Jack Thane turned away from the police officer he was speaking to. His gaze once more fell on the woman who sat across the room, a blanket over her shoulders, her own gaze far away and unseeing. Her long, thick hair fell in shining waves of blonde, gold and strawberry red. Her lovely face, ever so slightly freckled across the nose, was more pale than usual. Her brown eyes seemed darker.
Annabelle Drake was an exquisite portrait of shock, a painted mural testimony to beauty in pain. And she hadn’t said a word to him since he’d arrived an hour ago, on the wings of speed, responding to a phone call she’d managed to make before she’d slipped into that dangerous grasp of stunned nothingness.
“You can take her home, Mr. Thane. I fully advise that she be taken to the hospital, as she’s obviously in shock and not coming out of it, however you’re the only one she’s responded to, so…”
“I understand.” Jack cut him off, sparing the man any further awkwardness.
Jack had been the one to phone the police. He’d arrived at Design Max to find Annabelle seated and unresponsive in one of Max’s office chairs, Cassie standing over her, ashen and shaken, but in control, and Max Anderson dead on the floor beside his desk, an open and spilled bottle of Klonapin in his right hand.
It was not the first time that Cassie Reid had dealt with death. As a medical assistant, she’d experienced an unfortunate number of heart attacks and the like, so Jack wasn’t surprised to see that she had been more or less in control of her faculties. Because she seemed to be willing to talk and was handling the situation so much better than Annabelle, the police had already carted her off to the station for questioning.
That had been twenty minutes ago. Jack’s gaze slid from Annabelle to the office once more. Nothing in the room seemed out of place or disturbed. At least, not at first glance, and not to the layman. The police were writing it off as a suicide.
“We’ll still need to question her, once she comes around. But at the moment, it’s important that we secure the area.”
Jack turned back to the uniformed officer and nodded. He’d given the man Annabelle’s contact information and he was sure they would be able to find anything further out, should they need it. He strode slowly across the room, making sure not to touch anything. Then he knelt before Annabelle, lowering his face to hers.
“Bella.”
Annabelle’s gaze slid from the floor to Jack’s ultra-blue eyes. She stared as if she didn’t recognize him, but at least she looked at him. He was the only one she would make eye contact with. Jack took a slow, deep breath, let it out through his nose, and then stood. “Come on, luv.” He gently lifted her by the arms and she followed without resistance. The medication she’d been given was most likely having an effect upon her already.
He led her out of the office, nodding at the police officers who removed the yellow tape long enough for them to slip through. Then he walked her out to his car. On the way, several people who worked in the same building attempted to step forward from where they’d been huddled outside the partitioned section and intercept him, obviously curious about what had transpired.
Jack shot them a warning look. That was all it took to stop them in their tracks.
Once he’d lowered Annabelle into his car and buckled her into the seat, he moved around to the driver’s side, slid in, and shut the door behind him. For a moment, he just sat there, staring at the woman he loved more than anything on Earth.
And then she shocked him by speaking.
“He was murdered, Jack.”
She hadn’t moved in her seat. She still gazed steadily at the dash board. But there was something in her tone that told him she was well and truly conscious and in the moment.
“I know,” he said softly.
“Why?” Now she did turn away from the dashboard, and the look of confusion she turned upon him flipped his world upside down. “Why kill Max? He was just…” Her words trailed off. She swallowed. Then she said, in little more than a whisper, “What about Dylan?”
“We’ll figure it out, Bella.” Jack reached out slowly and gently pushed a lock of hair out of her eyes. “Rest and we’ll figure it out.”
Then he pressed a switch in a control panel beside his own seat and hers began to recline. She turned away, looking forward once more. And then she closed her eyes.
When Jack had received Annabelle’s call an hour before, he’d been in the middle of a meeting with a man who had hired him at one point in the past and was hoping to hire him again. The man was a “handler”, a middle man, a contact for a contact for a contact, each with aliases for names that changed every week, if not more often.
Jack knew, when he felt the phone buzz in his jacket pocket, that it was Annabelle calling. She was the only one with the number to that particular phone. And, without even answering it, he knew it was going to be bad. She had never called him before. Not once. Jack insisted she have his number, just in case, but the fact of the matter was, she abhorred cell phones. If she was calling now, in the middle of a Tuesday, in sunny weather, there could only be a few reasons why.
Death and dismemberment were two of them.
He’d guessed right with the first one. When he felt the phone, he excused himself quickly, stepped into the restaurant hallway, and answered it. On the other end, Annabelle’s voice came in raspy, uneven breaths. She was having trouble taking in air. And her words chilled him to the bone. “He’s dead, Jack. Someone killed him. He’s dead.”
He hung up with her and dialed 911 without even thinking. Without considering who he, himself, was. What he was, and what kinds of consequences could arise from sending the police speeding into his territory.
The medical response team that arrived at Design Max with the first batch of police had given Annabelle some kind of injection right off the bat. Jack assumed it had been only a few moments before he, himself, had arrived upon the scene. They’d told him that whatever they’d given to her would make her sleep. Then they escorted Cassie to a blue and white and proceeded to get as much information as they could from her and any of the building’s employees who’d returned early enough from lunch.
Now Jack watched Annabelle sleep. Her long lashes rested, like half moons, upon the apples of her cheeks. Her full, naturally pink lips were slightly open and her soft breath had slowed. He could tell the exact moment that she entered that deeper stage of rest. He’d come to learn about such things long ago.
In sleep, her face took on such an innocent, defenseless cast that Jack found himself wanting a good, stiff drink. And he didn’t drink.
He turned away from her and gazed out the front window, watching the crime scene investigators move about the area that had been sectioned off with bright yellow tape. To his left, a cop waved at him impatiently and then motioned to the street beyond the lot, anxious for him to be gone and out of the way. At the same time, other employees of the building were being sent away or escorted to marked police vehicles, where they would most likely be driven to the station house for questioning.
It was obvious to Jack that even the cops weren’t entirely convinced it was suicide. He wondered what they’d found at the scene that made them suddenly suspect foul play. Was it what he, himself, had noticed? And what about Annabelle? What had made her so positive, at first sight, that Max had been murdered?
He glanced once more at her sleeping form. She was a clever girl. Very clever.
He was thankful, at once, for Annabelle’s uncooperative response to the questioning the authorities had already attempted to put her through. It allowed her to escape the responsibility temporarily, and placed her care in his hands. For now.
It was enough. Jack put the black, shiny car in reverse, backed it out of the parking space, and then drove it from the lot.