Beachcomber Investigations

by Stephanie Queen

  Shana didn’t need to hear anymore. The woman thought she was the hacker. The dead hacker. Apparently Sebastian had not shared the identity of Harold Small with his wife and preferred to torment her with the mystery.

  “Stop right there. There was nothing kinky. Not ever. He was just trying to make you jealous. It’s obvious.”

  The woman looked skeptical and she still had all the energy of a slug, slouched on the chair and leaning on the table. Shana needed this discussion to be over with. She reached out a hand and when the woman didn’t reach back, she bent down and grabbed her by the arms and hauled her to her feet.

  “Time to go. You go get us the money. Have it sent to this address by tomorrow.” Shana took a blank card from her bag and scribbled their P.O box address then pressed it into her hands. “Got it?”

  “Then what? When is this all over? When does my husband come home and we get back to living our life?”

  “You know he has unfinished business.”

  “Does he?” Fiona was back to her more energetic self now and full of doubt. Shana needed to go while she could. She pulled the woman from the bathroom and marched them back out to the public spaces of the salon. Resuming her polished, haughty pose, she gave the woman a last nod and strode to the chrome and glass door and pushed through to the other side.

  Taking a deep breath of the early autumn air, she filled her lungs with the grit of the city and hurried to her car. Shana couldn’t wait to talk to Dane.

  She clicked the key to open her door and didn’t register the car farther back down the street until it was almost on her and coming fast and close. There wasn’t enough time to open the door and jump in. She moved quickly, lunging onto the hood of her car as the black sedan roared by with a wash of wind as she rolled out of the way and ducked down in front of the hood. When the car passed, she dashed back out to the street to catch the license plate and managed to see it in a flash before it swerved around the corner as cars honked. She looked back at her car and was surprised the side mirror didn’t get clipped.

  An older couple and a young man with a dog rushed toward her shouting their concern, asking if she was okay and making politely disapproving comments about the driver that almost killed her. She saw the young man punching something in on his phone and she reached for it as she reassured him that she was fine.

  “Please, I appreciate your help, but I’m okay and I’m so late to catch a plane—I can’t stay. You’re all so wonderful to be so concerned.” She shut the man’s phone off and handed it back to him with a smile before he could object more than to say, “Hey.”

  Sitting behind the wheel of her car, Shana let the aftershocks of adrenaline and the close-call shakiness wear off before she started. Well aware of the several people watching her, she couldn’t afford to wait long and pulled into the traffic without calling Dane. She’d have to talk to him when she got to the heliport. In the meantime, she’d need to keep vigilant for anyone following her.

  Running her down with a car wasn’t exactly the MO of a sniper, in her experience. So who the hell was after her?

  Chapter 8

  Dane paced around for lack of anything better to do. The monitors were a study in monotony. Nothing was moving, not even a leaf. He hadn’t heard from Shana since she’d landed in Boston and even then it had only been a text.

  Acer looked at him as he walked by the kitchen counter where Acer stood.

  “You thinking of a drink?”

  “Fresh out of anything halfway interesting in the cupboards around here. Any chance we can get the kid to deliver?”

  Dane nodded. He’d rather call Shana, but it was time he called on the kid anyway. “I’ll text him. I’ll have to order food to give him cover, but I’m sure he can make a pit stop at the liquor store without getting in trouble. His boss seemed mighty customer service oriented.”

  “Or you could ask Shana.” Acer was testing him. Dane had held back calling her all day. It was getting close to three p.m. and she should be on her way back unless she was stopping in at David Young’s office. She ought to keep them posted though. It would be the professional thing to do.

  Unless you were a pissed-off female. And he had to acknowledge that Shana was definitely a pissed-off female.

  “We’re partners. There are obligations that go along with that,” Dane said.

  Acer raised his brows. “And does that mean she’s obliged to buy us alcohol?”

  Dane realized his words amounted to a non sequitur. He had to stop thinking out loud when there were others about. Which was almost always now.

  “Among other things.”

  Acer grunted.

  Dane slipped the cell phone from his pocket and punched in Shana’s number. He’d call the kid later. The phone rang once and she answered.

  “I was just about to call you.”

  “’Bout time.”

  “Fun-filled times on Newbury Street. I’d fill you in but I’m about to get on the chopper so I’ll make it quick. The upshot is that someone tried to run me down—”

  “Goddamn it, Shana. When the hell—”

  “I’m fine, Dane. Really.” Her voice changed from businesslike to the soft sexy side of the woman he knew and—

  “I got a plate number. Probably stolen but what the heck.” She told him the plate number and he committed it to memory.

  “Who was in the car—did you get a look? What kind of car?”

  She told him no and gave him a description of a classic nondescript car. His mind buzzed. Who the hell would be running her down and why? Not the sniper. Not likely anyway. But he didn’t share this thought with her.

  “It wasn’t the sniper,” she said.

  “Why not?” Damn the woman.

  She said nothing and he could picture her giving him a withering schoolmarm look, spoiled by her unspeakable beauty.

  “I’ll run the plate,” he finally said.

  “I’ll fill you in on the rest when I get back.”

