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  Annabelle looked from him to the car and moved forward to step between them. She turned to Dylan.

  “It’s Jack,” she told him softly. “He’s here to help.”

  Dylan watched the car for a long, quiet while, several different strong emotions chasing each other across his features. At last, he looked down at Annabelle. “I don’t trust him, Miss Drake. And I need to talk to you alone. It’s important.”

  Annabelle looked up at him, her brow furrowed. She watched as Dylan glanced from the car back to the building behind them. He seemed nervous, among other things.

  She couldn’t blame him for not trusting Jack. He had a lot of his father in him and, of course, he’d also always known how his father felt about her. Hence, he saw Jack as the same kind of threat that his father did. However, Dylan was very intuitive. His distrust of Jack Thane ran deeper. With him, it was more than jealousy. There was a wary unease. It was almost as if he knew…

  “Dylan, let him give us a ride to my apartment. Then we’ll talk.”

  Dylan looked back down at her. Jack got out of the car, his expression unreadable. Dylan looked up at him and his grip on her elbow tightened.

  “Mr. Thane,” he said, respectfully, keeping his tone low.

  “Dylan. I’m so sorry about your father.” Jack’s voice was soft, his British accent lending his words a sincerity that Annabelle was not sure he felt. It was unfair.

  Dylan nodded. Once.

  “Let me give you both a ride home.” Then Jack leveled his gaze on Annabelle. She felt herself warm beneath its intense scrutiny. “Besides,” he continued slowly, “we all need to talk.”

  Annabelle closed her eyes and nodded. She gently pulled her arm away from Dylan and moved to the car. Jack opened the passenger side door. She knew that Dylan would follow. He’d told her he needed to speak with her, and she could tell he meant it.

  She got in the front and, after a moment’s more hesitation, Dylan helped himself to the back seat. Annabelle peered at him through the rear-view mirror. He was staring out the window. She looked over at Jack, who slid into the seat beside her and put the car in drive, pulling them silently out of the lot.

  After a few minutes in uncomfortable quiet, Jack peered into the rearview mirror, and Annabelle had a feeling that he was pinning Dylan to his seat with that gaze. She looked over her shoulder. Dylan was staring back at him.

  At last, Jack spoke, his tone level, his words even. “He gave you the laptop, didn’t he?”

  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, h
e 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.”

  It was a work-out room that contained a tread mill, an upright stationary bicycle and a rack of weights. Against one wall stood a rolled-up yoga mat. Above the mat hung a Tai-Chi sword and two fans. She took a class two nights a week at the University to learn to use the sword and fans. She’d gotten pretty good. The routines took up a lot of space, so for practice, she used the communal garage on her days off or late at night, when she was certain no cars would be coming and going.

  And when her joints began to inflame and the pain threatened to end her work-out, she would turn up the music on her MP3 player and will her mind away from her body. It was one of the reasons she’d eventually converted one of her rooms to an at-home gym. She so badly needed to be alone in order to concentrate enough to force her thoughts away from her body, she’d decided that the only way to realistically go about it was to work out at home from now on.

  And, of course, after each work out, she would limp to her bathroom, take a hot shower, drink half a gallon of water, and take a Vicodin. It was the only way she could continue to get the exercise her body and mind craved. She figured it was either hip pain or heart pain and one was definitely worse than the other, in her book. She chose to ignore the consequences to her liver, altogether. Some times it was just better not to know.

  Now, as she used Jack’s tread mill and a borrowed iPod, she changed her routine for the first time in years. Instead of willing herself away from her pain, she concentrated on it. She allowed it to consume her. A part of her wanted her body to hurt as much as her mind. So, she ran as fast as she could, as hard as she could, for as long as she could and let classic rock blare into her ear drums.

  She ran at level seven out of ten for an hour and twenty minutes before the pain in her legs overshadowed the ache in her heart. She slowed the tread mill and switched play lists on the iPod. Bob Dylan told her about a woman who would give her shelter from a storm. She listened for a while, walking for another half-mile and then she shut everything down.

  When she wiped her face with one of the white towels folded against the wall, she realized it wasn’t only sweat she was wiping away form her cheeks. She’d been crying and hadn’t even realized it. How many tears had she shed?

  Once she was off of the treadmill, the pain really took hold. By the time she’d made it half way down the hall, her legs were seizing up on her and she was barely able to stumble to the second spare bedroom of Jack’s apartment before they gave out on her completely. She hit the bed hard and closed her eyes.

  “Fuck, damn, shit.” She ran her hands over her face and rolled over, opening her eyes again. Her riding jacket and backpack were against the wall by the door. She kept the back pack at Max’s office and rarely used it. But it held a bottle of Vicodin, among other things, and she was desperately glad that Jack had thought to grab it before he’d driven her away that afternoon.

