Jack, for his part, didn’t think Sam would mind.
Chapter Thirty-Six
To Annabelle, it didn’t feel as if they were going to a memorial service. She wasn’t wearing black and she wasn’t sad – and Samuel Price wasn’t dead. That was sort of the clincher. Instead, she felt as if she were going out for a night on the town with Jack Thane. It was something she’d never done before. Not just the two of them, dressed to the hilt. Jack had never taken her on an official date.
And though they were once more on speaking terms and she’d more or less forgiven him for putting her to sleep for the flight to England, the fact of the matter was, there were still a lot of matters left unresolved between them.
The last three days had been extremely full. People had been coming and going, Jack’s most trusted employees secreting his family away and seeing to it that Virginia Meredith and Craig Brandt arrived safely at their own destination. Sam’s immediate medical concerns were addressed with lightning speed and Jack had spent a good deal of time making certain that Sam’s safe house had basically become a satellite hospital of its own.
Information had been sent and delivered on various fronts, giving Jack the heads-up he needed to make certain everything continued to run smoothly and there were no nasty surprises. In the midst of these preparations and situations, Jack had turned to Annabelle, handed her a credit card, and told her to go and buy what she needed to live with him for at least several months.
If she hadn’t been so over-all tired and still a good amount of scared, she may have questioned this request. After all, she was an American, when it came right down to it, and she loved her country. To her, it was like any love affair. There were good times and there were definite bad times, but you stuck with each other through thick and thin because to do anything less would be weak and shortsighted. The United States of America wasn’t built on wishy-washiness. And if it were to remain strong, its people had to be strong too.
But, she had been tired when he’d told her to go shopping and she’d also known that now wasn’t the time to discuss an entirely unforeseeable and uncertain future. So, she’d taken the card and gone to town with it. Her old reservations against using his money had gone out the window. She’d figured, What the hell? He’s loaded – let’s have some fun.
After all, she’d earned it.
Jack had told her about the truth of the shooting in the secret tunnel beneath Buell Hall. And it made her feel… strange. Sort of sick, but sort of proud too. Strong, and weak at the same time.
I’ve killed, she thought to herself. I have pulled my trigger and taken a life. Many lives. And it’s not as if I did it by accident. I certainly aimed first.
It was a humbling thought, and one that would suddenly darken her mood, stealing the colors from around her, making everything seem a little colder.
So, when she’d gone into London with Jack’s throng of bodyguards, she hadn’t held back all that much. Anywhere and everywhere that she found something that made her feel more comfortable, that brought her some semblance of peace and warmth, she latched onto it and put it on his card.
She’d even purchased a pair of Ugg boots, even though it was May and the boots were therefore on sale. Which sort of rankled. She finally got a chance to spend big bucks and what did society go and do? Make the object of her desire cheap! It was kind of a rip.
But, once she’d gotten the boots back to the apartment and put them on, her opinion of them had changed in a heart beat. They were warm! They were soft! Comfortable! And easy to run in! The list could go on and on.
She vowed to buy more next winter season. With her own money.
And that was another thing that had been shadowing her of late. She was out of a job and wondered when she would next have one. She didn’t like the idea of being unemployed. It was… nerve wracking. She needed something to do, and preferred it to be something half-way important to someone other than herself.
At DesignMax, she’d made peoples’ businesses boom by giving them beautiful web pages that were eye-catching, informative, and easy to operate. She’d been able to rely upon her inherent creativity in this manner, while successfully making a living at it.
It was stressful. Some of the customers were jerks. But, deep down, she’d been happy. Happy enough, anyway.
Now… She felt as if she were floating, with no solid foundation beneath her and no clear picture before her of where she was going. She felt like she was just waiting. For what, she didn’t know.
“You okay, luv?” Jack asked her from where he sat in the driver’s seat – to her right. She wasn’t sure she would get used to that any time soon. Up ahead, cars zoomed by on the right side of the road and she had the minor urge to grab the wheel from Jack and steer them back over to the opposite side of the road, where her internal workings swore to her that they belonged.
“I’m fine,” she replied, dragging herself out of her thoughts for a moment. She glanced at him and then glanced back out the window. “So, I guess Sam’s pretty wealthy, huh?” She asked, sort of curious about assassins and their finances.
“Aye. The wealthiest among us.”
She gave him an impressed look. “Why’s that?”
He chewed on the inside of his cheek for a moment and then narrowed his gaze on the road. “His father pulled a job in Dallas in the early sixties that set Sam up for good.”
Annabelle frowned. “His father?”
“Yes,” Jack said. “He had to go into deep cover after the job was completed, so the stipulation was that the payment be given to his son. And it was.”
“Big payment,” she muttered, thinking about how much money Sam would have to own to have more than any other assassin, including Jack.
Jack took a deep breath, his own expression a little troubled. “It was. One of the biggest.” He fell silent for a moment, his gaze distant. “Sam also has one advantage over everyone else in this field,” he said then. “He was raised by a piece man, so his training began very early. In the time he’s been working in this Business, he’s accumulated more money, on his own, than any other hired gun. Add to that his father’s money, and you have one rich man.”
Annabelle stared at Jack, wide-eyed. Not only because it was nearly impossible for her to even imagine that kind of money, but because she’d just figured out what job Samuel Price’s father had actually done.
“Early sixties… Dallas…” She mumbled.
Jack turned to her then, slowly placing his gloved index finger to his lips. That simple gesture was all she needed as a confirmation.
It was a good ten minutes before she was able to speak again. In that time, the stars had winked out above them as clouds had begun to roll in. They were stuck in traffic. It was Friday night.
Annabelle cleared her throat and rubbed her temples, which had begun to ache a little. “Can you explain something to me, Jack? About the Business?”
“Of course,” he answered softly.
“How is getting married time and again a ‘cover’?”
He shrugged. “Expensive honeymoons in foreign countries and large donations to churches help explain a lot of tax anomalies,” he told her simply. “It also provides the means to other codes, such as the one you heard me utter over the phone when I told an employee to ‘get Sherry to Rome’.”
Annabelle blinked up at him. She remembered that. After Max had been killed and the police had become suspicious about his apparent suicide, they’d gone to Jack’s house to question him. Jack hadn’t been there, of course. But his wife had. And she’d quickly made sure that Jack knew about the incident.