Hell Bent

by Heather Killough-Walden

  She’d been right about Jack. He was an angel, after all. And she’d been right about the Hell thing, too.

  Jack watched Annabelle move through the room, lifting her clothes and shoes, and making her way silently to the bathroom. She never looked at him, and he could glean no one emotion from the enigmatic expression on her lovely face.

  It was hard enough to watch the woman he loved naked, at last, and bending over and walking around in front of him with reckless abandon. To know he couldn’t go to her, pick her up, and throw her down on the bed and have his jolly old way with her was truly much more difficult. But, to realize that he loved her so bloody much that he absolutely respected her feelings and fears a whole hell of a lot more than his own shallow needs would have utterly floored him – if he hadn’t known it already.

  When he heard the bathroom door softly close, he ran a hand through his hair and fell back against the wall, absently lifting the phone from its cradle once more.

  Christ. He was really in the shitter now.

  The least he could do was order breakfast.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  “Hello?”

  Annabelle spared a glance up at Jack, who nodded once in encouragement. Annabelle licked her lips and spoke into the cell phone.

  “Hi. Is this Virginia Meredith?”

  There was a pause on the other end. Then, “Yes. May I ask who’s calling?”

  Caller ID was probably supplying Meredith with a phone number, but it wouldn’t be one she recognized.

  “My name is Annabelle Drake. I’m calling about Craig Brandt.” She paused a moment, allowing the name to sink in. “I… was wondering if you would be willing to meet with me. Craig was a friend of a friend’s. Teresa Anderson.”

  The silence on the other end stretched. Annabelle swallowed. She squeezed her eyes shut and willed Virginia Meredith to say “yes.”

  And then, as if she were speaking with a voice that might choke, Meredith asked, “Can you meet me at the Lavender Garden in an hour?”

  Annabelle’s eyes flew open. She blinked. “Yes,” she said. “Definitely.”

  The line went dead and Annabelle closed the cell phone and handed it back to Jack. “The Lavender Garden,” she said softly. “In an hour.”

  “What’s the Lavender Garden?” Cassie asked.

  Annabelle shrugged. “I have no idea.”

  Jack popped open the phone again and pressed a speed-dial number. He put the phone to his ear. In a moment, he said, “Hey. Find the location and venue of the Lavender Garden in New York, would you?”

  He waited and they all waited with him.

  In another few minutes, he nodded. “Right. Thanks, mate.” He closed the phone and turned back to Annabelle. “It’s a multi-level used book store and coffee shop on the corner of Milwaukee and Sherman. Forty minute drive from here.”

  Was there anything Jack Thane could not learn if he wanted to? Annabelle shook her head in wonder.

  “Ri’, so we’d best be getting’ a move on,” Clara said as she stood from where she’d been seated on the arm of the sofa.

  Jack turned to face his daughter. “Not you, Clara. You and your mother will stay here with Sam. This’ll just be Dylan, Annabelle and I.”

  Clara’s gaze narrowed dangerously and she put her hands on her hips. “I don’t bloody-well think so, da’!”

  “It makes sense, Clara,” Cassie interrupted, when she saw Jack’s gaze narrow as well. “Virginia Meredith isn’t expecting a parade of people. We all show up and we’ll scare the crap out of her. Dylan should go because this directly concerns him and Teresa was his mother. Annabelle has to go because she’s the one who made the call.” She hesitated then, glancing in Jack’s direction. He was leaning against the kitchen table, looking a bit like the Terminator, without the steroids.

  She swallowed. “To be frank, Thane, you probably shouldn’t go either. You’ll scare her worse than we would.”

  Jack smiled at that, the fire in his eyes dying down a little. “I’ll be across the street keeping an eye on you two,” he said to Annabelle and Dylan. They nodded their understanding.

  Clara sighed and sat back down on the arm of the sofa, her arms crossed over her chest. It was clear she wasn’t having any fun. She had a gun in her holster and desperately wanted to use it. Her mother patted her arm sympathetically and through the thin fabric of her jacket pocket, Annabelle could see that the woman absently fingered the tazer she kept there.

