Chapter 16
Shana crouched low and still and listened hard. The air was filled with early summer sounds, including the ocean. Cap’s house wasn’t far from the harbor in Vineyard Haven. She might even hear some harbor boats—or maybe that was a helicopter.
She looked up into the far distance and spotted a lone copter, now a speck in the sky.
Then she realized this could be the feds on their way and hurriedly slid her way around the house.
If she saw them, then Spartak and his men saw them and they might get spooked—might come up with a more desperate game plan than to steal Paulette and run.
Not that she’d let Spartak get away with that plan.
Not in this lifetime. Not in any damn time.
Edging around the house toward the front where she could get an angle on the street from a hidden vantage point, she stopped and listened. She heard something. Like a distant branch breaking in the woods behind Cap’s house, in the direction she’d just come from.
She stayed frozen to the spot out of sight and listened hard for what had to be a full minute.
Dane had taught her patience. She heard nothing more.
It had to be an animal. Or her imagination.
She made it back to the front of the house, and even with the cover of the gloomy rain now falling, she decided she was too conspicuous to skulk around out front.
Cutting across the small lawn, she headed for the path and went in the front door.
“Sassy, it’s me—don’t shoot.”
The girl appeared in the doorway with the baby clutched to her chest and covering Sassy’s pink, flowery, throwback of a dress and heaved a sigh. “Don’t even say that as a joke—yesterday I would have thought it was funny. But today,” she gulped, “today I’m like totally creeped out.”
“Do you want to go home, Sassy?” Shana went to the girl and put an arm around her shoulder.
They didn’t really need her, did they? Maybe she could get Cap to call another officer over.
But even as she looked at the young woman’s conflicted face, waiting for her response, she realized it was too late to get anyone else there.
She held her breath hoping Sassy would hold out.
“No. I can’t. I don’t. You need me. I’ll stay and see this thing through—creeped out or not. Who would watch out for Paulette in case of a gun fight if I left?”
Smiling, Shana gave Sassy a hug. “You’re right. We do need your help. But don’t worry—at the first sign of.... trouble, you and Paulette will hide.”
“Hide? Where?” Sassy looked around with a critical eye at the small house.
“Good question.” Shana took a quick survey, noting two doors in the hall. “Why don’t you check out the possibilities down there—not in a bedroom. Avoid the bedrooms.”
“Right—that’s the first place they’d look.” Paulette let out a small whine.
“Is she hungry?” Shana asked. Any expertise she might have once had had disappeared at this point.
“I’ll get her bottle and we’ll find a hiding spot,” Sassy said and took the baby back into the kitchen.
Even if she couldn’t check out the street from outside, Shana decided she could at least take a careful look through the windows. It was probably overkill—after all, how would Spartak know anything about Cap or where he lived? He wouldn’t.
How smart could that rotten Russian mobster be?
*****
Although Dane was aware of his own pacing around the small space in his kitchen, he couldn’t stop himself. Not even when Cap gave him a single raised brow as he leaned against the refrigerator door.
“You guarding the stash of tequila? Don’t worry—I’m more likely to have a cup of coffee with a shot of whiskey at this point,” Dane said.
Waiting was the worst part. Their weapons were placed where they could get at them if the doors or windows were breached—resting against their hips from the slings around their necks and shoulders and on the kitchen counter behind them, across the room from the backdoor.
They’d stashed a few in hiding spots around the house in case they got backed into one of the rooms.
Everything was done that could be done ahead of time. If they tried to shoot up the house—well, even Cap didn’t know that Dane’s house was armor plated with bulletproof windows. He’d worked hard on making his little haven safe from the cruel world.
They’d switched to Cap’s radio for communication and he seemed content to listen to the occasional burst of static and bide his time.
“I would have pegged you for a patient man. The legend says you’re cool under pressure. So far I’m not seeing it.”
Dane didn’t tell him it was because of the damn baby. Not now. Maybe never. He swiped his hand across his forehead and through his hair, removing some of the nervous sweat.
“It’s Shana,” he said—only half lying. “I don’t like that she’s over there on her own.”
“No way they’ll find her there,” Cap said.
“Even if they think I’m on the job, they’d never assume you’d use my house—even then, they’d have a hell of a time getting the address from anyone.
