Beachcomber Valentine

by Stephanie Queen

  “No, no I didn’t. Sorry.”

  The man truly was sorry, wearing every last ounce of his emotions on his face like a lovesick teenager.

  “No problem, Billingsly. Tomorrow.”

  It was cold and the Jeep was hardly warm, but she didn’t want to wait until she drove back to Dane’s to open the envelope—didn’t want to go back there in a hurry at all. They really needed an office. His dining room wasn’t cutting it for her. But at least she’d moved out to her own place once the summer renters left the island. Staying in his spare room had been too tense and awkward.

  She yanked the rusty door closed, turned the key in the ignition, cranked the heater, and ripped open the envelope with her nails sliding across the top seam. She’d have to mention this advantage of having long nails to Dane next time he taunted her for her girlie nails. Not that it would matter. He’d still taunt her about something. It was how it was between them. He refused to be real. It was a laugh that that’s exactly what he wanted from her.

  Then again, he had shared his most painful secret with her about his lost love. And she had shared nothing. But he had a lot more hidden than she could even imagine. He’d seen more, done more, forgot more than your average ninety-year-old. And what did she have? Only twenty-eight years of the everyday experiences of an average girl from an average family from Sydney. At least that’s how it had been until her father died in the line of duty.

  Pushing the thoughts aside as she pulled several pages from the envelope, she rushed to read from the top as if the words could banish the gnawing empty pain in her gut at only a fleeting thought about her father. No wonder she never talked about it.

  The pages were typed on generic bright white paper in black ink. The first page was a letter addressed in proper business format to Beachcomber Investigations followed by Dear Ms. George and Mr. Blaise. There was no date. And of course no return address. Shana slid her eyes to the bottom of the page, confirming her suspicion that she’d find no signature and no name. A mystery client.

  She read the letter and smiled. She would love to take this case. And when she flipped the page aside to the next paper, she was flat-out determined to take this case. There sat a cashier’s check for two thousand dollars.

  The letter claimed this was half the payment and promised to pay another two thousand upon delivery—so to speak—of a woman named Patty Baker. Mystery man’s long-lost love.

  Chapter 3

  A giddy smile gripped her face and wouldn’t let go even as she tried valiantly to play devil’s advocate—as she knew Dane would—and list the cons of taking a job with no official client. It was a risk, she insisted, but she could work up no scenario where this would pose the kind of risk that she and Dane couldn’t handle.

  According to the request, they were to find Patty Baker and convince her to come to Martha’s Vineyard for a Valentine’s Day date at the best restaurant in Edgartown—and one of the few open all winter—to meet him, but without revealing his identity until he arrived.

  Shana and Dane would be there to assure Ms. Baker’s security in case she was concerned. If she guessed who the mystery client might be, they were instructed to inform Ms. Baker that she should not reveal her guess to them.

  This was the most suspicious part of the assignment. Apparently their client wanted his identity to be a mystery to her and Dane pretty badly. She immediately figured they knew this guy and started running through the names of her few island acquaintances to make a guess. After two seconds, she decided Dane would be more likely to know. He knew everyone on the island. Made it his business to know them. And not just their names. It was like he did a background check on everyone who was a permanent resident before he decided to stay for the winter. He’d claimed he was not paranoid, merely taking the appropriate precautions of a professional with more than a few very resourceful enemies.

  That had been another reason she decided to stay. She irrationally believed she owed him and needed to cover his back. The irrational part was more about her arrogance in thinking she actually could cover his back, followed closely by the premise that Dane the legend needed any back-covering.

  Biting her lip while ruminating over what she would say to convince Dane, she decided that waving the cashier’s check in front of his face ought to do it. She flipped to the next page, revealing an old high school graduation picture. It was grainy and faded like it had been scanned from someone’s yearbook, but it had been carefully blocked out to show nothing else except a perky brunette’s eighteen-year-old face in a dated hairdo. She had good teeth. There were a few words below her portrait about her high school accomplishments. Apparently she’d been a cheerleader—naturally—and in the honor society, and her words to live by had been “carpe diem.”

