The Beachcombers: Prequel - Beachcomber Investigations Series

by Stephanie Queen

  “That right,” he said to Ned.

  “No—no. Don’t listen to him—”

  Shana turned away and went to Chauncey’s side and gently picked up his good wrist to feel for his pulse. “Call the Coast Guard. You’re right about getting him medical help. Now.” She was all business. It was admirable and scary. Because he knew what was underneath. He knew all the complicated feelings she held at bay. They were the same ones he held in. And he’d be damned if she wasn’t as good as he was at numbing herself to everything to get the job done.

  Squelching the immediate tic of concern that this might be a very bad thing for her in the long run, he knew it was the best thing for right now. If they were going to nab the Tavares brothers, they’d need all their focus to be on the job at hand or there would be no long run.

  Dane reached for his communicator and hoped the batteries and the waterproof container would hold out. He called the Coast Guard to be waiting for them at the Oak Bluffs marina where they last saw the Coast Guard Response Boat. Shana started up the engine and they took off back in the direction they’d come from only a minute or two away around the next bend of the beach. After he signed off and before he powered the device down he got a call signal.

  “Cap—that you?”

  “Dane, damn you—where have you been? We’ve been holding in place and on high alert praying to hell that these scums don’t decide to take off any second, waiting for you.” The radio burped a wave of static when Cap finished.

  “Don’t worry—they’re not going anywhere without their prize. We’ll be on our way after we drop Chauncey with the Coast Guard for medical attention at Oak Bluffs.”

  “He—”

  “He’ll be okay.” Dane should have led with that. He really was an insensitive prick sometimes, but it was hard to be both hot and cold emotionally in the space of a few minutes and right now he needed to be as cold as ice to take care of the Tavares monsters. “Have you heard from Jean Luc?”

  “He’s in Oak Bluffs still pretending to run the surfing competition and whining about it.”

  “Send him to the marina to meet us. Pronto. Tell him we’re rescuing him from the press. He could be useful as a diversion when we hit the Tavares yacht.”

  “Will do. Sometimes I forget why you’re the legend—”

  “Out.” No need for that legend crap, especially with Shana listening.

  Shana piloted the speedboat and they splashed in at the dock in Oak Bluffs where they met the Coast Guard response boat. EMTs met them on the dock and took Chauncey away on a stretcher.

  “Take care, Chaunce. I’ll let your wife know you’re okay.” Dane tapped his good shoulder twice. Chauncey’s eyes were closed, but he managed a tight smile and nod in response.

  The Coast Guard captain, Tony Vendi said, “We’ll get him to the hospital and get the others to lockup. Where are you headed?”

  “We’re headed to the marina in—”

  “You’ll need backup,” the Captain Vendi said, not asking.

  “On my call. We’re going for surprise.”

  Vendi nodded and touched his cap, then turned and followed the EMTs and the stretcher holding Chauncey down the dock toward the parking lot where an ambulance waited.

  Jean Luc walked, unhurried, along the same dock, passing Chauncey and the EMTs with only a glance at the stretcher. He met Dane on the dock.

  “Let’s go,” was all Dane said to Jean Luc, who was still dressed in his official competition garb—a white linen shirt with a large plastic official badge on the chest pocket. He said nothing and preceded Dane onto the boat, stepped past Shana without comment and took the passenger seat. A real gentleman.

  Dane got in the boat, unhitched it from the dock, took the driver’s seat and gunned it out of there, ignoring the niceties of speed limits and no-wake zones. Jean Luc would make a poor replacement for Chauncey, but they had no choice. Dane hoped Shana was not fooled into trusting the con. She stood behind him, leaning down over Dane’s shoulder and ducking below the windshield. Dane grabbed his trusty two-way from his left thigh pocket as he maneuvered the boat away from the shore and out into open water, and punched it on.

  “Cap, we’ll be at the yacht with Jean Luc in three minutes. Chauncey and Shana are out.”

