Chapter 1
Shana shouldn’t have opened that e-mail. It had been marked private, though the subject line said “Beachcomber Investigations”. It wasn’t until after she’d read it that it became obvious the message was meant for Dane.
It was also obvious to Shana that whoever sent it had not known she was Dane’s partner.
She paced around the kitchen until she heard Dane’s Jeep lurch into the driveway.
Dane must have found out something was up.
She went to the door as if there were no other choice, as if there was an irrevocable command sequence controlling her.
She pushed the screen door open and wondered how Dane knew her old friend, wondered what kind of trouble he was in.
Because it definitely meant trouble when a message came from the CIA. More precisely, it meant big trouble when a message came that was the exact standard operating procedure for emergencies, according to the CIA handbook.
*****
Staying in shape was getting to be an ordeal—or so Dane’s right knee periodically reminded him.
He looked ahead down the pristine length of State Beach, thought briefly about Jaws, and kept running.
He had one and a half miles to go. Then he’d run the two miles back.
It was May. Warm weather. No tourists yet clogging up the beach.
The mobile phone in the pocket of his cargo shorts vibrated against his right thigh. He didn’t stop running, but slowed enough to slip it out as it stopped buzzing and went to voice mail. He glanced at the caller ID.
That made him stop short in the sand.
It hadn’t been Shana as he’d expected, but he recognized the number. A cold freeze went through him—the kind that slowed his heartbeat to calm him, the kind that demanded he slow the alarmed thoughts bursting in his head.
The message was from Oscar.
Or someone using Oscar’s phone. Oscar had been an old friend from his mercenary days. The only person outside his special ops team who’d saved his skin and who he absolutely trusted. He owed Oscar. And he’d been truly fond of the man.
Dane clamped down on his surging adrenaline. Whoever called him on this line, Oscar or not, would know it was a call to action.
After one quick glance down the beach at the expanse of waiting miles, he turned around and sprinted back to his Jeep. There was no way to keep his mind quiet on the quick drive back from Oak Bluffs to his beach shack in Vineyard Haven, so he prepared himself for the worst and made a plan.
If the call was from Oscar, then Oscar was in trouble. Dane might need to leave the island. Immediately.
If the call wasn’t from Oscar, then the trouble was worse.
Because that meant someone had compromised Oscar and had contacted Dane in Oscar’s place, using his phone.
Dane would need to leave the island either way.
Without Shana. The twist of pain along his shoulder blade signaled tension at the prospect.
He would find out soon enough. He swerved the Jeep into the crushed shell drive, shoved the gearstick into park, and jumped out.
Before he finished sprinting to the back steps of his small house, Shana appeared on the threshold. She pushed the screen door open. The look on her face spoke volumes. It said she knew