  Shana flipped to the next page, which outlined some basic facts that the client knew about the woman. He’d last seen her during her freshman year of college. He didn’t say if he went there, but Patty had attended Boston College that year. Mystery man didn’t know if she’d graduated, but gave them the projected year of graduation. He said her parents had lived in Milton, Massachusetts. He gave a few other stats about her height, weight and her major—English.

  That was it. It had been twelve years since he’d seen her and lost track of her and he wanted them to not only find her, but to arrange a spectacularly romantic reunion on Valentine’s Day. That was the only indication about their relationship—that they’d been romantically involved.

  The obvious possible problem with this guy was that he could be a stalker who set up this elaborate scheme to catch his victim. Stacking the papers back together, she slid them back into the envelope. All except the cashier’s check. That she placed in her Kate Spade bag for safekeeping. Dismissing the stalker possibility problem was easy for her and Dane—they knew they could handle that—handling criminals was their expertise. But they’d have to convince Patty Baker of that—have to convince her they weren’t part of any evil plot. That was the real problem.

  Throwing the Jeep into gear, she took a deep breath and pulled out of the lot heading back to the “office.” She needed to talk to Dane about this one before she deposited the check.

  Since they had only the one car—the broken-down old Jeep with a half-hearted heater—because he refused to drive his off-island Jaguar convertible in the winter no matter what tactics she’d used to try and convince him otherwise—she knew he’d be home, or rather at the office, doing who knew what.

  That she’d been wrong about her assumption became obvious less than a minute after she banged open the door and stomped through the house calling his name. She yanked her phone from her bag and pressed D to dial him up.

  “Shana.”

  “Where the hell are you?”

  “I’m on my way to see Cap. To tell him about—”

  “Damn, that’s right.” She’d forgotten all about their Valentine’s bet in her excitement over their new case. “I’ll meet you there. We have a case.”

  “We do? What kind of case?” The man sounded suspicious before she even had a chance to tell him about it. He didn’t have a sixth sense. His senses went way past six all the way to a tenth, she could swear.

  “Are you walking to the police station? In this cold?” A legitimate change of subject was the only tactic she could think of.

  “So what if I am. Technically I’m jogging. Gotta go. See you there.”

  The line went dead. Problem solved—for the moment. Maybe it was a good idea to explain the case to Dane with Cap there as an intermediary. The poor man was certainly used to the role.

  Hell. They were imposing on poor Cap to mediate their bet, too. They would owe him even more after this. She didn’t credit Cap’s insistence that he owed her and Dane for saving his life since they were the ones that got him into the messy scheme with the Brazilians last summer. Never mind that he claimed it was his job as Captain of the State Police on Martha’s Vineyard.

  With a picture in her mind of Dane Blaise joggin
g through the snowy woods along his short cut to the police station in his ratty old camo jacket, she jumped back in their Jeep—technically Dane’s Jeep except when she’d absconded with it for business—heading to the State Police headquarters a few blocks away. She hoped to beat Dane there, but she knew it would be tight and so she jammed her foot on the gas.

  Dane emerged from the path into the parking lot for the small building that passed for the State Police’s headquarters on the island, puffing out small clouds of breath in the cold air. Glancing around, he jogged up the steps and inside the glass door, satisfied to see that he’d beaten Shana there. He wanted to make sure Cap had the right angle on their bet before she girlied it all up out of proportion. Behind him he heard the screech of tires and the Jeep door slamming. That made him grin as he strode toward Captain Colin Lynch’s office.

  “What a surprise,” Cap said, clearly unsurprised to see him.

  “The real surprise is that you look like you’re actually doing some work. And here it is practically lunchtime and all.”

  “What do you want, Blaise?”

