Beachcomber Investigations

by Stephanie Queen

  “That FBI guy checked out of the motel and checked into Mansion House.”

  “Interesting.” Dane had no idea what to make of it, except that maybe the guy was planning to stay a while—maybe on his own dime. Mansion House was a swanky Vineyard Haven Inn outside of the usual FBI overnight budget. Maybe he was rogue—but that made no sense—why would he be so open about it? Then again, there was another reason he could think of and it sent a shiver of cold sweat through him followed by a fiery rage that he had to steel himself to keep tamed. He threw on his cloak of stone—the one he’d used for self-preservation all these years to protect him from the follies of emotion and vulnerability to enemies. It was worn and crumbling, but he had the will—had to have the will to rebuild it, to make it work again.

  Dane continued. “I think he’s taken a room more suitable for a tryst—or potential tryst with Shana. That Inn has several very well-appointed rooms with doors going directly onto the veranda for easy access in and out.” He made the statement matter-of-factly, but it cost him. He tightened every muscle in his body under the onslaught of the machete of pain.

  Acer blew out a whistle. Then he took another swig of his drink. The kid eyed his drink.

  Dane said, “No, I’m not going to be responsible for you drinking and driving.” His voice sounded normal. It was a start. His chest tightened and he closed his eyes for a moment, willing Shana to arrive and appear in front of him whole and intact by the time he opened them again.

  “I got more news. I showed the picture to a few people—only trustworthy people like you said—and there were two spottings.” The kid paused with a grin. Probably waiting for a pat on the back, but with a wave of his hand Dane prompted him to move along.

  “He was spotted at the airport and that was funny because he didn’t get on a plane—that plus the guy’s height and my informant—had no trouble remembering him.”

  “Your informant?”

  “Yes—you know—”

  “What about the second spotting?”

  “My second informant saw him later in the day—not too long ago—at the Lucky Parrot. Just sitting there drinking. Looked like he was waiting for something because he stared at the clock a lot.”

  “Good job.” Dane didn’t have the heart to tell the kid they’d already had their own intel about the sniper being on the island, but at least they knew he was still there. As soon as Shana got back, they’d be reengaging the electric perimeter.

  “There’s been a change of plans,” he said. “Call Cap and see if he got the full official file on the shooting of Harry the Hacker—your witness in the case against Sebastian Whitaker.”

  “Sure boss—wanna tell me what the hell you mean by change of plans?”

  “Sure. As soon as I know—you’ll know.” He looked at the kid. “For one thing, your services are no longer needed.”

  “But—”

  Dane cut him off and used his steeliest voice. “You need to go off island for a while. Today.”

  “But… I can’t—my job—”

  “Job won’t do you any good if you’re dead.”

  Acer grunted and shook his head. “It’s come to this, has it? Full battle survival mode.” He was grim and resigned and there was no question or skepticism in his tone. Dane was grateful for that much. The kid was going to be a problem.

  “What the hell? What… do you mean—dead?” His voice squeaked.

  “I think you know what I mean.” Dane did not gentle his voice. There was no hint of playfulness or anything except ruthless steel.

  “I—okay. I could visit my sister I guess. It’s off season—”

  “I don’t care what the hell you do or where the hell you go. Do it now. And stay away for at least two weeks. Call before you come back to the island. You have the number.” Dane pushed him toward the back door and took a cautious look around the perimeter before he let the kid out.

  “Don’t you want your food?”

  Dane walked to the truck with him and took the hot food and the bottle and gave the kid whatever money he had in his pocket.

  “Do not call before two weeks are up. Not for any reason. You don’t know me or any of us or anything about us. Do not drive directly back to work. Drive around the island for at least an hour before you drop off the truck and then leave the island. Leave before nightfall.”

  “This is all so surreal.” The kid got in the car and paused. Dane gave him a nod. The kid rolled down the window and Dane wanted to punch him for making him stand out here, keeping them both exposed. He knew someone was watching them.

