Will was trying his best to place her; she looked familiar. She only reached chest height on Jake, wasn’t wearing any make up and was wearing a cute hat, even though she was inside the house, which puzzled him. He could hear Jake muttering and caught the shut-the-fuck-up-look on her face. He realised where he knew her from: she was one of the coppers in the community office who worked with Jake.
He coughed. ‘Sorry to break up your lovers’ tiff but we have work to do Jake.’
‘We are not having a lovers’ tiff, Jake is just overprotective and a pain.’
Jake threw his hands in the air in mock submission. ‘Well, I’m sorry, Annie, but you can’t be mad at me because I care. I’ve been so worried.’
She smiled and her whole face lit up. Will felt something inside his chest shift just a tiny bit. ‘No, I’m not mad but I have to get over this on my own, get myself together. You know how it is. He ruined my life for long enough.’
Will had to stop himself from giving the pair of them a round of applause. He felt as if he had stumbled into some bizarre scene from a soap opera. ‘Right then, now you’re both going to live happily ever after it’s time to talk business.’ He winked at Annie. ‘A nineteen-year-old girl was reported missing a couple of hours ago and the alarm bells are ringing; we are very concerned for her welfare. We have a last confirmed sighting of her heading towards the Abbey last night so here is the million dollar question.’
Annie finished it for him, ‘No, I’m sorry I haven’t seen or heard anything unusual.’ She opted to leave out the drama at the old house earlier.
‘Is it OK to check all the outbuildings just in case she’s hiding in one of them?’
Annie nodded, pulled her jacket from the back of the chair and followed them outside. Between the three of them they searched each barn in a matter of minutes.
‘Sorry but it looks like there’s nothing but junk in any of them.’ She shrugged her shoulders by way of apology.
‘Don’t worry. I think you would have noticed someone creeping around anyway.’
Jake strode over to join them. ‘What about the old house? It’s huge. She could be hiding out in there.’
Annie’s voice raised an octave, ‘No, she’s not in there.’
Jake arched his eyebrow. ‘And you would know this because?’
‘Because I was in there earlier and it was empty. My brother is the caretaker and I went to check it out. I don’t think anyone has been in there since 1982.’ She thought about the figure at the window but kept quiet.
Will picked up on her agitation and found himself intrigued: there was something she wasn’t telling them. He didn’t think for one minute that it had anything to do with their missing girl but something had put her on edge. ‘I’ll take your word for it but if we don’t find her we may have to search the place just to cover our backs.’
‘Well, let me know and I’ll take you in because it’s dangerous. I don’t know how she would have got in though because the downstairs windows are all boarded up.’ She ducked under a low beam but didn’t go low enough and her hat caught on a nail.
Will was horrified to see the angry red wound and line of staples that ran along the back of her head. Her hair had been shaved to allow the doctors to patch it all back together but dark stubble was beginning to poke through.
Jake not known for his tact gasped, ‘Jesus Christ, Annie, what a mess your head is. I’m surprised you haven’t got brain damage.’
Her face bright red, she grabbed the hat and pulled it down over her head then turned and walked briskly back towards the safety of the house. Once she reached the kitchen door she turned to face them. ‘If you need me give me a ring.’ With that she shut and bolted the kitchen door leaving them staring at each other.
‘What the fuck is the matter with you, Jake? Why did you have to say that?’
Jake shrugged and Will was pleased to see that for once he actually looked remorseful. ‘Ah you know me, Will, I don’t mean it. Before I can stop myself I’ve jumped straight in with my size twelve boots and the damage has been done.’
They walked in silence to the gate and Will couldn’t help but turn around to take one last look, he caught a glimpse of Annie watching them from one of the downstairs windows, she looked so scared and vulnerable and he wanted to go back and give her a hug, tell her everything was going to be all right. Bloody hell I’m going soft in my old age.
They walked back to the main path, which ran through the woods to meet up with some of the search team. Jake was subdued for a change and Will was thankful, his mind was working overtime wondering what had happened to Annie. But now was not the time or place because he needed to keep a clear head for Jenna White. On top of that he couldn’t ask Jake about Annie because he’d never hear the end of it. He supposed he could ask around the station where, no doubt, someone would be all too willing to fill him in on every gory detail, but he didn’t want that. He didn’t want to violate her privacy, he wanted to hear it from her and he wondered how he could approach her if he saw her again. And he did want to see her again. Very much.
Annie wasn’t really angry with Jake. She was used to him opening his mouth and putting his foot in it. The number of scrapes at work she had got him out of was too many to count; it was because Will had been there she had felt humiliated. She only knew him well enough to say hello to in the corridor, up to now never having worked on any cases with him. The look of pity on his face had made her feel helpless.
She didn’t want sympathy from anyone. It was her own fault she had stayed with Mike all those years when she should have done what she told the countless victims of the domestic violence cases she dealt with through work: get out of there. But Mike could be so persuasive when he needed to be and a complete charmer. He would promise her he wouldn’t do it again and tell her that he loved her so much and every time she believed him until the last six months when she had started to crack. She felt like a complete idiot.
As she had watched Jake and Will walk away she had wanted to run after them and offer them some coffee. It would be nice to have some company, especially after this morning’s events. She knew all about Will’s reputation around the station as a womanizer. According to Jake, who had been friends with him since they joined, his type was tall, blonde, stick-thin, the look of a starving supermodel. So why was the way he looked at her playing on her mind?
Jake, on the other hand, was the complete opposite. When, fresh from training school, she had been assigned a tutor on her first day in the station and had been introduced to him she had to breathe deeply to calm herself down. He was tall, dark and drop dead gorgeous with muscles in all the right places. Every single job they went to the women practically threw themselves at him. He was always professional and never took them up on their offers of phone numbers or drinks and Annie had found herself developing a major crush on her tutor.
Jake took to Annie and became her protector, to which she had not the slightest objection. After one particularly harrowing day at work – they had delivered two death messages in a row and been the first on scene at a fatal car crash – he invited her to his house for a bottle of wine and a takeaway. Annie couldn’t have said no even if she had wanted to. Eager to have the chance to spend some time with him she had told Mike it was a girl’s night out. He had moaned the whole time she was getting ready to go and she knew there would be a price to pay for it later.
She arrived at the large Victorian semi in one of the nicest parts of town, which made her wonder exactly how he could afford it on his wages. Walking up the cobbled path bordered on either side by the most aromatic lavender and pink roses she had ever smelt it occurred