Chapter 14
When Dane left the police station with Angelique, she took him to the stash of jewels, but Dane immediately made note that the stash did not include the heirloom piece that had belonged to her family.
The jewels had been hidden in the trunk of a rental car that she had parked at the airport.
Just as he’d suspected, except she hadn’t rented it in her real name—and not as Angelique Blaise, either.
It had taken him some time—too long—to realize there was more purpose to her flaunting behavior than show; that her blatant taunting had been deliberate to lead them on the wrong trail.
While he and Shana had found the car she meant them to find—empty—it was Gabriele Tavares who had rented another car for stashing the jewels.
He was certain their plan had been to take them off island in a ferry and fence the jewels in Boston or New York.
It didn’t matter now because he was wired and Cap saw and heard everything he saw and heard.
Instead of hitting the men’s room before they left the station, while Angelique was being booked, Dane had been set up for prime time.
It had been hard for him to act his part while he and Angelique collected the jewels, not because he couldn’t control his compulsion to ring her neck, but because he needed to break his usual understated form and be solicitous and enchanted by her.
While he put the satchel of jewels in the trunk of his car he murmured for Cap and Shana.
“Don’t jump the gun yet—we have Angelique for the jewels but we need to prove she didn’t recover them for the insurance company—that she intends to keep them—or at least to keep the family heirloom.
And we need to draw out Gabriele Tavares.
Give me the ten minutes.” Cap promised he would still give him the time, but not a second more and they’d be inside in an instant if the Tavares people were there. Dane would need to act fast.
He drove Angelique back to the Inn. The top was down on the Jag and he breathed in the salt air and appreciated her quiet. There would be plenty of fireworks to come.
For the third day in a row, Dane watched the sun rise as he parked the Jag. There were two differences this morning. The first was that today the sky was cloudy with thunderstorms threatening to finally break the heat wave.
The other difference was that today would be the day he would bust Angelique Dubois Ruse and her partner, Gabriele Tavares.
“I hope you are not tired. I’ve kept you up all night on our adventure,” Angelique said.
They stood in front of her door and he took the key card from her hand.
He needed to be in control of their entrance to the room.
He needed to be prepared for possible company.
Before he unlocked the door he said, “I think you’re going to need a new room.
The police tore this room apart.” He swiped the card through the slot.
“Non. They have already taken care of it.”
“They?”
She pushed opened the door as she answered him.
He tensed with readiness, aware of his Glock at his shoulder, but there was no one in the room.
It had all been put back together after the police search.
He knew it wasn’t the hotel people who had done it.
It was Gabriele Tavares—or one of her hired thugs who’d cleaned up.
And he knew they had probably found and eliminated the bug.
That meant his time playing his role as confidante and romantic interest was coming to an end. Probably soon. Possibly violently.
“You will stay with me now? We will make love? Finally?”
He had the AV device in his belt buckle and he was tempted to turn it off as he removed his jacket.
This was the dangerous part where he made himself vulnerable.
But they needed Gabriele to make a move—to do something so they could catch her in the act.
And there was no question that he would stay to get Gabriele Tavares, to collect the confessions—and the family jewel that Angelique still had stashed—inside her.
He was aware of every detail of his surroundings, every noise and flicker of movement. He wondered where Gabriele was and how far he should let it go before he called Angelique on her connection.
*****
The pounding in her chest had more to do with the need to reach through the screen and tear Angelique’s hair out than the danger Dane was in. She shifted in her heels as she stood behind Cap and watched the scene play out on his notebook computer screen in his office.
“Time to go,” Cap said. “We’ll get there in ten. I’ll give the signal for the backup to get into place.”
“We won’t lose the signal along the way?” She put a hand to her chest. The tumult became more urgent.
“Modern technology, baby. Don’t worry—everything will be fine.
” Cap put an arm around her shoulder. He was an inch taller than Dane and bigger.
But it didn’t matter. She realized she didn’t feel the same comfort.
There was assurance and calm, but there was not that letting go, that peaceful comfort that she got from Dane. Damn him.
