apply for citizenship in England. It worked. Sort of. It would have worked a lot better had Dylan and Clara Thane not begun dating.
As for Annabelle…
An account had been set up for her, into which 612,580 British Pounds had been deposited. Godrick Osborne’s death had been worth a cool million in American dollars. Annabelle Drake found herself suddenly, almost shockingly, loaded.
And gainfully employed.
The higher-ups in the Business insisted on recruiting Annabelle as a long-range sniper. The job she’d done on Godrick Osborne had been a long-shot, and one she’d pulled off flawlessly. Annabelle had suddenly become a valued contractor; she didn’t fit the profile of an assassin and yet she’d proven herself capable more than once.
She wasn’t sure, yet, how she felt about any of that. The truth was, she wasn’t feeling a whole lot of anything at all. She was sort of numb, still.
She went through the motions of setting up a cover and finding a place to live, feeling, the entire time, as if she was walking through a strange sort of dream. She had access to more money than she’d ever had in her life, and couldn’t think of a single thing she wanted to spend it on.
She took care of the necessities, renting a flat in London and an office space downtown, where she would claim to run day-to-day operations as an apprentice to Jack Thane, the real estate mogul. It would allow her access to her money without having to make any uncomfortable explanations as to its origins. Cassie had decided to remain in England as well, and work, in both public and
But that was about as far as Annabelle had gotten.
Right now, as she stood in front of Max Anderson’s open grave and listened, vaguely and distantly, to the pastor read from the Psalms of the Old Testament, her mind wandered to that little girl – the niece of the congressman who had paid Godrick Osborne to find a cure for Erythromelalgia.
Craig Brandt had gone public with his findings, crediting John Sinclaire and Virginia Meredith as partners in the discovery. It would be years yet, unfortunately, until the drug passed the plethora of tests necessary to take it to market. Annabelle wondered whether the girl could afford to wait that long.
Modern medicine was a strange thing. It saved lives, and it took them away. They were the reason that Annabelle stood there, now, saying her last goodbyes to a dear friend. Without a drug that had allowed her to slip into a comforting oblivion for the flight across the Atlantic, she never could have made the return trip home. Nor would she be able to head back to the UK later.
They also took away her pain.
Annabelle slipped her hand into her pocket and felt the small container of hydrocodone pills that rested there. Working for the Business gave her access to any drug she wanted or needed at any time. It was a freedom she had yet to fully wrap her head around. But, she’d made use of at least part of it, requesting a bottle of Vicodin right off the bat. She’d partly done it because she’d lost her other stash somewhere in the muddled mess of the last few days. And she’d also partly done it just to see if she actually could.
She turned the bottle of pills between her fingers and felt them flip over. Yep. She could.
Drugs definitely helped.
“… ashes to ashes…” A shovel full of dirt hit the white coffin below, scattering across its shiny surface to tumble into the darkness on either side.
And drugs definitely hurt.
How many people had died in the last few days because of the pharmaceutical industry? And six years ago? Teresa Anderson, Max Anderson, the Colonel, Godrick Osborne, and a dozen unknown, nameless individuals who’d signed up on the wrong roll sheet. Because of medicine.
Annabelle pulled the small bottle out of her pocket and stared down at it.
“… dust to dust…”
Another load of dirt joined the first six feet below. Dylan covered his face with his hands where he stood beside the opening. Clara came up beside him, silently offering comfort.
Annabelle blinked. And then tossed in the bottle.
*****
Several yards away, from the sheltering shade of an oak, a man on a motorcycle watched in grim silence as the funeral progressed.
A woman beside the open grave tossed something into it.
And then, as if reconsidering her actions, she moved as if to jump in after it. A tall teenage boy, also beside the grave, hurried toward her, managing to wrap his arms around her to hold her back. Others joined him as the woman tried harder to make it into the grave.
The figure on the motorcycle shook his head, his lips curling into a smile.
And then he started up his bike and rode away.
The noises in the mall were like echoes around Annabelle; they caught her ears at a glance, and from a distance. She watched as a little girl and boy gazed into a window across from her bench. They leaned in, palms pressed to the glass, and stared at the new Star Wars figures. After a few moments, they whispered between themselves, sharing some secret their mother couldn’t hear.
Annabelle knew what they were saying.
She watched the boy point and the little girl smiled. Annabelle smiled too. Then she blinked.
And the little boy was gone.
The young girl stood alone, the boy once beside her now merely the ghost of a memory. As she continued to gaze into the window, this time sharing her secrets with only herself, her red-haired mother knelt, softly speaking her name.
The child turned to face her. They spoke in hushed tones. The girl nodded; they held hands and then slowly moved away.
A yard, two, ten, and the pair were gone. They were slight and delicate phantoms that haunted garishly lit halls, cushioned in their imperceptible existence by the noisy silence of a thousand unseeing eyes.
Annabelle watched the space where they had disappeared, and then she turned to gaze into the window in front of her. There were no Star Wars figures. Instead, there were Webkinz and Neopets and Twilight posters. But the fingerprints on the glass were the same. They’d been left there by a little girl or a little boy. Or, maybe both. Maybe even twins.
“Ian has a Webkinz, you know.” A deep Yorkshire accent sliced easily through Annabelle’s thoughts.
She glanced up. Jack Thane stood beside the bench, his thumbs hooked in the front pockets of his jeans. He was dressed in riding gear – black jacket, black boots. Dark sunglasses hung from one of the pockets of his leather jacket.
They hadn’t had a chance to speak since the incident in London. The clean up had been harried, the funeral set with blinding speed, the flight had been a drugged-up blur. Her life had managed to pull a chameleon act in the short space of a few days; it was no longer recognizable as her own.
And she had yet to make things right with the man she loved.
He was a welcome vision, despite her twisted-up emotions. At six foot two, with wavy blonde hair and piercing blue eyes stolen from the depths of the Atlantic, he was a
The expression on his handsome face would have been unreadable to anyone else. But Annabelle knew him well. A number of things were going through his very quick, very efficient brain.
He knew what she had been thinking. The sympathy in his eyes told her that much. He’d always been able to read her like a book, so that was no surprise.
He was sorry for their fight. That was obvious, as well.
And he was afraid. It was something no one else would have recognized in his hard features. But she could see it there. Just at the edges of his sapphire eyes. He was afraid for her and the life he had forced her into – and he was afraid
He was afraid she would blow up on him. Or give him the silent treatment.