  That was not a good sign. Cap never called him by his last name unless he was deeply and truly annoyed. This called for a new tactic. Dane decided to wait until Shana arrived before he spoke further. She had a way of lighting up a man’s face—any man’s—but Cap’s in particular. That notion annoyed him.

  The atmosphere of annoyance jiggered up, spreading like it was contagious, so that if Shana didn’t walk in shortly there would be two surly men in this one small room.

  “Well?” Cap said when Dane took a seat without explanation. Dane waited a beat and then looked at the door. Right on time. Shana sauntered in.

  Dane watched Cap look up from his computer before Shana said a word, watched his face change, the tension in his jaw slacken and his entire face turn from that aggravated grimace to a delighted fully engaged and genuine smile.

  And Dane knew when he looked at her, she had the same effect on him. It felt like the sun had just shone after a week of dark and lit them up from inside, the way she radiated some kind of sexy mother-earth aura at them.

  He stifled his urge to stand and draw closer, but he noticed Cap didn’t bother to stifle anything as he walked around his desk and greeted her with a hug.

  “Hey, Cap. Can you take a break for lunch? Our treat—”

  “Our treat?” Dane couldn’t help himself. He grabbed back onto his fading annoyance.

  She rolled her eyes, aiming her smile at him, and said, “My treat.” She said it with enough confidence that it made him wonder about their new case.

  “You’re on. I’ll get my jacket,” Cap said.

  Dane stood and Cap looked at him and shook his head.

  “Are you sure we have to take that reprobate you call a partner?” Cap smiled at Shana as he said it.

  “I’m a necessary evil,” Dane said. “Like bad medicine. You ought to be used to me by now.”

  “Let’s go to the Lucky Parrot. The waitress there has a crush on Dane. It’ll make her day.” Shana gave him an eyebrow lift and then they paraded out to the Jeep, where he decided to take control and took the keys from her.

  “I know you two,” Cap said. “What’s the deal? Let’s get this over with and you tell me what you want now so we can enjoy lunch,” Cap folded himself into the back seat. He sat behind Dane and looked at him in the rearview waiting for an answer from him. Shana looked at Dane and waited too.

  His bet with Shana didn’t seem like such a good idea at this moment. How would he explain it to Cap without sounding … ridiculous?

  Hell.

  Chapter 4

  Shana waited, almost holding her breath, wondering if Dane had changed his mind and not knowing if she’d be thrilled or disappointed if he did. The thought of sharing their crazy bet with Cap was not passing the sanity test. Exposed to the light of day and a normal human being’s scrutiny, betting about who could come up with the most romantic Valentine’s date seemed … so … almost … adolescent. But after a visible clench of his jaw, Dane spoke.

  “We have a bet.”

  “You and Shana?”

  “We need you to be the judge.”

  “I can’t wait to hear about it.” There was far too much glee in good old Cap’s voice as he looked between Dane in the rearview mirror and her. But they had to do something to amuse themselves on this godforsaken island in winter, didn’t they? She lifted her chin and glared over her shoulder at Cap.

  “Oh, it’s a damned fascinating deal,” Dane said. Typical. He made it sound dangerous and fun at the same time. A chill went through her in spite of the sputtering heater.

  Dane continued, “We’ve come up with a way to turn Valentine’s Day into a competition.”

  Cap knotted his brow and cocked his head until he let out a guffaw and slapped his knee.

  “No?”

  “Yessiree. We are in a Valentine’s date competition. You be the judge about who comes up with the more meaningful, romantic date for Valentine’s Day.”

  “Are you kidding? You think you can beat Shana? In anything remotely to do with romance?” Cap guffawed again and she felt buoyed. Given the opportunity Cap was just as capable of behaving like an overgrown adolescent as the next single man. And she supposed she was no better.

  “You two have been a terrible influence on me or I would never have agreed to this ridiculous bet.”

  “You forget, girlie. It was your idea.” Dane drawled darkly. He had a way of raising her goose bumps with his voice.

