Hell Bent

by Heather Killough-Walden

  She ignored his tone, and the look, and asked another question, this one not as rhetorical. “If the dean doesn’t actually know anything useful, then what can we hope to find in his office?”

  “His address, at the very least,” Jack replied, taking a deep breath and letting it out with a sigh. “His class list and schedule… It’s a start.”

  Annabelle watched him for a moment, noticing the shadows under his eyes. He’d removed the make-up, probably in the simple act of splashing water on his face to wake himself up. But, somehow, the darkness beneath his eyes bothered her more than any of his bruises. “You need sleep.” Again, she surprised herself, this time by the vast amount of tenderness in her tone.

  “Aye,” he agreed, pulling his eyes from the keys to gaze up at her.

  By the gods, his eyes are blue.

  He stood then and swiped the keys off of the coffee table, re-pocketing them. Then, without warning, he took one long stride toward Annabelle, closing the distance between them. She didn’t have the time or the will power to move back away from him. He grabbed her wrist in his black gloved hand and tugged her toward the door.

  “I take it you’re exploring the dean’s office alone, then?” Sam called as Jack opened the door and stepped through.

  “Indeed,” was all Jack said as he pulled Annabelle out into the hall and closed the door behind them.

  “Jack, where are we going?” she asked as he continued to lead her down several flights of stairs. Her heart was racing.

  “Sam’s flat is too bloody small for the seven of us,” Jack answered, not slowing and not easing his grip on her arm.

  She could agree to that much. She’d been wondering where she was going to sleep. She could have shared Sam’s bed with Cassie, she supposed, but there was only one couch and she knew that Jack and Sam weren’t going to share that.

  “Okay…” she stammered.

  “So, we’re going elsewhere.” Jack told her, matter-of-factly. His tone had deepened, his voice lower, nearly a growl.

  Wow, someone gets crabby when he’s sleepy, she thought as they made it to the ground floor and he punched through the double doors that led out into the adjoining alley. Annabelle stumbled after him, a little off balance because of his hold on her wrist.

  But when they were past the doors, Jack stopped and Annabelle came to an unsteady halt beside him.

  The hum of a street lamp reverberated off of the walls of the alley around them. Its distant light sent long shadows stretching across the ground and climbing up the bricks. The heights of the buildings around them stopped most of what wind there was from entering the alley, but an occasional breeze rustled the garbage on the ground. A Lay’s chip bag went skirting past their feet.

  Annabelle barely noticed it. Her eyes were adjusting to the darkness and they’d found something much more interesting to focus on.

  “We going for a ride, Jack?” The question, again, was rhetorical. She guessed she was just in that kind of mood.

  Jack had stopped in the alley so that she could gain her bearings, but once he knew she’d figured things out, he continued to pull her toward the shining black bike that awaited them.

  Its chrome looked like starlight in the beams from the distant lamp. Its spotless black paint looked like night. Like shadow.

  Jack mounted the Harley Fat Boy as if his body were made to mount a bike. Long, lean, hard legs straddled the bike with a kind of practiced, confident ease that lit Annabelle’s blood on fire.

  She waited for him to straighten it and start it up. When he did, the resounding roar was like a salve on her tired, raw nerves, almost instantly beginning to chase away her weariness. It was her favorite sound in the world. Closely followed by the sound of Jack’s voice, and then by the sound of thunder. In fact, it was a lot like thunder. And she loved a good storm.

  She just stood there for a moment, letting the sound seep into her body and massage her soul, even going so far as to close her eyes. When she opened them again at last, it was to find Jack gazing steadily at her. There was a secret smile on his lips, but something dark was dancing in his eyes.

  Without a word, he offered her his gloved hand. She looked at it for a moment, wondering if it was the hand of the devil. Then, not really caring, she took it and mounted up behind him.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Annabelle held tightly to Jack’s waist, out and out relishing the opportunity to hold herself close to him while having a very legitimate excuse for doing so. After all, a woman needed real justification for being this close to a married man. She had it right now and she was going to use it unabashedly.

