Stop the Wedding! by Stephanie Bond Page B

engine light flashed on, and the car died. She turned the key and the engine whined, but wouldn’t turn over, not even on the second or the third try. Annabelle thumped the steering wheel, then gave in to the ridiculous tears she’d been fighting for what seemed like days. Belle’s dogged determination to marry had her on edge, and the sleepless nights she’d spent dissecting her puzzling encounters with Clay hadn’t helped matters. And now this.
    She lay her head down on the steering wheel and bawled.
     
    *****
     
    Clay was on his way back from checking the painting progress on his condo when his phone rang. He picked it up and saw Henry’s name on the caller ID screen. Tensing for more bad news, he pushed a button. “Yeah, Henry, what’s up?”
    “It’s the girl,” the private investigator said. “She’s having car trouble and it’s raining like hell. Call me old-fashioned, but I feel like I should help her or something.”
    Remembering the look of her big hazel eyes when she thought she might be arrested in the department store, Clay could sympathize with Henry’s instincts, but he didn’t want the man to blow his cover. “Where is she?”
    “Sherell Shopping Center on Buice Road.”
    Clay looked around to get his bearings. “I’m not far from there—in fact, I’m driving into rain now. I’ll say I just happened by.”
    “She’s in a blue Buick in front of the jeweler’s.”
    “Jeweler’s?”
    “Yeah, she had an engagement ring sized for herself—”
    Clay scowled. Was Annabelle engaged to that Mike fellow he overheard her mother talking about? “Are you certain?”
    “Yeah, I heard everything. And she had the ring your dad gave to her mother—she wanted the jeweler to tell her how much it was worth.”
    Clay’s heart fell to his stomach—he’d seen the bill for the ring, and the bauble was worth a hefty sum. “Really.”
    “I didn’t catch what she said, but she looked disappointed with whatever the fellow told her.”
    Clay’s heart fell to his knees. A hefty sum, but not as much as she’d anticipated, obviously. “Thanks, Henry. By the way, Dad and I are having dinner with them this evening, so skip the surveillance and try to get me some details of the daughter’s personal life in Michigan—relationships with men, that kind of thing.” He needed the information to help protect his father.
    Not to satisfy his own curiosity.
    “Sure thing, Clay.”
    He disconnected the call, chewing on the inside of his cheek. Annabelle couldn’t have taken the ring without her mother’s knowledge, so Belle was in on it, too. Were they planning to hock the ring? Or were they simply using it as a barometer to estimate his father’s wealth? He remembered her frightened expression in the department store and scoffed. A mother and daughter team, playing up to father and son. No wonder he was starting to feel soft toward Annabelle—she’d probably planned it that way, the schemer. The more he thought about the way she’d wormed her way into his subconscious, the more irritated he became, taking solace only in the fact that if he had yielded to her wiles, it was because she was such a pro.
    Within a couple of minutes, he had the shopping center in sight, and the stalled car wasn’t hard to find considering the line of traffic detouring around the sides. Impatient drivers delivered punctuated honks at the woman sitting inside behind the wheel, apparently waiting out the worst of the summer storm. Despite his hardened resolve, Clay experienced a pang of compassion, thinking he certainly wouldn’t want his sister—if he had one—to be in the same predicament.
    While he waited to turn in, she suddenly sprang from the car and ran through the rain in the direction of a nearby bank, ducking beneath the drive-through canopy to shake herself like a dark, wet collie. He hated the protective feelings that welled in his chest at the bedraggled sight of her. Clay pulled into the drive-through