Young Love Murder (62 page)

Ignoring me, he nudges past and stalks to the front door. I notice his tension and my instincts say that he’s looking for a fight. I’m kinda feeling relaxed right now, but I guess I could humor him. After standing in the doorway, looking both ways down the street, he grunts and slams it shut. He starts to pace and I assume that’s what I interrupted when we ran into each other. 

“What’s the matter with you?” I ask, starting to feel his irritation rub off on me. 

He barely spares me a glance. “She’s not back yet.”

Well, there’s only one ‘she’ he could be speaking of. “Anna?”

“She’s not answering her cell either.” He opens the door again, as if expecting her to magically appear. 

Now I’m feeling his worry, a whole lot of it. “Where the hell is she?”

He gives me a ‘You’re a retard’ look. “Don’t you think I’d be there looking for her, if I knew? Instead of babysitting your helpless ass?”

Not wanting to fight with him when we should be concentrating on Anna, I try to think rationally. “Well, she can’t have been gone more than a few hours. I’m sure she’ll be back soon.”

Again, he seems to not be paying attention to me. He walks to a side table and starts picking up items off it. He tucks a gun into the back waistband of his pants. Extra clips and a wallet are shoved into his pockets. He stares down at a big ass knife as if unsure where to stuff it. It ends up going into his boot, under his pant leg. Finally, he answers, “I have a bad feeling. We’re going looking.” I’m feeling something similar in my gut.

Before he turns back around, I’m heading down the hallway back to my room. Off the dresser, I grab my gun, a couple clips and a smaller version of the knife Jackson is sporting. Overcompensating much, Jackson? He’s texting on his cell phone on the front steps when I exit the wide open front door. My weapons are as concealed as his in cargo pockets and under a baggy t-shirt. 

I lock the front door, don’t want any surprises when we return, then join him down on the sidewalk. “Which way would she have gone?”

He contemplates my question then points to the right. “That way is mostly residential for quite a few blocks.” Then he turns on his heel, expecting me to follow. “She would have gone in the direction of the shops.” He doesn’t hesitate in his assertion, but I get the feeling that he’s now masking his worry with false bravado. 

The street is mostly empty, with people in their homes for dinner, relaxing for the coming evening. Not even a block away, we come across a mess on the sidewalk of spilled groceries. Vegetables are scattered out of the brown paper bag and a jar of sauce is cracked on the sidewalk. 

Jackson withdrawing his gun has me doing the same, keeping it low against my thigh as a kid passes us riding a bike. “Jackson, it doesn’t mean it’s her.” But I know that the dread on his face is reflected on mine. He crouches down before the items on the ground and pulls something out from them, holding it up for me to see. It looks like a dart. 

Then I realize what it is. Anyone who’s seen enough action flicks or played enough video games would. A tranquilizer dart is not your normal grocery store merchandise. Helpless rage overcomes me and, with a yell, I lash out by kicking some random item on the ground into the street. 

Jackson calmly stands and starts walking back in the direction of the house. Knowing that I have no choice but to let him take the lead in this situation, I follow him down the street and back inside the house. “What now?” I ask almost belligerently. 

He pulls out his phone. “Now, we call Simon.” His tone is controlled, in a way that tells me he’s holding onto what little control he possesses by a thread. 

I listen to his side of the phone conversation, half lost in my own thoughts. Our journey to Athens must have not been as undetected as we thought. Jackson gets off the phone, unhappier than he was before. 

“What now?” I repeat.

He grimly replies, “Now, we wait.”

Chapter 47

Gabriel

So we waited all night and into the morning.

At one point late last night, while Jackson was dozing in and out of sleep on the couch and I was trying to do the same on a divan, I cried. I’m man enough not to be ashamed of it. All I could think about was whether or not she was still alive, praying that she was. Willing to sell my soul to save her, but not knowing who to offer it up to. 

In the morning Jackson showers first, while I man the phones. Then it’s my turn to shower. As I’m in there, I think about our situation. Simon will be arriving at the airport late tonight. Brent should be here in just a few hours. Porky is supposedly close to confirming the identity of the nameless enemy behind all of this. 

Two years of emptiness just to find her and maybe lose her again. But this time I won’t be able to handle my grief. I’d go insane. I’ve loved Anna the girl and I’ve loved Anna the woman. I’ve loved Anna the high school student and I’ve loved Anna the assassin. And I’ll kill anyone who hurts her. I punch the shower tile only to hurt my hand. My life was nothing before I met her. I was nothing without her. Together, we’re something amazing. 

Death brought us together, death tore us apart. Now, it seems as if more death is destined to bring us together once again. Let it not be our own. 

Rinsing the blood off my knuckles, I turn off the shower and dry myself. Once dressed, I enter the living room to see a silent and still Jackson looking out the window. “The call came to the landline.”

Anxious, I ask, “And?”

“We won’t be able to wait for Simon, but thankfully Brent will be here before we have to go.” Jackson looks like shit, not getting much sleep himself. His normal antagonizing behavior is absent.

I let out a long breath. “Annabelle told me about your parents. I can’t help but think that it’s like history playing itself out all over again.”

A pained expression flashes across Jackson’s face. “It’s not the same. My father went in alone, without Simon.”

“We’ll be going in without Simon.” Not that I’d be willing to wait.

