Chapter 7
Knowing who was calling her, she answered her cell phone with a heady combination of irritation and titillation.
“Shana here.”
“Ever the charmer.” Dane’s uncommonly deep voice sent a dangerous rush through her. Her nerves jumped at the sound.
“And you’re the expert, I suppose.”
“No supposing. I have you charmed. As it happens, it comes easy to me.”
She snorted. The edge of excitement tipped back to full-on annoyance. “What did you want? Besides to charm me.”
He laughed a deep mild laugh with a sensual edge. Maybe she imagined it, but it seemed everything he said or did—everything about him—had a sensual edge. He planned it that way for certain.
“Let’s meet at the surfing competition office in twenty. I have paperwork to turn in for my nomination to be a judge.”
“Is this a planned coincidence?”
“Bingo. Swing by and pick up the check for the entry fee from Captain Nice. The governor wasn’t happy about the ten large, but we need it. If Jean Luc requires cash it solidifies our suspicion that something’s not right.”
“That must be how you got to be such a legend—brilliant deductions like that.”
“There you go with that legend bull again. Don’t let rumors and gossip get to you. I’m no legend.”
“Apparently not.”
“You’re wasting time. See you in nineteen.” The line went dead. The light on her cell phone went out. She knew how it felt.
She hated Dane Blaise. She wanted him to drool for her. She should want him to admire and respect her. That’s why she hated him.
* * *
Dane pushed through the glass door of the clapboard two-story Victorian that had been converted to small offices.
It was located a block off the tourist street in town, but he knew it.
He knew all of the Vineyard and especially the town of Vineyard Haven where he spent his summers.
Usually vacationing. Restoring himself. Mostly sleeping.
Maybe this summer he’d surf again. The thought had some allure.
Especially when he pictured himself sharing the same surf with a bikini-clad Shana.
He read the sign where a newly printed tag indicated “Surf America Competition,” a lofty name for a third-rate amateur competition on Martha’s Vineyard.
He’d made a few calls and no one in the business had ever heard of it.
As near as Dane could tell, they were recruiting wannabe amateurs with no talent and lots of money.
Their heiress had been one of them to pay up the ten large for the entry fee, according to her parents.
They knew nothing more about it. Nothing about the organizers.
But the large posters all over the island bragged of the million dollars in prize money and generated lots of buzz among the locals and vacationers—who knew nothing of surfing competitions and were excited to get a taste of the glam-cool sport.
There were lots of hip street vendors out and about selling souvenir surfboards and T-shirts already and the competition was still a week away.
If the weather went bad, there was a rain date.
Unheard of in the real world of surfing competitions. But no one here seemed to know or care.
Dane turned left and trotted up some wood stairs to the office occupying the entire second floor.
A good test of his knee. It didn’t pain him and he thought with more determination of surfing again.
When he emerged from the stairwell, he was surprised.
The sleek sophistication of the dark polished floors, the stark white textured walls and the cube furnishings in metals and brights bore no resemblance to the Victorian style of the house.
He walked through the reception area to the lone desk topped by a state-of-the-art communications and computer system and attended by a lovely middle-aged woman who bore no resemblance to Annette Funicello or anyone else from Beach Blanket Bingo or any other surfing scene.
There were numerous psychedelically decorated surfboards adorning the wall by way of artwork and framed posters like those around town advertising the event.
Otherwise, this could have been any hip business office and he’d have pegged it for the kind of digs upstairs from an art gallery.
“Can I help you?” The not-so-young lady asked. Dane couldn’t stop his smile at the canned words and the sudden feeling he was in a scene from a film noir about a seedy detective.
“I’m here to see the director. I have my nomination papers for judging the competition.”
Her smile warmed and she popped up from her chair with the verve of a younger woman. “Right this way.” She took the papers from his hand, glanced at his name and looked up with her wattage on dangerously high levels. “We’ve been waiting for you, Mr. Blaise.”
That didn’t bode well, but he followed her to the door and went in while she closed it behind him.
