Twenty-two

'Bye, Dad, see you tonight.' Grace pops the catch on the car door, already focused on her gaggle of friends waiting on the school steps in the already warm heat, and she's out the car, slamming the door shut before I can formulate an answer that doesn't make me feel like I'm lying to her, but all I manage is a shrug. Because depending on how today pans out, I might not—

'Dad?' Grace jerks the door open again, peers in at me, her brows knitted into a frown. 'You okay?'

'Fine.' I fake a yawn, force a smile. 'Just tired. Didn't sleep too well, is all. Now you go on, have a good day—and do what your teacher tells you, alright?'

She grins, rolls her eyes at me. Gives me a small wave as she darts across to join her friends.

I haven't ever been one for religion, but as I watch my daughter bubbling with excitement as she laughs with her friends, and picture my boy, slumped bleary-eyed at our kitchen table as he pokes at a dish of soggy cornflakes, I find myself saying a silent prayer. Please God make this work. Let me do this one thing right and make my kids proud, cancel out some of the unforgivable things I've done in my life and tip the scales back towards positive.

I refasten the last of my shirt buttons as Peterson explains for what feels like the hundredth time how this gizmo taped to my skin is gonna work. How it'll let him get a recording of Brannigan, the evidence to finally build a firm case against him. '—all you need to do is get him to talk.'

'Yeah, simple.' I snort. 'When it's not you doing it.'

'Come on, man, don't tell me you're having second thoughts?'

I shrug. 'Nah, I'll do it.'

Truth be told, I've been back and forth over this ever since Peterson suggested the scheme. Brannigan's no idiot, wouldn't have gotten away with as much shit as he has if he was.

Peterson though, he believes it's a sure-thing, that Brannigan won't be able to resist sticking the knife in and taunting me over what he did to Leigh. I'm not so sure, it seems too slick, like the cheesy plot of some corny TV drama where the hero cop always wins and the villain gets what he's due. Only trouble is, while I'm not the same level of evil as Brannigan, I ain't exactly no saint either. There's plenty of blood on my hands too.

I get to my feet, slip my arms into my jacket, hoping the extra layer will mean Brannigan won't spot the wires, that he'll say what I need him to, and that Peterson doesn't spot the fact I'm carrying my Plan B zipped into my jacket pocket.

'Right, great.' Peterson checks his watch again. 'Let's get this show on the road then.'

Peterson touches the brakes, slowing the car as the traffic signal ahead changes to red. A bus trundles across the junction, and my mind wanders back to Grace, glad she's out of town on that school trip today, that Tony's got baseball practice after class, so they'll both be occupied. Not that they ever worry even if I am late, they know my routines well enough that if I don't show for dinner they generally assume I'm at yet another meeting.

Except a line from that damn letter from the school pops into my head, how someone's supposed to be there when Grace gets back. Stupid really, it's not like she's a little kid anymore, Ma never had the first clue where I was at her age, but then maybe if someone had given a damn then, then maybe—there's a phone booth on the street corner, and before the traffic starts moving again, I'm out of the car, stumbling towards it.

'Shepard? What the hell?' Peterson yells.

'Nothing, just got to make a call. 'Fore we do this.' I fumble in my jeans pocket for change, not exactly sure this is the best idea, even as I tap in the number, wait for my call to be answered. Of the two of them, Angela wouldn't be my first choice, she's always more suspicious, less trusting than our brother, so there's more danger she'll ask me too many questions and see right through my phoney excuses. But Curly'll be at work, and I can't call him there, so—

'Bernice's hair salon, Angela speaking, how may I help?'

'Ange, its me.'

'Oh.' Her business-like friendliness vanishes, replaced by that familiar tone of mild annoyance with me for interrupting her day. 'Can't it wait, Tim? I'll call you tonight, only I'm kinda busy right now.'

'No, it won't take long.' I slip my hand into my jacket pocket, cradle the reassuring weight of the gun in my palm. 'Can you to do me a favour, after work?'

'Why, what's happened?'

'Nothing's happened.' I glance back at the car, Peterson is hunched down, fiddling with the radio, so I shift the gun, tucking into my belt, so it's hidden by my shirt and jacket. ' It's Grace. Can you be up there to meet her off the bus, when she gets back?'

'Sure, but why can't you do it?' my sister demands. 'You sure you're doing okay? Curly said—'

'Yeah, I'm fine.' This is a bad idea. I should've been more organised, arranged in advance for Grace to get a ride home with one of her pals, avoided Ange's third degree. 'Look, sorry it's a bit last minute, but that asshole Mathews phoned in sick. So Bennett asked me to stay on, work the late shift too, and y'know, the extra cash is always—'

'Yeah, yeah, okay. Lucky for you I don't have plans tonight.' Angela sighs as an alarm clock begins to buzz somewhere behind her. 'Look, I gotta go, Mrs Mayberry's perm needs sorting.'

