Chapter 3 #2
The man was no quicker at reading IDs than the first got and even less interested in objecting. His expression quieted as soon as Dane had mentioned the word security. The man pointed and said. “Second one down. Number L4. You’d better hurry. They’re already on it.”
Dane didn’t smile. He gave the man an official nod. Glad for the excuse to move fast, they trotted to the trucks off-loading at L4.
“I see it. Halfway up the belt.” Shana lunged, but Dane got to it first.
One of the orange-vested workers shouted an objection.
Shana shouted back that they were security.
Dane counted his blessings that they had only one bag.
He hauled it off the belt and while stares ranging from suspicion to disapproval to puzzlement followed them, he gripped Shana’s arm and led them to the nearest exit in the opposite direction from where they’d come.
The last thing they need was to run into the same man they had before.
Ripping the ID tag off their luggage and slipping their vests and airport shirts off, they headed toward the Employees Only sign.
Then Dane trashed the luggage in a large bin, wishing he could have found an incinerator instead.
“What the hell are you doing?” Naturally Shana was upset. With a wistful sigh, he remembered her packing her best lingerie.
“We can buy new stuff. We need to get out of here unencumbered.”
“Why did we bother retrieving it in the first place?”
He shook his head in mock disappointment. “Because it would have identified us. This way we remain anonymous for a bit longer.”
“The airline will know who we are.”
“Only if Emory and Wendy ID us. But something tells me they won’t. Let’s get out of here.” They slipped out the employee entrance and found themselves in a gated parking lot.
A security guard with a comm device spotted them at the same time Dane spotted him.
“I don’t think you’re going to flash a fake ID and talk your way past this guy,” Shana said. “Follow me.” She spoke with some relish, but when he saw where she was going, Dane followed her.
“I don’t believe that guy turned us in.” He looked over his shoulder and saw the guard pointing while talking to someone on the other end of his comm box.
Speeding up, Dane flew past Shana and grabbed her hand as he pushed through the glass door into the departure area of the international terminal building.
“Let’s try and stay out of view of the cameras.” Shana slipped a hat from her bag and put it on while Dane, with his head down, led them through the thickest pockets of people.
With his head bent, he scanned for security and noticed a couple of uniformed men alert and searching the crowd.
“They know we’re in here. They’re looking for us,” he whispered.
Bending slightly and keeping low, Dane held Shana’s arm and angled toward the door to the street and a line of taxis. Skipping the queue after slipping the guy ahead of them a hundred dollars U.S. to keep his mouth shut, they slipped into the first cab and slammed the door closed.
“Get us out of here. Fast.” Shana spoke in her best Aussie accent and the cabbie nodded with a wide smile and complied.
The rush of adrenaline caught up with Dane as soon as he’d hit the seat and the cab took off.
His heart beat wildly, making his chest feel like it was being played by a rock-star drummer.
He needed to calm down and think strategically now, but damn if he didn’t take a few beats to enjoy the moment.
The rush of getting to the other side of a close call never failed to thrill him.
*****
“Where to, Aussie queen?” Dane’s exhilaration matched hers.
Shana put a hand to her heart as if she could slow it, but she didn’t want to.
Looking into his intense eyes, she wanted to throw herself into his arms and eat him whole, right there in the cab.
The excitement pulsing between them was palpable.
But there was an immediate need to answer the question Where would they go now?
She had no idea.
Disoriented by the momentary kick of adrenaline, familiar from those prior occasions when they’d managed to outrun trouble. She didn’t laugh, but the familiar tremor of joy ran through her.
“You do realize that I haven’t lived here in three years?”
“Making excuses, girlie?”
“No, but we’ll need a plan B and maybe even a plan C.”
“Should we be worried that someone’s going to be monitoring your phone’s GPS and will know where we’re going?”
She shook her head and then it happened. A look of uncertainty, a clicking-in of something key turned her thoughts. She bit her lip.
“All I want is a place that some professional people-hunters would never consider looking for you,” Dane prodded.
Damn the man for recovering his calm with lightning speed when she still fought her heightened senses and her sudden need to kiss him.
He adjusted himself in his seat, moving away from her so that they weren’t touching.
Of course he’d read her mind, or more likely the expression on her face.
“We can’t go anywhere near anyone I know.
And it can’t be a place like a hotel where we need to register or that would have cameras.
” She forced herself to think it through.
Dane was being patient with her, but the cab driver glanced at her expectantly in the rearview mirror, then returned his eyes to the street ahead of them, driving aimlessly but increasing the distance between them and the airport.
“You know any seedy motels—the kind that don’t want to know who’s staying?” Dane kept his voice low.
“Sure, but that’s the first place a professional people-finder would look.”
“You have a point. Then let’s register somewhere—within a couple of miles of where your home is. We’ll leave some things behind. Bread crumbs.”
