Ava looked away, not wanting to answer him.
“I can’t help you if you don’t talk to me,” Alistaire told her.
“My mom’s dead, and my dad works for Wolfe construction.” Ava looked at him with pleading eyes. “If you take me down to the station and call him, he’ll kill me. He doesn’t like taking time off from work.”
Alistaire didn’t like how scared the kid sounded talking about her father. The feeling in his gut was telling him things weren’t good at home. But unless the kid came right out and said something, there wasn’t anything Alistaire could do about it. However, it wasn’t going to stop him from helping the girl.
“Is this your first offense? And don’t lie to me. I can tell if you are.” Ava nodded. “All right, here’s what’s going to happen. I’m going to let you go…” Ava’s eyes widened with excitement. “But, you’re going to apologize to Mrs. Samuels. And then you’re going to do community service with me supervising.”
“But…”
“No buts,” Alistaire said, cutting off any of her argument. “It’s either you do it my way, or I’m taking you down to the station.”
“Fine,” she grumbled.
Alistaire took the cuffs off but kept a hand on Ava’s shoulder as they walked back to where Mrs. Samuels was waiting for him by his cruiser.
“That’s him, deputy.” Mrs. Samuels pointed anxiously at Ava.
“Calm down, Ma’am.” Alistaire and Ava stood in front of Mrs. Samuels. He looked down at the kid beside him. “Don’t you have something to say to Mrs. Samuels?”
Ava sighed and pulled the purse from under her sweater, pushing towards the older woman. “I’m sorry I stole your purse.”
Mrs. Samuels huffed and grabbed her purse, searching through the bag. “You’re lucky everything is all there, or I’d press charges against you.”
“She appreciates that. Don’t you, Ava?”
“Yes,” Ava responded, none too appreciative in the least.
Mrs. Samuels huffed, looking at Ava with disgust. “Kids these days have no respect. Shouldn’t you be in school?”
“It’s Thanksgiving tomorrow, so we got let out early,” Ava answered.
“Well, then find something more respectable to do with yourself than going around stealing from people.”
Ava went to say more, but Alistaire butted in. “All right, you got your purse back, and she apologized. Let’s leave it at that.”
Mrs. Samuels smiled, gazing at him. “You’re right, Captain Vale. You enjoy your holiday.” She scowled at Ava before waking away.
Alistaire shook his head as the woman disappeared into the store. He might have helped her because he was doing his job, but he didn’t like her attitude. He looked down at Ava, wondering what he was going to do with her for the rest of the day.
“Where do you live?”
“Why, are you going to escort me home? That will only make things worse if my dad’s home and I show up at my front door with you.”
“Don’t be rude,” Alistaire chastised. “And yes, I planned on taking you home. I don’t trust you to stay out of trouble.”
“Can’t I just stay with you for the rest of the day?” She looked up at him with pleading brown eyes.
“No, I’m still at work.”
“Oh.”
It broke Alistaire’s heart that she looked so sad, and he wished there was something he could do to cheer her up.
“Tell you what.” He pulled out his cellphone. “Let me get your number. When I get off work, I’ll take you out for a burger. We still need to talk about your community service.”
“Really?” Ava perked up. “But I don’t have a cell phone. My dad says that I’m too young to have one.”