  It killed him that he didn’t know who it was or why.

  “Will you be okay?” the kid asked. Dane sighed and felt a momentary lift of the granite layer, like a peek of daylight from a deep dark cave. He grabbed onto it, just for a moment, before retreating.

  “Don’t you worry about me. And don’t you make me worry about you.” The kid nodded. Dane banged a fist on the roof. It was as good as it would get for good-byes, it was the best he could do for the kid.

  Shana finally walked in his back door after a tense hour, during which Dane felt like hundreds of burning embers covered his body and were slowly singeing through his skin to devour his insides in a firestorm. A vee of sweat soaked through his T-shirt and he could not sit down. He paced and refused to take a sip of whiskey in spite of Acer’s suggestion that he could use it. He drank ice water and waited for the governor to return his call. David hadn’t called either.

  This time he didn’t jump when he heard the crunch of tires on his crushed shell driveway. The sound turned off the burning torture like a switch. She was home. The goddamn woman had finally returned and he was free. He leaned back against the kitchen sink and watched the knob turn on the back door. When the door opened, he picked up the glass of whiskey and poured the contents down his throat. Not even the normally stinging liquid bothered him—his throat may as well have been made of ice. He felt nothing.

  Shana stepped inside and when he put his glass back down on the counter gently, she walked up to him and put her arms around his waist and leaned into him and rested her head against his chest.

  “Shana.” He wrapped his arms around her and felt like he’d stepped into the kitchen of his childhood—the one where his father was still there and his mother had just taken cookies from the oven and the sun shone and his biggest worry was whether Santa would bring him a new bike for Christmas. A long-ago and short-lived world—one he never thought about. But he felt it now. Then the flash of that memory evaporated and he was left with the comfort and warmth against the iciness of his world.

  “Dane.” She pushed back from him.

  Acer poured a glass of whiskey and handed it to her. She nodded, took an unladylike sip and said, “Where’s Cap?”

  The stun-gun slam of her words made him blink. He immediately shored up the crumbling cement of his defenses and refroze his emotions. Fool that he was, he cared about her, but she wasn’t his and he’d damn well better remember that.

  “He’ll be here. Tell me what happened. From the beginning. And leave nothing out.” He didn’t add “this time” but it was understood. He knew she understood based on the tinge of pink hitting her cheeks, rising from her neck.

  “I told you. A guy in a car—or it could have been a woman—sideswiped me. I saw the car coming in fast and jumped over the hood. The car took off and by the time I recovered all I could do was catch the plate.”

  “What else? What did you get from Mrs. Whitaker?”

  She smiled at him. “Down to brass tacks.” She motioned to Acer for another drink. It wasn’t like her. She was holding back. His blood stirred. His chest tightened. He pushed back with a calming breath and returned her smile.

  “Well?”

  Shana replayed the interview verbatim. He knew it was—he’d seen her do it before. When she was finished he pulled out a chair and sat at the dining room table.

  “Now what?”

  She joined him at the table.
She crossed her legs so that her jeans skirt rose up on her thighs and her right calf rounded lushly over her left knee. He took shallow breaths so he wouldn’t have to smell her scent. He felt like an alcoholic sitting at a bar with an open bottle of Chivas in front of him. He felt his lips curl. She sat back.

  “Now I go on a date. With Mr. FBI. He’s holding out. He might even be involved.”

  No. He thought the word and clenched his jaw, felt the tension of his muscles cutting like wires with the strain.

  “I’ll have Cap run surveillance. You won’t go on your own.”

  She nodded. Averted her eyes. “I appreciate… your reasonableness.”

  She sounded anything but appreciative. She sounded hurt. Damn her.

  “You better get dressed up then. Do this right.” He grinned wide and said, “No holds barred.”

  She stood. “No holds barred?”

  He didn’t answer her. Wanted her to think the worst. His guts tensed like the inside of a grand piano with the tuner pulling every wire tight. He kept his grin in place. In the end, it was easier to hold a fake smile than it would have been to show his true emotions. Wasn’t that the way it always was? Wasn’t that the key to survival in the end?