  “And you—you’re supposed to be an impartial judge,” Dane accused Cap with mock disappointment.

  “Forgive me—I will do my duty. I can’t wait—seriously. This is almost a cure for the winter doldrums.” Cap glanced out the window and didn’t look as convincing as he sounded, in Shana’s opinion. She’d have to make it a point to figure out what was bothering him. While he had fun taunting her and Dane about their idiotic bet.

  At least Dane refrained from telling Cap what the stakes were and Cap hadn’t gotten around to asking. Yet.

  “Well if it ain’t my own private white knight riding up in his old Jeep. I kind of miss the Jag, Dane-honey. You looked good in that car.” Marylu Deluzio winked and waved for them to follow her to Dane’s regular booth. The place was packed but that didn’t matter. Marylu didn’t look so young and vulnerable now that she’d gained confidence with the boost in her income.

  Dane was used to the rock star reception he was given at the Lucky Parrott, especially by his favorite waitress, Marylu. She and her boss, the proprietor, had fallen all over themselves with gratitude since he’d bailed them out when the unsavory businessmen from Brazil took over the place, using it for their private office and scaring away all the regular patrons.

  “So who’s the lucky man, Shana? Who do you have lined up for your special bet-winning Valentine’s date?” Cap asked as they slid into the newly installed semi-circular booth.

  “She’s got no one, Cap. Now me, I got a whole list of names.” He smiled at Marylu as she gave them all menus.

  “You got me, for sure. Anytime, anywhere, sweetheart.” Marylu winked and then sashayed away in her short skirt on her tall heels and Dane watched and thought about it.

  “Get serious. That was too easy—hardly meaningful,” Shana said.

  “Serious? What do you mean?”

  “I mean your date has to be meaningful and there’s nothing meaningful about a one-sided crush. You’d break her heart and that’s not what we’re out to do.” Shana folded her arms across her chest in a familiar move. He figured it was some kind of defensive gesture. He knew all this, but he enjoyed her lectures, enjoyed taunting her into giving them. He was warped. He taunted on.

  “Who are you defending? You standing up for all the downtrodden, broken-hearted women of the world now, Shana?” In truth, he loved her mama bear protective streak that sparked whenever she could help someone weaker or more vulnerable than herself. She did everything fro
m mowing her elderly neighbor’s lawn to beating the bullies off a little boy down the street. And now defending the heart of poor moon-eyed waitresses from the likes of him. As if he would take advantage.

  “She’s right, Dane. But we know you’d never take advantage of a one-sided crush.”

  “That goes for you too, girlie.” He stared her down, but she held her own in a stare back. “Unless you have a mutual crush with someone, that’s going to make it tough for you.”

  “No tougher for me than for you. Unless you have a crush on someone.”

  “Enough. You two can argue about scaring up your meaningful dates some other time. Preferably when I’m not around.”

  “I thought you were going to enjoy this, Cap. You said so,” Shana said.

  “I was wrong. I misjudged my ability to be amused by junior-high-level romance competitions. Order something.”

  “Let’s change the subject,” Shana said as she pulled a manila envelope from her ever-present designer bag—spoils from their summertime case involving the Brazilians. It had been their last decent paying case and even though Dane had more than enough money stashed, he knew Shana would need to make a living or she’d be discouraged enough to leave.

  “This about the new case?”

  “I’m glad you mentioned it.” She slipped some papers from the envelope and slapped the sheaf in front of him. “Here it is. It’s a missing person case—sort of.”

  “Sounds promising,” Cap said.

  Dane read the cover letter and then he looked at Shana. She appeared serious about taking the case—almost excited.

  “Here’s the best part.” She pulled a check from her bag then and pushed it across to him.

  “Two thousand dollars? This seems shady already.”

  “What’s it about?” Cap asked, not looking up from his menu.

  “Some stalker guy wants to find a long-lost love and surprise her with a meeting—wants us to bring her to him here on the island. It doesn’t sound legitimate to me.”