ll just make new ones to go with them.”
Tyres crunching on gravel comes from outside the open front door, and a couple of minutes later, my dad appears.
“You all set, Max?” he asks, stepping inside to pick up a suitcase. His brow furrows when he sees Max sitting on my lap.
“Yeah, I’m ready, Gramps.” Max gets to his feet, picking up his bag and turns to me. “See you in a bit, Dad,” I pull him to me, hugging him tight.
“I’ll be there before you know it. Be good and look after the oldies till I get there” He laughs as my dad reaches over to clip me round the head.
“I will,” he calls as he dashes out the door to the car where my mum is waiting for him.
“How are you feeling about giving your statement?”
“It’s nothing I haven’t done before,” I say nonchalantly, even as the little pressure valve that seems to reside in me recently starts to crank up.
“Not on this scale, son.”
“Thanks for the reminder,” I say with a smile. “Things will calm down once this is over, well, at least until the trial anyway.”
I help Dad load the cases into the car, then wave them off. Stepping back into the house, I do a last walk around making sure I’ve not forgotten anything.
I feel a pang of sadness as I collect my overnight bag and close the door one last time. I’m closing the door on my old life. I’ll never forget Sam, but I need to move on for Max and myself, and we can’t do that in this house. I post the keys through the letter box and leave.
The driveto London is an easy one at this time of the day, and I’m pulling up outside the court with fifteen minutes to spare.
I enjoy the lull in craziness that has been the last two weeks. The USB was indeed the jack-fucking-pot and contained evidence on every person involved in Garcia’s trafficking ring right to the very top.
Archie ‘The Archer’ Collins’ name was right there, along with Judge Charles Roberts, Seb’s father. Seb made sure he was there when his father was arrested. He’s waited a long time to see him fall from his throne. He and Jamie, along with a little help from Roxy, were able to get evidence of his involvement in several other organisations now they knew where to look.
It seems that Jess’ mother had been gathering evidence since her failed attempt to destroy Archie with a tip off about the gun running with the Salcido cartel. Unfortunately, it backfired resulting in the death of Kuffs, her own son. According to Gigi, it had been a long time coming after spending decades at Archie’s mercy. With everything that Archie did to Jess, alongside trying to pull Christian into his dark world, she’d reached her limit.
