Chapter 1 #3
“Don’t worry—I won’t let him follow me back east. You think he still has the black glove challenge outstanding?”
“Yes. But I want you to confirm it. No need worrying about an empty threat. He might have gotten soft and moved on.”
“I don’t think he has.” Jake took a deep breath. Dane could hear the hesitation three thousand miles away.
“Spill it.”
“He comes around the neighborhood now and then. A parade of motorcycles from his gang drive by. He’s usually in the lead. Intimidation. Doesn’t bother me, but the family gets anxious.”
“He ever make contact?”
“No. I hold my ground. He doesn’t take chances. Tell you what—next time his gang drives by I’ll have one of them run into the office. I’ll pick off the little lamb of the flock—the weak link—and bring the unlucky bastard in for questioning.”
“When’s that likely to happen?”
“Soon. It’s been a few weeks since the last sighting. I’ll stay and do the questioning and then I’m on my way back east.”
“Don’t go out of your way.”
“F*** you.”
They hung up and the pang of loneliness for the long-lost friendship, his long-lost youth mixed in and sparked in his pressure-cooker chest and burning shoulder blades.
The sharpness didn’t mask the nagging roar in his mind that told him Jake should not come east. That he’d be followed, That it would surely lead Dag here to Dane’s island. And to his mother.
Or it could be paranoia spiking through his brain.
He said out loud to no one in particular, “F--- Dagmar Hunt.”
It was about time for another shot of tequila. But he knew he couldn’t.
He wished to hell Shana hadn’t left him alone.
There was no goddamn way she was sticking around the beach shack with Dane in super-serious, sky-is-falling mode. She banged through the back screen door and hustled to the Jeep. The last thing she needed was to be contaminated by his extreme paranoia.
One of them had to think rationally and she feared it would need to be her. Not that Shana wasn’t always rational, but threats that endangered her loved ones generally spooked the reason to the edge of her mind and caused her reptile brain to take over.
Dane was normally cool, he really was. In fact, his ability to be calm to the point of ridiculous nonchalance was what made him legendary.
Asking when they were breaking for lunch as an entire SWAT team in full regalia all pointed their automatic weapons at him after he’d surprised them by clobbering a perp was a perfect example. She loved that legendary story.
Who was she kidding? She loved Dane.
She stood looking at the Jeep and her gut swirled, tumbled, dove, and rode up like a lead ball on an elevator until it was lodged in her throat.
Why the old tin-can-on-wheels caused her emotional craziness, she didn’t want to examine right that minute—except maybe it was a perfect metaphor for everything that was Dane Blaise.
It worked no matter what. The old wreck never let her down. It defied all logic.
She took a deep breath. The cool air off the harbor loosened and lightened the lead ball of her emotions and she grabbed the scratched chrome door handle of the driver’s side and yanked it open with the extra oomph it always needed. Like Dane.
By the time she arrived at the state police headquarters she was back to her confident kickass self and she marched down the tile hallway after saluting the night desk sergeant.
Without knocking, she felt perfectly comfortable walking straight into the wide-open doorway of Cap’s office.
That was the difference between him and Dane.
She shook the crazy metaphors and all comparisons to Cap from her head. When Cap looked up from his computer, she smiled her please-save-me smile—one he was familiar with. As he always did, he stood and came around his desk and gave her a hug of welcome.
She held on a beat longer than normal and she knew he’d notice. May as well let him in on her turmoil even if it was temporarily under control.
“What the hell are you still doing in your office at this hour?” She tried smiling when she said the words.
“Have a seat and tell me all your problems.” He leaned on the front edge of his desk and waited for her to speak.
She didn’t take one of the two marginal chairs—they weren’t meant for comfort. Instead she stood at a friendly distance where she was eye-to-eye with him.
“Dane’s mother is coming to the island. She arrives tomorrow.”
“Wait—isn’t your mother coming tomorrow?”
She nodded. “Yes. Yes she is.”
He grinned. Then he laughed.
She couldn’t help a small smile of comic relief. It would have been funny—should be funny. Or fun. Or anything but cause for alarm.
“I wish I’d known that there was an outstanding threat against Dane’s mother.” She interrupted Cap’s mirth. “That he’d been keeping her hidden away and especially away from him all these years because—”
“Dagmar Hunt.”
“Damn. Does everyone know all about this secret Dagmar vendetta but me?”