I’m not as famous on this island as you are.
” Cap crossed his arms, giving him a knowing and maybe even a sympathetic look.
“True.” But none of that perfectly good logic made a bit of difference to the deep-down, gut-wrenching foreboding Dane was feeling.
The clock was ticking—literally—on his kitchen wall and he looked at it.
“Fifteen minutes ‘til the feds arrive. I hope Toly got the message to his man.”
“To set up the sting?”
Dane nodded his head and would have suggested they call Toly or David when his cell rang.
“That’s got to be Toly—everyone else knows to use the radio.” Dane tore the phone from his pocket, punching it on with his thumb as he put it to his ear.
“Problem?”
“Yes—and no. But I thought you should know either way. My man was in the process of sending the message—and using the cover you suggested—”
“That he beat the intel out of Father Donahue.”
“Yes. That one. But it turns out, my friend, that Spartak had the same idea—with one exception.”
“What is it, Toly? Get to the point.” Dane’s chest tightened and drummed like an Energizer bunny out of control.
“He was told—and I quote—‘No shit. We already got the story out of the damn priest.’” Toly paused there, but Dane didn’t think it was for effect—it sounded more like he was hesitant to go further.
“Go on.” Dane steeled himself and gave Cap a warning look as he listened in.
“They beat the information out of Father Donahue—they caught him while he was escorting his assistant home. But they got the information not by beating only him. They beat—”
“Marian. Shit Damn.”
“I will get these men under control. They will pay for what they did. She’s in the hospital. Father—my son is okay. I taught him to take a punch early in his youth.”
Cap looked like Dane felt. Sick and filled with rage. But Dane needed to know one more thing.
“What information did they get, Toly? What did your son tell them?”
*****
“Shana,” Sassy’s loud hushed voice was urgent and tight, but not panicked. That was bad. “Come here. Now.”
Pulling her pistol from its spot inside the tight waist of her pants, she rushed into the kitchen, naturally keeping low as she went.
When she got to the doorway, she saw Sassy plastered against the wall next to the window that looked out onto the backyard.
The girl nodded toward the window and whispered.
“I saw someone out there. I swear to God. He was in the shadows, but it was a man. Dressed in black.” Sassy cradled Paulette in front of her in one arm and held her bottle in the other. The baby squirmed.
“Find that hiding place. Now. Duck below window level as you go.” Shana waved her arm to hurry the woman, but in truth, Sassy wasted no time.
Shana edged herself, taking her own advice to stay below the window level, toward the wall to get an angled view of the backyard and perimeter.
She peered past the curtain without moving it.
There was no car in the drive, no lights on in the house and no observable movement inside—she’d made sure of that.
Maybe they could play possum, she thought as she watched patiently, scanning the trees along the edge of the yard where Sassy said she’d seen the shadowy man.
A flash of something glinting caught her eye along the side yard almost out of view and she shifted her stance, careful to stay against the wall. She watched, still and patient with only the drumbeat of her heart, the hum of the refrigerator and a clock ticking somewhere—the living room.
Then she saw him move. There were two figures crouched in the low bushes under the trees at the edge of the yard, dressed in dark clothes with long sleeves. They were not neighbors out for a stroll.
Shana crouched down, close to the floor now and scrambled to the hallway.
“Where are you hiding, Sassy?”
“In the laundry room,” came the muffled response.
“How’s Paulette doing?”
“I’m feeding her now—she’s good.” Sassy paused.
“Is everything okay?” There was a tremor of fear in her question.
Naturally. Shana felt the same tremor under her own calm action and strategic thinking.
At least she had her training and experience to rely on.
This poor girl was relying on her. And the baby was relying on her.
Shana felt the ratcheting of tension like a constriction in her chest and she forced a deep breath. She had to call Dane.
*****
Dane waited far too long for the man to speak, dreading the answer to the question and trying not to anticipate. But he’d lost a big chunk of his professional veneer on this mission.
Toly spoke in a measured voice. “They were told where you live.”
“What else?”
“How do you know there is something else? Why do you insist—”
“Spill it, Toly. You told Father D something and now it’s coming back to haunt us—what is it?”
“That you work with the State Police—he was concerned. I told my son not to be concerned because this man—this Statie—is your friend.”