“First we need to do some shopping.” Shana turned to the driver and told him to head to some store Dane had never heard of in a mall in downtown Sydney.
“Disguises?” he said.
“Yes—for you. They’ll know me no matter what.”
“Who’s they besides Chancy Peterson?” He paused a beat and said, “You going to the police for protection?” Dane knew she would.
She nodded. “If you promise me you’ll go to my mother and take her away somewhere safe.”
He nodded.
“Any idea who the dirty cop is?”
She knew Dane watched for her flinch at his nasty speculation, but she didn’t move a muscle as she looked back at him.
Letting a deep breath rumble through her, she resigned herself to the notion of someone inside the New South Wales Police force being involved.
The possibility had played at the edge of this case ever since she’d helped with the arrest years ago.
There’d been a whisper in the back of her mind then, but she’d never voiced it, didn’t want to think it, felt guilty for suspecting even for a second.
There might be dirty cops in the New South Wales police force, but they would never be part of a fraud and embezzlement scheme of the police pension fund. That was beyond imagining.
And yet, logistically it made sense that there had to be someone inside the police administration to pull it off.
*****
They sat in the back of the taxi, quiet. Dane moved closer. Either she knew there was a bad seed, an insider on the police force and was over it, or she wasn’t convinced yet. He hoped it was the former because had done his homework on the plane and he was convinced.
But she knew the players, knew who they were, had their backstories.
He could only figure out so much searching online without the help of Acer’s technical skills.
He had no financials, for instance, and that would have been very useful.
Standard. They were at a massive disadvantage being here in Sydney on their own.
Dane was struck—not for the first time—with the notion that this game they played was a team sport.
“I thought I’d have to talk you into going to the police with this, but don’t worry. You won’t be alone. As soon as I see to your mother, I’ll go with you—”
“No, you can’t. It won’t work that way.”
“Why the hell not? I’m not letting you head into the lion’s den without protection.”
He read her look. She telegraphed sympathy and patience and he hated the way it made him feel like a useless child. Like he hadn’t felt since he’d actually been a useless child. Back when his father had last been deployed and never came back and there hadn’t been a damn thing he could do about it.
“I’m not going in the front door. And I’m not going in with you, announcing to the world that I’ve arrived after we’ve gone to such lengths to hide that fact.
” She faced him fully then and held his arms, her hands hot, her eyes intense, loving and serious and looking sexy as hell.
He felt a stirring in spite of everything.
She licked her lips and he tightened his control, sucking in a breath. The only thing that saved her from him kissing her silly right then was the knowledge that she’d done it purposely to manipulate him, to get his full attention and put him in a pliable mood. Damn if it didn’t work.
She said, “I’m going to the one person I know I can trust.”
“Who?”
“Kevin Ivory, my old supervisor. He’s been promoted now. I trust him implicitly. He’s the one who got me my promotion, gave me a recommendation to Scotland Yard. Now he’s high enough in the ranks so he might be able to help us and keep it quiet.”
Dane trusted Shana’s instincts, but even so, he accepted her plan with reservations.
Something didn’t feel right. The part about Ivory giving her the recommendation to Scotland Yard seemed normal on the surface, but the timing made him suspicious.
Because he knew she’d gotten that job right after the pension fraud case.
“Did he know about the threats against you?”
“Yes, of course. We’d all had threats. We took them seriously, but it was all part of the job. That’s what brass said and it was true.”
The taxi shrieked to a stop outside the store at the main entrance.
“We need a plan for you to get my mother without raising suspicion and without your identity being discovered.”
“Kind of the same thing,” he said. He paid the cabbie.
Another hundred dollars US. As he handed over the single bill he extracted the man’s undying promise to forget he ever saw them.
There were times that she wished she could duplicate the innate menace that came across when Dane spoke.
But it wasn’t his words, or even his voice.
It was him. Everything about him said dangerous.
She gave Dane a mock scowl as he rushed her from the cab into the store as if it were pouring and they didn’t want to get wet. It felt silly, but they were on full alert and taking maximum precautions now, whether it seemed silly or not.
They slowed down once inside the department store and Dane let her guide him to the men’s department where she picked out a shirt, jacket, and trousers three sizes too large for him. And styled for someone at least three decades older.
“I see I’ll be an older gentleman. That should play well with the neighbors when I visit your mother’s house.
” He smirked and she clamped down to stop her blush.
She hadn’t thought of that. Damn man was always a step ahead and it unnerved her and annoyed her.
When she wasn’t flat-out impressed by it.
“I don’t think you can carry off the little-old-lady role. We’re assuming we’re being pursued by professionals, aren’t we?”
He suppressed his smile and tugged on her hair.
“Whatever you say.”
“I say you need an old-man hat, glasses, and some facial hair.”