their original car, he might have actually
Then again, she might just get shot. It didn’t take much time at all to pull a trigger. The man holding her hostage would certainly have at least that much time to react. And that would be all he needed.
“When you get inside, open the passenger side door and swing it wide.”
Jack nodded once and slid into the car. In another second, he was reaching across the seats and opening the front passenger side door as well. The man holding Annabelle moved her forward and then let her go, keeping the gun to her temple as he placed his other hand on her head, forcing her to bend and enter the car.
She didn’t fight him. As she climbed in, her eyes found Jack’s and their gazes locked.
“Start the car, Thane.” The man behind her said, and Jack broke eye contact to focus on the road ahead. He straightened, stuck the key in the ignition and started the engine.
The man got in beside Annabelle and, luckily for her, the front seat was a bench seat or she would have been balancing between two bucket seats or seated uncomfortably atop a storage compartment.
The gun was moved from her head to her ribs, which was decidedly more uncomfortable, as he found the need to dig it in somewhat.
But she refused to complain, as a bullet between the ribs would have been far more uncomfortable, still. Instead, she wondered, rather frantically, whether she was going to survive this day.
And then, when she felt the very old, familiar stirrings of panic spring to life somewhere at the base of her spine or the pit of her gut, she decided to try to focus on something besides her fear and discomfort. Now that her captor was seated beside her, she was able to get a good look at him. He was not the most physically imposing figure she’d ever seen. He couldn’t have been much taller than her, in fact, and though he was slim and trim, he was not what she would call “built”. He had a balding head and wore wire-rimmed glasses. His body was unimpressive, all in all. His face, however, held a certain charisma. It was appealing, in a sense, because he seemed…
And he was dressed in a three-piece cage. He wore a gray pin striped suit and tie with a black wool trench coat over it. The clothes gave him a well-kempt, slightly blue-blooded appearance.
He looked like a sympathetic, soft-spoken attorney. Yep. If she had to put his appearance into words, that’s how she’d do it. A snake in sheep’s clothing.
“Drive down the street and take the first left. Then go two blocks and take a right,” he instructed.
“What do you call yourself and who do you work for?” Jack asked, suddenly. His tone was as calm as the other man’s and his expression did not change. He continued to look straight ahead, at the road.
“At the moment, I work for the Colonel,” the man answered, easily, as he pulled a cell phone out of the front breast pocket of his jacket. “And you can call me Reese.” He pressed a few buttons on his phone and lights flickered on the LCD screen. “I’m sorry to have to do this to you, Thane.” He said it as if he truly meant it.
Jack glanced to his right and his gaze met Reese’s. Then Reese pressed the Talk button on his phone.
The explosion was several blocks away, but it was powerful enough that it still rocked the limousine. Jack’s foot slammed down on the break, sending Annabelle forward to bump her head on the dash board. Reese caught himself easily with the hand he held the phone in. Annabelle straightened and absently fingered her forehead as Jack threw open the driver’s side door and jumped out of the car.
She and Reese followed after.
Jack stood beside his open door, his gaze directed over the houses in the distance. A billowing cloud of black smoke rose from behind several roofs and a thick copse of trees. Sirens could be heard from somewhere not too far away.
“Oh my God…” Annabelle whispered as realization dawned on her. The smoke was rising from Jack’s house. A wave of dizziness washed over her. This wasn’t happening. This couldn’t be happening.
Cassie… Dylan…
Jack’s daughter had been in that house, along with her mother.
“Oh my God,” she said again, not able to stop herself and unable to think of anything else to say.
“Get back in the car, Thane,” Reese said then. His tone was gentle enough, perhaps spurred into a sick sort of tenderness through professional empathy, but his gun was once more directed at Annabelle. She barely noticed. And she barely cared.
Something inside of her snapped. She lunged forward, ready to rip the gun out of his hand and maybe take his arm with it. But he reacted as if he’d expected the outburst, easily stepping to the side, grabbing her outstretched arms, and wrenching them in front of her to spin her around and pin her to his chest once more.
“I suggest you calm down, Miss Drake. You’re all Mr. Thane has left in this world. Don’t make me take you away from him as well.” He spoke the words with calm authority.
Annabelle looked at Jack over the top of the car. His eyes caught hers. His expression was unreadable, but something terrifying danced in their cobalt depths. Their normal sky blue had turned slightly dark, slightly gray. Like an impending storm on a Summer’s day.
“Now, get back in the car. We have a meeting with someone and I’d rather not be late.”
Reese released Annabelle and gave her a slight shove. She ducked and crawled back into the front seat of the limousine. Half way, she had to pause and wipe her eyes as she realized she was crying and the liquid was blurring her vision. She sat down in the middle of the seat and stared straight ahead, unseeing.
A thousand thoughts chased each other through her mind. And they all seemed silenced. Muffled. Even as the tears continued to stream down her cheeks, there was a numbness spreading through her. Nothing made sense any longer.
In the last twenty-four hours, she’d lost three of the people in the world whom she cared for the most. And Jack had lost more than that. He’d lost his daughter.
There was no coming back from that. There was nothing worse you could do to a human being.
“Four-ninety-five West to Two-seventy-eight South. Red Hook.” Reese instructed.
Jack put the car back in gear and began driving. Silence filled the cabin. In the rear-view mirrors, the sky continued to darken with billowing black clouds of smoke. At some point before reaching the Interstate, they passed several fire trucks and an ambulance.
Jack’s gaze never wavered. His expression never changed.
Annabelle silently cried.
It was with feet that wouldn’t move quite right that Annabelle followed Jack down the trash-strewn alley ahead of them. She tripped over herself twice and had to be righted by Reese, who walked behind her. Their footsteps mingled with the graffiti on the tin-covered walls, fading into rare shadows like a muffled cacophony of sound and color.
The warehouse hadn’t been used for industrial purposes in quite some time. This was made evident by the piles of rubble built up around the rusting chain link fences and borders of chicken wire that attempted to block off the larger equipment of an adjacent construction project which appeared to be all but abandoned. It was also made evident by the dated signatures of various gang members and their ilk that layered themselves like strata on the inside of a man-made mountain. At one point, someone had spray-painted a sign, in red, on a white strip of metal, stating that the premises were not to be used as a bathroom. Just beneath the sign were the foul remnants of what people thought of that sign.
The smell of human waste was muted, however, by the overlying stench of rotted fish remains and sea weed, as the warehouses jutted out over the docks and the polluted water below them. At high noon, as it was, there was no place for the refuse to hide from the rays of the sun and, even in early May, it was enough to create a heady, unpleasant perfume.
Absently, Annabelle wondered if this was the place where she would die. She guessed she wouldn’t be the first…
“The door ahead,” Reese instructed.
Jack came to stand before a metal-lined door in the side of a large square building. The warehouse was set apart from the buildings around it, not by any sign or new construction, but by the type of graffiti that graced its