  She took a slow, shaky breath and steeled herself against the pain as she stood once more and limped to the wall. She unzipped the bag and pulled out the prescription bottle. It was still two-thirds full, as she rarely used pills from this container. It was her emergency stash.

  This qualified as an emergency.

  She popped the top off and shook a ten milligram pill into her mouth. Normally, she would bite them in half. But not today.

  Once the pill was on her tongue, she scanned the room for her bottle of water. She found it on the floor by the bed, opened it, and drank down the remainder of the bottle. And then she laid back down on the bed and waited.

  The throb in her legs had spread to her lower back and ebbed ever so slowly upward, a growing flow of agony like a tide of the damned, flooding her system. She was lost in it. It was so encompassing that she didn’t notice when she slid beneath it and slipped into the welcome, protective darkness of sleep.

  In her mind, she was walking down a long hallway. Her stomach rumbled. She was hungry. Why? It was lunch time. She looked over her shoulder. Cassie waited at the other end, behind her, a million miles away, in the light at the end of a strange tunnel-like blackness. Cassie smiled.

  “Go on,” she said, and her voice echoed against the walls. “Tell him we’re leaving. I’ll bet he’ll want some pie. He likes those white berries in it.”

  Annabelle nodded, smiling. “I’ll ask,” she said. “But they charge too much for it. Costs an arm and a leg. She turned away from Cassie. Max’s door stood before her, the golden knob huge and gleaming in some unseen light source. She placed her hand on the knob, and it didn’t fit all the way around. She brought up her other hand, grasping the handle from both sides and turning it clockwise.

  With great effort, she turned it enough that it finally clicked. She pulled the door open, and looked into the room. It was engulfed in flames. Her eyes widened as the flames rushed toward the door, threatening to take her with them. She tried to move back, but her fingers were stuck to the door knob. It grew hot beneath her touch. Her fingertips began to burn. She blinked, yanking with all of her might, but to no avail. They grew hotter and hotter and, finally, she screamed.

  In a fit of painful terror, she yanked herself to the right, attempting to turn around and flee, even if it meant that her fingers would remain melted, glued to the door that she couldn’t seem to let go. But her feet were also glued to the spot.

  She could not move, and the heat was rising through the floor into the soles of her shoes. The flames from the room drew closer, one of them reaching out to lick her cheek in a fiery kiss. Her toes grew warm, and then hot, the pain matching in intensity to the pain in her fingers.

  She screamed and screamed, hoarse with the effort to release the agony within her through the roars she issued forth. She was no longer able to do anything but stand there and suffer. Behind her, somehow coming in louder than her own bellows, came Cassie’s casual words. “Sweetie, where’s the pie? White berry pie. Crap, Max ate it all.”
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  Annabelle awoke from the nightmare with a scream that hit the walls and was muffled by their sound-proof qualities. But she’d been heard, nonetheless.

  Within seconds, the door to the second guest room crashed open and Jack came barging into the room, closely followed by Dylan, who’d stripped down to just his jeans. His hair was a mess and his eyes were red. He must have come directly from the bed of his own guest suite.

  Jack, on the other hand, was dressed from head to toe in solid black, as usual, and didn’t appear to be the least bit tired.

  He was at Annabelle’s side, fast as lightning. She lay there in the bed, looking up at him and breathing heavily, her chest hitching painfully. “Oh God, oh God, Jack –”

  Jack said nothing, but pulled her into his arms for the second time that day. Annabelle buried herself in his chest and shut her eyes tight against the tears. Remnants of the dream lingered about her, touching her fingers and toes with a warning tingle. They felt warm, despite the fact that she shook terribly, as if chilled to the bone.

  Eventually, Jack lessened his hold and pulled back slightly so that he could look down at her. Dylan remained where he was, watching from the foot of the bed, his expression a mixture of worry and emotional exhaustion.

  Slowly and steadily, all uncomfortable sensation left Annabelle’s body. At the same time, a sense of well-being and strength stole over her, erasing the unease of her dream as if by magic.

  Jack’s eyes flashed with keen intelligence, taking in the change in her expression with an expert’s recognition. “Bella, you need to eat something.” His tone was soft, his voice steady.

  Annabelle looked from him to Dylan and then back again. The last of the tingling in her extremities faded into comfortable nothingness and, as she sat there, she began to feel very light. The bed seemed to shift beneath her. Whether she had stopped shaking or not, she couldn’t tell. It didn’t matter. At that very moment, nothing mattered. Gloriously, mercifully, forgivingly – nothing.