studied her face while she talked. If he’d been asked to describe her from memory, he would have said “average.” Average height, average build, average blondish-brown hair of average length. A sweet-looking kid. She used to wear her hair in two pigtails tied with pink yarn.
He remembered the pink yarn and pigtails.
She didn’t wear her hair like that anymore, though. Now the wavy, chin-length stuff was tucked behind her ears.
And Annie had cheekbones. High cheekbones that angled to a small chin that matched her small pert nose. Her mouth was small, too, but full and soft-looking and it was the color of that pink yarn he suddenly remembered so very well.
Griffin shifted restlessly against the vinyl seat of his chair. He shouldn’t be looking at Annie’s mouth. Most certainly not at a time like this.
To punctuate the thought, he suddenly picked up on her first hesitation in answering the questions about the robbery. Griffin straightened and paid more attention as the detective repeated himself. “Was there anything about the man you recognized, Annie?”
Her brow furrowed and her soft, pink mouth turned down. “I don’t…think so.” She frowned deeper. “Something…” Then she shook her head and her voice was more decisive. “No. I didn’t recognize him. At first it was just that mask, and then I only saw his shoes. That’s all I could see, really.”
“Could you describe the shoes?” the detective asked.
“Black men’s shoes that laced.” She looked around the room, stuffed with desks and chairs and other officers interviewing other witnesses. “Like those.” Her forefinger indicated a pair on a man one desk away, and then pointed again. “And those…and those.”
She peered down at Griffin’s cordovan loafers, then shrugged and looked back at the detective. “Sorry.”
“That’s all right, Annie. You did great.” With a smile, Detective Morton reached across the desk and patted her hand.
Griffin frowned. Damn. The detective’s smile was gleaming brighter than the shine of the fluorescent light off his bald spot.
Then Annie smiled back, and a dimple showed up, just at the left corner of her mouth. He’d never known Annie had a dimple. Or never noticed.
Frowning again, he leaned over and grabbed her wrist to tug her hand away from the detective’s. Then Griffin stood, pulling her up with him. “Can we go now?” he said abruptly.
Detective Morton rose to his feet, too, his gaze still on Annie. Griffin felt another spurt of annoyance. The other man was obviously sucking in his gut. It had to be unethical for a cop to hit on a witness, but despite that, it was more than professional interest written all over the detective’s face.
“One last thing, Annie,” Morton said.
Her eyebrows rose. “Yes?”
“I could put you in touch with a victim’s support group,” he said. “You might want to talk with other people about your experience. People trained to help you, and people who have gone through something similar.”
Instead of answering the detective, Annie jerked her head toward Griffin.
“Sorry,” he said hastily, suddenly aware he’d painfully tightened his grip on her wrist. Gritting his teeth, he forced his fingers to relax.
“Thank you,” Annie said to the detective, flashing that dimple at him again. “But I’m going to be just fine. I am fine.”
Now Griffin could breathe. Just for a second there, with the notion of Annie being a victim, he’d felt…a tad concerned.
But she’d said it herself. She was fine.
Which was why he didn’t feel the need to talk much as they left the station beyond, “I’ll give you a ride to your car.” When they reached his Mercedes, however, he did open the passenger door and politely help her into the leather bucket seat.
Before he could shut the door, though, she touched his arm. “Would you mind putting the top down?”
He cocked an eyebrow. While February in coastal California was mild—the temperature was probably near seventy today—women usually liked the convertible’s top up and the air-conditioning on, if necessary. The hair issue, he always figured.
But apparently Annie was different. “I want to feel the wind on my face,” she said.
With a shrug, he complied with her request, and in a couple of minutes they were turning out of the police-station parking lot. The sun on their faces and the wind in their hair, they started down a fairly busy two-lane road.
Griffin sucked in a huge breath of fresh air and relaxed. Hell, but the sun felt good. With only one hand on the wheel, he rubbed his neck, trying to ease the tension slowly unknotting.
He slid a glance at Annie. Her head was against the back of the seat, her eyes were closed, and that pink mouth wore a little smile.
She’d said she was fine. She looked fine.
His muscles loosened even more. Now that she was safely in his car, he didn’t mind admitting that he’d been somewhat bothered by the idea of little Annie Smith being the witness to a bank robbery. Then once he’d seen her again, seen how she’d grown up into a young woman who was still quiet and composed but also so pretty and so delicate, well, he’d downright hated the idea of Annie being shaken up.
“Hey, I’m glad you’re okay,” he said.
“Oh, I am.”
Griffin glanced over at her again. She had her eyes open now, and her cheeks were pink, from either the sun or the wind or both. In each of her hands she held one of the small white sneakers she’d been wearing.
Funny.
It wasn’t so funny when she cocked back her arms and tossed them over the side of the car.
At first, Griffin’s lips couldn’t move, but his gaze darted to the rearview mirror to see the shoes tumbling along the side of the road behind them. Then his wits returned, and he shifted his foot to the brake pedal, abruptly slowing the car. “Annie—”
The vehicle behind them honked at their sudden change in speed, then pulled around to pass. “Annie—”
The vehicle behind that one honked, too, and the driver flipped Griffin an angry gesture as he passed them as well. With the shoes now several hundred feet behind and the traffic starting to pile up, Griffin gritted his teeth and moved his foot back to the accelerator. “Damn it, Annie,” he said. “You threw your shoes out of the car.”
“So sue me,” she answered.
Griffin stared. Maybe the bank robber had kidnapped his nice, quiet Annie Smith—so composed and so delicate, he’d just thought—and put this suddenly flip woman in her stead. “That’s littering,” he felt compelled to point out. “It’s illegal.”
“I think Detective Morton would let me off, don’t you?”
Griffin’s eyebrows rose.