The room looked like a combination of Dr. Seuss-like crazy angles and the inside of a Dali painting, with one wall converted to windows and the rest of them stark white and peppered with more surfboards as artwork.
At the center of the surprisingly large room, where the ceiling was at its highest, sat a sleek black desk with next to nothing on it save a blotter, a clock and a pen.
Not a computer in sight. Its occupant was absent although Dane didn’t know where they could be since this room seemed to take up most of the floor.
Then a door in the far wall opened and in walked his host.
Dane hid his surprise as he always did when he needed to, but he hadn’t expected to see Jean Luc Ruse. He didn’t figure the guy to be a behind-the-desk type. Dane had been hoping to pump whoever sat behind the desk for intel. If there were any drawers, he’d have rifled through them.
“Welcome, Mr. Blaise, please have a seat. I apologize if I didn’t mention in our earlier meeting that I was the director of the Surfing America Invitational Competition. I hadn’t realized you would become involved, but I’m glad you are. We can get to know each other better.”
“I didn’t know you surfed.”
“I could say the same about you.”
“I grew up in California.”
“Ah. I grew up in the south of France. A beautiful blue sea, not so much with the waves. We had other sun-and-fun activities there…”
Dane took a seat and Jean Luc sat behind his desk. There were no power games evident in his manner, no advantageous seating or big award statues or plaques to intimidate a guest.
“So I trust my paperwork passes muster. Anything else you need from me? I assume you have some instructions, score sheets and the like to give me.”
“No, nothing of the kind. That’s all done on computer these days. We have a college intern in our office down in Oak Bluffs handling all the back-end details.”
“How lucky for you.”
“No luck. A well-run organization. One I’m proud of.”
“Speaking of the organization… Exactly what surfing organization are you affiliated with? I didn’t see that in any of the paperwork.”
“We are independent. The first of our kind. We’re blazing new trails.”
“Is that right? Who’s funding the operation? Who do you work for, Jean Luc? I’m sure the surfing competition was not your brainchild, having grown up in the south of France where the waves are too small and all.”
He raised a brow.
“Would you like a drink?” He didn’t wait for an answer and picked up his phone to order two iced teas. “I have a special recipe to make them particularly refreshing. You’ll like it.”
“I wouldn’t describe arsenic as refreshing.”
He laughed and picked up Dane’s paperwork. After glancing at it for less than three seconds, he picked up the pen and dashed off his signature.
Dane noted he was left-handed. Before he had a chance to say anymore, they were interrupted. As planned.
The door slashed open and Shana strolled in—or rather her hat floated in with her under it.
The wide white picture hat sported black and red plumage, probably fake.
Or at least Dane hoped to hell it was fake.
Her black-and-white dress featured a fitted bodice with an enticing scoop neck and a flared skirt that outdid the hat for girth-busting dimensions.
She stopped short as if she were a mime hitting an invisible wall the instant she saw Jean Luc look up from his desk.
He dropped his pen and stood, lighting up with what Dane would swear was pride.
Coming from behind his desk, Jean Luc walked forward with a hand outstretched as if Shana were pulling him along an invisible thread toward her.
Dane may as well have dropped through a trap door in the floor a la James Bond. He felt his un-presence.
“You—what are you doing here?” Shana said.
Dane hoped she didn’t overact the part and gave her a look from his invisible space. Did he suddenly think he had telepathic powers? To be more effective, he spoke up.
“I was surprised myself.”
She turned as if seeing him for the first time. “And you—what are you doing here? Visiting with an old friend? Having a nice joke at my expense?”
“No, no, ma belle,” Jean Luc said. Come and sit. Have some tea with us. We were just discussing Dane’s role in the American Invitational Surfing Competition. I’m the director of the competition. He will be a judge this year since he insists he’s past his surfing prime.”
“I think it’s your prime-gone-by we were discussing, but never mind,” Dane said and turned back to Shana. “Don’t tell me you’re really going to compete?”
“Of course.” She spread her arms and beamed a supermodel-worthy smile between the two men.
