took off overhead, she cringed. And prayed that its passengers would have a safe journey.
“’S about time, da’.”
Jack spun around at the sound of his daughter’s voice. Annabelle turned as well. Before her stood a very attractive blue-eyed girl with jet-black hair and a nose ring. Her makeup was perfectly applied and genuinely enhanced her features, which included the afore-mentioned eyes, and lips that were exquisitely pouty. Annabelle knew where she’d gotten the eyes. The lips, on the other hand, must have come from her mother.
And her figure wasn’t anything to laugh at, either. Dressed how she was, that much was easy to see. The girl was tall – perhaps an inch taller than Annabelle – and proportioned like a model. Pre-anorexia.
She looked like she worked out a lot. In ultra-tight jeans filled with holes in all sorts of strange places, and a short, stretchy t-shirt that touted the finer qualities of some British band by the name of “Hundred Reasons”, Clara represented the quintessential daddy’s-little-girl-coming-of-age.
Annabelle took a deep breath and thought,
Dylan was apparently thinking the same thing, because he came up beside Annabelle and stared unabashedly.
“Who’re your bosom companions, da’? Like to introduce us?” Clara suggested as she stared back at Dylan, a sly smile on her face. Her accent was so pronounced that Annabelle realized Jack almost sounded American in comparison. He’d been in the states too long.
“Clara, a word in private please.” Jack stepped forward and firmly took his daughter by the elbow.
“Jack, you right bugger! What in bloody ‘ell took you so long?”
Jack let go of his daughter’s arm and looked over her shoulder.
“Oh, Christ,” he swore softly. His entire body went rigid. A woman had come out of the bathroom and was making her way toward them. Sort of. She was weaving, really, was more like it. As if there were a line of orange cones in between her and Jack and she needed to wind in between each one to make points.
“Oh yeah, da’, forgot to mention. Mum’s here,” Clara smiled. “And she’s ri’ pissed.”
“Cor, blimey, but what a beastly flight,” the woman continued when she’d neared Jack. Still, she swayed slightly from side to side, as if she were a tall building in a strong gale. “You’ll have to forgive me, Jackie, but I’m a bit bladdered. You know how bleeding boring that flight can be and you can’t exactly bonk-” She stopped mid- sentence when she realized that she and Jack were not the only two people in the terminal. She swayed a little, her green eyes moving from Annabelle to Dylan to Trinity and so forth. And then she smiled a great big grin and opened her eyes wide.
“Well hello!” she exclaimed, waving her arms above her head theatrically.
“Right,” Jack said, taking sudden initiative. He moved forward, trading a grip on his daughter’s arm for one on his ex-wife’s, and proceeded to steer her out of the middle of the busy aisle, toward a row of seats along the windows on one wall.
The others followed, including Clara, whose interest was currently divided between Dylan and the promising spectacle that her mother was making.
Annabelle found herself hanging back a bit, feeling the need to give Jack and his ex-wife some space. It was a need that apparently she, alone, felt, because everyone else crowded around the couple, like piranhas.
Beatrice Hughes, formerly Beatrice Thane, was a woman of average height and average build, but with anything-but-average cat-like green eyes and extra-pouty lips. Yup. Clara had her mother’s mouth.
That thought brought a secret smile to Annabelle’s own lips.
Beatrice’s hair was blonde, like her ex-husband’s, so Annabelle assumed that Clara’s jet-black mane was an excellent dye job. And it sort of complemented her very fair skin and very blue eyes. In essence, Clara had gotten the good genes from both of her parents. At least, on the outside. Who knew what went on beneath a person’s skin.
“What in bloody hell are you two doing here?” Jack asked his ex-wife, his tone hard, his whisper loud enough to carry well past Annabelle. His jaw was tense and his posture was unyielding. As was the look in his sapphire eyes.
“Oh, don’t be such a nark! We ‘aven’t seen you in a donkey’s years and you never give us a bell. Besides, I’ve always wanted to have a shufti at that gigantic canyon thing – is it far?” Beatrice leaned very far over to have a look around Jack’s looming figure, and nearly fell off of the seat when she did so. She barely seemed to notice Jack steadying her, as her gaze had once more fallen on Annabelle. “Is this your lovely new b-”
“Beatrice, this is truly a terrible time. I’m putting you back on a plane tonight-”
“Like bloody hell, you are!” That got her attention. She snapped straight and pinned Jack with a blood- curdling gaze. It would have had more the effect she was looking for if she hadn’t been swaying in her seat. She burped. “Sorry.”
“Da’, we’ve come too far-”
Jack whirled on his daughter and pinned her to the spot with his angry gaze. “I told you, Clara. It isn’t a good time.” He said the words carefully and slowly. His expression was incredibly meaningful.
And it hit Annabelle. Clara knew what he was.
Clara stared at her father belligerently. And then she blinked. She turned to look at Dylan. Then Annabelle. And then the rest of them. Her gaze lingered on the two little girls.
“Them too, da’? Did you drag two babies into one o’ your messes?” Her tone was a touch more subdued now, but it was still evident that she was seventeen years old and had a rebellious streak. She was walking a thin line. Skirting around the subject but touching it ever so gently, teasing the truth like one would a rabid dog.
Yet, Annabelle could see real concern in the girl’s blue eyes. She could empathize with that. Annabelle was worried about the girls too.
But it wasn’t Jack’s fault, and she was about to say so when Beatrice sighed loudly.
“Cor, dammit Jack.” She pinched the bridge of her nose, as if staving off a headache. “Can’t the chin wag wait? ”
Now it was Jack’s turn to sigh.
But whatever he’d been about to say was put forever on hold when Alex interrupted him. “Mr. Thane, we have company.”
Jack turned to face him and the black-haired man gestured toward the terminal doors a hundred feet away, where detective Chen and her partner were holding up what looked like photographs and questioning airport security.
Jack swore softly under his breath and ran a hand through his thick blonde hair. With a meaningful look toward Alex, who nodded, he leaned over and took hold of his ex-wife’s upper arm and pulled her from the seat. “We have to go, Bee.” He turned to fix his daughter with the same meaningful look and she, too, nodded.
As Jack, Annabelle, Trinity, Cassie and Beatrice made their way hastily in the opposite direction from where Chen and Robinson stood amongst men in button-down white shirts and name tags, Clara and Alex spoke with each other hastily, blocking the aisle as much as possible with Clara’s bags.
Annabelle glanced back just in time to witness what appeared to be a lover’s spat break out between Alex and Clara, shoving and all, as Jack’s group disappeared more deeply amidst airport travelers, eventually obstructing Annabelle’s view entirely.
All she heard as they rounded a corner and joined a mass of people who were headed out into the taxi-laden streets was Clara’s voice, raised in faux anger, spouting obscenities at Jack’s employee, who, according to Clara, had cheated on her with an American bimbo from Texas.
Up ahead, two airport security guards received radio calls and headed in the opposite direction of Jack’s group, passing Annabelle without a second glance. She knew, right away, that they’d been called to help break up the fight that Clara had started. The decoy provided just the right amount of time and distraction for Jack to lead them out into the Minnesota night and into the closest parking garage.
When they were amidst cars and shadows, Annabelle moved up beside Jack, keeping pace with his long strides. “Is she going to meet us somewhere?”
“She’ll try. She knows the drill.”
Jack didn’t say anything more. His posture was tense and his expression was troubled. He had a lot on his mind. So, Annabelle didn’t ask him how his daughter had been dragged into his messy line of work. Maybe it wasn’t any of her business anyway. And, maybe it wasn’t all that
