by the police, that’s when you couldn’t let it go. Vanity had nothing to do with it, Jack. Injustice was the culprit.
But Henry wasn’t there.
Chapter Forty
Henry didn’t find Hannah at the Boulder Book Store—she found him. She came running up to him as he walked in the door and gave him a big hug. He hadn’t seen her since Thanksgiving two years before. She was a little taller and she looked more grown up and healthy. That zest for life that college kids possessed seemed to ooze from her pores. She was smiling from ear to ear at the sight of him.
Kids, Henry thought, even though he was referring to a twenty-year-old. They’re so open with their feelings. We could learn a lot from them.
“Hi, Henry,” Hannah said. “I hear you’ve come to rescue me.”
“I don’t know about that,” Henry replied. “I’m just helping your mom out here.”
“Do you really think this guy is after me?”
“I don’t know, Hannah, but we can’t take any chances.”
“Where’s Jack?”
“He’s back in Gainesville. He’s going to do what he can from there.”
“Mom’s pretty pissed at him.”
“It’s understandable, but Jack had his reasons for representing Felton.”
“That’s not what Mom said.”
“I know. Don’t they teach you at school to look dispassionately at all sides of a problem?”
“Yeah. What does that have to do with anything?”
“Well, this is one of those problems that has many sides, and since it’s about life and death, it brings out the best and the worst in people. Are you hungry?”
“Kinda.”
“We’re going to meet your mother at the coffee shop here in three hours. Why don’t we get something to eat.”
“Okay. There’s a great vegetarian restaurant right down the street.”
“Are you a vegetarian?”
“No. I’m a vegan.”
“And what exactly does that mean?”
“No meat, no dairy, no eggs, milk, or cheese, and no fish.”
“So what do we eat, the bark off the side of a tree?”
“Very funny,” Hannah said. “You just wait—you’re going to love it.”
Henry didn’t know that he had consented to go to Hannah’s restaurant but she was already on her way. She’s a lot like her mother, he decided.
Danni had a lot of time to think on her drive to Tampa and her flight to Denver. Henry would probably have some suggestions about how best to protect Hannah. Danni felt that nobody could protect her daughter as well as she could. However, something else very powerful was building inside of her—the need to find Felton and kill him. While Hannah’s security was still paramount, she trusted Henry to see to it. They weren’t that close and Henry had participated in the decision to help Felton get out of jail, but there was that day in a small apartment in Miami when Henry could have walked away and saved his own life and didn’t. He’d had her back, and he would have Hannah’s back no matter what—Danni was certain about that. So if Henry’s suggestions allowed her to go back to Oakville and find Felton or let him find her, Danni was going to listen. After all, finding Felton and killing him was the best security of all.
Henry watched Hannah bolt from the chair in the bookstore coffee shop, run to her mother, and throw her arms around her. He had seen Danni walk through the door a second before Hannah saw her. She’d looked stressed and troubled. Her daughter’s hug had momentarily replaced that look with a smile of genuine joy. Hannah was slightly taller than her mother now but the two women looked so much alike. Other people glanced up from their computers, books, and lattes to watch and listen to the reunion.
“You look great!” Danni told her daughter.
“Not as good as you, Mom. You always look great.”
The two women approached the table where Henry was waiting. He stood up and put out his hand. Danni didn’t take it. She walked around the table and gave him a big hug.
“There’s no animosity between us, Henry,” she whispered in his ear. “You came all the way out here to save my daughter.”
Henry’s response came out before he had a chance to grab it. “I wish you felt the same way about Jack.”
They separated. “Don’t go there, Henry. Not now.”
They all sat down. Danni ordered a coffee, and they chatted a little before getting down to the hard stuff.
“I almost missed my plane,” Danni said. “I was on my way to the airport, stopped at a stop sign not too far from my home, when I saw this elderly gentleman on the