Second of two post

Hardly had they entered their lounge than Jessica was bouncing off the stairs, showering them with questions. "So? What took you so long? Did they find her? Do you know something? How is she?" Then she noticed her parents' sad faces and froze. She shook her head slowly, her mouth slightly opened. "No..." she murmured.

"I'm sorry." was all James could say. His throat was constricted and anyway he didn't have a clue so as what to say to make it easier.

It broke Harry's heart to see her daughter's despair welling up in her big eyes, to see the young girl's chest rising and falling rapidly with frantic breathing as horror struck her. She caught her daughter in a tight embrace, kissing her forehead and rubbing her back. Jessica felt overwhelmed and she was soon crying sorely on her mother's shoulder.

When Tommy joined them, he swallowed hard. He needn't ask for news, he understood. He met his father's eyes and both agreed silently to leave the girls alone for a while. On their way to the kitchen James poured himself a whiskey, hoping it would give him the courage for what was coming next.

...

"You're kidding right?" Tommy checked "Because this is a really bad joke."

They were all sitting in the lounge, and the teens were fixing their parents, unable or rather unwilling to believe what they had been told. Dempsey sighed. "This is serious Tom. Those guys are real; they're armed and extremely dangerous and me and your mum, we don't wanna take any risk with your safety."

"So Maggie... Maggie got killed because of me?" Jess articulated with difficulty.

"No, it wasn't because of you darling." Harry tried to soothe. She was sat next to her daughter, one arm around her shoulder. "Those people are mad, they would kill anyone to reach their goal."

"And their goal is dad, right?" Tommy had difficulty believing someone could still want to take his revenge on his father when he had left the force so long ago.

Dempsey scratched his head. "Seems so." He looked at the ceiling for a few seconds and watched his kids again. "That's why we need to be sure you're safe and we're going to take you somewhere where they won't find you."

"You're sure?" Jessica wondered.

"What about you?" Tommy asked at the same time.

"We haven't been there for years now" James decided to answer his daughter's question. "It's out of London and we figure it would be hard for anyone to see the link."

"What about you?" The boy renewed his question with a frown. He felt there was something fishy in the way his father had talked, never including them in the hideout part.

"We're staying in London." Harry announced.

Jessica shifted in her arms and looked at her disbelievingly. Thomas was astonished too. "You're kidding right?" he said for the second time.

Dempsey leaned towards them "Look we want to be sure that you're safe, and then we're going to come back here, find those bastards and make sure they won't harm anyone."

"You don't think you're taking too many chances actually looking for people who want to..." Tom stopped in mid-sentence, he couldn't say it aloud.

"No matter what we do Tommy, we'll be on the front line. Those guys... they're not giving us the choice. So I prefer to go hunting for them now and stop them than wait patiently for them to find us. At least we might have an advantage this way."

"But the police? They're looking for them, aren't they?" Jessica's voice was fearful; the shock to learn that Maggie's murder wasn't random, but planned and that the people behind it were trying to destroy her family, was almost too much to bear.

"Of course." Harry confirmed. "Our friend Chas's got several people working on the case and he's building up a team for your protection."

Thomas looked hopeful. "So you don't need to go. You can stay with us."

"No Tom." His father was adamant. "We're working on the case and that's the way it is." With that he got up and disappeared upstairs.

Harry smiled weakly. "Your father's right, we have better chances if we go looking for them. We used to be cops, you don't need to worry about us, we know what we're doing." She tapped her son's leg, kissed her daughter and stood up. "Come on, you should go pack some stuff, we're leaving in an hour."

...

Alone in their room, Dempsey walked to the cupboard and opened its door. With his hand he groped around the top shelf till his fingers stopped on a little notch he had made there, years ago. He squeezed his fingers in the little holes and pulled. A piece of wood gave way and he discarded it on the shelf. Then he grabbed an old shoe box concealed in the uncovered hole.

He went back to his bed with the box and put it on his knees. He opened it and looked inside. He swallowed hard. It seemed to belong to another life, a life he had forgotten long ago. He would never have believed that he would open this box again.

When he entered Thomas's room, the boy was piling DVDs and video games in his bag. He grinned. "You're moving?"

"Mum said she didn't know how long it would last." He shrugged.

"Don't worry, I'll make sure we come back soon." His father tried to reassure him. Thomas nodded vaguely, he still didn't seem convinced.

James walked to him, ruffled his hair and sat on the bed. Then he patted the mattress next to him; his son took the hint and sat. "Me and your mum… we know what we're doin'. We used to be great cops you know. Before you were born."

"Yeah but it was ages ago, now you're old and…"

"Old!" he raised his eyebrows as if he had been insulted. "I'll show you who's old! Tell you what, when we come back, I'll take you to the gym and I'll show an old man!"

Then James became serious again and gave the box to his son. "Here."

"What is it?" The boy asked taking off the lid as the same time. Thomas gasped when he saw the gun and looked up.

"Just in case" his father said casually, not wanting to sound like nor to think that the young boy would have to use it.

Thomas nodded gravely. He could feel the importance of the moment. James ruffled his hair with a smile. "Pack only what you really need. We leave camp in ten minutes." He got up and walked to the door.

"Where did you say we're going?"

James stopped and turned. "Your grandfather's old place."