  Jack sped around a corner, carving the road as he did so, and she hugged closer to him, closing her eyes. The wind whipped through her hair, tangling it into helpless knots and she didn’t even care. She loved the way the air hit her so hard that it bit her skin; she loved the blur of the pavement beneath them. She loved the speed, the roar of the V-twin, the barely concealed sexual energy of riding a Harley Davidson motorcycle. It was only slightly less powerful when you were on the back of the bike rather than in the saddle. And when you were seated behind someone like Jack, well…

  She grinned to herself, delighting in the fact that he couldn’t see her face and so had no way of determining the brazenly sexual thoughts racing through her head. As Jack took her through the New York streets and alleys as if he’d lived there his whole life instead of Yorkshire, Annabelle’s fatigue began to wear off. It dropped away with every curve they hugged and was blown away with the wind they made.

  They rode for more than an hour before Annabelle was once more wide awake and aware enough to realize that an hour was a little long for them to be going full blast in a city the size of New York and not reach their destination. Her brow furrowed and she leaned forward, placing her lips beside Jack’s ear.

  “What’s going on?” she said, loud enough for him to hear her over the roar of the engine.

  Jack’s grip tightened at the feel of Annabelle’s breath against his skin and it took a good amount of control to keep from speeding the bike up in reaction. He turned slightly to look over his shoulder. “Just want to be sure you’re awake, luv.” His voice matched hers in volume. The two had plenty of experience communicating over the bellow of motorcycle engines.

  “What for?” She should have known better than to honestly expect that they’d go somewhere quiet and get some sleep. She wasn’t sure she’d ever seen Jack asleep in the entire ten years she’d known him. Come to think of it, there was a lot having to do with Jack Thane that she’d never seen. Like his naked body. Not once. What was up with that? He’d seen hers!

  “We’ve got a building to break into,” he said, bringing her mind once more out of the gutter. She blinked and shook her head once.

  “So this whole ride was just to wake me up so we could do this evil deed tonight?” Riding a Hog was one thing. Breaking and entering was a whole different kind of criminal.

  “The less time we waste, the better.”

  She was silent for a few moments, allowing him to turn his full attention back to the road as they entered an area with other traffic and a few late-night pedestrians. She chewed on her lower lip and then laid her head against his upper back. When she did, she felt a soreness in her gums on that side, just beneath her cheek bone. She ran her tongue over the teeth there to find that one of them jiggled a little.

  Oh no, she thought. That bastard knocked a tooth loose.

  Dread swept through her at the thought of visiting a dentist. All white coats and needles and the smell of lidocaine and the sound of drills. Not her favorite places in the world. She avoided them at all costs.

  The Harley carved around another corner and she found herself thinking, maybe it will get better. A straight away and another corner and she thought, Maybe, if it doesn’t, the dentist won’t be so bad.

  She closed her eyes. She didn’t like the idea of pulling a cat burglar routine at Columbia University, but she also knew good an
d well that it was necessary. Necessarily done by her, on the other hand, not so much. She’d sort of pictured Jack and Sam going through the place on their own, leaving her and the others out of the thick of it. Why was Jack bringing her along instead?

  She opened her eyes and, in a few moments, recognized the fact that they were on a campus. No matter what famous architect worked on a school, a University’s buildings all took on that learned-in look. The manicured lawns and bountiful trees and shining street lamps were a dead give-away, as well as the paved walk-ways, bike paths and designated parking signs.

  “This isn’t exactly covert, Jack!” Annabelle hollered at him. The sound of a Harley never failed to get plenty of attention.

  “Noted!” He hollered back.

  Annabelle mentally shrugged and figured he had a plan.

  When he pulled into the Fort Washington Garage, two blocks away from the Black building, where the dean’s office ought to be, she knew that at least part of whatever plan he did have involved a lot of walking. She was grateful for the fact that she was still dressed in her “bullet-proof” riding gear and comfortable boots.

