Chapter 9 #2
“I’ve been down under a time or two in my travels.”
“My family is from Sydney, but I consider myself an international citizen. Mostly I go wherever there’s a beach, sun, fun and waves.”
“Quite a life. No thought to settling down?”
Shana laughed in response, one of those laughs that said, what a quaint notion, but no.
“You’re an unusual young lady, my dear Shana. And a young lady after my own heart. I share your sentiment about settling down.” Jean Luc lifted his champagne flute to her as if in salute. She lifted hers. Again.
Luckily the waiter came by then and delivered the first of their food.
“I’ll have another Patron on the rocks and my friend Chauncey will have another Johnny Walker. My lovely companion will have a ginger ale.” Dane finished the order but not before he felt Shana nudge his leg under the table.
The shockwave of awareness woke him to full alertness.
It was too goddamned much fun toying with her.
He removed his hand from her neck, sliding it down her back over the bare skin of her shoulders and down the silky sheath.
He took a long breath that ended up shakier than he would have liked. Or imagined.
She took a breath too. He wasn’t sure if it was relief or something else. But of course she was relieved. She was wound tight and he’d been no help.
More food and fresh drinks arrived quickly and were shortly followed by visitors to the table.
Jean Luc jumped from his chair and his features tightened as if someone was twisting his thumb back under the table.
Prior to that moment Dane had thought the man impervious.
He looked over the unwelcome visitors with interest.
Jean Luc’s cohorts. A young man, who looked a lot like Jean Luc but lacking his polish and wily wisdom, stood several inches taller than Jean Luc and was accompanied by a young lady.
Dane decided that “young lady” was a generous description for the woman who hung on her man like a worn wrinkled shirt.
She could have been beautiful. Probably had been, but had given up and confined her efforts to keeping herself high.
The only question was which drug enslaved the sad junkie.
The third person visiting their table was the odd man out.
In every sense. He didn’t fit. It wasn’t that he was shorter and heavier and the opposite of chic; it wasn’t even the disjointed nose and overly muscular arms. It was the dull disconnected eyes.
Dane ought to know. He’d encountered dozens of men like him before.
This man was in a different category of criminal than Jean Luc or the young couple.
“Roger, Tamara, what a nice surprise to see you here.” Jean Luc reached over the table and shook the young man’s hand and nodded at the half-alive woman. Then he turned to the odd man and said, “Ned.”
“Introduce us to your friends,” Ned said. It wasn’t a request.
In his mind, Dane raised his brows.
Jean Luc remained standing and retained his poise, introducing them to his younger brother Roger, Roger’s girl Tamara and Ned. Nods, but not handshakes, were exchanged.
“I didn’t know you were dining here this evening,” Jean Luc aimed his question at Roger, but Ned answered.
“We knew you’d be here and were hoping to join you—and your new friends. Can’t have too many friends.” Ned curved his lips to reveal tobacco-stained teeth.
The stains were the serious kind you got from chewing tobacco rather than merely smoking, Dane noticed. The man’s accent and manner reminded him of some people he knew in New Jersey. The people were not friends, but professional acquaintances on the other side of his mission.
Dane spoke up before Jean Luc had a chance.
“I’m afraid it’s too late—we’ve already ordered and the table barely fits us four.
Maybe another time.” He kept his eyes on Ned, clearly daring him to press the issue while they all waited a lengthy beat for the man’s response.
It was curious to Dane that Jean Luc waited for his response without taking up Dane’s lead as he’d expected.
Once Ned nodded, Jean Luc sat and promised to see them later.
“Yes, you will,” Ned said, but he didn’t turn to leave.
“I hope you’re all planning to attend the American Invitational Surfing Competition?” Jean Luc smiled.
Shana had her back to Ned and she chose that moment to speak up, answering Jean Luc.
“You know, it’s funny, Jean Luc. My friend, Susan Whittier—the one that I was telling you about—she was planning to enter the competition, but I got a text from her. She says she’s run off with some guy for a spontaneous trip. Funny. It’s not like her.”
Ned interrupted. “She’s probably run away with a man like spoiled rich girls do.”
Dane noticed Chauncey playing James Bond and taking a picture of Ned and each of the others with the tiepin camera he’d brought from Scotland Yard Exchange HQ in Boston.
Shana turned to look at Ned and gave him an unfriendly smile. Ned turned and walked off in a strut stunted by his short legs and limited energy.
Jean Luc’s brother took up the cause of apologizing for the less than wonderful manners of his friend. “He has a toothache and we haven’t been successful at finding a dentist. Do you know of one?”
“All we have here is a pair of surfers and a decorator…” Jean Luc turned to Chauncey and asked, “That is what you do, isn’t it? You’re a decorator?”
“No, I was joking. I’m really an undercover detective. From Scotland Yard, of course.”
Shana laughed loudly and immediately, and Dane followed suit, while Chauncey smiled.
“Don’t scare people like that, Chaunce. You know everyone has someone to hide from the law,” Shana said. She looked at Dane. “Isn’t that right, surfer dude?”
“You mean something, don’t you, surfer babe?” he said and swept his gaze over Jean Luc and back to Chauncey. Miller was a piece of work. He was certainly succeeding at keeping tension high.
“I love to tease. Suffice to say I’m not a dentist,” Chauncey said to Roger, who sported the same shuttered look as his brother.
“Mystery man, eh?” Roger showed a dimple.
“If anyone can give me the name of a dentist, it would be appreciated.” He slipped a card from his inside pocket and placed it on the table in front of Shana.
The woman hanging on his arm stirred and shot a look at Shana as if she’d just seen her for the first time.
