Annie gave a tight nod. “I’m sure.”
“And the mugging. How are you handling that? Any nightmares? Trouble sleeping? Issues you want to talk out?”
“I’ve had … a few flashbacks of Walt’s abuse.” Annie fingered the hem of her uniform skirt. “Especially seeing Jonah using his fists so effectively.” She paused and glanced up at Ginny. “Did I tell you Jonah spars as a hobby? He fights for fun. For exercise.”
Ginny scowled. “Has he given you reason to think he’ll turn that violence against you?”
“Not yet. In fact, like I mentioned, he’s encouraged me to learn self-defense.”
Relaxing in her chair again, Ginny absently scratched another doodle. “So … stay alert with him. Be watchful for signs he’s dangerous, but … give him a chance to prove his worth, too.” She glanced up, and her gaze invited a response. “What else has been happening?”
Gnawing her lip, Annie thought about the creepy sensation of being watched on her way to work. “Well, I get the feeling someone is following me when I come and go from the diner. But that could just be paranoia.”
“Just the same, be extra careful. Take Jonah up on his offer of a ride. Better safe than sorry, huh?”
A knock on Ginny’s door interrupted them, and the receptionist poked her head in. “Sally Hendridge is here when you’re ready.”
“Thanks, Helen.” Ginny rose from her chair and circled her desk.
Annie took the cue that the meeting was over and stood as well, only to find herself drawn into Ginny’s friendly embrace.
“Take care of yourself, Annie. And give those sweet kiddos of yours a hug from their aunt Ginny.”
“I will.” Annie backed out of the hug and picked up her purse. While Ginny made her feel more optimistic, in general, her friend had also given her a great deal to think about regarding Jonah.
Thinking in terms of a relationship with him was more than a little premature. Still, she reviewed everything Ginny had said as she left the women’s center and headed to the bus stop.
Like that morning, the sensation of being watched dogged her on her trip home. She checked behind her numerous times, but never spotted any one person she considered a threat. But then her stalker, if there was one, wouldn’t advertise his presence. Would he? Or was it, as she’d suggested to Ginny, merely her imagination and paranoia at work?
She tried to discount the odd feeling, but the next morning as she made her way through the predawn darkness to open the diner, the sensation returned in full force.
Finding the entrance to the diner unlit only heightened her jitters. Perhaps she should follow Ginny’s advice and take Jonah up on his offer of a ride home. And she’d look into the Lagniappe PD’s class, if for no other reason than to calm the jangling nerves that made her commute to the diner and back home so tense.
Annie fumbled to key the front door lock but discovered it was already open. Odd.
Grumbling under her breath about Mr. Hardin’s multiple oversights in closing the restaurant the night before, Annie started a pot of coffee and headed to the kitchen to clock in and collect the cleaning supplies she’d need to prepare the restaurant for opening.
Instead, she found Hardin sprawled on the office floor in a puddle of blood.
When Jonah arrived for breakfast at Pop’s, a swarm of cops milled around the entrance and crime scene tape barred the gathering of reporters and curious onlookers from entering the diner. His heart rose to his throat as a black body bag was wheeled out by the coroner and loaded in a hearse.
Panic squeezed his chest, and he struggled to recall the waitresses’ work schedule he’d conned Susan into showing him, knowing Annie wouldn’t share her schedule willingly.
Friday. Annie was slated to open the diner.
Dear God.
Adrenaline pumped through him, jangling his nerves. A cold sweat beaded on his lip as he searched the crowd for Annie’s face.
Years of experience with crime scenes that should have allowed him some professional distance vanished. When someone you cared about was involved, objectivity flew out the window.
He spotted Lydia and shoved through the horde of reporters and cameramen. Seizing Lydia’s arm, he spun her around. “What happened? Where’s Annie?”
The gray-haired woman scowled at him and fought his grip until recognition dawned on her face. “Oh, Mr. Devereaux, it’s you. I thought you were another vulture reporter trying to exploit this tragedy for ratings.”
She huffed indignantly and sent a scathing look down the sidewalk to the aforementioned scavengers.
Jonah fought down the rising fear that coiled inside him, forced his voice to remain calm. “What tragedy, Miss Lydia? What happened?”
“It’s Hardin. Poor Annie found him shot dead in his office when she got here this morning to open the place.”
Relief that the body bag hadn’t been for Annie, and a gnawing concern for her trauma, tangled inside him.
Lydia shuddered and wrinkled her nose in dismay. “I can’t even imagine how grisly and horrifying that had to have been for her,” she said, mirroring Jonah’s thoughts.
“Where’s Annie now?” He cast another searching glance over the rubbernecking bystanders. “What happened to her? Is she all right?”
“Shook-up real bad, but not hurt.” The older woman’s face crumpled in sympathy. “Poor dear. Last I saw her, one of the cops had put her in the back of a cruiser to take her statement, get her out of the diner and away from the pushy reporters.” She aimed a finger down the block. “Over there.”
Jonah squeezed Lydia’s hand. “Thanks.”
He jogged down the street in the direction Lydia had pointed, searching each of the numerous police cars for Annie. When he spotted her, a curtain of dark hair shielding her bowed face, her thin shoulders hunched forward, her body rocking rhythmically back and forth on the rear seat of a cruiser, his gut twisted. Her body language reflected abject misery and terror.
A suffocating urgency to reach her, comfort her, protect her, grabbed him by the throat. He darted around the cluster of uniformed officers holding court on the sidewalk and knocked on the car window. “Annie!”
Her head jerked up, eyes wide. A gray pallor leeched her complexion. In seconds, the officers on the sidewalk assessed Jonah as a threat and seized his arms.
“Back off, sir,” one cop ordered as he hauled Jonah back from the police car.
Annie scrambled to find the door handle, beating it with her fists when she found herself trapped in the cruiser’s escape-proof backseat.
“That’s my girlfriend,” he lied. “I just want to talk to her! Can’t you see she’s upset?”
“She’s a material witness. Until the detectives question her—”
“I know the drill!” Jonah released his frustration on the uniform. “I was on the job in Little Rock for nine years! I just want to hold her, calm her down.” He shook free of the man’s grip and shoved past another cop blocking his path.
“Sir, you can’t—”
Jonah stuck his nose in the second cop’s face. “Look, pal, you can stand right next to us and monitor our conversation if you want. We won’t discuss the case. But I am going to let her out of that car.” He met the officer’s narrowed gaze with a dark glare of his own, then grated through clenched teeth, “Now get the hell outta my way.”
With