Chapter 8
Dane heard a door bang. He rushed past the two ATF men, shoving them aside, and saw the package on the stoop outside. He slammed the screen door open and rushed outside hitting the driveway at a run. He tackled the kid to the ground before he’d got on his bicycle. Before he knew what hit him.
The others followed him outside. Shana got to the kid first and pulled him to his feet, holding onto his arms.
“Sorry kid. I have a few questions for you.” Dane grabbed his arm.
“I’ll take over here,” Wilton said.
Dane let the kid’s arm go and stepped in front of him. Shana pulled the kid backward a step behind him. He knew she would hang onto him and protect him as if she were the mama bear and he was her cub.
Dane nodded at Cap. Cap trotted back to get the package. They’d assumed it was from Dag, but before Dane went to a lot of trouble and hassle with Wilton, he figured he ought to confirm it.
“Sure. What are you going to ask him?”
“I’m going to ask you why the hell you tackled an innocent kid.” Wilton took a step perilously close to Dane’s personal space.
Dane heard Shana whispering to the kid behind him and managing to keep him still and quiet. Bless her mama-bear soul. The lucky kid probably thought he was in heaven, getting so much attention from a stunning woman.
He looked over Wilton’s shoulder to check Cap’s progress with checking out the package. Cap had untied the string and lifted the top, then took a brief glimpse and nodded at Dane.
“Well?” Wilton attempted to get in Dane’s face.
Dane turned his attention away from Cap as he walked toward them with the package and faced Wilton. Without backing up.
“Take a look at the package he dropped off.” Cap’s words were calm.
Dane was prepared for Wilton to try and grab the package from his hands, but Simpson put a hand on Wilton’s arm and they both spun toward Cap as Cap handed Dane the package. Dane lifted the top of the box.
He heard the intake of Shana’s breath at the same instant that the smell of blood assaulted his nostrils.
“What the hell, Blaise,” Wilton said. “What’s in that package that’s so damn—?” Wilton stopped short when Dane pulled the bloodied and torn white lace panties from the box.
“Jesus.” Simpson blanched. Wilton grimaced.
“Get that the hell out of my face. What’s going on here?”
Dane turned back to the kid. Shana held onto him with a motherly hug.
“A message from Dag.”
“These are my panties,” Shana spoke directly to Wilton, avoiding Dane’s eyes.
The man’s expression took on a less disgusted look and veered more to interested.
“Let’s go inside and discuss our strategy from here,” Wilton said. He turned and walked to the back door without waiting for an invitation.
Shana turned to the kid. “I don’t suppose you can give us a description of the man who asked you to deliver the box?”
“Sure. I can do better than that. He told me his name. Dagmar Hunt.”
“Where were you when he approached you?” Dane asked.
“Riding to State Beach. He stopped his car alongside me waving a twenty-dollar bill.”
“Go home, kid. And don’t take any more money from strangers. It leads to bad things.”
The kid nodded and hopped on his bike with no further encouragement.
“Let’s get inside. Poor Cap is alone with those two.” Shana took his arm.
“This changes nothing, Shana. You will not play bait.”
She said nothing, but he noticed that she held his arm affectionately. There was a different feel to her grasp when she was annoyed with him. Which was most of the time.
Shana held onto Dane’s arm while they walked to the door.
She didn’t want to argue. It would have been futile.
She’d do what she had to, whether he approved or not.
Her insides tightened and squirmed at the thought.
And she squeezed his arm before she let go and went inside the beach shack ahead of him.
The three men stood in the office. She stood on the threshold. None of them spoke until Dane joined them. He walked up behind her and stood close, whispering in her hair, “You in or out, girlie?”
“I’m going to pack Claire—your mother’s things and bring them to her.”
Before either of them said another thing, the back door slammed opened and closed and Jake walked in.
She escaped their presence and went to her bedroom—or rather the room where she’d kept her things, since she hadn’t slept there much in the past year.
It took her less than a minute to return the small number of items Claire had unpacked back into the luggage and zip it up.
She dragged it from the room after a cursory glance around to make sure she hadn’t left anything of Claire’s behind.
She returned to the office, leaving the bag on the threshold. Simpson gave her a worried look. They could all think what they wanted about the luggage.
“What’s the plan, gentlemen?” She put one hand on a hip and flipped her hair over one shoulder with the other.
“We’ll wire you and—” Wilton said before Dane cut him off.
“No. You won’t.”
Silence followed for a few beats. The conversational hot potato was in her hands now.
She turned to Dane, “It’s better if I’m Dag’s target.” She didn’t have to add rather than his mother. She knew it would wound him.
She felt his response. He didn’t say a word, didn’t move, hardly breathed. But she felt it, the waves of adrenaline-hyped energy that came off him as if he were a hot oven ready to turn clay into bricks. If she were a crystal glass, she’d be shattered.