“You’re still a newcomer to Dane’s world.”
Cap reached an arm out and she paused long enough that it would have discouraged someone else, but not her good friend.
Cap waited for her. She stepped into his embrace and he straightened and hugged her properly.
She soaked in his strength, his goodness, his calm.
He had everything going for him. He was younger than Dane.
Taller. A handsome s.o.b. Heroic without the soul-crushing baggage that Dane had.
But he wasn’t Dane. She backed out of his embrace with a wistful sigh.
“Tell me what’s going on?”
“Dane’s paranoid. He’s worried Dag will find out his mother’s coming here and he’ll go after her. I’m not sure how.”
“You know the why of Dag’s grudge.”
“I suppose. But how’s he supposed to know about this visit and why would he hold his grudge so long?”
Cap shrugged. He went back behind his desk, sat in front of his computer, and started tapping at a deliberate staccato pace.
“Dane is paranoid. That’s true,” Cap said.
“But that’s what’s kept him alive when he shouldn’t be.
He’s been burned by Dag before, so even if it seems unlikely, I understand why he doesn’t want to take chances.
And why he hasn’t allowed his mother to visit all these years.
” Cap looked up from his screen. “Why did he allow it now?” he asked.
Dread snapped as if his question opened a dam, releasing a torrent of whirling guilt.
Frozen by the tumult, she reverted to her default chippieness and her chin rose in defiance.
She refused to feel guilty about something she knew nothing about because damn Dane held his secrets closer than his Glock.
And that was saying something since he slept with the dam gun more often than he slept with her.
“I invited her.” She knew her eyes sparked with anger and that Cap didn’t deserve it, but she was in emotional survival mode and there was no help for it.
“I see.” Cap returned his attention to the computer screen without further comment.
It was as if he’d absorbed everything—her anger, defiance, chippiness, and her remorse.
And it didn’t affect him, didn’t affect what he thought of her.
He didn’t react—or overreact. He absorbed it all and understood.
Understood her. Understood her dilemma. And most of all, he knew and understood Dane and his damn secrets.
“Maybe it’s not all paranoia,” he said.
That crumbled the boulder-size chip and she shoved past her petty guilt to behave as the professional she ought to be. Ought to have been all along. She was Dane’s professional partner more than anything else. First and foremost. Maybe that’s all they had that was real.
She spoke quickly to maintain focus.
“What do you have?”
“He’s on the ATF’s radar. I’ll need to make a special request.” He looked up at her. “I’ll make some calls and get you the file.”
“Won’t that alert the ATF to our… situation?”
“Yes.”
She nodded. She’d catch hell from Dane, but she knew it was the right thing to do.
He said, “I’ll make sure Dane knows it was my doing.”
“So did you go to the Dane Blaise School of Mind Reading lately?”
He laughed. “I have my moments. With you.”
He held her gaze for a fraction long enough to stir some discomfort in the form of an excited twinge. This was no time for that complication.
But he went back to his computer screen and the excitement evaporated. Most likely it was only caused by the association with Dane for an instant. She stood with her hands on her hips.
“Give me a call when you get the file. Or something.” She turned to leave.
“Shana,” he said in a heart-stopping, motion-stopping voice.
She stood still in the doorway, but didn’t turn around.
“Business as usual,” he said.
She nodded and moved on with her mind and emotions in a tumult all over again trying to puzzle out the cryptic line. Did he mean professionally or personally?
Or both?
Of course he meant both. Shana, you can be such a fool sometimes. He could see your discomfort like you were flashing a neon sign.
She blamed it on the corrupting aura of Dane the Demon.
He’d had her in a semi-disrupted state between thrill and despair ever since she’d met him.
She’d been stuck in his orbit too long. Maybe she needed to escape.
For a time. Maybe she ought to go back to Australia with her mum. For a while. A short while.
She slammed out the glass door of the police station, which otherwise could have passed for a Cape Cod house, and tried to control her breathing before she hyperventilated. Luckily she’d had practice at calming her jumpy emotions.
She blamed her super-edginess on her mum’s impending visit, and even more so on meeting Dane’s mum. Who wouldn’t be jumpy?
The night was cooling down nicely and instead of returning to the shack and Dane, she decided to go for a night run along State Beach.
She hadn’t thought ahead to the fact that that would make her all hot and sweaty by the time she’d returned to the beach shack and Dane.