“I’ll set up the monitor on the table. We can watch in here.”
Chauncey said, “I hope you don’t mind I helped myself. Starving. All I could find is peanuts and booze. How do you live?”
Dane snorted and went about disconnecting the monitor and bringing it onto the dining room table along with all the wires.
“She sleeping?”
Chauncey nodded.
Once Dane plugged the last cable into the back of the small monitor on his dining room table, Chauncey scraped his chair around to get a better view, leaned forward and pushed the button. The screen sparked to life showing the bright third floor office of the American Invitational Surfing competition, with the sun still glaring in the windows as it lowered in the sky. The room was empty of any occupants yet and Dane looked at his watch.
“They should be there any minute. Jean Luc better keep his word.”
“I hope they don’t suspect him and throw him in whatever hideaway they have Susan Whittier in,” Chauncey added. “Don’t you think you should wake Shana? She’ll want to see this—right?”
“She needs to see it so she knows what she’s up against in case this thing goes into tomorrow’s competition.” Dane looked at his watch again and did not look forward to going into the bedroom to wake her. Then he’d have to see her sprawled half naked in the bedclothes, gorgeous and sleepy and tempting. On the other hand he’d be damned if he’d let Chauncey go in there and see her like that. He turned and walked down the short hall. Before he touched the doorknob, he rapped his knuckles on the door. “Wake up. Time for the show, Shana.” He paused to give her a chance to respond. Nothing. Swearing under his breath, he turned the knob and opened the door a crack to let himself in. The shade was down and the light was dim. Her hair splayed across the pillow and the tangled sheets left her long legs bare. Taking a deep breath and taking her in as if she might disappear like a picture on a TV screen, he went to the bed and sat on the edge. Of course she would be disappearing from his life. Soon, he reminded himself. The shifting mattress caused her to stir and she started awake, turning to him instantly and clutching the pillow with suddenly alert eyes.
“Jeez, Dane… what is it?”
“Time for the show. Dress fast and get out there. Be ready to go when it’s over.” He paused and watched her relax her alarm, but she didn’t move, waiting for him to leave. So he did.
“We’re on,” Chauncey called as Dane walked back to stand behind him and watch the monitor over his shoulder. The sound was less than ideal, but maybe that was because there were a couple of people talking at once as the men came into view. Jean Luc played host, seating the men and getting them drinks. One of the Brazilian brothers refused to sit and walked around looking at things, including a close-up of the surfboard where the camera was hidden.
“Shit. He’s close. I hope Lynch hid the camera well.”
“I hope he shows up soon so he won’t be dealing with a bunch of drunk men.”
Shana joined them, standing over Chauncey’s other shoulder.
“Feeling refreshed?” Chauncey asked.
“Yes. Thank you.” She hadn’t looked at Dane and he made up for it by staring at her. Until they heard a distant knock in the video and the men on the screen went silent. That kicked up Dane’s pulse a notch.
They all barely breathed while they watched the scene unfold.
“Police. Captain Lynch. We have some questions for you.” They heard Lynch before they saw him. Dane keyed in on Ned and watched his face go tight as he squinted his beady eyes. Jean Luc looked his usual cool and charming self as he ushered Lynch and two of his men into the room. The Brazilian brothers didn’t even rise from their places on the couch.
Lynch looked at the men sipping their drinks and said, “This is the place of business for the American Invitational Surfing Competition?”
Jean Luc chuckled. “Of course, we are celebrating after our first successful day. What can I do for you, officers? I’m afraid Tamara took us all by surprise today—”
“We’re not here about Tamara.”
“Glad to hear it—that bi—girl is crazy,” Ned said. “I wouldn’t believe a word she said.”
Dane looked at Shana and smiled.
“Could he be any more obvious?” she whispered.
“We got nothing from her, right?” Chauncey asked. “So everything Lynch says is a bluff?”
“Pretty much,” Dane confirmed. “He may earn some stripes here today if he plays his part well.”
