Die Hard (Sue Thomas FBEye)

Chapter Seven

The thought of following her crossed Jack's mind, but it quickly fled away. Satisfying his curiosity wasn't worth ruining her surprise, so he headed in the opposite direction, scanning the signs for the two stores he needed to find as he walked.

That the stored ended up side by side was a pure coincidence. He entered the closest one.

"Maybe I help you, son?" asked a short man with spectacles resting on the tip of his nose.

"Yes, I'm looking for a wedding ring like this one." Jack presented Anna's ring to the employee.

With long emaciated fingers, the older man held the heirloom in front of his eyes.

"Simple but beautiful," he noted in appreciation. "Did you know there's an inscription?"

"Yes, my future wife's grandparents."

"Why don't you slip this one on her finger, son? I could give it a nice polish."

"It's too small. It fits on her baby finger."

"So you need bigger..." He sized the ring. "I could probably enlarge it."

"Thank you, but we don't want it altered."

"I understand. Give me a minute."

The clerk searched his inventory for similar rings in bigger sizes and found two, which he placed on the glass counter in front of his customer.

"I have these two, but they come with matching engagement rings."

Both wedding bands were equally beautiful and affordable, but Jack preferred the engagement ring adorned with two tiny diamonds laced together in white gold instead of the larger solitaire diamond.

"Would you be able to engrave a similar inscription in that wedding band?"

"If you give me thirty minutes, yes." The man grabbed a pen and a paper. "Write down the inscription you want engraved."

Jack wrote Sue – Jack 200..., but then he hesitated between a 6 and a 7.

"When's the wedding, son?"

"Not soon enough," he grumbled as he scribbled the last number.

"Come back in half an hour. It'll be ready."

His next stop was to the lingerie store next door. He browsed through the store and picked up special two gifts. Both would be wrapped under the tree with Sue's name on it, but only one would be suitable to be opened in the presence of company.

He went back to the jewellery store a second time then left with only minutes to spare to meet Sue when his cell rang.

"Hudson."

"Family is highly overrated," his agent contended. "Why does Sue want to add another relative?"

"Tara, I'm sorry about your father," he sympathised, unaware she'd bottled up her emotions all day and release was imminent.

"He's no father, Jack. He was an expert at ignoring me and I was fine at pretending he didn't exist," she blurted out. "Why did my mother dump him on me?"

"Tara, why don't you throw him out?" He didn't want to be insensitive, but it sounded like the rational option in view of Tara's venting.

"He's my father, Jack," she retorted, like it should have been obvious.

"Didn't you just tell me..." His brain warned him in time that it wasn't a losing battle he wanted to wage. "Tara, please, take a deep breath, then tell me if number 13 is still alive."