The line goes dead.

'What can I get you?' The bartender flashes me a disinterested smile, flicks her henna-black hair over a tattooed shoulder.

'Um—' I glance left and right along the bar, at the mix of daytime drinkers and the first beginnings of the early evening crowd, as the heady aroma of stale booze and cigarettes invades my senses. Definitely not the kinda place to be standing around nursing a pepsi, not when I'm trying to blend in, rather than stand out.

'So?' The girl huffs, making no effort to hide her irritation at me taking too long. 'You gonna order something, or not?'

'Beer, please. A bud.' At least with a bottled beer it might be less obvious that I'm not actually drinking it.

The bottle cap pops with a hiss and she sets it in front of me, already moving away, her attention turned to the rowdy group of twenty-somethings further along the bar who are downing shots already, and loudly demanding refills from her.

I rest my elbows on the bar and make like I'm watching the highlights of football silently playing out on the beat-up portable TV in the corner, and wait.

Me and Peterson have spent countless hours going back and forth on the best place to do this, how I can get Brannigan talking rather than him putting a bullet in me the first second he sees me. We agreed me confronting him on his doorstep, or stopping him in the street were too risky, too many elements out of my control. And the roadhouse is a non-starter too— too many other assholes up there who'd only be too willing to make me disappear if he gave them the nod. But then Peterson reeled off all the other haunts he's tracked Mitch Brannigan to these past few months, and this dive seemed as good a place as any.

But now, after fifty five minutes and counting, I'm still here and despite the tension churning in my stomach every time the door swings open, there's still no sign of Brannigan. So much for Peterson's allegedly great info that he comes here, regular as clockwork, every damn Tuesday.

The bar tender scowls at me. 'D'you want another?'

Maybe I should call it quits for today. Can't sit here much longer with my fingers curled around the brown glass trying to hide the fact I haven't had so much if a sip of this drink, no matter how tempting that feels right now.

'Well?' she asks, hand on hip. 'You can't stay here all night if you ain't buying nothing.'

And then I see Brannigan, reflected in the mirror behind the bar, swaggering in like he owns the place, his arm around some broad. 'Yeah, alright.' I tilt the bottle a little towards her. 'Gimme another of these.'

I keep my head down, watching their mirror images as they make for an empty table, the cracked red vinyl seats sighing as they slide into a booth behind me. Brannigan is shorter than I remember. Older too. Craggy lines etched across his face. But even though he's shadow of the monster who haunts my nightmares, he still gives off an aura of dangerous unpredictability. His pupils are dark pinpricks, he's already loaded, his knee bouncing nineteen to the dozen as he gestures at the bar tender to serve them.

Still gripping the first of my beers tight, I stare at the white of my knuckles as Peterson's instructions run through my mind, how he needs me to hear Mitch actually admit to pulling the trigger. How I can't do anything stupid and blow this one chance. But surely Mitch Brannigan ain't that much of an idiot, even wasted, that he'd be stupid enough to think me showing up after all these years and trying to talk to him is anything other than a set up?

But hurting him? It'd be so easy to take him by surprise, do some serious damage. And so much more satisfying. Maybe even give me some kind of closure. As the bartender hovers at their table, unloading glasses from his the shiny tray, I twist the bottle in my hands and imagine me smashing the end of it off, jabbing the jagged edge into his smug face over and over and over.

I carry on watching their reflections moving in the mirror. Their heads close together, the girl laughing too loud at whatever he's saying. Is it fair that she gets dragged in to this? But then surely she's no innocent, hanging around with him. And Brannigan didn't give a shit who was watching, the effect it would have on anyone, when he gunned Leigh down, did he? How Tony didn't sleep through the night without waking up screaming for her, for months and months after; how even now when he's worried about something, he has spells of being plagued by those same nightmares, though he denies it, tries to brush it of as nothing with phoney teenage bravado. How on the surface Grace might not actually remember much about that day, but it still burrowed its way into her subconscious, resurfacing in an unnatural hatred of loud unexpected noise, the bang of holiday fireworks never failing to send her spiralling into a panic.

Sliding away my untouched drink, I get to my feet, the barrel of the gun smooth against my skin as I reach in my pocket for a couple of bucks, drop them on the bar to cover my tab. Yeah, it'd be so easy to finish this once and for all, all I have to do is snake my hand around and pull out the gun. Squeeze the trigger and put a bullet in his brain before he even sees it coming. No hanging around waving it at him and making sure he realises who I am, why I'm doing it. No making the mistake this time of giving him a chance to react, duck away, wrestle the gun outta my hands. No time for me to have second thoughts.

