Chapter 7
They drove his Jag tonight. The fact that he’d had it delivered from storage bought him all kinds of brownie points with Shana. He didn’t tell her he’d been driving it all day. While she was apartment hunting, making her plans to move out.
He set his jaw and reminded himself they were working and for now, they were a couple, however tenuous.
Not much of an undercover couple since everyone on the island knew who they were, but they were dressed to the nines and going out to a posh soirée for the night—probably all night, if reports were correct.
They made it to the party at the appointed time—before the other guests arrived—to check out and meet the staff. But it had been tight.
“If we were late, that would have been unforgivably unprofessional.” Shana pretended to be anxious about the close call.
*****
“Almost doesn’t count, girlie.” Dane smiled and he tossed the keys to the valet, giving the young man a close look and committing his face to memory.
He shoved back the feeling that Shana regretted their lovemaking; that she was having second thoughts about the wisdom of playing house.
It was his guilty conscience talking. He’d offered her no incentive to stay. No commitment.
Or he was projecting his own thoughts again. Either way, he squelched it, tamped down with a rigid tightening on his resolve—and a matching rigid tension in every muscle in his back. Either that or he was getting old.
She rose from the car and he did his best to glide to her side and match her elegance.
“Have I told you that you look dazzling tonight?”
“That’s nothing—have I told you that I feel like I’m going to a gala with James Bond?”
“It’s the white dinner jacket. But don’t let the trappings of movie-land get to you, girlie. This is a real job.”
She raised a brow at him. “You sure you’re not trying to talk yourself into believing that?”
Cap had been told to keep uniforms clear since they wanted to catch the thief in action or in possession of the stolen goods.
Dane didn’t bother telling Mr. Gable they knew who the thief was.
Shana would have killed him if he did, since she wanted to maximize their fees—or rather, do a thorough job.
Mr. and Mrs. Gable, dressed in their finery, met them in the foyer after Shana rang the bell and waited a few beats. Mr. Gable whistled at Shana. Dane wondered what Mr. Gable would do if Dane whistled at Mrs. Gable. Shana read Dane’s mind and elbowed him in the ribs.
“So you’re undercover, posing as a couple?”
“I don’t think that’ll work, Gable. You know everyone on this island knows who we are.”
“Yes—that’s true—in fact my guests are very excited that you’ll be at the party. I’m afraid they’re hoping for some… action.”
Dane thought they might need to triple their fee, whatever it was.
“I will be playing an undercover role of sorts,” Dane said. Then he got ready for another elbow from Shana when he said, “We have a suspect—a very likely suspect. A woman. I’ll seduce her—”
“Your role is to seduce a jewel thief?” Gable’s voice raised a couple octaves, but he checked it and returned to normal quickly. Gable’s eyes slid to Shana and back to Dane. Dane folded his arms across his chest, stood straighter and looked down at the man. Shana behaved. Didn’t even flinch. Yet.
“Nothing wrong with that,” Gable said. “It’s brilliant, in fact—an undercover agent seduces a lady jewel thief—it’s great.”
“We’re not shooting a movie,” Dane said. Shana shifted closer to him—within elbowing distance. She caught him in the ribs with a move no one but he would notice.
“Of course not. I understand this is serious business, but you have to admit there is potential for drama.”
“Just stay out of the way and no one will get hurt,” Dane said.
It was a completely unnecessary and irrelevant thing to say except to calm the guy down.
Dane would have to ask him for the surveillance tapes later, or he had a feeling he and Shana might be the stars in another home movie highlight reel at cocktail parties around the globe.
Or at least wherever this guy went. It occurred to Dane that he’d done his homework on everyone involved except their own client.
Shana had taken care of that. Dane knew Gable made his money making films. But it didn’t really matter what he did as long as he wasn’t an unscrupulous deviant or the like.
“Dane and I will check in with our inside assistants and then we’ll do a check of the systems. I’ll let you get to your own obligations. We’ll be in the main room—”
“The ballroom,” he said.
“Yes—when the guests begin arriving.”
Pushing open the kitchen door, Dane discovered it was cool, even in there with the massive catering staff bustling around and the cooking going on.
He saw four ovens—one open—and a half dozen pans on the stove over varying degrees of heat.
Yet the air temperature couldn’t be over seventy-five degrees.
“Do you see her?” Shana asked, standing close. Only her hair touched him as she turned her head to look around.
