Chapter 27
A week later, although it felt like a millennium, the island settled down and Dane ventured out past his local coffee shop to visit Captain Lynch at the Vineyard General hospital.
Cap’s secretary called to tell him that Cap was in decent spirits after his recovery and almost ready for release from the Island’s small hospital.
Dane knocked on the doorjamb and walked into the semi-private, taking one of the two chairs.
He glanced at the empty chair and it made him think of the day he’d met Shana George for the first time.
Inhaling a big breath to ease the churn in his gut yet again, he forced a grin at good old Cap.
“You look like shit,” Cap said.
“That’s my line.”
“At least I’m getting back to work tomorrow, not sitting on my butt wallowing.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Dane felt exposed and alarmed because he had been wallowing, but he hadn’t even admitted it to himself—until just now—let alone to another soul.
Like always. He took his rule about not confiding very seriously.
There was a damn good reason for that rule. The Elena Rule.
Instead of answering him, Cap looked over Dane’s shoulder and, with a big grin, he rose from against his pillows. He was glad to see someone, Dane thought.
But without turning around, Dane knew who that someone was. Before he saw her or heard her, he knew the scent of her.
* * *
Shana walked past Dane without looking at him and straight into Cap’s arms for an embrace with a dear friend. She pulled back and examined the bandage at his collar bone and was careful not to jostle his slinged arm.
“You look in good spirits in spite of everything.”
“It’s your beautiful self brightening my day,” Cap said without a trace of anything but sincerity. She felt a warm blush rise up her neck. She’d needed that. She’d needed that strong dose of real emotion to fortify her. She turned to Dane.
When she looked at Dane, she took the envelope from her bag and held it in her hand.
It felt old and fragile and she hoped to God it contained the answers he needed and a peaceful end to his story.
She thrust it forward at him without saying a thing and cursing the tremor in her hand.
She had no idea what to say. Never seemed to know the right things, the things that wouldn’t set him off or make her angry at herself.
He didn’t take it. He only stared at her like she was an indecipherable puzzle.
Cap cleared his throat in a Mr. Obvious way and said, “I need to do a few things. You two take a few minutes to talk. Outside.”
She and Dane walked out of the room and down to the end of the corridor where they found an empty lounge.
“I thought you’d be in London by now.” Dane’s voice sounded scratchy, raw.
“I took a detour.” She sat on one of the hard chairs. She was reminded of the day they’d met, not all that long ago in clock time, and rested the envelope on her lap. She remembered the beach rose he’d given her that day and felt her gut clench at all she’d squandered.
He sat in the other hard wood chair a foot away from her. He said nothing, didn’t ask about her detour, just watched her. Dane being Dane. She added, “I went to Chicago.”
In an instant, his demeanor went stiff and wary—even pained—as if she’d lashed the word Chicago at him like a chain across his soul.
“What business—” Anger cracked the stony surface of his face. She understood and put up her hand.
“None of my business. But that didn’t stop me.”
“Because?” He showed his cruel taunting smile because she’d made herself vulnerable.
Even after everything, he still played this game.
That gave her pause. That told her how deep his wound went, and too late she wondered if there was no hope of rescuing him.
Returning to the fact that she’d already jumped off that cliff, she continued, with her emotions back behind the familiar shutters and her heart beating a little faster as if she might need to run—figuratively of course.
“Because I care.”
As predicted, he scoffed. But it wasn’t the usual offhanded kind of scoff.
It was a cruel snarl of a scoff—the kind he’d reserve for the person he reviled most in the world.
She took a breath and took another stab at detaching herself, even though she’d planned to make the admission, meant to make herself vulnerable.
How could she do it? Did she think he’d thank her for the good news or would he not bother to listen, let alone believe her?
No matter at this point—no use speculating since she’d find out quick enough.
“After you dropped me at the hotel, I couldn’t help my curiosity.” She held her hand up again, in case he thought of interrupting her, and gave him a glare. “I called Chicago to find out what happened to Elena. I tried doing some Internet research but found almost nothing on the woman’s death.