  Acer bent to peer out a side window and said, “Cap’s here now.” He sounded less than enthusiastic, like he was nursing a sour stomach.

  “I’m going to dress.” Shana strode down the hall without another look at him. He ignored the slight tremor in her voice, picked up her glass and downed her drink. He wouldn’t be going anywhere anyway.

  Cap pushed through the back door with force and, after sizing up the room, headed for the bottle at the table.

  “Have a drink,” Dane said. “But you’re going to be on duty shortly.”

  Dane explained about Shana’s date with Peck and watched Cap’s face change from upbeat to grim to skeptical.

  “Why aren’t you watching her back? You’re her partner.”

  “You don’t want to do it?”

  “That’s not it and you know it.”

  “I’m not well suited to the task. I’m with Acer for the duration.”

  “Not—what the hell?”

  Shana came out of the bedroom—his bedroom—dressed. She wore a hot pink dress that was tight and short and simmering. She ran a brush through her hair as she walked toward them.

  Cap whistled. Dane wanted to hit him. He tightened his fist. Acer came over and stood between them. Acer knew him very well.

  Shana couldn’t hold off telling Dane about the possibility that Glen Peck was dirty any longer. She took a deep breath and dove in—in spite of all the tension.

  “Before I go, don’t you want to hear about what I found out from Mrs. Whitaker?”

  “That was my very next question. Hopefully it was something worth putting your life in jeopardy over.”

  She cringed at his words, knew he cared. Deeply. Too much. This was the reason for the rule. It was no longer the rational reasonable caring of a partner, it was the very irrational crazy caring of a lover.

  “Mrs. Whitaker told me that her husband didn’t have access to the money that was never found—not because he hadn’t hidden it away somewhere, but because the FBI was in control.”

  “Sure—they’re watching him now that he’s out of jail, waiting for him to make a move, then they’ll move in and confiscate it,” Dane said. “That’s why they’re all over us on this one.”

  “There’s more,” she said. She looked Dane in the eye and watched him go still, watched his mind work and figure it all out before she opened her mouth again. But she told him anyway.

  “Fiona said that the FBI was in on hiding the money from the start—that they’d found where Whitaker hid it and cut a deal with him to share it later.”

  “Proof?” Dane’s voice was the temperature of an iceberg and the sound of a thunderclap.

  “She says she has a voicemail message from Peck on her phone. I told her not to share that information with anyone. Apparently they never bothered to confiscate her phone—only Sebastian Whitaker’s.”

  “Sloppy job covering their tracks,” Acer said. His smile was evil. He reached in a pocket and handed Shana a pen. “This is a two-way. Press here for recording, here for calling—kind of like a distress signal with real-time listening instead of a standard beeping.” She took it and put it in her purse, avoiding Dane’s glare.

  But when she looked up at him, he said, “Change of plans. You’re not going on your date.” He didn’t move. His voice was day-at-the-beach-on-Antarctica cool.

  “The people that tried to grab you may or may not be rogue FBI, but I’d stake the arsenal in my basement that whoever they are, they are dangerous. You need to stay here—same protocol as Acer.”

  In spite of his cool, reasonable-sounding unreasonableness, she felt the hum of rage—or maybe fear—emanating from him. She lifted her chin and spoke in spite of the menace.

  “We can’t all hole up in here waiting for who the hell knows what. I’m going.”

  “The hell you are—”

  “The hell I’m not. I don’t—”

  “Don’t say it.” He took an unfriendly step in her direction. She did not step back although she fought with her survival instincts to remain in place. Her mind and her spine went rigid, and she adopted her anti-Dane-the-menace yoga pose. Feet a foot apart and slightly up on the balls, knees locked, spine straight and stretched as tall as she could make it, shoulders back, chest out and hands on her hips, but not resting, instead poised to move.

  He stared her down until Cap spoke up.