  Jack cut the engine and held the bike while she dismounted.

  “What are we doing, Jack? We can’t just walk right in,” she told him after he kicked down the stand and got off.

  He turned a white grin on her and cocked his head to one side, pulling the keys out of his pocket with one gloved hand. “Why not, luv?” He held the keys up in front of her and his grin widened.

  So his plan was of the, we-have-every-right-to-be-here sort. She hated those plans. She’d never been able to get a drink with a fake ID when she was under-age. Her nerves had always given her away.

  “Jack, why did you bring me with you?” she asked, trying not to sound as if she was whining. She so did not want to be doing this.

  He chuckled. “A man accompanied by an attractive young woman looks a lot less suspicious than two men or a man alone,” he told her softly. He once more took her wrist, this time allowing his grip to slide to her hand and hold fast there. She spun around and walked with him as he made his way through the pedestrian exit of the garage and down several flights of stairs.

  Annabelle wondered, exactly, what Jack hoped to find when they reached the dean’s office. Did he think it would be some secluded door at the end of a darkened hallway where no one would be watching? Because, she could pretty much guarantee that wouldn’t be the case. The office was attached to a very large hospital, after all. And hospitals never slept.

  But she was also finding it hard to be really scared about the whole prospect with Jack’s hand firmly wrapped around her own. It felt too strong, too secure – too safe. He was a man who had been killing people and getting away with it for a really long time. If he wasn’t worried about this tiny illegal tangent, then she had every plausible right not to be as well.

  They made their way across 165th street and up Fort Washington Avenue, crossing beneath several sky-ways as they did so. The architecture of the surrounding buildings was vast and impressive. At several points, Annabelle found herself slowing down to get a better look. Jack let her do so, allowing her a little time to admire something she’d never seen before.

  But then he would gently tug her forward, reminding her that they were there for a reason. They had been shot at, beaten up, and Max and Teresa Anderson were both dead. This wasn’t exactly the time to stop and smell the roses.

  They came to the end of the block and rounded the corner onto 168th street.

  “Which suite was it?” Jack asked her as he led her into one of the tall buildings and to an elevator. They passed various people along the way, all moving quickly and with purpose. Most wore white lab coats, but some wore blue operating room scrubs and others wore plain clothes. A few people even scuttled past in their pajamas. The Presbyterian hospital and its neighboring affiliates were nothing if not busy.

  “Fourteen-oh-eight,” she answered, recalling the address on the map that Clara had brought back from her earlier excursion.

  Jack waited until they could take the elevator alone and hopped in, pulling Annabelle in behind him. He punched a number on the pad, inserted a key from the ring he’d taken off of Dr. Beckman, turned the key, and waited as the elevator began to take them upward.

  When the elevator doors opened again, Jack, pulled the key back out of the wall and led the way out. Annabelle nervously followed him down a carpeted corridor to a double wood and glass door with the suite number 1408 off to the left. The lights beyond the glass were dark. No one was home.

  Jack unlocked the doors and let them both in. Then he shut and locked the doors behind them. They waited for a moment as their eyes adjusted to the light.

  “What are we looking for?” Annabelle asked.

  “Filing cabinets.”

  Annabelle spied the tall towers of cabinets along one wall just as Jack did, because he moved toward them before she could say anything. She followed him, being careful not to bump her hip against the desks or tumble over a stray metal trash can.

  Jack shined a small pen light on the letters marking the front of the cabinets, moving down until he came across an unmarked drawer toward the bottom.

  “Don’t you wanna go through the ‘B’s?” Annabelle asked, gesturing toward the A through F drawer.

  “If Brandt did have a file in there,” Jack said, “it wouldn’t be worth reading.” Then he smiled when the drawer he’d chosen wouldn’t open. He nodded. “This is it.”

  She moved closer, watching as he found a small cabinet key on Beckman’s key ring and used it to unlock the drawer. He slid it open to reveal a small selection of manila folders; a dozen at most.