  “I’m in. I’m not afraid of Tavares.” Shana stood and came around to the space beside him, crowding Jean Luc. Her arms were folded over her bright orange competition jersey which clung to her bathing suit. She’d stripped the bloodied competition pinney away but she looked grimmer than he’d ever seen. Which was something. He glared back at her.

  She continued, “In fact, I insist. No matter how ridiculous it sounds—you’d better believe me when I say you’ll have to shoot me to stop me.” Shana out-glared him. He turned away, knowing he had no time to waste arguing.

  After a burst of static, Cap replied, “We just lost our window to get in unannounced.” Then he paused and Dane heard a loud commotion in the background.

  “The Tavares brothers just pulled up to the marina gate in a hurry with bodyguards in full force and weapons drawn. I’m in hiding with three other men. We can’t go in guns blazing. We’ll wait until you get here and give us the go. No sign of Whittier. There are at least three men inside. Probably guarding her and the boat.”

  “Damn. It’ll be dicey, but I’ll try to take them by surprise from a neighboring boat and come in quiet. We’ll see if we can set up a distraction.” Dane looked at Jean Luc and figured he’d make the perfect distraction coming in the front door. Tavares’s men might even do him a favor and shoot the con man for him. Jean Luc gave him an evil glare as if he could read Dane’s mind. He probably could since Dane didn’t bother to hide his hostility.

  The yacht’s engine was already fired up and men were outside unlatching it from the moorings on the dock when Dane, Shana and Jean Luc glided in with the speedboat’s engine shut down, approaching from a blind side behind the neighboring boat. Taking the Tavares crew by surprise would be tricky.

  Dane gave Cap the go sign and he had his men moved up from the dock with their guns drawn and an order of silence. Once his men took the two guards on the dock alongside the boat, Cap radioed Dane. He had his men quietly remove the downed guards from sight.

  “That leaves three more men at a minimum, Dane said into the two-way. “No telling how many we have waiting for us down inside the bunker where they’re holding Susan Whittier. Hopefully she’s their only hostage.” Dane heard Cap suck in a breath in response. It was a real question after their brief conversation with Ned confirmed the nature of the Tavares brothers’ business.

  “I’m going in. Out.” Dane climbed from the neighboring boat and jumped, landing on the deck of the Tavares yacht, pulling Jean Luc with him. The man was surprisingly agile—almost graceful—and silent in his resignation. Dane shouldn’t have been surprised to see Shana close behind Jean Luc, equally agile and a world more graceful, with her hair still dripping. She crouched low behind Jean Luc. Damn. She was an extra. He didn’t need her and that meant she was a liability. But there was no convincing her of that. She insisted on backing him up no matter that he had Cap backing him up. It was too late to talk her out of it now. She’d abandoned their boat and was on the yacht fully committed.

  Dane took the lead with his gun fully loaded, using up the last of the ammunition from Chauncey’s camera bag. He’d chosen not to give Jean Luc a weapon. He signaled for Jean Luc to go for the main cabin door and announce his presence while Dane headed for the other end to look for the stairs leading down to the crew compartments. Shana followed him. Ned said there were stairs near the captain’s pilothouse toward the bow of the boat.

  Pausing at the edge of the main cabin where he had a sliver of a view, he watched Jean Luc approach, then open the main door and disappear. He heard the man announce himself. The shouting that followed told Dane that Jean Luc was not welcome, and he chanced a look through the corner of a far window. He saw them take Jean Luc as if he were a pri
soner. “Shit,” Dane muttered. He hoped to God that Jean Luc held out and didn’t betray their presence and their mission to rescue the girl.

  He looked at Shana. “Wait here. If I’m not back in ten call Cap.” He handed her the two-way, took a long beat to watch her face and look into her wild green eyes, not sure if it was for posterity or to try and read her soul. He saw her anger, her confusion, her fear and then what he was looking for, what he counted on right now most of all, her determination. He didn’t see anything sappy from her. His gut twisted, but he held her eyes with his.

  She nodded. He turned and moved ahead. He needed only another few minutes, he thought, as he raced on nimble feet toward the bow and the stairway below. Cap was waiting for his signal that Whittier was safe before he’d barge in—unless the Tavares brothers got wise and pulled away from the dock.

