Chapter 11 #2
Before he reached her he said, “Time to leave, Shana. Dane asked me to take you home. Sorry, Jean Luc. We have to go.” Chauncey tilted his head over his shoulder toward the door at the same moment Ned and his two thugs emerged, also headed in their direction.
Jean Luc nodded. “As you say. I’ll call you, Shana.
We will have a date. You and I.” Jean Luc squeezed her arm and then headed toward Ned, cutting him off before the man reached Shana and Chauncey.
Chauncey grabbed her by the arm and pulled her toward the street and down the next block until they disappeared around the corner.
“Hey. I’m not dressed for running through the streets in case you haven’t noticed. What’s going on?”
“Not sure—Dane said for me to get you out of there and to not let Ned get near you. I think they had words.”
“How are we getting back to the house?”
“Down another block here …I think. He said he’d pick us up. Damn, but these bloody streets with all these coffee, ice cream and sweet shops look the same to me.”
Before she could express her doubt, a car pulled up. It was Dane, but he wasn’t driving the Jag.
“Get in,” he grunted impatiently through the open window.
She opened the front door to the faded blue Buick before Chauncey could do it for her and Chauncey got in the back.
The car coughed up smoke and, with an unstable roar of the engine, they sped off.
In the passing streetlights, she got a closer look at him and his bloody mouth and bruised knuckles.
“What the hell happened to you, Mr. Urban Legend?”
* * *
Dane afforded one glance at her, but he kept his attention on the road and the rearview.
“The notorious Ned and two goons from out of town happened. Now we need to lose them and meet up with Captain…Lynch.” He almost referred to the man as Captain Nice, but he’d promised himself to stick to professional behavior.
Licking the salty sweat off his upper lip, he figured it was about time and tried not to remember his horrible misjudgment on the dance floor—role or no role.
He had no business kissing her that way.
He’d kissed her for real. He kissed her like he meant it and felt it.
In spades. Damn. He was turning into a needy woman.
“Looks like they gave you some trouble,” she commented, nodding toward his hands on the steering wheel and then returning her wary stare to his face.
He flicked a glance in the rearview mirror and noticed the blood and his swollen lips. Damn.
“We had words.”
“Bad words, looks like,” Chauncey said. “I bloody well hope this is a case of ‘you should see the other guy’ or I’ll get reamed for not doing my job having your back.” The man smiled. They knew full well his priority was to have Shana’s back.
“I’m here, aren’t I? It was a minor scrape. They only wanted to deliver a warning. Don’t worry—it’ll get much worse. They suggested I take the next ferry to a remote location.”
“Not to hell? They are very generous thugs,” Shana said. Dane noticed her slight smile, noticed the look of relief as the lights from the street played across her features.
He turned to her fully as he pulled up to a red light. “I hope you weren’t so readable all night dancing with Jean Luc, girlie.”
After the slip of irritation, she gave him her cool heiress look. “I did amazingly well with Jean Luc. He’s not in on whatever happened to Susan Whittier.”
“Did he admit to something?”
“No.”
“Then what drew you to the conclusion that good old Jean Luc is such a swell, innocent guy?” Dane spied Chauncey’s amused look in the rearview. That gave him a clue that he needed to dial it down with Shana. He had no idea what happened to his own cool.
“Mostly a gut feeling, but when Chauncey came to collect me, he helped run interference with Ned. Ned is no friend of Jean Luc’s—rather he’s friends with the brother, according to what he said. I believe him.”
“It’s true,” Chauncey piped up. “Ruse helped us out. But that doesn’t mean he’s not working with Ned.”
“True, but it does mean that we can pit them against each other,” Dane said. “Gives us some leverage to turn Jean Luc to help us go after Ned—if Ned is the one behind the kidnapping. I’m still not convinced that Jean Luc isn’t the brains of the operation.”
“Whatever the operation is. We still don’t know for certain.” Shana looked out the window.
“Getting cold feet, girlie?”
She spun her head back around and glared. “What makes you say that? And stop calling me girlie.” Her voice was low and cold and he watched her nostrils flare.
Mother of everything holy, he wished he could jump in the cold ocean because his body heated and leapt to attention—the kind that could get a man in deep trouble.
Girl trouble. Like his body was in junior high, except he wasn’t, and the stakes they played with were life and death—maybe the missing Susan Whittier’s life—definitely their own.
He concentrated on his driving as he approached the Whittier house and pulled into the driveway.
“You have much experience working undercover?”
“Plenty. I’ll be just fine. I’ll see you at the surf tomorrow.” She shoved open her door to get out, but he grabbed the strap of her purse and stopped her short.
“We rendezvous in one hour on the beach two hundred yards east of that rock.” He pointed to the giant boulder marking the sandy edge of the beach property beyond the lawn.
“Wear black. Bring a recorder. Don’t let anyone know you’re out of the house.
Leave the place lit and the TV sound on loud.
Got it?” He moved his hand to grip her elbow and give it a squeeze for emphasis.
“I’ll be there. Now let go of me or you’ll get a taste of my qualifying skill sets.” She yanked herself away, shot out of the car and slammed the door with one kick of her spike-heeled foot.
Chauncey laughed. “Man, you are beat. What has you so wound up? And don’t tell me it was your encounter with Ned.”
“Whatever. I’m not so sure she’s ready for this, is all. She’s greener than a freshly minted twenty and too cocky.” And too expressive and gorgeous and seething with sensuality. Or maybe that was his impression.
“I think she’s doing rather well. Besides, you have me for insurance there, eh?”
“One other thing—Ned wants me to quit judging the surfing competition.”