Beachcomber Baby

by Stephanie Queen

  So he chose the high ground with its tactical advantage of the sight angle and, he hoped, the advantage of surprise. Halfway through the man’s burst of fire as he stepped into the doorway, Dane shot him three times. First in his gun hand to stop the shooting, second in his chest, and lastly in the head. He’d barely made the final shot before the man fell backwards onto the hallway floor.

  As soon as the man fell, Dane leapt from the bureau, bounded one step and then over the man to catch the second shooter in the adjacent bedroom. He’d had a momentary sight line when he was up high, out of his peripheral vision. He shot the man twice center mass as he ran by on his way to the third man, who had smashed through the bathroom door and was currently shooting the room to smithereens. Dane’s heart pumped furiously with the need to get himself there to stop the shooting in case Cap was still in the room. The only place he’d be was hunkered down in the lower part of the linen closet and it wouldn’t be long before the shooter’s gun got around to finding that spot.

  Unless Cap used the exit plan and jumped out the window.

  He hoped to hell Cap decided on the window, their plan B.

  The shattering and splintering sounds of the bullets against tile and wood and glass mixed with the explosive sounds of the weapon itself to create a deafening and terrifying hell. Throwing himself down the hall as if Hades, the king of the underworld, were after him, Dane reached the door opening and aimed at the back of the man’s head, taking three shots. The man fell forward and Dane saw what was left of the bathroom of his beach shack. The window was open, but before he took a single breath of relief, Dane pulled open the closet door and looked inside. Empty.

  “God almighty,” he said to no one. Everyone inside the house was dead.

  The backdoor swung open, sounding loose on its frame. Dane almost sank to his knees when he heard Cap’s voice.

  “Dane?” Cap shouted into the sudden silence.

  “Here. Saving your ass.” Dane leaned against the wall waiting for the buzzing in his ears to stop, waiting for the mad pumping of his heart to slow, and breathing slowly, steadily. He closed his eyes, but he heard Cap round the corner from the kitchen to the hallway in a rush.

  “Jesus H. Christ. Damn it to hell.”

  Dane opened his eyes and saw Cap surveying the damage. They looked at each other.

  Dane said, “Never mind the beach shack. None of these guys was Spartak.”

  Cap went white at that, understanding the implication. Dane pushed himself off the wall, hefted his weapon, and took stock of his ammunition.

  “You good to go?” he said to Cap.

  Cap looked grim, but steady in spite of his heaving chest. Dane wasn’t sure if it was anxiety or the fact that the man had jumped out a window, run for his life and had then run back inside to help him that caused the heavy breathing. But either way, he was entitled.

  Dane led the way out the backdoor—or what was left of it—in a hurry to his Jeep. Then stopped short when he saw the tires all flattened. These guys weren’t taking any chances. Spartak had done some training of his men. Not enough.

  “These guys weren’t fooling around,” Cap observed.

  “Was it the MP-443 Grachs going off the second they crashed inside that clued you in—or was it the slashed tires?”

  Cap gave him a tight look. They both knew they needed to get to his place—fast.

  Dane was about to suggest they haul ass on foot when the cavalry finally arrived. Two State Police cars filled to the brim with FBI special agents skidded into the crushed shell drive, spitting up debris and screeching to a halt half sideways and not bothering to stay off his lawn. That pissed Dane off more than the shot-up bathroom for some reason.

  Cap started shouting orders at the two drivers who were his men as the feds jumped from three doors of each car almost in unison. Dane ran for the second car still half in the street with the engine running—past the men who’d just got out—and jumped into the driver seat. Cap had told his man, hastily getting out of Dane’s way, to leave the keys and went around to the passenger side, barely making it inside the door before Dane burnt rubber with his back tires on the street.

  The ASAC Mark Richards, held up his badge and yelled at them. Cap yelled back out the window that they’d be back, gave him his address and told him there were intruders—associates of the dead guys inside.