  Brandt’s was in front. Even when he filed things covertly, Dr. Beckman did it in alphabetical order. Annabelle shook her head, smiling. She supposed that once you got used to something, it was hard to stop doing it.

  Jack pulled the folder out and popped it open, placing it on the desk. Inside were Craig Brandt’s application, letters of recommendation, MCAT results, notes on his interview, a copy of his acceptance letter, scholarship information, and copies of his schedule for this first two years, along with grades received.

  Out of curiosity, Annabelle reached for the grades. Mostly A’s. She read the scholarship letter. It required that he maintain a 3.75 GPA.

  “What was it, exactly, that Beckman believed Brandt was mixed up in?” she asked as she flipped through his schedules next. The sheets listed what students were in each class, who the professors were, and what lab hours were assigned to each study group. Apparently, lab time had to be split up due to space constraints.

  “Ecstasy,” Jack answered.

  When she looked up at him with a quizzical expression, he supplied, “The drug, not the emotion.”

  “Ah.” She said, nodding once.

  “Supposedly, Brandt was making it in his apartment and got himself blown up.”

  Annabelle’s brow raised skeptically. “With these grades?” She shook her head, disbelieving. “There’s no way. He was here on the good graces of…” She read the name on the scholarship grant. “Mrs. Nadine Armitage and her late-alumni-husband, Doctor Armitage.” She put the paper back down. “He wouldn’t have done anything to lose that scholarship. Especially not as close as he was to graduating.”

  Jack’s smile said that he already knew as much, but liked to hear it from her.

  She sighed. “So what can we hope to glean from all of this?” She gestured to the strewn papers.

  This time, Jack’s expression was a little less confident. “I’m not sure,” he admitted.

  Annabelle was about to give him a hard time, just for the sheer fun of it, when her eye caught something on two of the schedule sheets. She leaned in for a closer look, moving the schedules so that they were side by side.

  “Look at this,” she said, pointing out Brandt’s name on one of the study group lists.

  Jack leaned in, his gaze narrowed. “At what, luv?”
r />   “This woman here – Virginia Meredith – she’s the only female constant in all of his study groups.”

  “What are you getting at?”

  Annabelle chewed on her lip for a moment. “Cassie said that study group partners in med school usually grow really close.” Annabelle and Cassie had little to do while they worked on graphic design projects at DesignMax but gossip to one another. By now, they each had quite thorough run-downs on each others’ pasts. “They’re together constantly, so they have no choice. She said that it’s not unusual for partners to date – even get married.” Annabelle turned away from the papers on the desk and moved back to the second filing cabinet along the wall.

  She scanned the letters on the front, her eyes now having fully adjusted to the darkness. When she came to the cabinet marked “M through R”, she opened it up and searched for Virginia Meredith’s file. It wasn’t there.

  Of course it isn’t here, she thought, mentally kicking herself. Virginia Meredith went to school at Columbia six years ago. It would be with past files.

  She looked up, immediately feeling stupid and blushing hard, but Jack wasn’t watching her. She experienced a mixture of relief and trepidation to find that, in fact, he wasn’t in the room at all.

  “Jack?” she called softly, scanning the dark shadows of the room for his tall form.

  “In here,” he called back from beyond a thick wood door that she had assumed led to a copy or break room.

  She didn’t have to ask when she walked into the room to find him bent over a separate filing drawer, pulling out a manila folder. She knew he’d found the files for past students.

  “Got it?” she asked.

  “Got it.”

  She spared a furtive glanced over her shoulder, toward the double doors at the far end of the room. She was growing uneasy. “Should we just take the folder with us and get out of here?”

  “No, luv,” he told her as he popped open the folder, searched for something on the first page, and then closed it again, re-filing it where he’d pulled it out. “Never different. That’s the rule.” He closed the drawer and turned toward her, his blue gaze finding hers and holding it, even in this darkness.