Chapter 4
It was barely sunlight when Dane let the screen door of his beach shack slam behind him.
Shana was still in bed. She always slept in after a night of lovemaking.
He slid his phone from his pocket as he jogged toward the beach.
He hadn’t done any running or working out of any kind since the bullet wound and it was about time.
Eight days had lapsed. More than he could afford.
One never knew when one might need to run for their life.
What he needed to do more than go for a run was make some calls to arrange the private flight to Bermuda.
He’d already checked the weather. Now he needed to decide which marker to call in.
A cold breeze made him speed up and he found himself breathing heavily into the phone as he listened to it ring.
After the third ring, he heard a click and he left his message.
“Call me.”
He put the phone back in his pocket and jolted into a purposeful run until he hit the hard sand of Owen Park Beach.
This was where he did most of his thinking.
It was damn hard to think at his beach shack these days with Shana there.
She’d taken over as if the place were hers.
He didn’t mind. Hell, he was damn tickled about it, if he were honest. He almost felt like he was playing house. And enjoying it.
Except it wasn’t a game. This was his life now and he wondered how the hell he would feel when he woke up one morning to find that maybe he was ready for a new game.
He hated when he had these thoughts. He knew it was his paranoid brain playing with him. He knew Shana would keep him happy. She was more than up to the task of satisfying Dane’s need for action and intrigue now and then.
There was only one real problem.
The one thought that kept returning for a visit, knocking on the door of his consciousness. The one thought Dane had refused to let in, refused to let take hold. Refused to let it turn into an idea or a concept to contemplate.
He’d slam the door every time the words coalesced in his mind. Like now.
What if she wanted to have a baby?
Thank God his phone rang at that moment. He snatched it from his pocket like a strung-out addict grabbing for a dime bag.
It was Acer.
“You heard that Quinn Starkey got out?”
Boom.
Dane’s head exploded into a spinning top. He’d put it out of his mind. He knew better. He’d known that Todd Mangas was a code name meant for him as soon as Tom had said it. And yet Dane had allowed himself to shove aside the possibility.
“F—ck.”
“That’s what I said. I’m heading over.”
“Take your plane. You still have the G3, right?”
“Yeah. But you know I only—”
“I need a favor. Nothing to do with Starkey.” Except now maybe it had everything to do with Quinn Starkey. Now Dane’s mind spun desperately to think how he could get Shana to leave town ahead of the visit from Todd Mangas aka Quinn Starkey.
Quinn had been one of those men who served in special forces who didn’t turn out right.
Or maybe he wasn’t right to begin with. Quinn had been in a different unit than Dane and Acer, but they worked together on a mission once.
It hadn’t gone well. One of Quinn’s buddies got killed and he’d blamed it on Dane because it had been Dane who assigned him to scout ahead.
He’d assigned two scouts. The other one had been Acer.
Acer came back. Quinn had made it plain he’d blamed them both and that he wanted revenge.
The next night Quinn came after a sleeping Dane with a knife.
Luckily he was a light sleeper and Quinn was no match for his hand-to-hand combat skills.
He should have used a gun. Everyone on the operation had witnessed the attack.
The struggle resulted in a distinctive scar on Quinn’s left cheek into his hairline above his ear.
He’d nearly lost his ear but Dane hadn’t intended to maim or kill him.
Quinn had been arrested, hospitalized and court-martialed, then thrown in a federal pen when he should have been sent to a psychiatric facility. He would have gotten out years ago except he’d been a bad boy inside, violent and continually making threats against Dane and Acer.
“So what’s the favor?”
“Fly in with a pilot and leave the G3 for me and Shana. We’re going to Bermuda. I plan to get us out of here before the stroke of midnight on Valentine’s Day.”
“Nice. If I were you I’d file a different flight plan and change it midair. I’ll need to get going now. I’ll have Joe fly me out with the helicopter to parts unknown once you’re in the air. No sense tempting fate. That bugger Quinn will never find us. He doesn’t have the means.”
Dane hated to break it to him, but he had to let Acer know.
“He’s already found me.”
“F—k. How the hell did he do that?”
“I suspect he still has some connections from his old team. Maybe someone was nostalgic enough and stupid enough to talk to him.”
“He already made contact?”
“Not directly.” Dane explained about the Lucky Parrot.
“Damn. I better get on my horse pronto.”
“What’s your ETA?”
“Hard to say. The bird’s been in moth balls. Sometime tomorrow. Before the stroke of midnight.”
“My date with Todd Mangas aka Quinn Starkey is somewhere around nine p.m.”
“You sure it’s him?”
“I’ll know as soon as I see my mark on his face.”
Acer signed off and Dane heaved a sigh and closed his eyes.