They were in the corridor when her phone played the Mission Impossible theme. She stopped short, grabbed the phone from her bag and put it to her ear without looking at the caller ID, without even breathing.
Jean Luc had finally called her back.
“I did not return your call because I was traveling.”
“I think it’s too late, Jean Luc. She’s in deep with Gabriele Tavares.”
“I am here.”
“What?”
“I’m on the island. Are you at Dane’s home or at—”
“I’m at police headquarters with Cap—how quick can you get here?”
“Two minutes.”
She stuffed the phone back in her bag.
Cap said, “Shit. We hardly have two minutes.” He opened the computer and put it on the front desk. Dane was parking the car.
Shana paced the floor of the lobby, with Cap watching her, for two minutes and then stopped and looked expectantly at the door for Jean Luc to step through. He was a half a minute late.
“You’re taking a chance coming here. The conditions of your release last summer were that you were never to return,” Cap said.
Jean Luc nodded, his face grim. “I know.”
Shana said, “Let’s go,” and walked out the door ahead of them. They had no time for a showdown about the terms of Jean Luc’s get-out-of-jail-free card. They followed without further comment.
They all jumped in Cap’s undercover car to drive to within one block of the Admiral’s Inn. Shana sat in the front with the computer on her lap.
“Spill it, Jean Luc—everything you know,” Cap said.
“I was worried about Angelique when I called you. But when you called me, that is when I truly feared for her.”
“You knew about her connection with Gabriele Tavares, then.”
“Yes, but this was nothing but a young girl’s friendship.
Harmless at first. But she introduced my brother, her young uncle, to the Tavares people through Gabriele when they all met with Angelique at a party in the south of France.
Then all was lost. My brother has his weaknesses and Tavares knew how to exploit them.
Shana sighed and then held her breath as she watched Dane enter Angelique’s room and take off his jacket.
“You must help me—help Angelique, save her. Do not let them kill her.”
Cap turned his head. “You think they plan to kill her?”
“Oui. She is a pawn and the Tavares woman will use whatever means necessary to obtain her goal.” He met Shana’s eyes in the rearview mirror.
She didn’t need to be told what the goal was.
It was her and Dane’s heads on a platter.
Possibly literally. She wasn’t sure Angelique was a pawn, but she was sure about Gabriele’s mindset.
All means necessary sounded about right.
“All right. We’ll make sure Angelique doesn’t get hurt.
We’ll treat her like a victim until we can sort out all the facts and verify them,” Cap said.
Shana glanced at him to see if he was serious, but she was far more concerned with the situation at the Admiral’s Inn.
She looked out the windshield with relief when Cap pulled the car to a halt.
“Merci. I will owe you for the rest of my life. All of you.”
“Let’s go.” Shana needed to get inside that room, to be with Dane. She pushed the door handle down to open it.
“Wait—you know we can’t make a move until Gabriele makes her move,” Cap said. “We have nothing on her—even if Dane gets Angelique to talk, at this point—no offense, Jean Luc—her word is worth shit since she’s arguably a felon and psychologically questionable.”
“Must we let it play out?” Jean Luc said. He sounded pathetic, but Shana remembered he was a con.
“Afraid Cap is right. We can trust Dane to take care of himself—and Angelique. I know Dane. He would never let anything happen to her.” Shana’s insides whirled as she realized the truth of her words.
He would protect her with his own life if he had to.
Because that’s who he was. A protector. She recognized this about his soul from a place deep in her own soul because she would do the same. Because they were alike in this way.
The urgency to go to him now gripped her until she felt nauseous and her hand tightened on the door latch until she thought she would snap it in two.
*****
Dane watched Angelique slip off her dress.
It was tight and she shimmied provocatively, undulating her hips and shoulders, making her breasts bounce as her nipples were revealed and then the firm white curves of flesh as she pushed her dress down her rib cage.
His unabashedly male blood raged and pulsed in spite of the fact that the sharp pain of tension shot across his shoulders with the knowledge that Shana was watching.
He turned.
Tonight, underneath the role-playing, his mind kept spinning back to Shana’s new distance and anger.