Chapter 4 #2
“Shit-damn,” Shana said. “You’re as good as the all-knowing Dane the Demon.”
“My dear, don’t you mean I’m better?”
She laughed.
“True. But I’m catching up,” Dane said.
“What can I do?” David asked.
“Nothing official.”
“Wouldn’t dream of being official.”
“Sal is working with Max the Ax. Let me know what you can about the extent of their local organization. How much muscle, how much bank, names.”
“Addresses and likely associates. Of course you’ll want me to do all of this checking without anyone noticing.”
“You got it. Have Grace help you with the technical—”
“Young man, I find it’s much easier to stay under the radar these days if I stay away from computers. It may take a bit longer, but I’ll get you what you need.”
Dane nodded and knew he was right.
At that moment, Dane’s phone buzzed in his pocket. Ryan had arrived out front. Dane left the study to let him in the front door and came back to find David and Shana seated near the fireplace in the living room.
“I might have forgotten to mention the connection with Murphy & Haley,” Dane said. “Where’s Grace?”
“She dropped me off and went to pick something up.”
David looked at Dane expecting an explanation.
He introduced Ryan and told David about the impending wedding on Martha’s Vineyard. “At lunch Max made a veiled threat against Lara and Paulette.”
“There was no damn veil on the threat as far as I’m concerned,” Ryan said.
“Another reason to keep a low profile on this problem,” Dane said.
“I will remain unofficial,” David said, “if you will swear on your mother’s grave that if a single shot is fired you will report to me for official action immediately.”
“Shots fired?” Ryan tried to laugh it off.
David looked at him with his cool reassuring smile and said, “Any untoward or illegal incidents. Don’t be alarmed. I doubt it’ll come to anything so unsubtle as gunfire. Not Max’s style.”
“Then how did he get the nickname Max the Ax?” Ryan asked.
“He was much younger then. He’s settled down some with age.” David dismissed the topic.
Dane knew Ryan was thinking about his gruesome package and was not convinced of Max having settled down. Dane stood near Shana where she sat in a very comfortable-looking armchair. He shifted a breath closer, smelled her special intoxicating scent.
An uneasy air pervaded the room. David was better than Shana at hiding it—better than most at staying cool. Dane was always uneasy and rarely showed it. But he was stranger than most because he thrived on it.
Before David had a chance to offer Ryan a tumbler of scotch—which Dane figured would be the next thing he’d do—they heard the front door opening and a few moments later Grace walked in and joined them. She hugged each of them warmly in turn.
She ended in David’s arms and said, “Did you tell them our big news?”
Dane had never seen David look anything but his urbane cool self until that moment. He looked like a man who’d just hit the World Series game-winning homer. He said, “We’re expecting.”
Shana reacted first, throwing herself into another hug with Grace and then David.
Dane wasn’t surprised by her reaction. Having the impenetrable wall of distinction between them demonstrated right there and then caused the knot between his shoulder blades to tighten as if he were being tortured to the breaking point.
Shana was young and looking ahead to a future that included a family.
He was past that. He’d had a family and the pain of loss had left a hole of despair where any longing for home, hearth and family might have been.
Once Shana released David from her embrace, Dane thumped the man on the back and shook his hand. Then he gave Grace a warm careful hug. He didn’t feel good about involving David in this problem any longer.
“I should get back to my office while I’m in town,” Ryan said. “I can do some looking around while I’m there. Pick up some files to bring with me to work on.”
“No,” Dane said.
“I only need a few minutes. I really do need to get some files to work on.”
“No time off for your wedding?” Shana said.
“Don’t go there. It’s a bone of contention.”
“I can see why,” Shana said.
“That’s girl solidarity,” Dane said. Grace gave him a look and smacked his arm. Then she beamed a smile because that was who Grace was. She glowed more than ever with an enviable joie de vivre.
“You need to lay low, Ryan,” Dane said. “Your office is the last place you want to go. We don’t want anyone picking up any bad vibes from you. You’re on your wedding vacation now. No more contact with your office. At all. Including your father.”
Ryan studied Dane a moment. It didn’t take more than that for him to figure Dane was serious as a tomb. With his jaw clenched, Ryan nodded.
Dane turned to David, “Do you have a car I can use to get to the airport?”
“There’s always Uber,” Ryan said.
“Too easy to track—it’s all online. There’s a damn record of every move they make. Every detail of the transaction.”
“I’ll have to remember that the next time I’m trying to hide from someone,” David said.
Shana laughed. David’s dry sense of humor seemed to appeal to her. Dane would have to keep that in mind. Why? He wasn’t sure, but it felt important.
David stepped to an ancient, highly polished roll top desk—likely an antique that had been in his family forever—and pulled open a drawer and pulled out a set of keys.
He tossed them to Dane.
“Any reason I shouldn’t drive you over there?”
“You mean besides the obvious one that you’re a terrible driver?”
Grace laughed at that.
“Point taken. I could have my wife drive us over.”
“I think this is one of those times where you don’t want to be involved in the pillow talk along the way.”
“I see.”
“You can have one of your minions pick the car up for you.”
“Yes, that’s exactly what we have highly trained professional investigators for in the Scotland Yard Exchange Program.”
“Look—I can call—” Ryan said.
“It’s settled,” Dane said. He herded Ryan and Shana back toward the stairs to leave the same way they came.
“You’re leaving out the back door like thieves?” Grace said.
“It’s better this way. Quicker to the back gate into the alley. That’s where the car is parked?”
David nodded.
“I’ll be waiting to hear from you. One way or another.”
David had a smooth way of letting them know he wanted a status on their welfare without making himself sound like their mother.
Dane said, “If I weren’t already so old, I’d want to be you when I grow up.”
David smiled and clapped him on the back as he followed Ryan and Shana through the door to the stairs.
Dane drove. No one spoke until they were in the Callahan tunnel heading toward Logan airport. Something about the closed-in, underground nature of a tunnel made talking seem private. In reality, Dane figured there was some truth to that.
“Is there something you’re not telling me? What is David Young waiting to hear about?” Ryan said.
“I thought you’d never ask,” Dane said.
“Don’t try and channel David Young,” Shana said. “It doesn’t work without the British accent.”
Dane glanced at her as he drove and wondered if it was a good thing that she knew him so well. He smiled.
“Nothing too sinister. If Max makes a move law enforcement can act on, we need to let him know. In the meantime, we’re evading. We’re going to need to continue to evade for the duration, Ryan. These guys are known to have a big payroll and a lot of bank behind them.”
“Okay. So what does that mean? He knows we’re on the Vineyard. Max is invited to the wedding.”
“We’ll need to rethink the invitations and when we send them.”
“If you take me to my office, I’ll see if I can find the client files.”
“You don’t get it, do you?” Dane clutched the wheel.
Ryan needed a strong message. He was in denial or he wanted to be able to do something.
“In spite of what Toly said, we’re protecting you as well as Lara and Paulette.
” Dane turned to glare briefly at him. He looked angry, frustrated.
Dane made a measured effort to perfect his glacier-like countenance.
“If you do anything to jeopardize this operation you’ll be putting Lara in danger. You will have no contact with anyone not on Martha’s Vineyard from now on. I want no one else to know about Max or about the threat.” Dane took a breath. “Is that clear?”
“What about my father? He knows about the threat. He might figure out it’s Max behind it.”
Dane had no answer for that right now.