“He will,” Shana said with a convincing firmness.
He turned his attention back to the scene with a kick to his pulse, anticipating the bomb that Captain Lynch was about to drop on the crew.
“I’m here investigating the disappearance of a young woman named Susan Whittier.” Lynch looked around at the men.
Lynch had stood with his back to the camera so the others would be facing him, and therefore the camera. Jean Luc looked surprised and was the first to respond.
“I met this young woman last week—a lovely young lady. I’m sorry to hear she’s missing. Why do you ask us about her disappearance?”
Ned squinted at Jean Luc. The two Brazilians looked no more than amused. One of them said, “You won’t need us for this interrogation. We arrived yesterday for the event and have no knowledge of anyone on the island except—”
“Stay where you are. Your association with the event makes you part of this. Susan Whittier was a contestant. Or would have been if she hadn’t disappeared.”
“You’re mistaken,” Ned said.
“No, we have the withdrawal from her bank account of the ten-thousand-dollar entry fee. And a copy of the entry form she submitted.”
“Impossible,” Ned insisted. “You’re bluffing.” The man seemed confident.
“And we have a witness.” Lynch capitulated on his arrest of Tamara, their weak link.
That got a response from the Brazilian, a frown at Ned. The other man glanced at Jean Luc and said, “What is this about?” Then he looked back at the police and said, “My brother and I know nothing about this, I assure you.” He stood.
Jean Luc said to the police, “It’s clearly a misunderstanding. It’s true Ms. Whittier had intended to enter, but then she said something came up and she changed her mind. I returned her entrance fee.”
“We’ll need to see your records,” Lynch said to Ned.
“Not without a search warrant.” Ned folded his arms and looked smug.
“Any reason you don’t want to cooperate to clear up the misunderstanding?”
“Show him the records,” the Brazilian said. His face was grim.
“I’ll need to take the records with me.” Lynch followed Jean Luc to the file cabinets.
“Wait a minute. You guys don’t know what you’re saying. Here in the U.S. we have rules and I think as a citizen it’s up to us to make sure the cops follow the rules.” Ned postured for the Brazilians and then turned to Jean Luc, who had stopped. “The captain is bluffing and we aren’t giving him anything unless he gets a search warrant. We have better things to do than waste our time with useless paperwork in the middle of our event.”
Everyone in the room stood still and silent for a beat and then the Brazilian nodded his head and Jean Luc stepped away from the file cabinet.
“So close,” Chauncey muttered.
“Least we know they’ve got something to hide,” Dane said.
They watched as Jean Luc ushered Captain Lynch to the door. Cap promised to be back with a warrant.
“Now the real show starts. Pay attention.” Dane said.
The Brazilians stood and the older larger one spoke in rapid fire Portuguese pointing an arm with aggressive force. Ned and his brother got busy taking folders from the file cabinets and emptying the safe of its contents. The Brazilian brother in charge stalked to the desk and stared at Jean Luc until the Frenchman moved. The Brazilian sat at the computer and powered it up. Jean Luc asked him what he was doing.
&
nbsp; Dane translated for his cohorts, “He said he’s erasing it. They don’t need anything on there any more.”
Jean Luc asked how they will they know if he’s been honest with his accounting.
Dane said, “He said he’s making a copy first.” They watched as the Brazilian pulled out a flash drive, backed up their files and then shut the computer. Then he lifted it from the desk, turned it over and disemboweled it, sticking a circuit board in his pocket. When he was finished he smiled, sat back in Jean Luc’s desk chair and spoke.
“What did he say?” Miller asked Dane.
“He said the computer is now a useless hunk of metal. They’re going to leave it on the desk. Presumably to throw us off.”
Dane looked at Miller and nodded. “We got them. They should have smashed it to smitherines. But they’re too worried about their larger operation to draw suspicion.” Dane turned back to the screen to watch them all head for the door.