  He wanted to tell her to fly safe, that he missed her, that he wished he were there to protect her from whoever the bastard was that tried to run her down. He wanted to tell her he was sorry. For what he wasn’t sure. He was never sure with her. Except he was sure that he wanted her—no—needed her.

  But she’d disconnected the line while he stood there contemplating his folly.

  “Problem?” Acer said. Looking more like a Mt. Rushmore candidate than the usual teddy bear.

  “Run this plate number.” Dane scratched it on a piece of scrap paper he grabbed from the counter. “She’s all right. Sounds all right. Don’t know the details until she gets back.” There’d been no shakiness in her voice. She’d been together enough to be concerned for him. Adrenaline made a person sharp.

  “Someone took a run at her?’

  Dane nodded. Acer’s mouth turned into a line of fire. He abandoned the kitchen and returned to his station at the computer on the table. Dane tapped in the kid’s number, but his fingers had a tremor in them, so he stopped. He needed to go outside and breathe in the ocean.

  “I’m going out back. I’m turning off the perimeter for a few minutes,” he called to Acer who grunted in return.

  Dane pulled his spare Glock from a kitchen drawer on his way to the door and went outside as if he were entering an enemy stronghold—with excessive caution. He checked all the sightlines for movement and shiny objects. And he took a deep breath as he proceeded toward the back of the house and the harbor. It occurred to him that the breach on his piece of paradise wasn’t the first and wasn’t likely to be the last—as long as he stayed in this business.

  But then he realized he wasn’t in the business, the business was in him. He’d never be free of it. Shana popped into his head, underlining the need for the rule against a relationship with her beyond partners—and friends. One couldn’t be a partner without being a friend.

  Unfortunately, with him and Shana, he was uncertain whether they could be friends without being lovers. He spent a few min
utes breathing in the salty moist air and letting the cool breeze flow past and swirl around him until he dispelled Shana from his mind.

  He pressed in the kid’s number with a steady hand and got an answer in two rings.

  “Dude, you’re like a Ninja, how’d you know I was coming over? I’m just about there.”

  “Turn around and pick up a bottle at the Lucky Parrot. Do you have food with you?”

  “I always have food.”

  “See you when you get here.” Dane punched off. The kid was growing on him. In spite of the ‘Dude’ reference. He walked back around the side of the house to go inside, but he stopped short when he got to the corner.

  Shana didn’t tell Dane about the strong possibility that the FBI could be aiding Whitaker for money because David said he needed proof before they could even make the slightest inquiry from his end. He didn’t want to raise any eyebrows and burn bridges without damn good proof.

  The minute she gave Dane even an inkling that FBI man, Glen Peck, could be involved in a bad way, Dane would act. Possibly, he would overreact because for whatever reason they did not get along. Well, now she knew the reason—she was certain even if David was unwilling to make the leap of faith.

  She had always figured FBI Man didn’t like Dane due to professional jealousy, maybe some personal jealousy, in particular involving her. Special Agent Peck had shown an interest. And she’d turned him down flat. And now she was with Dane as far as Peck knew.

  As far as anyone knew. And she could use that.

  Signaling for the copter pilot to wait one more minute, she walked back away from the loud rotors and punched Peck’s number in on her phone. And took a deep breath, with a big, albeit fake, smile on her face—because her mother had once told her that a person can hear a smile on the other end of the phone. She waited for him to answer.

  “FBI here. State your business.”

  “You always were a charmer.”

  “Shana George? As I live and breathe. What possible reason could you have for calling me? Your boyfriend acting up—has he been away from the jungle too long and he’s hearing the call of the wild?”

  She gritted her teeth, but maintained the smile. The copter pilot probably thought she was having a breakdown.

  “Do you want to have dinner and find out?”

  There was a beat of dead air. She rolled her eyes. No way he’d be able to tell about the eye-rolling no matter what her mother said.

  “A professional dinner or a personal dinner?”

  “We can decide on that later. How about tonight—eight p.m.—The Lucky Parrot.”

  “That dive?”

  “Is that a no?”

  “You drive a hard bargain.” He paused again. She was sure it was for effect and then she heard him sigh. “Okay. You’re on. You have me curious. But I see any sign of Blaise and—”

  “Don’t you worry about him.”

  “I’m not worried.”

  “Of course not.” She bit her tongue. She shouldn’t have said that.

  “No. I’m not. Let’s be clear about this. He’s not in my league. He’s half crazy, I’m told. But then I probably don’t have to tell you that.”

  “No. You don’t.” She could say that much with sincerity. Dane wasn’t crazy at all and this guy was more of an idiot than she’d realized. “I’ll see you at eight.” She was about to sign off when he spoke again.

  “Dress up for me. Let’s make this more pleasure than business.”

  “Of course. You know I will.”

  He laughed like a man with something to look forward to. She pressed the off button with more gusto than needed and tossed the phone in her bag. Apparently, he underestimated her almost as much as he underestimated Dane, not believing he needed to be cautious or even professional in any way. She wondered if David had filed the official complaint against him yet. It was too soon for any complaint to have gone through channels to get to him, so she had time before he backed off to get him in some real trouble and maybe find something out of value. The copter waited in the distance and the pilot waved her over. There was no time to make any more calls. She walked to the copter, anxious to see Dane. Dreading it and anticipating it, and wishing it were all different.