Luckily she was made of stronger stuff.
He turned, moving his laser stare from her, and addressed the others.
“You’re all forgetting who Dag’s ultimate target is. Me. And if anyone plays bait, it’ll be me.”
“Fine,” Wilton said.
She knew it wasn’t that simple, knew Dag planned to torture Dane by harming the people around him, but they had to do something.
“It’s better than waiting for him to steal more underwear,” Jake said.
Evidently they’d shown him the package while she was packing. Jake gave her a sympathetic look.
“This is what we’ll do,” Simpson said. He had a confident easygoing way about him that made him a lot easier to listen to than Wilton. So she listened. Dane listened too, but she knew he was going through the motions. He’d end up doing what he wanted in the end, whether it was their plan or not.
“I’ll have one of my men pick a fight with one of the known Mongol bikers. They’re hanging out at the Lucky Parrot. You know it?”
Dane nodded. He didn’t mention that it was his second home and that it was no accident that the bikers were hanging out there.
It was a well-known fact on the island that it was the Beachcomber Investigations unofficial office and that they held office hours there where people came to do business most days of the week.
Maybe it was the various newspaper articles and pictures on the wall of him and Shana and their criminal-catching escapades that clued most people in.
Mr. ATF Man was too far out of his home pond.
But Dane hadn’t really expected them to be of much help. They were a distraction to be managed.
That was not satisfactory. He’d need to figure out a way to work their presence to his advantage. Dag would be detoured by them. The ATF had the same effect on bikers as spreading animal piss did on wolves. They would look elsewhere. Dag would need a more subtle provocation to make a move.
“Pick a fight? Make sure you don’t do any damage to Mrs. Jones’s establishment.”
“What are you, part owner?”
Dane didn’t bother answering. He might as well be, but this guy should have done his homework.
Shana said, “I’m out of here.” She dragged his mother’s bag behind her and they all paused to watch her go. No one asked her where she was going or why. He figured Wilton and Simpson thought she was deserting him. Jake and Cap knew she was going to Cap’s for protection detail.
“So you pick a fight—then what?” Dane said after the screen door banged closed behind her.
“We send a message. Our guy is undercover motorcycle gang and this is his territory. We set up a meeting. We get Dag to admit why he’s here and pretend to help him set you up. We tell them where you’re going to be and when. We have people waiting. But not before you get him to admit to—”
“You think he’ll believe strangers are going to help him? You think he’ll believe their intel?”
“Worth a try. You have a better idea?”
“I need to get my mother off the island before I—”
“No can do.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“It’s not up to you.”
“The hell it isn’t. You’d endanger an innocent woman—”
“She’s not innocent. She walked into this with her eyes open.”
Jake put a hand on Dane’s arm, but Dane was not going to waste his energy on this guy. Reason had deserted Agent Wilton some time ago. Dane would do what he had to do and Wilton wouldn’t be able to stop him.
“She’ll need maximum protection,” he said. “But not by you. I want my own people to protect her.”
“We’ll see. We know a few things about you.” The man smiled like he knew the wrong things.
“Oh. You mean about the legend.”
Wilton frowned.
“If you’re such a legend you wouldn’t have left your house empty and unguarded for Dag to break in.”
Cap leaned forward and was about to say something—probably something that could get him in trouble, but Dane stopped him, putting a hand up.
“Sure. We could be sitting on a bomb right now. Tick, tick, tick.”
“Don’t be a wiseass.” He took a nervous look around. Dane smiled.
“Don’t worry. We swept the place for bugs and bombs. I wouldn’t let you down.”
Dane guessed Wilton had forgotten about the part of Dane’s life where he’d served in special operations and had come home more decorated than a tree at Christmas.
“If you need me to have the governor call you, it’s done,” Wilton said.
“Peter wouldn’t interfere with me.”
“Peter?”
“You know—the governor who you just threatened to have lean on me.”
“Don’t give me your arrogant bullshit, Blaise. You’re a troublemaker.”
“That what you hear?”
“From everyone I asked. In particular, from a few people at the FBI.”
“Sure. That’s how I know I’m doing things right. If the FBI thought I was a swell guy I’d need to retire from the game.”
“If you’re so tough—”
“Stop. We’re getting nowhere arguing,” Dane said. “You set something up tomorrow and we get things done and wrapped up by the end of the day.”
“I’m not sure—”
Dane moved a threatening step closer to live up to his reputation. He enjoyed playing the role of an out-of-control badass even if, in truth, he was perfectly in control. Simpson rescued Wilton from a punch to the throat by speaking up then.
“We’ll make it work.”
Dane nodded and left Cap and Jake to wrap it up with the two ATF men. He wanted to catch up with Shana.
He’d need to get his mother off the island before tomorrow.
And he had to do it without the ATF or Dag knowing about it.