Annabelle’s eyes widened. She looked back at Dylan again. Dylan was still staring at Jack through the rearview mirror. His expression had gone from distrustful to outright angry. A muscle in the kid’s jaw ticked and his green eyes blazed.
“Dylan,” Annabelle said softly, swallowing before she continued. “Dylan, do you have your mother’s laptop? Is it true?”
Dylan finally broke eye contact with Jack and turned to Annabelle. Instantly, his features softened. He took a deep breath and then closed his eyes and nodded, dropping his head a little to run a hand through his hair. His tone was one of resignation as he answered, “yes.”
Annabelle blinked. How was that possible?
“But how? I only left him for about forty-five minutes – fifty, tops.”
Dylan returned to gazing out the window, and Annabelle could see moisture had gathered in his eyes. “I left class early today to take dad out to lunch. Today was their anniversary.” He paused, licking his lips. “His and mom’s. I figured he could use the company. Things have been stressful.”
He shook his head, ran the palm of his hand over his face, and then continued. “I got there right after you’d left. That’s what he told me, anyway. He was totally out of it.” He shook his head again, clearly stuck in his memory, reliving the scene in his mind’s eye. “He was going on about keeping me safe.” Dylan turned his green eyes on Annabelle. “And you too.”
He licked his lips again, cleared some crud out of his throat and went on. “He handed me mom’s laptop and told me to get out of there. He told me to hide it. I refused to leave at first, but there was something in his voice. In his tone. He just kept telling me to get out. He was adamant. He wouldn’t tell me what was wrong.” Dylan fell silent, taking a moment to compose himself before he went on. “After a few minutes, I agreed to leave just to calm him down. I thought maybe he was having some sort of breakdown.” He turned his gaze back toward the window and the darkness beyond it. “I figured I would just let him breathe.”
Annabelle closed her eyes. Her head began to ache. She searched for the right question, but Jack beat her to it.
“Where is the laptop?”
Dylan took a slow, deep breath and let it out quickly. It was obvious to Annabelle that he wanted nothing more than to curl in on himself and sob with abandon. She knew the feeling that was assaulting him at that moment. The relentless ache, the empty confusion. She’d felt it herself once.
Instinctively, she reached through the opening between the two front seats and placed her palm against his cheek. Dylan blinked and turned to look at her. But he didn’t pull away.
“Where did you put the laptop?” Annabelle repeated softly, knowing it was too important to let go.
“I did what dad told me to do,” Dylan answered. “I hid it.” At that, he turned his gaze upon the man in the rearview mirror once more and Annabelle sighed. He didn’t trust Jack enough to reveal the machine’s location in front of him. Which was ironic, seeing as how, if Jack were as untrustworthy as Dylan considered him to be, Jack would simply find an extremely uncomfortable but highly effective way of retrieving that information from the young man. And, for that matter, the truth was, Jack had a dark side, to say the least, and despite that dark side, Jack Thane would never lay a hand on Dylan Anderson. She knew him well enough to be positive of that, at least.
From the driver’s seat, Jack said nothing. He cut his gaze meaningfully to the rearview mirror and then returned it to the road ahead. Annabelle could sense the wheels spinning behind his blue eyes. She knew the conversation wasn’t over, but that it was effectively on hold for the time being.
And then she wondered where Jack was taking them. It occurred to her, suddenly, that he would not take her to her apartment, as they’d originally planned. Not now that Dylan had revealed Max was worried for her safety.
Annabelle moaned softly and put her face in her hands. “You aren’t taking me home, are you?”
Jack didn’t answer. He simply shook his head once. Annabelle knew him well, indeed. If he was anything, it was protective. If he thought, even for a moment, that she might be in danger, she may as well kiss her normal lifestyle goodbye until the issue was resolved.
She also wasn’t stupid. Her boss had been murdered. Most probably for a laptop, or information on it, that the bad guys might think she now had, herself. Which meant that she could very well be the next target.
And when she put it like that, going back to her apartment didn’t seem like such a good idea after all. So, instead of commenting on Jack’s decision, she closed her eyes again and laid back on the head rest of Jack’s seat for the second time that very long day.
Behind her, Dylan Anderson continued to stare out the window at nothing.
Chapter Six
Annabelle adjusted the headphones on her ears and slugged the tread mill’s green “up” arrow a few times. The tread kicked into a higher gear and she picked up the pace. Already, she could feel the pain setting in. She turned up the music on the iPod. AC/DC screamed in her ear drums. She closed her eyes, just for a moment, letting the guitar riffs sink into her skull, and the words, into her soul.
When she re-opened them it was to find Jack in the doorway, leaning against the door jam, his arms crossed over his chest. His expression was inscrutable, but his eyes burned with blue fire.
She swallowed, punched the “up” arrow again, and ran faster. Harder. Jack watched her for a moment more and then straightened. He took the hint. With one last long, glance, he turned and walked down the hall, leaving her alone.
She was grateful. She didn’t want company right now. She wanted her music and her pain. She’d been running for just over twenty minutes and the twinge of ache in her hips was transforming into a constant throb. An ebbing and receding of inflamed agony that drove her on.
A long time ago, she would have stayed off of the tread mill and away from any kind of cardiovascular exercise, in general, because of the snapping hip syndrome and early on-set arthritis that had invaded her hip and knee joints. She’d been very active in her youth – years of dance, gymnastics, 5K races – and the activity had taken its toll on her body. But, over time, she’d learned to live with the pain. After everything she and her doctors had tried – inactivity, physical therapy, MSM, glucosamine and chondroitin tablets, a switch in diets, and anti-inflammatories – failed to solve the problem, she’d decided that it was simply her “cross to bear”, so to speak. And her doctor had finally prescribed Vicodin.
She’d grown fond of the drug since then. Acetaminophen was an effective pain killer, but it was short-lived and notoriously hard on the liver. Anti-inflammatories caused peptic ulcers. Homeopathic remedies sounded nice and green, which she was normally all for, but the truth was, life was too short and too demanding for her to sacrifice the time and patience needed to make them work. And even when they did begin to work, they had nothing on opiates.
Nothing on Vicodin.
Annabelle had a saying. She’d made it up herself once, just as the medicine was kicking in and she was gently being lifted down from a particularly high mountain of agony after running a 5K race in St.Paul and winning second place.
There is no greater pleasure than the cessation of pain.
Her own apartment in Burnsville, which Annabelle knew she wouldn’t see for several days, if not longer, was a two-bedroom apartment with an underground communal garage. One of her bedrooms held her bed, her dresser, a trunk filled with blankets and a Smith and Wesson .357 magnum , and a closet full of clothes and shoes. The other bedroom was dedicated to what she now simply termed, “her pain.”