  He ducked behind a barrel and watched the hatch, which had a low rail ringing it. He heard movement, felt the vibrations under his feet. The commotion Jean Luc caused worked. The troops were rallying topside. Dane heard them rattling up the stairs and watched the hatch fly open as one, then two men rumbled up and out and stood for a moment with their radios in hand.

  That was Dane’s moment. He had them dead, but he aimed low and downed the far man and then, as the second man swung around, he aimed and hit him in the shoulder to knock him back. Dane counted on the noise being covered by the racket in the main salon, but he couldn’t be sure, so he rushed forward to relieve them of their weapons, slugging each of them on the head and dragging them behind a wooden storage bench along the outer rail. No time to try and heave them inside the bench, but he pulled a tarp from inside and covered them.

  He looked at his watch.

  “Shit.” He’d wasted a lot of time. He didn’t need Shana calling Cap prematurely—or worse yet—coming after him herself. He launched himself toward the metal stair rail and rattled down the winding steps below, leading with his gun. He hoped there was only one guard left on the Whittier girl, two at the most. But he was prepared for more.

  He was wrong about there being two guards.

  Chapter 26

  There were none. There was nothing at the bottom of the stairs except a short metal hall with a locked metal door with a small square window at eye level. And not a soul anywhere.

  Dane moved quietly forward to the door and out of sight of the window. He put his ear to the metal door and listened but couldn’t hear a thing. He rapped on it with his gun. No response. With caution, he ventured a look inside through the window.

  What he saw clenched his gut into a sickened coil. Several filthy mattresses lay on the metal floor, each with nearby metal rings attached to the wall and holding heavy iron chains. All the mattresses were empty. Except one, at the far end of the long narrow cell, which held one person.

  Backing away from the door, he first tried kicking it, but there was no give. He stood aside and took aim with his pistol and fired it at the lock on the door handle. He made a hole, but when he rattled the door, it didn’t budge. Looking inside the room again, he saw the person he assumed to be Susan Whittier, although she looked more like an indistinguishable lump of humanity with long ratty hair and one foot showing from under a worn blanket that might have once been white. He hated to waste bullets, but he took aim again inside the hole he’d already created to blow the locking mechanism out. He pulled the trigger and, with a very loud echoing clank, the metal handle gave way and he pushed the door open.

  Rushing inside, his gut churned as he smelled the foul odor and the state of the prone woman. Bending when he got to her, he turned her and checked the pulse on her neck. She was alive, but likely drugged. He hefted her over his shoulder, with one arm securing her in place and the other holding his gun, then moved swiftly back the way he came until he got to the ladder. The quarters were tight and he heard shouting and thuds from above. Carefully moving her up the ladder with him, he stopped just before his head would pop out onto the deck and he listened.

  Jean Luc’s voice shouted something in frantic French that Dane didn’t catch until he got to the word “Shana.” It felt like an anvil dropped from his chest to his toes and in place of his heartbeat a menacing barrel drum. Rage thundered through his veins where his blood used to be. He took the last step up with his gun in front of him and aimed back from the bow at anyone waiting for him.

  The deck around the stairs was empty. He scanned the area. Behind the nearest cabin wall he spotted a billow of blond hair carried on the breeze from behind the cover of the corner. Shana.

  Dane wrestled Susan up the final step, off his shoulder and out of the stairwell hatch. Looking directly at the spot where he knew she stood, he said, “Shana” in a tight whisper. She veered out from behind the corner and, crouching low, she came forward.

  “All clear? The guards?” she asked as she shuffled over to where he laid Susan Whittier on the deck behind the rail and out of the way.

  “Taken care of. But she needs medical attention and we need to call Cap to close in. We need to get her off the boat before all hell breaks loose.”

  “Same way we came?”

  He shook his head. “Into the water. You jump in and I’ll lower her to you. You can tow her toward the dock on the far side of the boat here on the starboard side to keep her safe.”

  “What’ll you be doing?”

  “I’ll be arresting some bad guys.” He looked at her, knowing what she was thinking. “Don’t even think about it.”