He nods jerkily. “Yes, but we’ll have Brent with us.”

“It’s professionals, isn’t it? Not like before.”

He nods again. “Maybe, but even amateurs can get their hands on tranquilizer darts.”

“They want me.” It’s a statement of fact, not a question. 

“Yes.” His eyes flicker to mine. The color is so like Annabelle’s. 

“I’m willing.” A trade would be worth it to save her.

“Won’t matter, they’d just kill you both.”

“I love her.” It explains so much but solves nothing.

He looks at me for a long time, neither of us speaks until he finally murmurs, “I know.” Then he laughs, shaking his head. “Good luck with that.”

I grin wryly. “I don’t need luck, just her.”

“You’re such a girl.” Jackson gives me a genuine smile, perhaps a first, but he quickly sobers up as both of our thoughts return to Annabelle.

“Jackson, I can’t lose her again,” I tell him somberly.

His face strained, he leaves the room.

Brent shows up several hours later, taking a taxi from the airport, looking much the same as he did when we last met. Really, his concern is appreciated, but you’d think it was his sister or future wife in danger. Jackson finally shuts him up and explains what’s to come. 

When his attention shifts from Jackson to me, I brace myself for a fight. “You,” he pauses, breathing hard. “You aren’t going with us.”

Standing in the entryway, I defiantly cross my arms over my chest. “Not up to you.”

He makes a scoffing noise. “You’d be just as likely to shoot Annabelle as save her.”

I take a step forward, intending to put my fist in his face, but Jackson steps between us. “Settle the fuck down, both of you, or you’ll be staying here.” Empty threat, of course, he needs us. 

Deciding that I’ll get violent if I have to look at Brent’s face any longer, I storm off to the kitchen to scrounge up something to eat. As I’m about to lift the banana to my mouth, I wonder if Anna is being fed. No longer having an appetite, I have to force myself to eat the banana and a sandwich. The last thing Anna needs is for me faint at the moment I’m supposed to be rescuing her. 

We have so little information. We don’t know who took her, other than they’re using her to get to me. Probably saw us together yesterday and took the opportunity to snatch her when she went to the market by herself. 

We’re to meet them at sunset in Rafina, a small town outside of Athens less than an hour’s drive away. The address provided over the phone is residential, from what Porky’s been able to find out. The place is listed as being owned by a Greek businessman who’s currently out of the country. So, the question is, is it locals that took Anna or some person or group who followed us here to Greece?’

I suppose it doesn’t really matter because they’ll all end up dead either way. 

Annabelle

Through a cloudy haze, I slowly gain consciousness. Vague memories come back to me. Going to the market, the dart, the annoyance.

My first instinct upon realization is to lash out. Doesn’t happen since I find my wrists lashed together. My next instinct has me taking in my surroundings. I’m trying to focus on what’s around me, but there’s a dazed feeling to my senses. I’m still incredibly groggy from the drugs in my system. My vision is fuzzy and my head feels numb.

Rapidly blinking my eyes, I squeeze them shut before opening them again. Oh my god, I must have been abducted by homeless people. At the very least, they’re really poor people. I’m thinking about what a dump the place is when I realize that I’m in a steel shed.
Quit being a dumbass Annabelle, focus
.

Still feeling a little loopy from the aftereffects of the dart I remember yanking out, I realize that I need to use common sense. The tranquilizer must have knocked me out for a good while because I’ve never had to pee so badly in my life. Rocking slightly in place, I test the sturdiness of the chair I’m slumped in. Damn, sturdy and metal. Not that I’m exactly sure wood would have been any better. The only light in the place is coming through the small windows near the low ceiling, which I suppose I could crawl out of, using the chair, if my wrists and ankles weren’t tied together. The shed is actually large, the size of a small bedroom, but empty of anything but me, my chair and the dirt below us.

One thing’s for sure, I need more information and a weapon. Having only one option at the moment, I start screaming for help. It even helps to clear my head of the remainder of the drugs in my system. But I feel a headache coming on. My yelling is of course rewarded when I hear the scrape of metal as one of the doors is slid open. I get my first look at my captors. Older than me by at least a decade or two, they’re olive skinned with dark hair and eyes. Maybe Greek, maybe Italian, but soon to be dead. 

They stand there looking at me curiously, as if not sure what to do with me. I decide to make a suggestion, “I need to use the bathroom.”

One says something in Greek to the other then walks over to lean down and start untying my ankles. Hmm, to kick or not to kick? These dudes don’t even have their guns out, which means they probably think I’m harmless. Tsk-tsk, shame on them. Shame on me if I act out of impatience and don’t wait for the right time. 

The one who did the untying grabs me by the arm, not too roughly, but I want to elbow him all the same. As they lead me out of the shed and into the sunlight, I get a good look at our location. Hearing waves crash and smelling the salt of the ocean, I realize that we’re on the coast. The large white house they’re leading me to has me wondering why I was trussed up in a shack out back. Scare tactic? I’m shaking in my flip flops.

Going through a back entrance, we run into another man. He’s younger, probably late twenties. Fucker checks me out. That one better not get any ideas in his greasy head. On the criminal social ladder, he is so beneath me. He says something in Greek to the two men leading me down the narrow hallway and they all start laughing. Just to startle them, I begin laughing along with them.