  The mention of dead guys inside the house stopped all the FBI agents in their tracks. They were no longer interested in chasing Dane down the street. Dane took off for Cap’s house and counted every one of the seconds in his head. It was a short drive on a bad day, but today it may as well have been a universe away. Now that the gunfire had stopped he couldn’t get rid of that gripping fear that Shana was in mortal danger. He hadn’t even thought about the baby until Cap spoke.

  “I’m sure Shana has the baby somewhere safe—I have a basement—”

  “It’s Shana I’m goddamned worried about.” He ground the words out and felt guilt and fear and relief and more fear gnawing at him, making his insides feel like they were twisted by a tourniquet.

  He pulled out his two-way and punched the call button.

  Shana heard a car screech to a halt in the drive and figured it was the police—though she hadn’t heard any siren. Sassy rushed to the window—throwing caution to the wind—and looked out.

  She said, “It’s a police car.”

  Shana had been hoping it was Dane. She yanked the plastic tie binding Spartak’s hands behind his back as tight as her strength would allow—pretty damn tight. If the man woke up he’d feel the strain on his arms and shoulders—on top of the pain in his head.

  Sassy rushed past her down the hall to retrieve the baby from the laundry room. Shana let her go. The immediate danger was over, but she still felt tense. She needed to know Dane was okay—and Cap too.

  The door flew open and two Staties rushed in. She recognized them and they lowered their guns after a tense survey of the room. Shana straightened and the two men approached, one asking her if she and Sassy were okay. His radio chirped and he picked it up.

  Shana heard his voice and her heart jumped. She grabbed at the radio before the man handed it to her. Dane spoke in a tight voice.

  “Shana—”

  “The baby is fine. Untouched.”

  “What about you?” The raspy tension filled his words. She felt her heart float up like a bubble.

  “I’m no baby.”

  The sound of Dane’s laugh caused a sensation in her gut as if a bottle of champagne had been popped open inside her. The tension in Dane’s voice had lightened and released the knots of anxiety that had been driving her.

  “Sure you aren’t, girlie? Aren’t you my beachcomber baby?”

  The edge remained under his too casual comment and she was sure he had not returned to normal-for-Dane. But he was alive. She gripped the radio tightly in the beat of silence that followed.

  He said. “I’m coming over. I’m bringing Cap. Maybe he’ll get some credit. The feds should be on their way—not too far behind us. Once they’re finished at the beach shack.” He paused and she heard Cap in the background.

  “Okay.” She wanted to tell him she couldn’t wait to see him.

  “I’m stopping in quick. I’d rather not be there when the feds arrive.”

  She stood with one foot on Spartak’s back. He hadn’t bothered asking about casualties on the other side.

  “Spartak is alive,” she said.

  He paused before responding.

  “Shit.” The next thing she heard was static.

  Shana handed the two-way back to the Statie and they got busy rounding up the two men and calling for ambulances. They’d decided the men were too injured to throw into the police car. She glanced at Sassy holding the baby. Paulette was awake and if she’d cried during all the commotion they wouldn’t have known—but she looked happy now. Shana wanted to hold her and reached for her, but stopped herself. They would be returning Paulette to her mother. Soon
. The tightening of her uterus was not her imagination.

  Within thirty seconds of ending their call, Shana heard another car screech to a halt in front of the house and then car doors slamming. She rushed to the door, pushed through, and went outside. Without thinking she ran down the front steps and cut across the lawn to meet Dane halfway as he ran toward her.

  There was nothing else except his face in her sights as she ran straight into his arms. The solid thud of his chest against hers and the feel of his arms wrapping around her body, his hands running along her back seeped into her, calming the nerves that had tightened. The tears came and she couldn’t stop them. Couldn’t stop the gulping sobs. No matter what the tender words she heard from him, she wanted to be the one consoling him, the one reassuring him that everything was all right, that the danger was over.