“He said it’s time to celebrate and—” Dane stopped talking and listened carefully. Tavaras said Shana’s name very clearly. The room went still.
He breathed as slowly as he could as the rapid rise in his heartbeat urged him to move to action. He fisted his hands and forced himself to digest the words as the man spoke. The man asked if Shana would be joining them. He wasn’t talking to Jean Luc. Tavares stood directly in front of their camera and looked directly at Ned, waiting for the answer.
Ned started to say yes, but Jean Luc spoke up. Clearly and loudly and looking past the man into the camera, “Non. She has the competition in the morning.”
There was a pause where Dane watched the Brazilian study Jean Luc before deciding something. Then he spoke in English and said, “We will all be celebrating tomorrow evening.” He turned and the room was empty and silent a moment later.
“End of the show.”
“That was disappointing.” Shana turned and walked away.
“You expected Jean Luc to corner Ned. Ned’s too slimy even for him.” Dane followed her to the kitchen.
“They seem interested in our Shana,” Chauncey commented as he rose from his chair.
“No matter. The operation gets shut down by the end of the competition regardless. We’ll call the governor to send in some backup staties. When Cap gets back here.”
“You have any food in this joint?” Shana rummaged through some cabinets.
“Help yourself. Nothing I’d eat unless it was the end of the world and all the real food was gone.”
“Maybe Cap can pick us up some takeout.”
“Sure. Call him.”
Shana walked back down the hall away from them while she tapped Cap’s number her phone.
Dane handed Chauncey a beer from the refrigerator and took one for himself before he closed the door.
“Aren’t you the least bit worried?” Chauncey asked.
“I’m worried as hell,” Dane said under his breath. “I’d like to strangle Jean Luc right now for not ringing something out of Ned after Lynch left. I don’t know what game he’s playing, but he may be trying to make sure he gets the information off camera so he can keep it and negotiate with it. So help me—”
“I think you’re right, but I don’t think he’ll let anything happen to Shana. For whatever reason, he’s taken a shine to her.”
“Whatever reason? You take a look at her?”
Chauncey laughed. “Yes, but I believe it’s more than the obvious. Jean Luc isn’t the type to have his head turned by a statuesque beauty. Dime a dozen in his life.”
Dane grunted and sipped his beer. What was it about that girl?
He said out loud, “Don’t know what he sees, but he sees something.”
It was Chauncey’s turn to grunt—one of those “sure, whatever you want to tell yourself” grunts. Or it could have been Dane’s imagination.
Shana walked back into the kitchen to find him and Chauncey leaning against the counter sipping beer as if they were on vacation. Like he should be.
“He’s on his way. He’ll bring Chinese. Figured it was more nutritious than pizza.”
“When he gets here, we’ll eat, talk, then get the governor on the line. We all need to be on the same page for the final takedown.” Dane spoke to them both but looked only at Shana.
“You’re confident that Jean Luc will get the information we need then?”
“Yes.”
“Then why didn’t he press Ned on camera as we agreed? Is he afraid of the Brazilians?” She seemed concerned.
“No. He wants to hold the information from us. Wants to deliver it when he wants to deliver it.”
“That would be foolhardy. What if his fishing expedition gets him in trouble with Ned and we’re not there to back him up?”
“His bad luck. Guess he’s betting Ned will leave him alone until after the competition tomorrow—to see it through until the end. Then take out his revenge.”
“If that happened then we’d all be in trouble. Especially Shana,” Chauncey said.
“Then we need to make sure we find Susan Whittier before the end of the competition.”
Chapter 21
Captain Lynch rang his rusty old doorbell and Dane couldn’t remember the last time he’d heard the bell—had forgotten it even existed. Had forgotten people with manners had existed too. He got to the door figuring Lynch had his hands full with food and he was right. He took the MSG-and-duck-sauce-scented bags from Cap’s hands and brought them straight to the dining room table, whose scratched surface matched the floor. He slid the computers and monitors down to one end and supplanted them with the brown bags of food stapled closed at the top with a bag of fortune cookies hanging like an ornament.