  Annabelle smiled to herself. Like mother, like daughter.

  “Speaking of Sam, where is he?” Cassie asked then.

  Dylan ran a hand through his curly hair and stifled a yawn. “He took off early this morning. Said he had something to take care of and would be back in a few hours.”

  Jack nodded. Annabelle knew what he was thinking. Obviously, Sam had been called away for a job. It was the only thing he would leave this situation for. Assignments tended to take precedence in their line of work.

  “There’s a taxi waiting,” Jack told them as he pushed off of the table and made his way to the front door. Annabelle and Dylan followed after him. “Don’t open the door for anyone. If they belong on this side of it, they’ll have a key to get them here. If they don’t have a key, go out the fire escape and take a taxi to Milwaukee and Sherman,” Jack instructed.

  Cassie nodded and locked the door behind them.

  Jack had the taxi driver drop him off a block away from the book store so that Meredith wouldn’t see him. Annabelle and Dylan continued on to the Lavender Garden, leaving the driver a ten dollar tip.

  The two-story brick building had freshly painted wood trim in light purple and white, and below the windows on each side, painted lavender climbed the bricks and bloomed around the window panes. It was a lovely building, welcoming in a Thomas Kinkade kind of way. It was obvious that someone cared a great deal about the store and put in a good amount of time and effort into its appearance.

  Annabelle glanced at Dylan, who nodded at her, and then she led him inside.

  There was a small sleigh bell on the door that announced their arrival. Annabelle stood on the door step, taking in the surroundings. It looked like a large library, with a spiral staircase at the back and center of the giant room, and a second level that circled all the way around like a balcony.

  “Are you Miss Drake?”

  Annabelle turned to face the woman who had addressed her. She was a very small woman, several inches shorter than Annabelle, and probably thirty pounds lighter. Her hair was yellow-blonde and cut into a stylish, highlighted bob. She had green-gray eyes and long, long lashes. A tiny diamond nose ring accentuated her waifish, elf-like features.

  “Yes. Are you Virginia?”

  The petite, pretty woman nodded, smiling warmly. However, she gave a furtive glance in Dylan’s direction.

  Annabelle pulled Dylan forward and introduced him. “This is Dylan Anderson – Teresa’s son.”

  “Hi,” Dylan said, offering her his hand.

  Virginia tilted her head to one side, her expression becoming at once sympathetic. “I’m so, so sorry about your mother, Dylan.”

  Dylan’s eyes widened and he blushed a little. And then he remembered. And the color drained from his face. This hadn’t been what he was expecting. The condolence caught him off guard.

  Annabelle hurried to come to the rescue.

  “Miss Meredith, is there a place we can go to talk?”

  “Of course,” she said, gesturing toward the spiral staircase across the vast library-like room. “We can talk upstairs.”

  Annabelle followed her through the stacks of books and couldn’t help scanning the titles of them as she went. A lot of them were classics. Homer’s Iliad, To Kill A Mockingbird, Oliver Twist. A few of them were newer classic-type books, like Robert R. McCammon’s “Boy’s Life.” And then there were the books she’d never heard of but with titles interesting enough that she almost desperately wanted to stop and read their back-cover summaries.

&nbs
p; When Meredith led them up the staircase and back to an office at the back of the store, it dawned on Annabelle that the small woman worked at the Lavender Garden.

  As if she had read Annabelle’s mind, Virginia turned and offered her an explanatory smile. “I own the store,” she said, somewhat shyly. “Well, actually, I will own it. Some day. In, say, sixty years.” She opened the door and led them inside, gesturing to a few chairs that were around a round table at the center of the room. “Right now, Wells Fargo owns it. I pay them to let me work my butt off here.”

  Annabelle and Dylan took seats at the small table and took off their jackets.

  When Virginia sat down across from them at the round table, Annabelle got right to the point. “Miss Meredith-”

  “Please, call me Ginnie. Or Merry. Either one.” She smiled warmly.

  Annabelle blinked. “Okay, Ginnie.”

  Ginnie nodded.

