“Taylor works down at the tattoo shop, The Inkwell. They’ve got some of Taylor’s work for sale hanging in the front of the shop or you can have something custom done for you.”
“Thank you,” I said, dismissing her and tucking into my breakfast.
Figuring The Inkwell was as good a place as any to start my search, I decided to go there after breakfast. On my way out, I stopped at the door to look at the picture a little closer. I had never been that drawn to artwork before. I was just about to put the whole thing out of my mind when I saw it. In the corner, by the artist’s signature, was a tiny little phoenix. My phoenix.
Suddenly, I was assaulted by a flood of memories. Annabelle drawing the same little phoenix on my hand during one of our dates. Annabelle doodling the same phoenix all over her notebooks. Me giving her custom made earrings and a matching necklace of the same phoenix. Annabelle drawing a larger, more detailed version of that phoenix on paper and giving it to me for Christmas. Annabelle loved to draw and was damn good at it, too. After seeing it, I had no doubt in my mind the artist known as Taylor Davis was indeed Annabelle Burnett.
The Inkwell was easy enough to find. Luckily, there were several other businesses around and a few of them had benches out front. I took a seat and watched the shop from afar. It wasn’t long before I spotted a petite woman with an odd mixture of black and blonde hair falling well past her shoulders inside the shop. She moved around with a confidence I hadn’t ever seen in Annabelle. Her body and size matched what I imagined Annabelle’s would be, but the hair color was different, though it could have been dyed. If I could get a look at her face, I would know for sure.
The woman disappeared into the back of the shop for long periods of time before reappearing near the front. Each time, she never looked toward the front of the shop. After several hours of trying to catch a glimpse of her face, I decided to go back to my hotel room for a few hours and come back in the evening. I didn’t want to draw attention to myself and I would do just that if I continued to sit on a bench and stare at the woman through the window. My exhaustion was catching up with me, despite my best efforts to ignore it, and I needed to catch up on some rest before I went back and tried to see her face. I could have just walked into the shop and asked to speak to her, but I needed to know it really was her before I went inside. I knew I couldn’t handle it if it turned out the woman in the window wasn’t my Annabelle.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Annabelle
I heard the bell on the front door ding. I looked up to see Nathan striding toward me with a huge grin on his face. “Can I assume from the smile on your face that everything went well?”
He beamed even brighter. “You sure can, Mom. I made it!” He picked me up for a hug and spun me around before putting my feet on the ground again.
I laughed. “You’re going to have to stop doing that, son. I’m getting too old to be jostled around by a brute your size and I have a feeling you’re only going to get bigger.”
“You’re only 37 years old. That isn’t anywhere near old,” he replied.
“Talk to me when you’re 37,” I retorted. I refrained from adding, “And have been through all the shit I’ve been through.” He didn’t know about our past. What little he did remember was easily explained away by me. He was under the impression that his father died when he was a baby and we moved to another part of California a few years later. He thought we had always lived on the west coast. He had no idea we were from a little town located in the foothills of the Great Smoky Mountains.
“You ready to go?” he asked.
“Yep. Wave, I’m leaving!” I shouted to my boss, who also happened to be one of my closest friends.
Wave got up and enveloped me in a hug, the same thing he did every day when I left the shop. He gave Nathan a man hug and patted him on the back. “Heard you talking to your momma. Congratulations, boy! I know how hard you’ve worked and we’re all proud of you!”
“Thanks, Uncle Wave. I couldn’t have done it without you guys helping me train.” He paused and lowered his voice, “If I do this, you’ll be sure to look after Mom, right? I can’t leave her alone.”
I gasped. My sweet, sweet boy was worried about me. I cut in before Wave could answer, “Nathan, you don’t need to worry about me. I’ll be fine, and yes, Uncle Wave will look after me. This is an opportunity I will not allow you to pass up. Do you understand me?” I asked in my mom voice with my hands on my hips.
“All right, Mom, you win,” he sighed and headed toward the door.
“See ya later, Wave,” I called over my shoulder, following after my son.
As soon as I stepped outside, I knew something wasn’t right. My heart rate picked up and goosebumps covered my skin. I distractedly took the helmet from my son’s outstretched hand and placed it on my head. Oblivious to my current state, he climbed onto the bike. I secured my helmet and climbed on behind him. The feeling I had intensified and it felt like holes were burning into my left side. I turned my head and scanned the area, but I didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. Still, I fisted Nathan’s shirt and inhaled deeply.
Nathan turned his head back as far as he could. “Mom, what’s wrong? Are you okay?”
I tightened my hold on his shirt. “Go, Nathan. Now!” I barked. Blessedly, he didn’t question me. He took off like a bat out of hell, flying down the road, weaving in and out of traffic.
At some point, he must have turned on the Bluetooth communication because suddenly his voice filled my ears. “Where do you want me to go, Mom?”
Where did I want him to go? Was anything actually wrong? I had no proof, but I couldn’t shake the feeling I had dreaded for years. The feeling of knowing we’d been found. Giving in to my delusions, I frantically shouted into my helmet, “Home, we have to go home!”
“Mom, tell me what’s going on!” Nathan pleaded, his concern evident in his voice.
“I don’t know. I’m mean, I’m not sure anything is going on. It’s just a feeling. Just get us to the house and do as I say. If I’m right, we don’t have time to waste.” I hadn’t worried about this day in years. I had gotten comfortable with our life. After five years of living in California with no problems, I started to relax and continued to do so over the last eight years. I tried desperately to remember my backup plan from years ago. Token! I would pack our shit and call Token. We would go to the clubhouse. We would be safe there until we figured out what to do next.
I calmed slightly once I had a plan in place, but my nerves wouldn’t even be halfway soothed until we were safely locked away at the clubhouse. Over the years, Wave and Token had gained my trust. I eventually shared some of my past with them, though I never gave them any names or told them exactly where I was from. Token had known more than Wave in the beginning, but it wasn’t much. After I opened up, Wave point blank told me if I ever felt like I was in danger, I was to get me and Nathan to the clubhouse as fast as possible and let them handle everything else.
“Nathan, when we get to the house, I need you to go inside and pack the essentials you would need for a week or so and anything sentimental you absolutely do not want left behind. Leave anything that can be easily replaced. Once you have your stuff together, start loading it into my car.”
“Damn it, Mom,” Nathan huffed in exasperation.
