Annabelle smiled back at her. “Ginnie, thank you for helping us with this.”
“It’s my pleasure.” She turned to Dylan. “I only hope that you can use what I give you to get to the bottom of this.”
Dylan and Annabelle nodded one last time and then left the store.
Across the street, a blue-eyed man in black leather watched a strawberry-blonde woman and a tall, lanky teenager with curly brown hair step out onto the sidewalk. Jack finished his coffee, stood, and tossed the paper cup into the trash can several feet away, never taking his eyes off of the couple across the street. When he walked through the door of the Starbucks, several college-aged women watched him leave.
Jack hailed a taxi and motioned to Annabelle and Dylan, who caught sight of him and crossed the street.
“How’d it go?” he asked as they ducked into the back of the cab.
“You won’t believe me when I tell you,” Annabelle answered. “But, we can’t go far because we have to be back in two hours.”
“Why’s that?”
“Craig Brandt gave his girlfriend something important to hide before he died. And she’s going to give it to us.”
Chapter Twenty-two
As they rode south toward a small bakery where they hoped to get more coffee and an early lunch, Annabelle pulled her hair tie out and ran her hand through her long locks, freeing them from the braid. Her hair hadn’t had a chance to completely dry that morning and Annabelle always liked how soft it was when it dried in the sun.
Plus, it gave her something to play with while she mulled things over.
There was a lot to mull over. She stole a glance up at Jack, who sat in the front seat with the taxi driver. As if sensing her eyes on him, he cocked his head to one side, turning slightly in her direction. She hurriedly looked away.
All morning, they’d managed to put their own personal issues on a back burner so that they could deal with the more pressing matters of Craig Brandt and the Andersons’ murderers. However, she knew good and well that she had not been the only one suffering for it. Her blood pressure must be through the roof. She had so many things she wanted to say to Jack – so many things she wanted to ask him – that she could scarcely keep her mind on what she was doing or saying at any given point in time.
Luckily, Virginia Meredith had been an interesting enough character that it had helped to focus Annabelle on the matters at hand. Meredith hadn’t been anything like what Annabelle expected. The voice on the other end of the phone conversation had been the same, but she’d expected a past medical student to be more… stodgy. Uptight. Taller. Meredith had to be less than five feet. Genuinely sweet. Almost bubbly. Knowing nothing about her or her past, a perfect stranger would most likely come away from a chance meeting with the blonde and describe her as an “air head” or the like.
But Annabelle could already see what Brandt would find attractive in Ginnie. Meredith was like a ray of sunshine on a rainy day. Like that Indian Summer in a land where winter was a dreaded, white death.
And she was psychic! That had to be a plus!
Annabelle smiled to herself at that thought. It wasn’t that she didn’t believe in such things, per se, it was just that they’d never played a central role in her own philosophy. Still, if Meredith said she was psychic, than who was Annabelle to tell her she was wrong?
Now she frowned as she found herself wondering what it might have been that Brandt left behind with the petite blonde. What would a twenty-something year-old med student think was so important, and so dangerous, that he would need to leave it with someone he trusted – to hide?
And once she asked herself that question, Annabelle realized, with some trepidation, that whatever it was, it was about to become un-hidden and given to her.
Virginia Meredith turned her key in the gold knob and pushed open the door of her apartment. She crossed the threshold, adjusting her purse on her shoulder, and then paused. She lifted her chin, as if scenting the air for something. And then she frowned, blinked, and came the rest of the way in, closing the door behind her.
With the practiced aim of one who had done so a thousand times, she threw her purse onto the couch across the room, where it landed, face-up, against the throw pillows. Then she moved into the adjoining kitchen, and, once there, she stopped and looked around her, as if suddenly not understanding where she was.
Lemon gnocchi with spinach and peas. That’s what she had wanted for lunch today. She’d been craving it from the moment she’d woken up until she’d gotten the phone call from Annabelle Drake. Since that time, however, all she’d been able to think about was Craig. And the thing he’d given to her to hide.
Six years.
Six years…
Virginia turned around and left the kitchen, making her way to the couch as if she were a zombie. She sat down and gazed toward the window, not really looking out through it so much as looking inward. Remembering.
So much had happened in the six years since Craig’s death. Before he died, they’d actually talked about getting married. Having kids. They both wanted tons of them. Virginia always talked about how she would cook gourmet meals for them to put in their lunches. How they would read to them. She and Craig both loved books. Different kinds, but books, nonetheless.
Since then, Virginia had dated other men. A few, here and there. One or two of them might have even worked out; they might have given her that family she’d always wanted. But she’d dumped them and moved on, not really knowing why.
Until now.
Six years isn’t long enough to kill love. Love, in all of its god-forsaken perfection, is immortal. How horrible is that? How unfair? When people are so fragile, when life is so fleeting. Where does God get off making something so strong that lasts so much longer than we do?
Virginia found herself sitting back against the couch. Absently, she brushed the back of her hand against her cheek. It came away wet. She looked down at the smeared tears and her brow furrowed. She suddenly felt more lost, in that moment, than she ever had before.
And, it was at that moment that a sound escaped from the bathroom down the hall.
Virginia sat up like a bolt. Her mind was at once painfully alert.
It had sounded like the shower curtain rings sliding over the curtain rod. Her ears strained to hear more. And there it was. A rustle and a footfall.
Someone was in her apartment.
Annabelle sat straight suddenly, her hand pausing in its downward swipe through her long hair. She stared out the window, her brow furrowed. Something had pulled her out of her reverie.
Their surroundings looked familiar. In fact…
“Weren’t we just here?” she asked. She’d zoned out over the last few minutes, her mind on the matter of Craig Brandt and the somewhat more distracting matter of Jack Thane in bed.
“Yes. We’ve turned around,” Dylan told her from beside her in the back seat of the cab.
“Why?”
“Because I’m a bloody fool,” Jack told her from the front seat. He turned to face them both, an agitated expression on his handsome face. His blue eyes were sparking with barely-kept tension. “We never should have left Meredith alone.” He shook his head. “What was I thinking?” He seemed to be talking to himself. Then, to them, he said, “We haven’t managed to go without a tail for more than a few hours thus far. Virginia Meredith is as good as dead.”