by AJ Matthews
Cap said, “This case is now a horse of a different color. So what’s your plan?”
“My guess is that you won’t find the missing heirloom anywhere except in Angelique’s hot hands.” He took a breath. “I want to catch her with it.”
Shana said, “How do you propose to do that—sleep with her again? Only this time do your job—”
“Let him tell his plan, Shana,” Cap said.
A thudding shock at Shana’s reaction went through Dane and left him with a stuttering heartbeat in his tight chest. He wanted to shout at her that she was all wrong, that he didn’t sleep with Angelique, but she should know that. He took a long slow breath and said nothing to her. Beyond the shock was pleasure. And guilt and sorrow. He numbed himself, turning to his granite persona before it overwhelmed him.
Stick with the plan to nail damn Angelique Dubois.
“Cap, when you bring her in for questioning, we stage a disagreement and I’ll be on her side—like good cop/bad cop except it’ll be clear I’m no cop. I’ll have a big fight with Shana—”
“Just like always.”
He ignored her, ignored the sharp stab through his shoulder blades as if she were wielding a real knife.
“You act suspicious and I’ll tip her off that there’s a search warrant and offer to help her hide the jewels.”
“Why not just search her place and find the jewels and bring her in?” Shana said. “We don’t need an elaborate scheme—”
“You’re obviously not thinking straight, girlie. You know she would never keep the jewels in her room for that very reason.” He licked his lips and looked straight into Shana’s eyes. “Besides, I want to gain her trust so that she confesses everything—including the murder. ” He paused and lowered his voice, “I want to know exactly how dirty or innocent she is from the one person who knows—herself.” And he wanted to make Angelique pay for playing him.
“What makes you think she’ll confide all this in you? No, never mind—” Shana turned away, but not before Dane saw it. He saw the sparkle of unshed tears in her eyes, felt the emotion erupting from her like she could no longer hold it in. She vibrated with it. Shards of disgust, disappointment, sadness, anger, longing and need hit him.
Dane turned to Cap, who had gone still. He watched Shana with concern and Dane with a question in his eyes.
“I’ll gain her confidence and suggest it’s about time for me to get away from the confines of the island. She’ll invite me with her. I know she’ll take me into her confidence.” He paused. There was no response from either Cap or Shana. No affirmation, no argument, not even an acknowledgment. They didn’t like it. They didn’t defy him. They knew it would work.
Dane stood, his knees straightening with that now familiar ache like an old door reluctantly opening. Like everything else in him, his knees needed attention, needed fixing.
“Keep your book open on the self-defense charge—could be more like manslaughter. I don’t doubt he tried to shoot her and she had to kill him in self-defense—but I bet she instigated it. I bet she taunted him. She has a habit of taunting.”
Shana turned to him with a gaze that looked like she saw him from a great distance. He felt the coldness go through him and was helpless against it. Then he knew—this was not about him or something he did or didn’t do. This distance, her new attitude was about her and her own mind. Something he could do nothing about.
“Okay,” Cap stood too. “Let’s put the plan into place.”
Dane left the office and went to the beach shack to dress before going to pick up Angelique at the Inn.
She opened the door and said, “You’re early.” She smiled and reached her hand to caress his cheek, but he caught it and stopped her.
“The police are coming to search your place.” He pushed past her to step inside the room. “They found the body of your fat middle-aged man with some of the jewels and they’re looking for the rest of them.”
“Let them look.”
“Smart girl. Problem is they’re going to take you in for questioning for the murder.”
She said nothing.
“I know you didn’t murder him. I know it was self-defense.”
“How do you know?”
“I know you’re no murderer.” That much was true.
“Thank you, Dane.” She kissed him and said, “Then there is a chance for us?”
“More than a chance.” That was not true.
“I’ll dress for the party anyway—maybe we will convince the police and still be able to go later.”
Dane didn’t bother to talk her out of it. He knew she was dressing up to show off, to taunt. She’d have an audience of him, Cap and Shana—and she knew it.
The police arrived within twenty minutes and turned the place upside down. Angelique took it well—as if it hadn’t been the first time she’d suffered a police search. They found nothing, but they insisted she come in for questioning and Dane insisted on going with her. All part of the plan. All making him damned uncomfortable. He did not look forward to playing his role with Shana and Angelique in the same room.
Dane looked at his watch. He sat at the table in the interrogation room at State Police Headquarters in Vineyard Haven. It was a place he’d been many times. But he’d never been the one cooling his heels waiting for the interrogators. He looked around. Angelique sat silently next to him. She was a pro. She knew the police would hear everything that was said and see everything Angelique and Dane did in this room. They remained silent and still.
It was close to eight p.m. He’d warned the Gables that neither he nor Angelique would be making the neighbors’ party. Bill Gable knew they had a plan and had seemed more excited than worried about not getting his jewels back until the suspicious death of Bellarine was resolved.