  “Ginnie, the reason we’re here is…” She glanced at Dylan to make sure he was okay with this. He nodded at her, swallowing audibly.

  “Dylan’s father, Max, was also killed recently. And we have reason to believe that his death and Teresa’s death are linked… To Craig’s death.”

  This time, it was Ginnie’s turn to blink. Her eyes got very wide. She paled. “Oh my.”

  “Obviously, you and Craig knew each other quite well,” Annabelle continued, making certain that her tone was gentle, her voice low.

  “We were lovers,” she blurted, her color returning to paint her cheeks pink. She fidgeted in her seat, obviously a little stunned that she’d suddenly out-and-out admitted so much. With wide eyes, she went on to explain. “We were lab partners in school and we spent a lot of time together and…” Her voice trailed off, her cheeks reddening further. “Well… Anyway, we were close.” She looked down at the table, lowering her lids. Her countenance drained away, then, from friendly and jovial to poignant.

  “I know how you feel,” Annabelle and Dylan both said at the same time.

  They looked at each other. Surprised registered on Dylan’s features.

  Ginnie looked up, her gaze sliding from one to the other. Then Annabelle looked away from Dylan and stared down at her hands for a moment before going on. “I’m so sorry, Ginnie, about what happened.”

  She shook her head, biting her lip. “I don’t care what they tell me, I can’t believe that he would have been so careless as to leave his gas on and blow himself up. I have never believed it. I never will.”

  “That’s what they told you happened?” Dylan asked. He was still stealing glances at Annabelle, obviously wondering what had happened to her that she would know how Virginia Meredith felt. But Annabelle knew that he wouldn’t bother her about it now. She and Dylan had been friends for a long time. He was probably not so much surprised as a little hurt that whatever had happened to her, she hadn’t already shared it with him.

  “Yes. They said it was a gas explosion. But, the problem is, he didn’t have a gas stove. He had a gas-assisted fire place. Which he never used. Trust me, I know because I often asked him to light a fire so we could…” She trailed off again and then shrugged. “He didn’t like fire. Was afraid of it. He had a huge scar across his fore-arm from where a Bunsen burner had seared off all of his hair when he was in high school. He didn’t smoke, he never lit candles. Nothing.”

  Annabelle nodded, digesting the information. “I believe you, Ginnie.” She took a deep breath and let it out in a sigh. Then she leaned forward and looked Meredith straight in the eyes. “The truth is, Craig was murdered. He was murdered because of something that he discovered while he was working for a pharmaceutical company called MediSign. And the Andersons were killed for the same reason.”

  Again, Ginnie blinked. If the color had drained from her face the first time, she looked positively ghostly now. “M-…” She stammered, her mouth went slack, she blinked again, and then she tried to speak once more. “Murdered?” Her voice was so soft now, if they hadn’t been alone in a very quiet room, the other two would not have heard her.

  Annabelle nodded, once. “Yes.”

  “They killed my mother for something on her laptop,” Dylan said. “We think that it was something Craig Brandt gave to her or told her. They killed my dad six years later – the day before yesterday – because he found the laptop.” He stopped and licked his own lips, looking down at the table for a long while before he went on. “Do you have any idea what-”

  “Yes.”

  Annabelle and Dylan both stared at the small blonde. “What?” they asked, simultaneously.

  “Yes,” she repeated, her voice dry but urgent. “I think I know what it was.”

  “Are - are you serious?” Annabelle asked, her heart suddenly racing.

  “Yes,” she nodded, becoming excited now. “Because he gave me something and told me to hide it and, well, not show it to anyone or tell anyone about it. But, now…” She paused, fidgeting. “Well, he’s dead, and I just know in my heart that I’m supposed to give it to you.” She attempted a smile. It lit up her face.

  “You know, in your heart?” Annabelle asked, feeling stupid immediately upon asking the question.

  “Yep,” Ginnie said, nodding. “Actually, when you called, I knew it. I get feelings sometimes. And I’m never wrong.” She smiled brightly now; telling them about her superpower made her happy. “Actually, I sense I’m not the only one at this table who gets them sometimes.” She turned her gaze on Annabelle and narrowed it.