  It was goddamn Dane’s idea, but she felt like a traitor making the date with FBI Man all the same. She stepped up into the copter and took her seat.

  Dane stood still and close to the house, but careful not to touch it, and watched as a nondescript dark sedan drove out of sight. Squinting, he was barely able to make out the plate. It had only four digits and one letter. A 5432. It was highly unusual for a plate. A different but similar plate number to the one Shana had seen. He wasted no further time getting back inside to talk to Acer.

  “Anything on the plate number yet?”

  “No.”

  “No? Why not? Is the great hacker genius stumped?” Dane went to a hallway closet and reached into the back and plucked a dusty bottle from the floor of the dark corner. It was time to take out the secret whiskey. He wasn’t sure why, but he felt the need as if he were a shaking addict in need of a fix. Maybe he was.

  “I’ve hacked every place there is to hack. There is no such license plate. It’s a fake—more importantly, it’s a purposeful fake, carefully designed not to duplicate a real license plate. Hard to do—impossible for an amateur.”

  Dane felt that drumming inside his chest and the bubbling in the pit of his stomach that was familiar to him, like an engine being revved. He felt the escalation of this matter into a new realm, the kind he was all too familiar with. The game was now raised to a higher level of danger to be played against opponents more ruthless, more skilled, and with more resources than they originally thought. This was no longer about some guy with a grudge because he’d been thrown in jail and wanted to get even. It was no longer about the missing $20 mil, or however much was left of it.

  “There’s something afoot that we know nothing about,” Dane said.

  “And we’d better find out what it is—”

  “And quickly. I saw another plate on another car skulking out front. Barely saw it. Plate A5432. I bet you don’t find it.”

  “Damn. There are only a few possibilities of organizations with these resources.”

  “A few we know. Maybe a few we don’t know, except by reputation.” Dane felt a bubble of excitement mingled with fear rise to ratchet his mind into survival mode. “And whoever they are, they’ve decided Shana should be eliminated.”

  “And they’ve decided your beach shack ought to be watched,” Acer added.

  Dane knew this might not have anything to do with the sniper matter or Sebastian Whitaker. He looked at Acer and nodded. He knew it might be some old rooster coming to rest. And he traced the long list in his mind of potential roosters to examine who might be powerful enough and resourceful enough, and angry and vengeful enough, to come after him here and now.

  Acer spoke and echoed something he thought. “Whoever it is—appears they’re patient. No immediate breach today.”

  “No. But I don’t understand why they’d try to run Shana down and why they’d be so clumsy about it.” His heart hammered then and not because of excited adrenaline, but because of fear. He clenched his fists and stared out the kitchen window into the harbor at the boats that were familiar to him after watching them every single day. Not to say he hadn’t made it his business to know each one of them, to memorize their dimensions, makes, models, and positions on the buoys and docks in his sphere of the harbor. He knew in theory this was his vulnerable area. If he were a paranoid man—and he was.

  “I wish Shana would hurry up and get home,” he said aloud, surprising himself.

  Acer was surprised, too. Dane turned to see the man’s brows raised.

  “Me too. I’m stumped about that—except maybe…”

  “What? Maybe what?” He had no patience. He unclenched one hand and ran it through his hair. Acer eyed the bottle of whiskey he held in his hand.

&nbs
p; Dane plunked it on the counter, retrieved two water glasses and cracked open the bottle. No need to be stingy. They could hold their liquor and Dane, for one, needed some slowing down to keep his racing mind and racing pulse behaving. He needed to stay under control and he was too revved up. He handed Acer a glass. He knew he couldn’t rush his friend to spill his insights. Acer had always been slow to think. But his thoughts were usually invaluable.

  “It occurs to me that maybe they weren’t trying to run her down.” He paused. Dane got his meaning.

  “Maybe they were trying to pick her up,” he said without a maybe in his voice.

  Acer nodded, and then gulped down half the whiskey at once.

  Dane took a swallow of his and put the glass down. He heard tires on the gravel and went to the door. Damn, it was only the kid. His heart hammered. He opened the door and hurried the kid inside. He had some questions for him. And maybe an assignment. But this would be the last time he’d let the kid come to the house. Ever.

  Dane was a danger magnet. Yet another reason for the rule he’d broken with Shana. The rooster had done his homework. Dane felt a machete-sized blade twisting in his gut and slicing sharply up through his heart as if the steel were solid and real and he could pull it from his soul dripping with his blood and dreams.

  “Man, I got news for you,” the kid said, sporting a seriously proud grin.

  Dane felt the twisting and the sweat of fear popping on his temples and down his spine between his shoulder blades as if the torturer were in the room. He needed Shana to be there. He needed to be out finding her and protecting her.

  He needed to send her away to some place safe never to return.

  The kid looked at him, expectant and then puzzled, clearly afraid to say more for fear of saying the wrong thing.

  “What is it?”