After only twenty minutes, Shana and Cap walked into the room. Shana was dressed to kill in white and Cap wore a tux that fit him fine. Apparently they had no intentions of missing the party. They sat across the table from Dane and Angelique. It felt very odd being on the wrong side of the table from his girl. Shana played her role of estranged lover well. Too well.
Angelique explained that she’d been hired by the insurance company to follow this Baylor Bellarine and then to recover the jewels.
“I took the assignment when I discovered Bellarine was going to Martha’s Vineyard and I’d have a chance to meet the legendary Dane Blaise.”
Shana scoffed. It was part of the act, he assumed. And part real.
“Where are the rest of the jewels?” Shana leaned forward and stared at Angelique. Dane kept his smile to himself. Angelique remained unflustered.
“I have no idea where the jewels are. Bellarine didn’t share that information with me before he aimed his gun and took a shot.”
Cap said, “Lucky for you he was a lousy shot.”
“Not so much luck—I was prepared. I evaded the shot.”
“How did you end up on the beach?”
Angelique shrugged her bare shoulders. She was dressed for the party. She had hoped they would be released from their interrogation in time to arrive fashionably late. Dane knew better but didn’t enlighten her. He wore a black dinner jacket with an open-collar white shirt and black jeans with boots. Angelique had liked the look, had laughed when she saw what he wore. A wave of sadness that she was so misguided went through him, but it was quickly followed by anger. At Jean Luc. At himself. At the unjust world at large. He calmed himself by turning his attention to Shana. Her green eyes sparked and she scowled, but her gorgeousness still gave him a jolt.
Now she waited patiently for Angelique to answer, staring the French woman down.
“I followed him. He got out of his car and I assumed he was going to where he hid the jewels. So I followed. When I stumbled in the sand—I made the mistake of wearing heels because I had no notion of sandy beaches or that Bellarine,” she waved her hand, “would go there.”
“Then what happened?” Cap said.
She turned to
Dane and smiled at him.
“After I successfully defended my life, I found the jewels on him and realized they were the Gables’ jewels.” She eyed Dane again from under a flicker of her lashes. “I left them for you—to return to your client. I thought you could redeem yourself.”
“That’s another thing,” Shana said. “How did he get into the room and rob the safe without being seen or detected?”
“He is skilled at being invisible, that Bellarine,” she said. “He is also an expert in électroniques. For him it is child’s play to.... fix the security program... to show what he wants. To hide what he wants.”
“You mean wanted, don’t you? Because he’s dead now,” Shana leaned forward again. “Conveniently—”
“Wait a minute,” Dane decided it was time he jumped in to rescue the damsel in distress—as she expected. “It was self-defense. You know he shot at her. What more do you want?”
“Lots—” Shana glared at him. He reminded himself it was a role, but he felt the chill all the same.
Cap spread his hands and said, “Wait a minute—calm down everyone. We’re conducting an investigation—that’s all. We know it was self-defense, Ms. Dubois—ninety-nine percent sure. But we need all the facts. So you say you don’t know where the rest of the jewels were stashed?”
“No. But it is my current assignment to find them, so you can be sure I will continue looking.”
“She won’t be leaving the island any time soon,” Dane said.
Cap nodded. “Good. Because we may need to bring you in again, Ms. Dubois, for further questioning.” He stood. Shana stood. Cap said, “While you’re searching for the missing jewels, don’t interfere with our investigation. It’s also my job to find them.”
“Then we can go?”
“After you write everything down.” Shana slid a notepad and pen across the table toward her. Shana followed Cap to the door to leave and then turned before she walked out of the room and said, “For the record, Angelique, I think you’re a lying murderer.”
Dane stood and said, “You’re way out of line—” But Shana slammed the door behind her. He’d felt silly saying the line but needed to do something. He’d be lying to himself if he didn’t admit to being a little shaken by the fact that Shana’s anger was real.
Angelique touched his arm, caressed it. He turned and found her smiling at him. Then she started writing.
Chapter Eight
When Dane left the police station with Angelique, she took him to the stash of jewels, including the one key piece that had belonged to her family. It was as if she had a copy of the script he’d planned and was following along. They’d been hidden in the trunk of a rental car that she had parked at the airport. He hadn’t even thought to check rental records. Stupid mistake. He drove her back to the Inn.
“I think you’re going to need a new room.”
“Non. They have already taken care of it.”
He opened the door to see that she was right. The room was all put back together after the police search.
She invited him to leave the island with her the next morning. He said he wanted to go with her, but it would look too suspicious if they left together. He’d follow and meet her.
She said, “How do I know if you’re telling the truth?”
He said, “You’ll have to trust me.”
She gave him a long look. And then nodded. It was too easy. She was too trusting. Guilt felt like sludge in his gut, accumulating and clogging his soul and heart. What was supposed to be an easy case, a lark, had taken on too much weight. It had been a test of his character of his resolve to be a real person, capable of leading a real life.
The weight of failure loomed like a raised sledgehammer about to drop.
He spent the night with Angelique, but he kept her at arm’s length and she remained quiet and pensive.