Dane would like to say he was immune to her spellbinding feminine wiles, but he didn’t want to start fooling himself over a woman at this late stage.
If he admitted to himself he was vulnerable then maybe he could guard against it.
But wasn’t that what he’d been doing all along?
And wasn’t the steel wall of caustic charm turning out to be counterproductive?
Hell of a mess. But at least Shana had Jean Luc mesmerized. Or so he portrayed. He was a con. He always acted mesmerized by beautiful and not-so-beautiful women alike. That was his specialty.
“I’m pleased beyond words, ma cherie.” Jean Luc swept Shana over to a cushy chair and proceeded to pour her his special iced tea after it was brought in by his pleasant receptionist. Maybe Dane ought to check it for poison for real.
The thought made him smile and he figured he should quit channeling James Bond movies.
Jean Luc was no Doctor No and he was no James Bond.
Although he had to admit, Shana most definitely was Bond girl material.
She sat with athletic grace in spite of the voluminous skirt surrounding her long legs down to just above her knees.
If you didn’t stand too close to her, she seemed female-sized instead of having the Amazonian proportions that she did.
Must be off-putting for some men. But not for real men like him.
And Jean Luc. And Captain Lynch. And any man who was a real man.
He let his frown show because it suited the moment anyhow.
Jean Luc handed her the tea with a flourish and a bow and waited with a smile for her to take a sip and approve it. Which she did.
“I have my check and my registration papers and came here hoping it wasn’t too late. I know you have an opening since my friend Susan has… bowed out.”
“She’s disappeared without a trace, you mean?” Dane said.
“Your participation is most welcome, Shana. I would never turn you down. I can tell from the way you move that you are an exceptional athlete and I look forward to watching you surf. We have practice trials coming up soon.”
“Wonderful. This tea is delicious. What do you put in it to give it that distinctive flavor? I can’t place it.”
“Arsenic,” Dane said.
Jean Luc laughed. Shana pursed her lips. Dane shrugged.
“It’s a family secret. Recipe handed down for generations and protected by a sworn oath to keep it from outsiders,” Jean Luc said. Then he gave her his lazy conspiratorial smile to draw her in as if she were his closest confidant and said, “If I told you, I’d have to marry you.”
Dane guffawed. Shana laughed full out.
Jean Luc sat looking satisfied. Dane hoped it was the man’s satisfaction with him and Shana as his accomplices for his latest con. Or someone’s latest con. They needed to get in close with Jean Luc and whoever else he was working with.
Dane knew if he found out who was behind it he’d find the heiress—hopefully alive.
He’d probably find big money and lots of other things too—probably some people he’d rather not run into.
Especially not on semi-vacation on this beachcomber surfing mission that wasn’t supposed to be taxing. Except for Susan Whittier.
If she’d disappeared it was likely because she didn’t want to cooperate with whatever hoax they’d planned. He thought about it while Jean Luc carried on his witless conversation with Shana about surfing.
He looked at the wall poster advertising the million-dollar prize. And then it hit him. There was no fucking way they were giving away a million bucks. They were going to fix the competition and pretend to give the prize to their accomplice.
But what happened to Susan Whittier. Since Dane was betting that it was Jean Luc who had Susan’s phone, then her disappearance had something to do with this competition.
Maybe they wanted her for the ringer and she wouldn’t go along.
She was a liability. That would explain her disappearance, but not why they were keeping her.
Dane could think of a few reasons someone nefarious would want to keep Susan Whittier alive. None of them good.
Dane knew he’d be seriously taxed on this mission.
There was no question now. He watched Jean Luc closely.
The man was in charge in name only, fronting for someone.
Dane noticed there was a wrinkle of anxiety underneath the man’s satisfaction.
Kidnapping, murder and white slavery were not Jean Luc’s style.
Those were the kinds of things that someone nefarious might have in mind for a live Susan Whittier.
Jean Luc was working with some bad people, people way out of his league.
Jean Luc’s cohorts were more likely the kind of people in Dane’s league. That was not good. Dane played in a very tough league.