She wasn’t sure why he asked her to do this. But she followed his instructions anyway, retrieving the time capsule when no one was looking and then hiding it in the best place she could think of.
And then they moved to another location. At the time, she had wondered whether she should move the vial along with them. However, she decided against it, leaving it where it was with the reasoning that the less attention she brought to it or herself, the better.
So, while the rest of them had left the island and settled into a mansion in Middlesex, New York, the time capsule with its cure was still in downtown Manhattan, hidden in plain sight and yet almost entirely invisible to approximately two-million people.
Now they all sat in the dark study, a fire blazing in the hearth and Annabelle continued to watch Jack enter the room from the darkened hall beyond. Though it was May, the house was old and older houses were notoriously cold. It also possessed no internal heating system other than the fire places that graced most of its rooms.
Annabelle honestly didn’t mind this all that much. She enjoyed staring into the flames in fire places and getting lost in the crackling sound. It comforted her. Add to that the coziness of curling up under a blanket and she was pretty much pleased as punch.
Jack caught her gaze from across the study and moved to sit beside her. She scooted over to give him room. Though it had only been three days, he managed to take the seat without wincing at the pain that must have resided in his leg and side.
She arched a brow at him. “I’m impressed. No need to fake it though, sweetie. It’s your party. You can cry if you want to.”
He smiled at her, flashing straight white teeth. His sapphire eyes sparkled in the light from the hearth. “I did all my crying into my pillow this morning,” he told her softly. “Thought I’d get it out of the way early.”
Her smile broadened. The sound of his accented voice warmed her more than the fireplace a few feet away ever could. “Good idea. Cassie hates whiners.”
Across from them, Cassie shot them a look of mock hurt.
“Speaking of parties, luv,” Jack turned his attention back to the woman by his side. “You didn’t think I was going to forget, did you?”
Annabelle blinked at him. Her brow furrowed. “Forget what?” She asked, her expression blank.
Jack reached around to the back pocket of his jeans and pulled out a small white envelope. He was wearing a white thermal long-sleeved shirt and a double shoulder holster, guns on both sides. Apparently, he didn’t at all feel like taking chances.
He held the envelope out to Annabelle.
She glanced down at it and then back up at him. “What is it?”
“Your present.” He chuckled, shaking his head. “Happy birthday, luv.”
Across the room, several gasps went up.
“Holy crap, girl, I totally forgot! Happy B-Day!” Cassie got off of the couch and moved across the room to give Annabelle a hug. Annabelle hugged her back, her face pale. Cassie wasn’t the only one who’d forgotten.
“I can’t believe I forgot my own birthday.”
“It happens,” Virginia told her. She was seated on an old trunk against one wall, Craig standing beside her. “Life tends to get strange.”
She was right. Annabelle knew that better than a lot of people. But she’d never forgotten her own birthday before. Even though, for many years, she’d desperately wanted to. And not for the reasons most women cite. She didn’t care all that much about numbers and as far as she was concerned, every year under a person’s belt was a little more wisdom that could help see them through the years still ahead.
It wasn’t the idea of growing older that had made Annabelle want to forget.
No.
It was that, as Virginia had submitted, life did, indeed, tend to get “strange.” And life for Annabelle had gotten particularly strange twenty years ago.
To the day.
Cassie moved back a little and eyed Annabelle, taking in her abrupt silence and the pale coloring of her cheeks. Jack noticed it as well. Out of everyone in the world, they were the only two who would know and understand the reason behind Annabelle’s sudden change in behavior.
Jack acted first. He put the envelope back in his pocket and stood, taking Annabelle’s hands and lifting her with him. She went without argument. With a glance at Cassie, Jack led Annabelle out through one of the three doors that exited from the study, and entered the adjoining dressing room beyond. It had since been converted into a guest bedroom, and Jack led Annabelle to the bed and sat her down.
Then he knelt before her, favoring his injured leg.
“You’re all right, luv. I’m sorry that I brought it up. I just didn’t… realize, at first…”
“It’s okay, Jack.” Annabelle looked him in the eyes. “It’s been two decades, you know? I should be over it by now.” She shrugged, a helpless gesture.
It broke Jack’s heart. He pulled her into his strong arms and held her gently. “Anniversaries are the most difficult,” he told her, his breath caressing the hair on her head. “They always are.”
She nodded against his chest, finding that his shirt was damp against her cheek. She was crying. “I know,” she mumbled. “You should have seen me ten years ago.”
“I
He’d fallen in love with her that very night. It had hit him like a ton of bricks, unexpected and disorienting. When he’d gone to the bar that night, it was to make a mark. He’d been traveling back and forth between the States and Britain for a decade, being trained by Samuel Price, and still doing jobs in the UK whenever called upon. At that point, the reality of their situation had hit he and his wife and they’d recently agreed upon a divorce. His family remained behind in Essex, well hidden and protected, for the time being, by a combination of Jack’s money – and Sam’s.
Life was up in the air and Sam had sent him to the pub to do away with a man whose death, apparently, would help solidify Jack’s position in the Business. In that respect, it was like any job. There was a ladder to climb. Only, with this ladder, you kicked the rungs out from under you as you ascended so that no one could follow you up.
So Jack had gone to the bar, riding his bike on the way to relieve some of the fear that he still felt when doing jobs. It was a fear that Sam assured him would lessen as time went by, but never go away entirely. It was a bit of that fear, after all, that helped keep an assassin alive.
He’d entered the bar, scanned it, as he always did, and taken a seat near the back where he had a good view of the entire room.
And while he had been waiting, Annabelle had walked in with a couple of her friends. The friends, he had dismissed upon a cursory glance.
But Annabelle had taken his breath away. She was tall and lithe and her strawberry and blonde hair spilled down her back and over her shoulders like tumbling waves of spun copper and gold. Her skin was perfect. Her smile was nervous and unsure and the teeth behind it were straight and white. Her brown, almond-shaped eyes were sad.
She looked like an angel who’d fallen into the wrong place. She didn’t belong, and he could tell that at first sight. Her companions, who were both wearing less than she was and seemed perfectly at ease with their surroundings, fairly pulled her into the dimly lit pub. At one point, she’d waved her hand in front of her face, clearly bothered by the smoke, before she remembered where she was and clenched her hands behind her back to keep from doing it again.
It was clear to him that she meant to go through with whatever it was she was there to do and was determined not to let any other signs of her innocence show through. It was a hopelessly lost battle, however, as every man in the room had already zeroed in on her like moths to a flame. As if she could somehow develop wings and fly them out of their own personal hells, they gazed at her with mixtures of hunger and hope.
Including the man Jack had been sent there to kill, who was currently sitting alone, a beer to his lips, his eyes