“I know you are troubled, my Dane. But I will let you wind your way to peace with your decisions. You must come to know that it’s the right one in your own time.” She smiled, caressing his face and kissing his cheeks.
He envied her serenity. Even knowing it would be short-lived. He hated and admired her at once. He’d do his job—or help Cap do his—get the jewels back for his client and the insurance company and move on. Jean Luc would forever be his enemy and Angelique Dubois would go to jail for a stint. When she got out, she would be another bitter enemy he’d need to watch for over his shoulder.
Was it all worth it? Why the hell was he doing this?
For Shana. He realized everything he did now was for Shana.
She did it for a sense of justice defined by the law. Same with Cap—their jobs were clear.
But Dane—his missions were not defined by laws and other people. He was called by his soul. And now it seemed, he was called by his bond—whatever the hell it was made of—with Shana. That was loyalty of a kind he hadn’t known before.
In the past, his comrades had shared the mission and their belief in the mission and had each other’s back for matters of life and death. He’d had that with Shana too.
But this—this was another thing. He had her back even though he didn’t share her sense of mission and even though it was not a matter of life and death. He was following her lead blindly. The feeling and the concept were foreign to him and, no matter if it fit or not, he couldn’t change it.
These were the things that kept him up through the longest night of his life. And he’d had some long ones in his time, including sitting up listening to gunfire and in jungles under monsoons. Tonight, underneath the soul searching, his mind kept spinning back to Shana’s new distance and anger.
He resolved to find out what was behind it. And to fix it. Whatever it was. Knowing what that might mean. Knowing it might mean a real commitment. He put it aside. He didn’t want to test his heart with the danger of going down that deadly road again, the one that lead to certain hell.
He knew he’d reached the point with Shana that meant hell was certain no matter which road he took.
In the morning, Dane needed to call Cap about the plan to leave the island. But Angelique expected Dane to join her in the shower.
If he didn’t, he had to face the possibility of derailing the plan. Then he’d have to use force to take her in. Remembering the fact that she’d killed the last man who used force against her, he went along with the shower. It should have been no big deal. A minor tactical decision. But the prospect of showering with her made him feel like he’d end up more dirty than clean. He didn’t want to be so weak that he responded as any man would. He was weak now. Weakened by the dread he felt surrounding his relationship with Shana. But he couldn’t do it.
“You go ahead.” He separated himself from her embrace. She was naked and warm and inviting. She scrutinized his eyes.
“It’s the girl—Shana—isn’t it?”
He said nothing. Angelique nodded with a knowing look.
“You were together a while—a year?”
“Yes.” His voice was a growl. He did not want to discuss Shana with this woman. He stepped back. “I need air.”
“Are you leaving me?” she asked matter-of-factly, hugging her arms around her body to keep herself warm. He saw the chill go through her. He felt sorry for her. He knew at least part of her problem was the influence of men in her life like Jean Luc. But she was smart. Too smart to be falling for his act.
“What’s this all about, Angelique? You have a good career on the right side of the law. You could get your family’s jewel back—you could probably buy it off the owner.”
“This is what you ask? Now? I thought you understood. I thought you shared my excitement of challenges in life. I thought you were the same as me, as Jean Luc in understanding our own moral code of right and wrong—”
He grabbed her shoulders and shook her.
“Stop. I am my own man. Don’t ever think you know everything there is to know about me.”
She smiled then. He’d turned himself into the exact kind of en
igma that she found enticing. A challenge. A prize.
“All right. You taunt me to take a risk. It is fair. I’ve taunted you with pretense. I will let you play your game. I will gamble that you measure me the same way I measure you.” She turned and went into the shower alone.
Determination gripped him as he slipped the phone from his pocket. He knew with more certainty than he could remember having which road to hell he would take. It would be the one with Shana by his side. He wouldn’t let her go.
While Angelique was in the shower alone, he called Cap to meet them at the airport with full force.
“She’ll be wearing the family jewel around her neck. It means a lot to her.”
“You’re not having second thoughts about nailing her—I mean having her arrested, are you?
Dane let the waves of self-loathing pass. He did this for Shana, but he’d done more than he needed to. He didn’t know if he deserved Shana. Maybe he was right to keep him at arm’s length, to rebuff his advances ninety percent of the time. But he knew he needed her more than ever.
“No second thoughts.”
Chapter Nine
Dane drove Angelique to the airport and parked in the private hangar area. He walked her to the waiting corporate jet in silence, with his hand lightly touching her lower back. He noted the absence of possessive sizzle.
She turned, leaning into him, and said, “It’s the last time I’ll ask. Are you sure you don’t want to come with me now?”
“What’s the matter—don’t you trust me?”
She laughed softly—her usual musical laugh. He took that as a no.
“I’ll join you later.” He wrapped an arm around her for reassurance and put his hand on her chin. He lowered his mouth for a kiss and figured he deserved an Oscar and special compensation for this role, but he didn’t want to lose her now.
“You have everything?” he asked.
