With any luck, she’d be getting free college anyway with having such a low income as well as two deceased police officer parents. She could qualify for quite a few student grants, as well as federal grants.
She wouldn’t need the money raised for her then.
But now she did.
“I’ll talk to the board that’s handling all of that, too,” Dad said as he placed the papers down. “This isn’t how we treat our fallen officers’ kids. I’m gonna put a call into LPD to talk to their chief about what they can do from their end as well. We’re not gonna leave her behind.”
I nodded, feeling a huge weight lift off my chest at hearing his acceptance.
“I’m going to get her into the duplex next to Dax that Rowen used to rent,” I told him. “I already talked to Rowen. She’s down since she and Dax are already living together anyway. Dax was super down since he’d been trying to get her to move her shit anyway. Not sure what she was thinking, other than she liked all the extra room. But she has no reason not to move in now that she’s married. And she loves Avery. She has no problem giving it up to her.”
Dad sat back in the chair and rubbed his face.
“That kid just doesn’t have the best luck, does she?” he asked.
I shook my head.
“No,” I told him. “And I organized a moving party for next weekend. I’m going to go over this week and help her box her shit up. Half the SWAT team is going to be helping move her once we’re done.”
Dad grinned at that.
“Perfect,” he said. “Is there anything you need?”
I thought about that for a long few seconds before saying, “She went to the Cascades to rent an apartment.”
Dad stiffened.
“I think you may need to talk her into staying at the duplexes,” I continued.
Dad grinned at that.
“I’ll do that,” he said. “When she gets off of school.”
I nodded once.
“She has to be out of that house by the end of the month. I was able to convince Gordon to give her that time,” I continued. “But that’s still only a couple weeks away. It’s going to be tight, but I think that if she’s on board with the duplexes, everything will be better.”
He was nodding his head as there was a hesitant knock on my door.
I looked over at it, wondering who the fuck that could be so early in the morning, and looked back at my dad.
He shrugged as well and went to refill his coffee as I went to answer the door.
I would’ve expected a whole lot of things as I answered the door, but the woman on the other side of it was not it.
“Avery…” I said as I looked at her.
She looked exhausted.
She blew some hair out of her eyes with her mouth and looked down at the bundle of sheets and blankets that was in her arms.
“Can I come in?” she asked, looking around nervously.
I found myself stepping back and allowing her entry without a second thought.
Dax, who was on the front porch of his own duplex across the street, looked at me curiously.
I shrugged and closed the door, turning to find Avery standing just inside my entryway, looking as if she was going to go no further.
“I started going through my parents’ room yesterday,” she said, pausing when my dad entered from the kitchen. She didn’t stop her explanation, though. “I didn’t know who to bring these to.”
“These what?” I asked, rounding her side and moving until I could see her face.
She gestured to the bundle of blankets in her arms.
“These,” she said, walking closer to me.
When she held them out to me I instinctively took them, feeling rather quickly that they weren’t blankets.
“They have over a hundred guns between the two of them,” she said. “I just… I don’t know what to do with that many guns.”
I blinked at the bundle of guns in my arms.
“They were police officers,” she said. “I’m sure that’s why there were so many. But… my entire car is full of guns. And the back-hatch area is filled with so much ammo that the whole entire car groans each and every time I go over a bump.”
I looked over at my father with raised eyebrows.
“I kept one,” she said. “A shotgun. Since I have to be twenty-one to own the handguns. The rest I’m bringing to you.”
I blinked. “Why me?”
She was already out the door, though.
I put my burden down on the couch and walked outside, followed by my father.
And we looked at her car that looked like it was loaded down with enough weight that it would break at any second.
“Help me get this stuff out,” she ordered.
Dax, curious now, came strolling over from the other side of the street, looking into the car’s back window and whistling softly.