“Now, I’m not the most experienced or smartest detective in the world, but that smelled wrong to me.” She paused a beat to test him. He listened passively. Maybe he was curious too, in spite of everything.
“So I called the Chicago P.D. again and I found out that Elena had one sister, Marion. The department gave Elena’s personal effects to Marion, so I called her.”
“I could have told you about Marion.” His voice was quiet, almost disinterested. But at least Shana knew he was listening, and maybe interested under the self-imposed numbness. She knew what he was doing, how it felt.
Shana nodded. “I know. I should have talked to you first. But I didn’t.
I told Marion who I was and that I didn’t believe that Elena had turned bad.
Marion didn’t want to talk and mentioning your name didn’t help, but she confirmed that she knew her sister was not a bad cop.
I also confirmed that Chicago P.D. had never filed any charges against her.
Their official records say that she died in action.
“So I asked Marion if there was proof and she said there was one thing that might be proof, but she couldn’t be sure. There was a note, but it was in code and only two people knew the code.”
“Our code. Undercover code.” Dane croaked the words and bent forward to lean on his knees with his head in his hands as if he were in pain.
Shana wanted to go to him then and felt herself lift from her chair, but she gritted her teeth and stayed put. He needed to go through this. He needed to hear and feel everything.
“Marion told me the police didn’t bother going to the trouble of getting a code breaker and didn’t try too hard to find you.
” Shana left out that Marion blamed Dane for that.
“I asked to meet her and she said we could meet for coffee—said she’d meet me at the Corner Bakery Cafe at State and Cedar at ten the next morning and then hung up.
” Shana paused, remembering how she thought long and hard about what she’d do next after that call.
Dane had sat up straight again and prompted her, “And?”
“But I was in Boston. Scheduled to leave on a flight to London the next day.” She paused again and stared at him, wondering if she dared to try and make him understand the decision she’d had to make and how and why she made it.
How hard it had been. But she looked away then and said, “So I changed my flight to London to a flight to Chicago leaving that night.” She paused and looked out the window.
She didn’t tell him she’d drained her savings account to do it.
Maybe she’d get around to that later when she needed to borrow money to get back to London.
She took a deep breath and continued under Dane’s new energetic stare.
“I met with Marion. She said she tried to get in touch with you, but you’d already disappeared.
Elena left the coded note and a letter—one of those letters that starts by saying ‘if you’re reading this now then I must be.
’ It was in a backpack she’d left behind that last day for—well, for you.
But you never bothered to pick up her personal effects.
The envelope was in the backpack. It took Marion some time to figure out about the code.
There was also a safety deposit box key and she had trouble with the bank letting her use it, but the Chicago PD helped her. ”
“The department helped her?” That piqued his interest. But not in a good way. “But they didn’t bother to find me.”
The knowledge seemed to disgust him. Like they should have chased him to the ends of the earth to find him and let him know. He bent forward again and raked a hand through his hair.
Maybe he was right. Maybe the department should have chased him.
But judging from Dane’s behavior today, he could see why they might not go to too much trouble.
He had a difficult streak. She knew how it was.
Since she had one of her own. Elena had been his partner—the one who would have been designated to deal with him.
That much Shana had gathered from her discussion with the then commander of the SWAT team.
He’d put together the operation that got Elena killed.
“They found out a few weeks after you’d disappeared. Apparently you know how to disappear very well.”
He scoffed again and said, “It ain’t hard, girlie.” He stood. Turned away and looked at the door. She worked hard at keeping herself seated, at not going to him and wrapping her arms around him to console him. He sat back down, not looking at her.
She shouldn’t be surprised that he’d regressed all the way back to the beginning as they sat in two wood chairs opposite each other, same way as the day they met. Except for the rose. She’d thought about that damn rose too often in the past week. Like it really meant something.
He was a worse emotional coward than she had been. But then, he’d been betrayed by his lover—or so he thought—so maybe he had a right. And if she weren’t careful, he’d let himself believe that her poking into his past was another betrayal.