“She’s right there.” Dane watched Sassy Stephens, pie baker extraordinaire, bounce toward them with a sunny smile and dressed like she just got off the stage of Oklahoma! in some Wild West outfit with an apron.
“Sassy. Thank you for helping us out.” Shana took her in a hug and when she released the girl, Sassy backed away and gave a shy nod at Dane.
They still needed to work on that afraid-of-men problem Sassy had.
This was out of Sassy’s usual wheelhouse, but ever since she went to a gun school course that Cap ran she’d got it in her head to become Batgirl or Wonder Woman or maybe a cop.
“Did you get the picture I sent of Angelique and the description of her suspected accomplice?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And what do you do if you see the accomplice anywhere or them speaking to each other?”
“I notify you or Shana right away. The earbud is totally cool,”
“You’ll only need to press on it, Sassy,” Shana said. “It’s set to communicate all around. We’ll all hear you.”
“Ronnie too?”
“Yes—speak of the devil.” Dane saw Ronnie saunter into the kitchen, barely avoiding knocking over a server with a tray filled with crudités.
“Boss. Miss George.” He beamed a smile and touched his earbud. “Can I turn this on now?”
Dane nodded. “It’s go time. You have your assignments. Look out for the fat short bald man and any contact Angelique Dubois has with him.”
“Gotcha,” Ronnie said. Sassy nodded her head.
“You look good in that suit, kid. Maybe it’s time for a promotion from delivery boy to server at the restaurant job.”
“Aw—who cares about that job? I’m in training for a James Bond gig now.”
“Don’t get ahead of yourself.”
“Don’t listen to him, Ronnie. You’ll make a terrific James Bond someday.”
“Take your places everyone.” Dane put an arm around Shana and said, “Action.”
Shana laughed as he swept her back out of the kitchen and toward the security room under the main stairs. They went the back way so as not to be sidetracked by the Gables again.
“Where the heck are you taking me?”
“It’s a super secret passageway to security. A shortcut I found when I was studying the blueprint.”
“Oh.”
They ducked into the small room to find one man dressed in uniform monitoring six screens—including the computer with the four screens from the master bedroom. They greeted the thirty-something security supervisor.
“Don’t worry too much about watching the master bedroom until either Shana or I let you know it’s a hot zone. If we do—you make like a hawk.”
“Yes, sir. I’m kind of hoping the burglar goes for it tonight. We’d catch him red-handed and stop this rash of thefts for good.”
“I’m with you—but don’t let Gable hear you say that.”
“No, sir.”
“Carry on,” Shana said and they left.
*****
Dane and Shana stood shoulder to shoulder, almost like co-hosts of the party, inside the ballroom door with the Gables. The room remained cool in spite of the growing crowd.
“Time for us to start circulating and keeping watch,” Dane said.
“Angelique hasn’t arrived yet. We need to keep our eye on her most of all.”
“Let’s split up. We can both keep our eye on the entry. And don’t forget about the partner.”
“You think the old fat guy—”
“Middle-aged.”
“You’re convinced he’s the accomplice?”
“Yes. It’s classic. She’s setting him up to take the fall.”
“You think Jean Luc is in on it?”
Dane thought long and hard. He knew Shana would not give the idea any credit no matter what he said, but the truth was, it didn’t feel like something Jean Luc would do.
There’s plenty he would do—but sending his niece out—or any woman for that matter—to do his dirty work wasn’t him. He gave a non-committal shrug.
“You didn’t tell Gable about the accomplice.”
“Nope. Not till I’m ninety percent on him.” Dane figured Gable would be too eager to share all the dramatic details with his guests—or his script writers. He took a look around at the growing number of guests.
“Time to play our parts.”
Shana nodded. Her turquoise dress shimmered. He put a hand on her side and slid it down along the sleek fabric and watched her shudder.
She leaned in and said, “Don’t wander too far, James Bond. Remember you’re mine at the end of the night.”
Her green eyes sparkled under the perfect lighting of the chandeliers.
The room was lively but not too bright. Her words jolted his blood to raging velocity through his veins.
He fisted his hands to keep from grabbing her by the hair and dragging her up the stairs in the main entryway.
The thought of everyone seeing him drag her off excited him even more and he turned away as she left his side.
He couldn’t afford to watch her bare back retreat into the crowd.
He’d end up being drawn after her. Like the shutting of a rusty door, he put the thought of making love to Shana from his mind and focused on the room.