Chapter 12 #2
“It had belonged to the Ruse family for several generations and was last owned by Angelique’s maternal grandmother, Marguerite Ruse.” He stopped and gauged their reaction—mostly Shana’s reaction. She nodded and scowled.
“Is that it?”
“No. Acer just told me he tracked Bellarine’s bank account. The money in it came from Rio—the name on the transferring account is Gabriele Tavares.” He paused to let Cap and Shana take this in. The air was still.
“Should we be thanking Angelique for killing him, then?” Shana said quietly.
“No—there’s more. I called Jean Luc and we had another chat. I told him about Angelique’s friend Gabriele Tavares.” He flicked a glance at Shana and she scowled.
“Don’t tell me,” Shana said. “Jean Luc knew all about Gabriele.”
Dane nodded. He’d have given Shana a smile but there seemed to be an unbridgeable distance between them right now. It was a gap he couldn’t get past.
“Jean Luc insists that Angelique doesn’t know how crazy Gabriele is—they hadn’t seen each other for a while when Gabriele called.”
Shana lifted her chin and said, “And what do you say? You think she’s innocent?”
“No. I think she’s trying to set me up. And I think she murdered Bellarine.”
“Why Angelique and not Gabriele?”
“Maybe they did it together. I told you I saw some texts.”
“And?”
Dane looked at Cap. “I’m sorry this is unofficial evidence, but if you can get a subpoena to check her phone you’ll have plenty of evidence on both of them.
She alludes to killing Bellarine for the jewels.
Angelique said she’d agree to set me up and see me thrown in jail, but that was all.
Gabriele seemed to be concerned that Shana be punished.
” He paused and looked at Shana. “Angelique insisted that seeing me thrown in jail would be enough punishment for my partner Shana because—”
“I get the picture,” Shana said. She put a hand up to stop him. Shana had an idea what he was going to say. He was going to repeat that Angelique thought Shana was hopelessly in love with him. He’d wanted to say it. To test the truth. But it was best that he didn’t—not with Cap in the room.
Cap said, “This case is now a horse of a different color. So what’s your plan?”
“My guess is that you won’t find the missing heirloom anywhere except in Angelique’s hot hands.” He took a breath. “I want to catch her with it.”
Shana said, “How do you propose to do that—sleep with her again? Only this time do your job—”
“Let him tell his plan, Shana,” Cap said.
A thudding shock at Shana’s reaction went through Dane and left him with a stuttering heartbeat in his tight chest. He wanted to shout at her that she was all wrong, that he hadn’t slept with Angelique, but she should know that.
He took a long slow breath and said nothing to her.
Beyond the shock was pleasure. And guilt and sorrow.
He numbed himself, turning to his granite persona before it overwhelmed him.
He said, “Don’t bring her in for questioning yet. We need her phone and we need the missing heirloom. And if Gabriele Tavares is here—I’d bet my right ball she is—we need to get her before she gets us.”
“So what are we supposed to do while you’re wooing Angelique into some mindless stupor where she confesses all?” Shana said. She was angry and it made him grin at her.
“You’ll go search her place. Look for her computer and copy her hard drive, send the file to Acer. If he’s right about her computer skills then there could be something there that will help us—”
“You mean like her and Gabriele’s master plan about what torture they have in mind for us?”
Cap said, “Sounds like a distinct possibility to me. But I need evidence we can use in court.”
“Don’t worry, by the time you bring Angelique in for questioning, we’ll have enough intel to get her to confess to something.”
“She knows you’re working with law enforcement.”
“I’ll make sure she knows I didn’t tell you—the police—that she knew Bellarine was missing or that he was her partner. I’ll gain her confidence and see if I can get her phone from her at the party tonight. We need to nail Gabriele if she’s behind this.”
“So you want us to go to the party as planned and pretend we don’t suspect Angelique?” Shana said.
Cap said, “Theoretically we have nothing to connect the two except that Bellarine escorted her to the Gables’ party.
And that she’s investigating the jewel theft and he was found with the jewels.
Or most of them. If we didn’t have Dane’s statement clueing us to look for a body, then at most we’d be getting her statement. ”
“So what about the missing heirloom? How are we supposed to get that?”
“Give me a chance to get it from her.”
“You think she’s going to give you her family heirloom and confess to you?” Shana rolled her eyes.
Dane had only one thing to say to that and it didn’t sound convincing. “It’s worth a shot. We owe it to Jean Luc to give it a try. We have a better chance of fleshing out Gabriele if I play along with Angelique’s game.”
“As long as you don’t let her out of your sight, then it’s fine with me. We give you tonight to get the evidence or a confession about the murder and get her to rat out Gabriele and then we move in,” Cap said. “Hell—it’ll take me that long to work up a search warrant.”
Shana looked steamed. Her mouth grim, not the usual amusing scowl.
“What?” He asked.
“I don’t like it.”
“You mean you don’t like Angelique.”
“What if Gabriele shows up?”
He laughed. “I can handle myself.”
“She won’t be alone.”
“Neither will I. You and Cap will be backing me up.” He looked at Cap, who nodded.
Shana looked between them and heaved a breath. “I don’t have a choice, but for the record—I don’t like it.”
“Don’t worry—you get to search her place again.”
“For all the good it’ll do—it won’t be useful for evidence.”
“She’s right,” Cap said.
“No—but if we can copy the hard drive of her computer Acer is sure he can figure out what’s on it. We can use the intel in questioning her. Also it’ll be useful for me to know what I’m up against. I’ll need to know how involved the Tavares clan is, whoever’s left of them—and if they’re on island.”
He noticed Shana’s face whiten, and then she set her jaw and pulled her shoulders back. He wanted to smile, but he was in game mode and he kept his face expressionless.
“Don’t worry, Shana, if the charade doesn’t work, then all bets are off and we do it the hard way.”
*****
Dane left the office and went to the beach shack to dress before going back to the Admiral’s Inn to pick up Angelique for the party.
Everything about the night’s plan bothered him.
The fact that he was at odds with Shana, in spite of the fact that they limped along in their partnership working the case, bothered him most. Then the game-playing with Angelique didn’t feel right.
He had no idea why she was involved except to get her family heirloom back and to help her friend Gabriele, but those were skim-the-surface reasons to tangle with a man like Bellarine and kill him.
Then there was Jean Luc. As much as he didn’t trust the man, he knew genuine concern when he heard it. Jean Luc was worried about Angelique.
He pulled up in front of the Inn and walked to her door, but before knocking he ran through his mental checklist. His Glock was in place.
And a second small weapon was strapped to his ankle.
The Tavares cartel was involved now and he might need all the firepower he could carry. He rapped on the door.
Angelique opened her door and looked at him. He looked back. Her hair was swept up and she wore form-fitting red silk number. Short and strapless. In spite of the sophistication of the ensemble, what struck him was her youth. Or maybe what struck him was how much older he was.
“You’re like a ghost who disappears and then returns to haunt me.” She smiled and reached her hand out to caress his cheek, but he caught it and stopped her.
“You look damn good for a murderer.”