I glance round at them, hastily turning away as Mitch looks up. But he stares straight through me, like he doesn't even see me. Or if he does, he's too wasted to recognise me—or maybe just too arrogant to think I pose any kind of danger. I take one last long look around the bar, fixing an image of where everyone is in my mind, the number of steps back to the door, when some graphic declaring breaking news scrolling across the bottom of grainy television screen drags my attention away. Something about a school bus—

'Hey, turn that up a sec!' I snap at the bar tender, as the image snaps back to the news studio.

She glares at me, but does it anyway, just in time for me to catch the end of the story, ...run off the road...freak accident...emergencies services are on the scene...number of casualties not yet known...more details to follow...

Shit. Acid rises in my throat as nausea overwhelms me. I can't breathe. Please God let Grace be okay, I can't lose anyone else. My heart pounds so hard against my chest it feels like it's gonna explode outta my ribcage as realisation hits me like a sucker punch, knocking the air clean out of my lungs. None of this shit I'm doing right now matters. Because nothing can bring Leigh back to me, not Peterson's one-man crusade for justice, not me beating the living shit out of Brannigan. And what good is me getting myself locked up again, or worse, gonna do for my family? No. It's time I stop obsessing over the past and concentrate on the here and now, try to be the Dad my kids deserve, while I still have the chance.

Not looking back, I lurch out the door, barely making it to gutter before doubling over and hurling my guts up. I drag the back of my hand across my mouth and run.

'The hell, Shepard?' Peterson demands as I reach his car, gasping for breath. 'He make you?'

I shake my head, jab a hand towards the radio fixed to the dashboard of his car. 'Get on that damn thing, tell me where they're taking the kids, if they're all okay.'

'Slow down, what the hell are you talking about? You aren't making any sense.'

'An accident, school bus. I saw it on the TV.' I reach under my shirt, the tape tearing at my skin as I rip away the wire, dump his recording equipment down in the footwell. 'My kid, she's—Just get on the damn radio, Peterson, and find out what's happening.'

I'm out the car before its even come to a complete stop, bolting in to the emergency room, grinding abruptly to a halt as a mass of people block my path. A corridor packed with kids I half-recognise from Grace's class leaning against walks or sitting hunched on the floor, a mix of grazed faces and bruised arms, some crying, others talking too loud, their expressions a mix of shock, confusion and boredom as they wait for a quick check up and the okay to go home. So where's my girl? Why isn't she sat out here with them too?

I try to stop a nurse as she appears out of a side room. 'Grace Shepard? Do you know where she is?'

But the nurse flashes me a weak, watery smile and points me towards the harassed receptionist before vanishing away behind a curtain into one of the patient bays.

There's other parents three-deep waiting at the desk as I push my way to the back of the crowd. I'm sweating, feel like I'm about to puke again, try not to think about the last time I was here, how that night turned out—

And then a curtain around another of the bays is swept back as another nurse emerges and I see them. The only four people in this world that matter to me. Grace is on the bed, propped up against a bunch of pillows with Ange sat beside her, her arm around Grace's shoulders. Tony is slumped awkwardly in the chair next to them while my brother stands at the foot of the bed, his back to me as he talks.

'Hell, Grace, a broken arm ain't nothing to worry about. Broke mine when I was around your age and you'd never know, would you?'

'Yeah?' Tony asks, eyes wide as he leans forwards to listen more closely to his uncle. 'How'd you do it? In a fight or something?'

'Nah. Was his own dumb fault.' I clap a hand down on Curly's shoulder as relief washes over me. My girl is hurt, but she'll be okay. 'He was climbing a telegraph pole as a dare, only this idiot couldn't even do that right.'

'Seriously?' Tony asks.

'Yeah.' Curly laughs. 'Your dad was so damn mad at me, like you wouldn't believe.'

'Where were you, Tim?' Angela hisses. 'You said you were working. I rang the store, but—'

'Not now, Ange. It doesn't matter right now, does it?' Curly interrupts, ever the peacemaker. 'We can talk later. Main thing is Tim's here now, right?'

Edging past Curly as he continues to entertain Tony with an exaggerated version of the incident that led to his own broken arm, I perch on the edge of the bed opposite Ange. I want to hug my girl, but I'm scared of hurting her, settle for kissing the top of her head, instead.

'You doing okay, Sweetheart?'

Grace nods, eyes slightly glassy from whatever pain meds they've given her. 'Now you're here, can we go home, Dad? All of us, together?'

'Sure thing, sweetie.' Can't think of anywhere else I'd rather be.

A/N: So that's it, I've finally reached the end of this story!

Just want to say a HUGE thanks to everyone who's stuck with it and read to the end, and for all of your reviews, follows and favourites, I really appreciate them all :)

I really hope you like how it turned out, as Tim's better late than never realisation as to what's actually important in his life seemed like a good place to end this.

Thanks so much for reading :)