  Dylan looked from her to Annabelle and back again. He blinked at her and then looked down at the table again and cleared his throat.

  The sound seemed to pull Ginnie back to the bleak subject at hand. She straightened and forced her face into a more serious expression. “Tell you what,” she said, leaning forward. “Come see me after the lunch hour and I’ll tell you where it is. I hid it, like he asked. But I can give you a map.” She pushed her chair back and stood up. Annabelle and Dylan followed suit.

  “I close down for an hour from twelve to one.” She looked down at her little silver watch. “So, two hours? Come back then?”

  Annabelle nodded as they made their way to the door to the office and Ginnie opened it for them, leading the way back out into the store and toward the winding staircase.

  “My apartment’s not too far from here. Just a ten minute walk or so. I go home for lunch every day. I love to cook,” she explained, talking to them over her shoulder as they descended the stairs. “In fact, I almost couldn’t decide between opening my own restaurant and opening a bookstore.”

  “What happened to the medical stuff?” Annabelle asked, wondering why she’d gone to Columbia if she was going to become a small business owner.

  “I had to read so many sucky books in school and eat so many buckets of take-out, it just proved to me that it must not be my thing,” she explained, coming to the first floor and turning to face them as they stepped down. “Craig was always telling me as much. All of those Kung-Pao Chickens and medical journals...” She shook her head and grimaced. They came to the base of the stairs and made their way down one of the stacks of books to the main entrance of the store. “I yearned for real food and real books. So, it was one or the other. Books won out.” She gestured to the store around her.

  Annabelle smiled back at her. “Ginnie, thank you for helping us with this.”

  “It’s my pleasure.” She turned to Dylan. “I only hope that you can use what I give you to get to the bottom of this.”

  Dylan and Annabelle nodded one last time and then left the store.

  Across the street, a blue-eyed man in black leather watched a strawberry-blonde woman and a tall, lanky teenager with curly brown hair step out onto the sidewalk. Jack finished his coffee, stood, and tossed the paper cup into the trash can several feet away, never taking his eyes off of the couple across the street. When he walked through the door of the Starbucks, several college-aged women watched him leave.

  Jack hailed a taxi and motioned to Annabelle and
Dylan, who caught sight of him and crossed the street.

  “How’d it go?” he asked as they ducked into the back of the cab.

  “You won’t believe me when I tell you,” Annabelle answered. “But, we can’t go far because we have to be back in two hours.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Craig Brandt gave his girlfriend something important to hide before he died. And she’s going to give it to us.”

  Chapter Twenty-two

  As they rode south toward a small bakery where they hoped to get more coffee and an early lunch, Annabelle pulled her hair tie out and ran her hand through her long locks, freeing them from the braid. Her hair hadn’t had a chance to completely dry that morning and Annabelle always liked how soft it was when it dried in the sun.

  Plus, it gave her something to play with while she mulled things over.

  There was a lot to mull over. She stole a glance up at Jack, who sat in the front seat with the taxi driver. As if sensing her eyes on him, he cocked his head to one side, turning slightly in her direction. She hurriedly looked away.

  All morning, they’d managed to put their own personal issues on a back burner so that they could deal with the more pressing matters of Craig Brandt and the Andersons’ murderers. However, she knew good and well that she had not been the only one suffering for it. Her blood pressure must be through the roof. She had so many things she wanted to say to Jack – so many things she wanted to ask him – that she could scarcely keep her mind on what she was doing or saying at any given point in time.

  Luckily, Virginia Meredith had been an interesting enough character that it had helped to focus Annabelle on the matters at hand. Meredith hadn’t been anything like what Annabelle expected. The voice on the other end of the phone conversation had been the same, but she’d expected a past medical student to be more… stodgy. Uptight. Taller. Meredith had to be less than five feet. Genuinely sweet. Almost bubbly. Knowing nothing about her or her past, a perfect stranger would most likely come away from a chance meeting with the blonde and describe her as an “air head” or the like.