  “She should go. We need something more reliable on Special Agent Peck. If she goes, he won’t know we’re onto him. And if he’s not behind the attempted grab, then she’ll be fine with him. Either way, I’ll be close by.”

  She watched Dane turn to look at Cap in slow motion and wasn’t sure if he was going to pounce on Cap or agree with him. But she did take note of the fact that Cap remained reasonable and unafraid. The unit. It made them fearless. About everything except love. Or maybe that was only a Dane thing.

  Without waiting for Dane’s response, Shana picked up her Century Arms CZ 82 from the gun drawer and headed for the door. “Is the electric shocker turned off?” she asked before she reached for the doorknob.

  Acer chuckled and said, “It’s off. It’s called—”

  “Aren’t you forgetting something?” Dane cut Acer off and did one of his ninja-quick moves to her side before she’d turned around to face him.

  “I have everything I need.”

  “Do you have everything you want?” He whispered close to her ear so that she felt his breath spiral into a gazillion goose bumps from her neck down.

  “Good-bye, Dane” God help her, but she leaned in and kissed him. It was just a brush across his lips. He nipped hers in response and patted her ass and when he backed away leveled his cool, intimate smile at her—the one that did not reach his eyes—the one that she had no idea what it meant.

  And yet she felt ready now, like she had his blessing. Like she’d needed that intimate contact with him to feel right and he knew it. He had her back. He cared. Giving him a nod, she went out the door into the expanding darkness of dusk.

  “Well that was intense,” Acer said. Dane ignored him—or at least gave the outward appearance of ignoring him. He couldn’t help taking a few deep breaths of the salty air as he watched Shana back out of the drive in their old Jeep before closing the door behind her.

  “Let’s call the governor,” he said.

  “I’ve called—he hasn’t returned the call yet. He’s a busy guy,” Cap said. “Maybe we should—”

  “I’ll call his special emergency line,” Dane said.

  “What special line? I’ve called his special line—”

  Dane pulled out his phone and pressed some numbers and said, “You didn’t call this one.”

  Cap looked a question at him.

  “It’s his wife’s emergency line. For occasi
ons like these.”

  Madeline Grace, the governor’s wife, answered the phone on the second ring.

  “Dane—is everything all right?”

  She had the most soothing voice he’d ever heard. The woman could make a fortune as a therapist.

  “I need some intel from Peter and I need to give him a red flag warning.”

  “I’ll get him now—he’s right here.”

  Dane did not want to know where ‘here’ was and hoped he hadn’t interrupted anything. But it was probably all in his own mind what he’d be doing if Shana were his wife and—what the hell was he thinking?

  Peter came on the line to spare him from thinking any further worse-than-suicidal thoughts and Dane turned on the speaker for everyone to hear.

  “How’s Acer?”

  “All cozy and feeling too comfortably at home. We have a complication or two.”

  Dane gave Peter the shorthand version of what they had on Peck and the two sightings of the nondescript cars with fake license plates sporting numbers not in the system. And the attempted grab of Shana.

  “Is she all right? Is she there now?”

  “No. She’s on assignment. Undercover of sorts. She’s out getting a confession out of FBI Man. Peck.”

  “If anyone can do it she could. Is it safe? Does he suspect we suspect him?”

  “No. But if you were to do some checking, you’d need to be very cautious not to tip anyone off.”

  “What about the phone?” The governor asked.

  “Since her father, the CEO of Bryant Enterprises called you directly, apparently because of some anonymous tip, maybe you could call in a favor and get the phone from his daughter.”

  “I’m way ahead of you. I’m having Madeline make the call now. But it sounds like it might not be enough—too easily explained away since she was involved in the investigation.”

  “It all depends on what the voicemail says,” Dane said. “And we have no damn idea.”

  “We’ll need something more than solid to go up against the feds. Shana is once again playing a key role for us.”

  “Who do you think is running the two cars?” Dane asked.

  “I know it looks bad for them, but I don’t think the two cars are the feds.”