Chapter 2
“What is it?” Dane said. The adrenaline-induced thrumming of his pulse blipped to the next level.
He took a breath and stopped on the top step less than a foot from Shana’s warmth.
Either the extra breath of salty air off the harbor or his years of training and experience calmed him. It could have been Shana’s warmth.
He was afraid it was her. Afraid because, as well as she could calm him with her presence, she could rile him up with her iciness—or her absence.
She didn’t answer him, but stepped aside and retreated into the kitchen where she proceeded to pace in a tight circle around the small space of the linoleum-floored room.
Dane took another breath.
“I got a call,” he said.
She stopped her pacing and whipped around to face him.
“You also got an e-mail.” She stepped up close and lifted her chin, not to look at him, but in her usual defiant way—the way she did when she figured she’d hit a snag with him. His pulse went back to blipping a hair too fast for good health.
She stood with her breasts heaving a little too close to his chest for him to not feel the discomfort of holding off the distraction. She paused long enough for him to get that oh, no feeling welling up in his gut.
“Tell me about it.” He kept his face blank as a spike in acid assaulted his gut.
“I’ll show you.” She went to the dining table, where they kept the computer, and turned the monitor to face him.
They both stood and looked at the curt e-mail.
It was meant for Dane’s eyes only. There was no indication that whoever sent it was sending it to Shana or to both of them, although there was a reference to Beachcomber Investigations in the subject line.
It was from Oscar’s emergency code e-mail address.
Dane knew that didn’t necessarily mean that Oscar had sent it.
But someone who knew that Dane had started Beachcomber Investigations less than a year ago had sent the email.
And that someone also knew their emergency system.
The message was clearly written per their Trouble Protocol. It said:
It’s hot here. I could cook on the ground, but I’m using a pan. Nic is home now.
Dane said, “It’s a call to action. Standard Operating Procedure.
” His mind ran through the possibilities, which seemed infinite.
If the reference to the hot weather wasn’t enough, the word pan followed by Nic and then now was not good.
In fact, it was the worst kind of trouble code of all. Immediate panic.
“SOP for the CIA, you mean. You were in the CIA?” Shana asked.
He ended the train wreck of possibilities running through his head and looked at her. He had not considered the possibility that Shana George had worked with—or maybe for—the CIA.
He said, “I’ve worked with the CIA. Sometimes against them. But never for them. Not unusual in my previous line of business.” He eyed her. He didn’t ask her for the explanation of how she knew it was CIA SOP, but he saw her come to the realization that she ought to tell him.
“I worked with them—with the CIA. Once.”
He stood straight from his bent posture leaning over the computer and kept his eyes on her. She also stood. He didn’t nod. He didn’t prompt. He, most of all, did not let her off the hook.
“It was back in Sydney. I was on the team assigned to run down a gun-smuggling operation. We ran into the CIA and ended up joining forces. I helped them and they helped us. After the operation was successful they were the ones who recommended me to Scotland Yard. I mentioned I had ambitions. I’d like to cooperate with them now if we can help. ”
“Oh, I’m helping all right. This is a call to action that I can’t refuse. It’s from an old friend. Oscar.”
“Oscar is in trouble?” Shana went from serious and businesslike to clearly alarmed. Her spine went rigid, her shoulders popped back, and her eyes widened. She looked like a warrior princess who’d just found out her best friend had been wronged.
“What the hell? Now you’re telling me you knew Oscar? He was your CIA connection in Sydney?” Dane shook his head as the pieces fell into place about how Shana had come into his life. David Young had been the common denominator. And apparently, so was Oscar.
“Yes, I worked with him—”
“No wonder David hired you to work with him at Scotland yard. Did you know he and Oscar were childhood friends?”
Her eyes narrowed and her hands went to her hips. He watched the boulder-size chip settle on her left shoulder as her posture changed.
“No, I didn’t. What of it? I deserved the job—”
Dane waved her defensiveness aside. “Never mind, Shana. The problem is that Oscar is presumably in trouble and I’ve been called to action. He evidently doesn’t know that you’re with me, but he does know about Beachcomber Investigations.”
