It would be much, much better for everyone if she would just calm down and listen to him.
“We’re going to die,” she said suddenly, breaking the silence between them.
“No we’re not,” he told her firmly. He took her chin in his hand and forced her to look into his eyes. It wasn’t as easy as he would have preferred. “We’re not going to die, Bella. Not on this plane, anyhow. Sam is landing right now.”
“You’d better get in your seat, da’,” Clara told him as they could all hear the landing gear being dropped.
Annabelle pulled her face out of his grip and began to chew on her lip. She squeezed the ends of the arm rests, digging her nails into the leather. “Sit down, Jack,” she told him, gritting her teeth as she spoke.
Jack blinked. Had she just given him an order, despite her current state?
She looked up at him, her almond eyes shooting daggers. “Sit the hell down, Jack!” she yelled at him and he found himself automatically moving to the nearest seat.
Jack sat down just as the wheels touched the runway and Sam put on the breaks. If he hadn’t been sitting, the force of the stop might have thrown him down the aisle.
The plane slowed and Sam pulled it around to park it parallel with another waiting limousine.
Annabelle stared out the window at the waiting car. The sun was coming up on the horizon. To her, it seemed like the loneliest thing in the world – a nearly empty tarmac in the early morning light. It was like John Denver’s “Leaving on a Jet Plane”, put into a picture. And she was so, so tired…
Still, she wasn’t so tired that she wasn’t the first one off of the plane when they were able to disembark. She stepped down from the last stair and then turned and looked up at the plane she’d just exited. From where she stood, at that moment, she could admire its streamlined splendor and giant engines and even the stout-looking wings.
Planes were so much more beautiful when she didn’t have to be on them.
“Okay, let’s get the hell off of this air strip,” she told Jack in a low whisper. He smiled and led them to the limousine, holding the doors open for them as they climbed in.
Sam came down the plane’s stairs and strode to Jack, who closed the door he’d been holding open and turned to face him.
“You coming?” he asked.
“No, you know me,” Sam smiled. “I never ride in cages. And, besides,” he added, “I need to run some checks on Betsy. Where ya headed?”
“Forest Hills.”
It was roughly a forty to fifty mile drive from Monticello, where they’d landed.
Sam nodded. “I’ll catch up with you later. In the meantime, get some grub goin’, will you?”
Jack chuckled. “Fine. If you’re late, you’re eating it cold.”
Chapter Fourteen
During the ride South through New York, the inhabitants of the limousine more or less kept to themselves and gazed out the windows. It was May in New York state and the snow was melted, trees were beginning to green again and a few hearty, stubborn flowers were beginning to bloom. At some point, Jack turned on the radio, which carried through the car’s interior over a high-tech stereo system.
Apparently, it was going to reach sixty-five degrees later that day and then shoot down into the upper forties over night.
“Have you ever been to New York before, Dylan?” Cassie suddenly asked, breaking the silence. Dylan turned to face her, yanked from what Annabelle figured were probably none-too-comfortable thoughts.
“One Christmas, when I was five. We came to see the tree at Rockefeller Center.” He paused, swallowed, and then turned to gaze out the window again. “It was my mom’s last Christmas.”
Cassie’s eyes widened. She turned to Annabelle, a helpless look on her face. Annabelle gave her a sympathetic shrug and a slight smile. It wasn’t Cassie’s fault. She was only trying to be nice. Annabelle guessed that any topic at all, at this point, would most likely remind Dylan of his parents in some way.
“I think someone’s following us,” Clara suddenly stated.
Annabelle turned to her. The girl gestured out the back window and Annabelle followed her gaze. “See the red Altima?”
Annabelle nodded.
“Three blocks back, it traded with a silver Azera. A few blocks before that, I noticed a blue Toyota SUV. Might have been one of the new highlanders. They all had black tinted windows.”
Annabelle watched the red Altima. It was true that the windows were too dark to see through. Her heart began beating faster.
That was how they really did it. Not like it was in the movies. One car didn’t follow a few cars behind you the whole way. No. A child would notice such a thing these days. What a tail actually did was switch off. They were all linked via radio. One car would follow for a while, trading places with another later on. This made a tail virtually undetectable, unless you knew what to look for.
And, apparently, Clara did. Her father taught her well. Annabelle wasn’t sure whether to be happy for her or to feel pointedly sorry for her.
“Jack, you catch that?” Annabelle asked, raising her voice for the benefit of the intercom system.
“I’m way ahead of you, luv. Nice going, Clara.”
There was a pause in his speech, at which point Beatrice patted her daughter’s cheek proudly. And then Jack continued. “Before the highlander, it was a black Impala. And I believe that took the place of a silver Taurus.”
“Wow, they really made sure to mix up their brands, didn’t they?” Dylan sat forward, his hands on his legs, his expression now distinctly nervous. “What do they want?”
Clara shrugged. Cassie couldn’t answer. Everyone looked at Annabelle.
She took a deep breath and then let it out slowly. Even Jack deigned to come to her rescue, as the intercom remained annoyingly silent. “Most likely, they’re after the clue that your father left behind, Dylan. They want to know where we’re going – that we’re looking for Craig Brandt at Columbia University.”
“Who are they?” was his next question.
“I don’t know,” she answered.
“I do.” Jack said.
Everyone looked toward the front of the car, even though a barrier separated them and the man in the driver’s seat. There was another stretch of silence.
“Of course!” Clara suddenly stated excitedly. “They’re hit men. Only hit men would know to follow this pattern.” She chewed on her lip, her cheeks flushing pink. “But who hired them – that’s the question.”
“Jack?” Annabelle prompted.
“Sorry, Bella. I haven’t got an answer for that one.”
“What are we going to do?” She wanted to know next.
“Try to lose them.”
“In a limo?” Dylan asked incredulously. “Is he serious?”
“He’s got a point, Jack. We haven’t got much of a chance.”
To that, Jack didn’t reply. And the inhabitants of the car fell into an uneasy silence. Dylan’s eyes were wide. Clara sat on the edge of the seat. Beatrice clutched the “oh shit” bar above the car’s back windows. Annabelle chewed her lip and looked toward the front of the car. Jack wasn’t speeding up and he wasn’t making any particularly difficult maneuvers or abrupt turns. So, what was he doing? What was the plan?
They kept driving, coming to a slow as they crossed the Brooklyn Bridge and entered Manhattan’s major populated area. Yellow taxi’s dominated the streets, criss-crossing lanes with what seemed like reckless abandon but was actually practiced expertise.
“The Altima just changed lanes.” Annabelle said.
“Getting ready for another switch. It’s a long drive for an effective tail.” Even through the slightly metallic filters of the stereo system, Jack’s British accent and calm, confident tone gave Annabelle comfort.