  Chapter 18

  Mark Richards, Assistant Special Agent in Charge of the Boston FBI office, got his way. Cap was the only one who escaped the invitation for a helicopter ride back to Boston. The only concession the governor managed for Dane and Shana was that the debriefing would take place at David Young’s office, HQ for the Scotland Yard Exchange Program in Boston. It was something. Dane would need the director’s backup to keep the personal animosity from overcoming Special Agent Richards’s professionalism. He was sure David would keep the FBI’s focus on the big picture. They had got their man—alive, thanks to Shana.

  Shana would be okay. No black marks against her. Not only had she got her man alive, but lucky for her, she was seen as Dane’s sidekick and not responsible for the decision to go rogue and miss their date with the feds. Dane didn’t disabuse the ASAC of his notion of Shana as an innocent bystander. The fact that this view rankled Shana to no end almost made the entire exercise entertaining. Dane smiled as they all got off the elevator and paraded into David’s office.

  David stood behind his desk and returned the phone to its place in the solid old-fashioned cradle.

  He said, “You’ll be pleased to hear that the prisoners are on their way to being locked up in the location specified. The remaining bodies are in the Suffolk County morgue.”

  “No doubt about their cause of death, is there?” Mark Richards said with a sideways glance at Dane.

  “What about Paulette?” Shana asked David without looking at the ASAC.

  “She is in custody. On her way here.” David smiled. That was the one thing the governor managed to do. He had a woman from the local DSS office pick the baby up from Cap’s office and take her on the ferry back to Boston. He’d arranged for Dane and Shana to return her to her mother. There was too much sensitivity around whose baby she was and her various relatives to let the FBI get involved.

  Dane suspected the governor’s wife Madeline may have even gotten involved in the negotiations with Mark Richards’s boss, the SAC. That was yet another reason for Mark’s animosity, Dane figured. He smiled, though his gut tightened at the prospect of taking the baby home. It should be a happy occasion, the proverbial happy ending, but the amount of anxiety induced by the thought had him in knots. It reminded him that it wasn’t over yet.

  The ASAC turned to Dane and said, “What do you have for me on Anatoly Ivanov?”

  “Nothing. He’s not involved in any way.”

  “How can you say—”

  David intervened, “We’ve already discussed this, Mark. The baby farm enterprise at the Garage Club was Spartak Ivanov’s very own sideline. From what I understand, your men—along with a few of mine—have already rounded up several suspects and will be able to confirm this shortly.”

  “What about the missing woman?” Shana addressed David, once again ignoring the ASAC.

  “I am happy to report that we managed to convince one of the men from the club to give us the young lady’s whereabouts with the promise of potential leniency.”

  “Potential leniency?” Dane asked.

  “Yes. We promised him nothing,” David confirmed.

  Shaking his head in disapproval and frowning, Richards said, “Your manner of operating is going to make it difficult for—”

  “No need to worry, Mark,” David cut him off. “I don’t think word is going to spread too far too fast in this case.”

  “About the baby,” Richards said, “I want to send one of my agents with you—”

  “You’re already getting more than your share of credit for all this. You don’t need to be involved with state social services matters,” Dane said. He felt the razor edge of tightness return to his muscles, most notably his fists, as they bunched. Shooting men up didn’t relieve the tension, didn’t satisfy like a good punch in the mouth did. He imagined punching Mark Richards in the mouth would be very satisfying. David eyed him with a twinkle and he could swear the man read his mind—probably shared his face-punching ambition. But David was more of a diplomat than Dane bothered to be, so he let David have the floor back.

  David said, “I understand you have a press conference scheduled for this morning when you bring Spartak Ivanov in for arraignment in Federal Court. I imagine you may want to focus your efforts there and on wrapping up all the myriad charges you’ll be bringing against him and his associates.”

  “I imagine so,” Richards said. “But what assurance do I have—does the FBI have—that a kidnapping victim—and you know kidnapping is FBI jurisdiction—has been returned to—”

  “This was not a goddamned kidnapping,” Dane said, lifting from his chair before he felt Shana’s hand gripping his arm and pulling him back.

