“Corrections. They registered the alarm and dispatched police to my address.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
ZANE
“I’mglad we could get this sorted quickly,” my father says, shaking the police officer’s hand. “If you need anything more, don’t hesitate to call.” He closes the door and stands for a moment, shoulders slumping in relief.
Avon starts to apologise, then freezes halfway through the word sorry, letting go of whatever she was about to say.
We pulled into the driveway just a few seconds before the officer, leaving no time to coordinate a cover story.
Where I would have relied on ‘no comment’ answers until my father arrived to take control, Avon calmly showed him her busted phone, saying she’d dropped it while cycling to school, doing all the damage.
She explained how she’d pressed buttons to try to get it working and must have triggered the emergency response by mistake. That the first she knew of it was when my car screeched to a stop in the quad, coming to her unneeded rescue.
For a few tense seconds after he questioned what she was doing at school on the weekend, her face went completely blank.
“A boy named Wilder boards there,” she finally blurted after a long pause, rallying. “He’s going out with my best friend, Clare. We usually spend Sundays together.”
The message on my phone, her statement, and the GPS tracking data from the car all supported the claim. My dad’s hasty arrival stopped him questioning my bruised knuckles or taking me into custody while they researched the answers for themselves.
“Does someone want to fill me in on what really happened?” Dad asks as he joins us, taking a seat on the opposite sofa. “Or is this something I’d rather not know?”
My voice is low with menace. “Avon’s teacher is a predator, and he got a fraction of what’s coming to him. We’re waiting for Ant to fill in the rest.”
Avon switches the SIM card from her busted phone into mine to call her mum, telling her she’s staying over longer with Clare than she thought. Her expression is embarrassed as the call ends, and I lean over to rub her shoulder. “It wasn’t your fault.”
“No, but some parts were my responsibility.”
She ejects the tiny card and I hold up my hand. “Keep the phone if you want. Ant’s bringing another.”
“Sure. Because you don’t have it rigged.”
Her voice is teasing but ouch.
I keep offering Avon things, aspirin for her headache, food for her rumbling stomach, a drink when she pauses and nervously licks her lips. She declines everything but my hand and holds it tightly. Sometimes she shakes as a memory taunts her, squeezing harder until my bones grind together.
On top of the damage from punching the teacher, it should be excruciating but each time it happens, my heart floods with warmth. Glad I can give her something that she wants. That she needs.
Ant calls half a dozen times with progress reports so we don’t go out of our minds worrying about what’s happening. I feel ill when he tells us he apprehended the teacher as he was leaving in his car.
Apparently, I suck at real-life bondage.
He finally turns up in person, late in the afternoon, with Avon’s bike in the back of his truck.
“My friend is escorting him out of town,” he says before any of us can ask. “He has a graphic idea of what happens if he tries to come back again, and once I explained a few details to his wife, she seemed happy for him to leave.”
Avon pulls out the phone we took, nodding in gratitude as he tells her the passcode while I enjoy thinking of the ways he might have extracted that information.
“There were paintings on here,” she explains, flipping through photographs in the gallery. “He said the girl who’d done them won a place at Matthewson but hadn’t been able to take it, even with the scholarship. I thought once I’m over the shock, I might get in touch with her to see if there was more to it than that. To let her know she’s not alone.”
“If you forward the images to me,” Dad says, “I’ll have a friend find their details. They keep past winners on file for years.”
“Thank you.”
He frowns, rubbing his twitching eyebrow. “It can’t hurt to ask them for other instances where his name is mentioned in submissions. I’m sure they’ll be able to search for previous recommendations.”
Avon suddenly looks out of her depth, and I put my arm around her, offering support.