“You’re right.” Her lush mouth flattened as far as such a mouth could and Dane allowed himself a beat to watch her breasts heave in distress, watched her wrangle to control her emotions.
“If you know the protocol, then you know I need to make a call over the secure line. Whatever is needed, I’ll need to do.”
She nodded. He thought again about the near certainty that he’d have to leave the island. Without her.
“I understand the Trouble Protocol. The call to action,” she said. She took a deep breath and followed him.
Dane marched into his office where the living room was supposed to be.
The blinds were permanently drawn to keep out prying eyes.
He flipped the light switch on to illuminate the semidarkness of the workspace and headed for the desk where the secure phone sat.
It looked like an old-fashioned dial phone except that it had state of the art scrambling security installed for this exact kind of occasion.
What kind of life did he lead that he’d have these occasions to need high-security communications on a regular basis? It wasn’t what he’d dreamed of as a kid.
The flash of his dream—the last wistful dream he’d ever bothered entertaining—intruded.
His eyes automatically darted upward to the attic.
Where he kept the guitar his father had given him.
He virtually flung thoughts of the guitar aside and grabbed the receiver off the cradle of the all-but-extinct phone.
He didn’t bother sitting in the old desk chair, which was more for show.
He never sat at the scuffed metal refugee from the old John Hancock Insurance Company offices—back when his aunt worked there and the offices were bullpens with rows of bulky metal desks and typing stands before being converted to cubicle farms. He’d never succumbed to either.
His life suited him after all. He was too unruly, too defiant for anything else. Except maybe playing guitar…
He punched in the fail-safe number only Oscar knew—or only Oscar should know. The flick of concern screeched along his back between his shoulder blades. After a beat the trill of the line ringing on the other end shrilled through him in a pulse, one ring after another. Six times. He hung up.
It was the way they’d planned it. Oscar would call him back.
Or not. The sharp slicing between his shoulder blades pulsed in time with the seconds.
Shana watched him. Silent. She knew him well enough to remain blessedly mute and not ask questions.
He ought to appreciate that more. A tic in his left jaw now accompanied the pain in his back to track the seconds until nearly a minute went by.
A long slow excruciating minute during which he met Shana’s stare.
She scowled back with a mere hint of concern—and maybe a little guilt—shadowing the familiar look. None of it marred her goddamn gorgeousness. She must have sensed his snapping point because just as he was about to reach out and touch her hair, she spun around.
“How about a drink.” She went into the kitchen.
He followed her. She reached cabinet, pulled two glasses out, and slammed them on the counter.
The jaw tic intensified into a clench as he opened the freezer and yanked the bottle of tequila from its crusty ice tomb. His only show of tension—aside from the almost invisible muscle tic—was the slamming shut of the freezer door.
Dane held out the bottle to her and ignored the knowing lift in the corner of her mouth that would have been a smirk under less dire circumstances. She sloshed the tequila into the two glasses and he grabbed one up off the counter before she had a chance to give it to him.
“To goddamn Oscar. He’d better be in deep shit or I’ll find him and put him there myself,” he said by way of a toast. Then he slugged the drink down in one knock-back of his head.
The liquid burned down his throat and into his gut until his insides felt like the churning of hell. Perfect for the occasion.
Shana watched him before knocking back her own shot.
Then he watched her. He enjoyed the fact that her eyes watered slightly after she slammed the glass on the counter.
Dane contemplated pouring another shot, but the jangle of his secure line turned him around.
In less than two heartbeats he’d returned to his office, grabbed the receiver and put it to his ear.
“Blaise.” He waited. He didn’t breathe. His heart must have stopped. It felt like time itself stopped in the silence.
Shana had joined him and shifted to listen. The strain to hear something felt like a physical twisting of the tension bar controlling his facial muscles. Two beats passed and then five. He counted eight beats in the silence—blasts to his patience in the form of mind warfare.
“How the hell are you, Dane?” The voice was distant but clear and familiar.
It was not Oscar.
“Floyd Parker.”
Dane’s mind sprinted through the possibilities of why and how Floyd Parker of all people, came to answer Oscar’s secure phone before he dared ask a single question of this man. He knew Floyd.