Dane plucked up the card and slipped it into his pocket. The couple left with him propping her up. They didn’t head for another table but went out the front door—the same door Ned exited a minute earlier. They didn’t seem concerned about causing suspicion. That troubled Dane.
“How well did you know Susan Whittier?” Dane addressed Jean Luc.
“I did not. Certainly not as well as Shana knows her.”
Dane knew he was calling their cover into question. He also noticed that Jean Luc had used the past tense when referring to the missing girl. Not good.
“We went to school together in Paris as teenagers,” Shana said in a bored voice. It was the background story and they had the creds in place in case Jean Luc checked. Dane knew he would. Dane also knew something was off with his so-called friend Ned and it wasn’t a toothache.
“How well do you know Ned? I’ve never seen him around. A new acquaintance?”
“Surely we have something better to talk about.”
“All right. Let’s talk about the police being on high alert and how Shana had to deal with them to ensure her safety and has been questioned repeatedly about her friend,” Dane said.
“You speak accusingly—as if it were my fault. I assure you I am sorry about any trouble her missing friend is causing Shana, but none of it has anything to do with me.”
“You knew her and you lied about it.” Dane pressed.
“I may have met the young woman, but I did not know her. Why do you insist on discussing this when Shana has said she heard from her friend and all is well?” Jean Luc kept his cool in spite of Dane’s heavy-handedness.
Someone who truly had nothing to do with it would be a lot more puzzled and curious about why Dane pressed the issue.
“I told you, I’m a suspicious guy. Especially when someone lies. And really especially when that someone shows an interest in my girl.” Dane reached an arm around Shana’s shoulder and pulled her in.
“Hey, wait a minute. Don’t I get a say in whose girl I am? I’m a free-wheeling type if you want to know the truth,” Shana smiled playfully between Jean Luc and Dane.
“Well, I’m not. You’re going to need to make a choice. At least while you’re on the island. And from where I sit”—he pulled her closer still and felt her tense up—“you’ve already made your choice.”
Shana exchanged a knowing look with Chauncey.
“I just love it when men fight over me. It gives me a bigger rush than a push of heroin.”
“Unlike you, my friend—” Jean Luc began.
“And stop calling me your friend,” Dane said, teeth bared at Jean Luc. He was boiling up and it wasn’t all part of the act. Telling himself to simmer down, he added, “We were always rivals—from the minute we met.” That was the absolute truth.
“Have it your way. I’m not afraid of competition. In fact, I propose a friendly wager. Chauncey here looks like a gaming sort. What do you say?”
Chauncey looked between the two as if measuring them up, then rubbed his chin. “I’ll place five-thousand pounds on the girl.”
They all laughed, snapping the tension like a frayed rope.
They ate their meals and Shana dominated the conversation, centering it around the impending surfing competition.
Jean Luc paid close attention while drinking little.
Dane held back from having a third tequila, although his nerves screamed for it.
Or was it his soul begging for numbness?
He spent the meal observing everything about their mark and their environs, watching for Ned and anyone that looked like a cohort of his—like someone that could have played an extra mobster on The Sopranos no matter how expensively he was dressed.
The tarnish on the inside always showed through the polish if you knew what to look for, and Dane knew.
His life depended on knowing. That sliver of survival instinct had worn thin, but it was there.
He picked up his water goblet and took a big swig to quench the instinct in case the alcohol had dulled it more than it could stand.
He turned to Shana as she laughed in that deep womanly way she had that seemed unexpected coming from her beach bimbo body.
Thank God he hadn’t slipped and called her a bimbo.
She’d chafed at “girlie” and that was the mildest thing he had for her.
Tuning in on the heat he felt where their thighs whispered against each other, the sensation of warmth waved through him in a comforting measure.
For once at least it didn’t rouse lust. He knew the attraction was dangerous, but no more so than the automatic antagonism.
They were like two magnets attracting each other at one end and repelling each other on the opposite end. Dane hoped he could keep the balance.
Of course he could. He was betting his life on it.
Shana rose to take her ritualistic turn in the ladies’ room, signaling an end to the meal. Jean Luc of course stood when she stood, forcing him and Chauncey to do an awkward half stand. Shana gave him a look over her shoulder that said “don’t bother.” That bothered him. Shit.
“I know of a wonderful place we can all go dancing,” Jean Luc said as if the evening were only beginning.
Dane kept the deep sigh to himself. The man had probably slept until noon. When the waiter came back, Dane ordered coffee.
“I love to dance.” Chauncey smiled as if it were true and his only aim in life was to party.
Jean Luc turned to Dane. “This is where our wager will be made or forfeited. I think we both know what the stakes are.” He kept his eyes on Dane.
Dane met his stare and said nothing, only conceding with a barely perceptible nod.
Lucky for Dane the outcome of their bet about who would win Shana had been predetermined. As long as Shana kept to the plan. And as long as Ned stayed out of it.
Dane hoped the surge of tension tightening in his chest didn’t show. Jean Luc would be an expert at discerning the slightest hint, and although Jean Luc may not be dangerous, he appeared to be playing with dangerous people on his team.
When they left the restaurant, they went to their respective cars to meet at the Flying Horses Club on Seaview Avenue in Oak Bluffs.
Dane automatically surveyed the area while Shana ran an admiring hand over the hood of their car as if it were a champion race horse.
That subtle move gave him a surprising blip of warmth toward her before he clamped down on it.
So what if she finally showed some good tradecraft?
As he reached for his door to slide inside the driver’s seat, his eyes rested on the darkened corner of the parking lot at his ten o’clock.
The bulb was out in the light near there, but he saw the silhouette of a head in a car and memorized the plates.
He knew that head. Cold flowed through him and all the slivers of instinct he thought were worn sprang to life.
Thank God. He would need every last one of them.