in the jeans and t-shirt that were the proverbial uniform of the seventeen-year-old, the high-tops that were standard issue, and the longer-than-acceptable wavy brown hair that fell just to his shoulders, he looked like quintessential Dylan. It was what was in his eyes that brought Annabelle up short. He had his father’s eyes. And there was something unfathomable in those green depths.
“Miss Drake…” When he spoke, his young voice was strained; his throat sounded dry. But even after all that he’d suffered and in the midst of the horror that he would most assuredly continue to suffer for some time, Annabelle realized that the kid was being respectful. Miss Drake.
“Dylan,” she repeated, fighting back the tears that threatened her eyes once more. She rushed to the table as Dylan simultaneously stood, and the two met in motion, colliding in an embrace of desperate pain. One of them had lost a father. The other had lost a friend. Somewhere in there was a connection, as thin as it may be, of essential empathy. For the moment, they had each other.
Like his father, Dylan was tall. The top of Annabelle’s head came to his jaw bone, and he wasn’t a skinny boy either. Hugging him reminded Annabelle of hugging his father. She hiccupped as new sobs assaulted her, and Dylan’s embrace tightened.
If he was crying, he was doing so silently. So, she cried for them both.
Finally, Dylan’s arms loosened their grip and Annabelle reluctantly pulled away. She looked up at him and, without thinking, he brushed the tears from her cheeks with his thumbs.
“Can… can we leave?” he asked then, his voice still strained.
Annabelle nodded, let him go, and turned toward the door. Without a word, Dylan followed after.
As they left the double door entrance to the station house, a black Audi with dark tinted windows pulled alongside the walk. The car idled and Dylan gently grabbed hold of Annabelle’s elbow, pulling her to a stop. A new band of tension had taken over him; his body was ramrod straight, his green eyes flashing.
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
“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