  “How do—”

  Shana cut him off this time. “The baby was in my care at all times. Father Donahue and then the baby’s mother Lara Bennett entrusted her care to me. You can speak to them—but I know you already have—so you already know. There was never any report of kidnapping. Ever. By anyone.”

  Shana paused and stared him down. Dane cheered her on in the inside, still tense in her grip, but steady. Then with a glare at Richards she said, “Why are you insisting on harassing us, Assistant Special Agent in Charge Richards? I’d like to know before I report—”

  “I’m not goddamned harassing you. You represented to us you were bringing the baby here to this office, in front of the two very people you just mentioned as witnesses, and then you refused to do so and refused to report your whereabouts. You bet your off-the-books rogue-ass I could make a case—”

  “No one will be making any cases,” David said. He put up his hands. He looked at Richards and said, “This has been discussed with your boss.” That was it. That was all David Young said as he stared the man down until even Dane could see the man’s outrage had been tamed to useless resentment.

  “I think that about covers it.” Dane stood. Shana stood a beat later, next to him. Dave pushed his chair back and nodded.

  “I think you’re right.”

  “That’s it? That’s—” Richards stood too. The problem was he was between Dane and the door.

  “That’s it,” Dane said and stepped forward. He was aware of Shana following right behind him.

  David said to Richards, “Tell your boss I said hello. And enjoy your press conference.”

  Richards looked at David and then at Dane, finally understanding that Richards was getting all the credit. David wouldn’t be at the press conference. Dane and Shana certainly wouldn’t be there. Cap should be there, but he wouldn’t be. He wasn’t sure if the governor would show up, but Dane thought it would be a grand idea to send Madeline. She’d keep it real. Dane smiled at Assistant Special Agent in Charge Richards and stepped past him. The man stepped out of his way and he and Shana made their exit.

  At the door he turned and said to David, “You owe me a Scotch.”

  “Next time you’re in town.”

  They left the office and he followed Shana to a conference room. She was in more of a hurry than he was now and that could mean only one thing.

  “You get a text?”

  “Yes. They’re waiting for us.”

  His muscles cin
ched so that it was an effort to take a deep breath, but he forced it. The social worker was waiting for them with Paulette. The deal the governor had made was to have Shana turn her over to Father Donahue. He was their client and he was the one who turned Paulette over to them. He and Shana were to oversee the return of the baby to her mother. On the word of the governor, the social services department was respecting the church and the privacy of the mother and Father Donahue—and they didn’t know half the story. They had no idea the priest was the son of Anatoly Ivanov, ex-KGB and former officer in the Russian SVR—Foreign Intelligence Service. Now Anatoly was a Russian-American entrepreneur of dubious business ventures, one of the very men they were after. The feds also had no idea that the young mother, Lara Bennett, was the granddaughter of Anatoly Ivanov.

  Peter, David, Dane and Shana all thought it best to keep it that way.

  Shana opened the door. There sat a woman holding a baby. The baby girl, dressed in her pink outfit—the one he and Shana had bought for her—turned and looked at them with her blue eyes and smiled a big smile, waving her chubby hands.

  Dane’s heart wrenched sideways and a dull stabbing pain took hold of his chest. She was a gorgeous, happy baby, exactly as Delilah had been. Shana left his side and rushed forward to scoop her from the social worker’s arms. Dane took up the two bags and the carrier. He didn’t want to touch Paulette, didn’t want to hold her or kiss the top of her soft curly hair. He especially did not want to smell that baby scent.

  That baby scent was the last memory he had from Delilah the last time he saw her. She was dead and bloody and he bent down and closed her sweet eyes and as he did he breathed in the scent, her baby soft smell. It was still there, uncorrupted by the blood or the gunpowder in that brief moment. He caught the last whiff of her life. And then it was gone. Overpowered by all the other smells of evil and death.