  “How about if you take her to shore—”

  “I said don’t even think about it.” He used that tone he had in reserve that threatened certain death if there was any resistance. He held his breath hoping it would work with Shana. It could go either way, mostly depending on her mood rather than any rational reason or that she might actually be intimidated by him. He realized he gave up long ago on that notion. He still hadn’t decided how he felt about it.

  “I’ll be back,” she said and climbed over the side to lower herself into the water with a light splash.

  As far as big yachts went, this was substantial, but the drop from the deck rail to the water was only about six feet at the point where he lowered Susan Whittier into the arms of Shana. Shana only went under for a second under the weight of the woman and bounced back up, holding her charge in a lifesaving grip around her chin. Dane watched her backstroke away around the end of the neighboring boat for only a few seconds before renewed shouting got his attention. He heard Ned’s name.

  As Dane moved along the side of the main cabin toward the salon entrance where he’d last seen Jean Luc enter, he pulled out his two-way and called Cap.

  “Time to come in. I think from the sounds of it they’re all in the main cabin. Whittier and Shana are off the boat. I’m outside on the starboard side of the cabin. Jean Luc is inside.”

  “Got it. Coming in hot now.” Cap clicked off and Dane shut the device down and shoved it back into the left leg pocket of his wet shorts. He approached the window, stopping short, waiting for the onslaught and listened to one of the Tavares brothers—the older one—asking Jean Luc about Ned. Dane didn’t hear the answer, but heard the sickening smack of a pistol against flesh and bone.

  Then all hell broke loose.

  Captain Lynch shouted from his bullhorn as he and his men charged into the main salon doors. Dane moved forward with his gun leading, now feeling underpowered and vulnerable with his small weapon and no flak vest for the raid like he saw on the others. Coming in the side door, he saw Jean Luc on the floor and one of the Tavares brothers retreating behind the bar. Lynch and two men moved inside with their weapons drawn.

  Tavares pulled out an automatic weapon—bigger and better than the one he’d seen Ned wielding—and started firing. Cap went down and the others took cover. Dane was out of the firing line and he took that advantage to lift his weapon and aim it dead on Tavares’s temple. The Brazilian dropped to the floor.

  Then Lynch’s men took over, prodding the others, inclu
ding the younger Tavares brother, onto the floor. Dane ran past them to Cap and got to him at the same time as Shana walked through the door behind two more men, wielding her own gun.

  He caught her eyes as he knelt beside Cap and felt for his pulse and examined the wound. The shot caught him near the collarbone at the edge of his vest and it was bloody and bad. Dane frantically tried to stop the bleeding, telling himself it could be worse and probably looked worse than it was. He shouted for help. Shana knelt beside him and ripped off a piece of her orange jersey to pad the wound. The EMTs rushed in and took over.

  Shana and Dane stood and looked at each other.

  They were the last two standing from their team of four.

  Shana looked wet and bedraggled and was dressed all wrong for the scene in her bathing suit and torn competition jersey and holding a gun. She just stared at him with those green eyes full of trouble and promise. His heart kicked back up after it had finally slowed to normal.

  Wanting to say something, but having no damn idea what should come first, he took her free hand and held it. She squeezed his hand back.

  “Let’s get out of here.” He suddenly didn’t want to be anywhere near the scum that was being arrested and led off by well-equipped and well-armed state troopers. With Cap gone, carried away on the first stretcher, they no longer had a connection to the scene and he felt like they were in the way. And the place smelled bad.

  She pulled on his hand and gave the weapon to the trooper she came in with. He took it and nodded. Then she led him to the side door and they walked around and off the boat, onto the dock, and headed to the marina. Without saying a word.

  She shouldn’t have been surprised to find a helicopter waiting for them outside the hospital. The hospital was the only place that it made sense for her and Dane to go after leaving the boat. Both Cap and Chauncey were there and Chauncey had just been med-evaced back to Boston.

  She stood next to Dane, still holding his hand, outside in the parking lot and they watched another helicopter land. It was bigger than the medical copter and had an official state seal on the side.