“Plates? Forks?” Shana asked with her hands on her hips.
“In the drawers.” He answered her challenge with an obvious scold and wondered if that was the way it would always be between them. As if there’d be an always. He shuddered and hid the chilling reaction by ripping open the bag and busying himself with removing the food. He wasn’t hungry, but they all needed to eat. They’d gone all day without food, except maybe Lynch.
“We’ll call the governor after we have a couple of bites and put it to him.”
“Put what to him?” Lynch asked.
“Good job with the confrontation, by the way,” Shana smiled at him. Lynch nodded.
Dane caught him up on things. Lynch sat in front of the monitor and watched a replay of the scene.
“Since Tamara didn’t give us enough to pull a warrant on the house, and we don’t think Susan Whittier is at the house at this point anyway, since you already took an unofficial look, then we need a fail-safe strategy so Shana isn’t left hanging and vulnerable when Jean Luc pushes Ned. Ned may get suspicious. Who knows how he’ll react? They all see Shana as their prize at the end of the competition. So we can’t let Shana stay until the end. I get her out. She can fake an injury.”
“I’m sitting right here. You could address me instead of talking around me like I’m not here.”
“So sorry. How about if you fake an injury, Shana? Then I’ll come and take you away. Chauncey can run interference with Ned or Roger or whatever other goons he has in attendance.”
“I’ve seen at least three of them. I might need help.”
“I’ll get you a couple more undercover guys in there,” Cap said.
“The thing is, we may have to pull the plug without winning the prize. We might not find Susan—”
“I’m damn well going to find her,” Shana said. “No way I’m putting my butt on the line in that water—did I tell you the last time I was in a competition I cracked three ribs?—and going through this whole operation without finding Susan Whittier. And without nailing Ned’s balls to the wall.” She sounded like the toughest guy in the room and he found his mouth tilted up in a smile without his permission.
“Of course. Then I’ll have a talk with Jean Luc tonight and make sure he’s putting on the pressure,” Dane said. He turned from Shana and spoke to Cap
and Chauncey. “If Ned still doesn’t talk, I’ll find him and apply some of my own pressure. Meantime, we need Shana to win and not get her prize money so we can bring them down for the fraudulent surfing operation. That means we need to keep them in town long enough—”
“That’s the least of their crimes,” Captain Lynch said.
“The only one we can actually pin on them in the end unless one of us can make Ned talk.”
“Jean Luc will do it,” Shana said.
They all stopped talking and stopped eating and Dane felt distinctly uncomfortable relying on the likes of Jean Luc to make their plan come together. But it wasn’t the first time he’d relied on turning a bad guy and it wouldn’t be his last. Or maybe it would be. Not the time to contemplate his future.
Dane walked from the dining room to his front room, which in anyone else’s house would be the living room or parlor. In his house it was an empty room with a rudimentary desk and a file cabinet. He lifted the telephone from the desk and brought it back out to the dining room, which had the best lighting.
“Secure line. I’m dialing up the governor. He’s going to expect more than we have. He’s not going to like hearing about an exit plan.”
“If you don’t want to give him the bad news, I’ll do the talking,” Shana said. She almost looked comical, like the forgotten kid sister piping up and trying to get noticed. He smiled again.
“I got it. But thanks.”
“Don’t patronize me.”
“Then don’t act like—Peter. Got a minute for a status?” Dane pressed the speaker button.
“The gang’s all here and you’re on speaker.”
“Hello, Shana, Miller, Lynch.”
“Not much progress. We turned Jean Luc Ruse, but he doesn’t know where Susan is and has no eyeball confirmation that she’s alive or where Ned has her. He’s going to try and get the information from Ned tonight and we’ll locate her tomorrow during the second day of the competition. Once it’s over we’ll arrest all parties for kidnapping and fraud.”
The Beachcombers: Prequel - Beachcomber Investigations Series Page 18