Chapter 8
Dane dropped her hand, then climbed over the seat to sit in back with Shana, to feel her body against him, warm and soft, to touch every part of her to make sure she was whole.
“Where are we going?” Billy asked, his foot still heavy on the gas and speeding to a highway on-ramp.
“Take us somewhere we can ditch your car. Near a train station. I’ll need to get back to the airport. I’m meeting Joe Allaro there in the morning.” Dane checked his watch. “In five hours.”
He’d temporarily taken his hand off Shana’s midriff.
She sat half in his lap and held him tight as if they were two horny teenagers.
In reality, their need as full-grown adults outrunning danger was far more potent than anything he’d ever felt as a teen, even with the notorious hormone overload of that time in life.
He was thinking five hours was plenty of time to bury himself in Shana, escaping the world and losing themselves in the bubble of lovemaking.
He must be losing his mind.
“We need to go underground. We’ll ditch the car and get a taxi to somewhere near the airport.”
It was two a.m. He had Billy stop at a trash can down a nearby side street where he’d stashed his disguise on his way to Muddy Mary’s earlier.
He’d changed from old Mr. Johnson to the intrepid Dane the Demon in the back seat of the taxi on his way to the bar.
He’d had to tip the cabbie big time to get away with that one.
Now he was down to the last of his US dollars.
“What do you have for cash?” he asked Shana.
“Nothing. They took my wallet and passport.” She looked pale, as if she’d just realized the implications. Money was the least of their problems. Joe would bring a fresh infusion in a few hours. But Dane hadn’t anticipated needing a new passport for Shana.
“I have about a hundred AUD,” Billy said from the driver seat. Dane nodded at him in the rearview mirror.
“We can make that last at an all-night diner.”
“What about my passport?” Shana looked at him.
“You weren’t planning to leave the country until this mess is settled, were you?” he said. It was the best he could do. She wasn’t a US. citizen yet or he’d haul her sweet ass to the American Embassy for them to look after while he took care of the mess himself.
Reminding himself he needed a cool head as Billy pulled into a small lot behind a building near a rapid transit station, he pulled Shana in for a kiss.
Twenty minutes later, after the taxi they had called arrived, they were on their way to a diner near the airport recommended by the taxi driver.
In the back seat, Dane changed again into Mr. Johnson.
Although this time the task was made easier and more fun with Shana’s assistance.
Billy sat in the front seat, carrying on a
“You Americans,” the cab driver said as he accepted Billy’s fare and generous tip. He shook his head and took off with the promise of forgetting them forever.
“That ain’t likely to happen,” Billy said.
“He’ll never forget you two in the back seat carrying on.
” Dane looked at him through the slight distortion of his glasses, pushing the frames up on his nose for effect, and twitched his moustache.
Billy shook his head and waved them forward into Harry’s Diner.
The early morning was pitch black, the neon sign glaring at them.
Dane led the way, wearing a ball cap and glasses, ditching the old man suit and padding.
Shana wore the scarf and sunglasses she’d bought on their shopping spree.
The sunglasses were made appropriate by the blinding neon sign, but she kept them on as they went inside and feigned a hangover.
She looked exhausted, but he pushed the thought aside.
He couldn’t go soft on her now. She’d kill him. And he needed her to be okay.
They sat in the back corner near the restrooms and the kitchen, which Dane presumed had a rear exit.
He faced the street and sat on the outside with Shana slouched next to him and Billy opposite.
They ordered food, scrummy pies all around, from the fifty-something waitress who looked like she was auditioning for the role of Flo the waitress on the old TV sitcom Alice.
She also looked like she might know some things, including that this group was up to no good.
After studying her from behind an innocuous smile, he figured she’d come down on their side in a pinch. Especially if he padded the pinch with a pineapple—a fifty-dollar bill Australian.
Shana was watching the television pinned from the ceiling about fifteen feet away. The volume was low and all he could hear was an indistinct drone. On top of that, he couldn’t see the screen clearly with the glasses.
“Did we make the news?”
She nodded and didn’t take her eyes off the television.
“I’m listening,” Billy said. “Sounds like you’re in trouble.”
“Me?”
“Yes,” Shana said, turning to him. “You apparently assaulted a woman at a bar earlier this evening?”
“Someone reported us,” Billy said.
“And they got it on the news. Fast.” Dane didn’t like the smell of that.
“I lay odds that it was the two blokes who followed me outside and went after us,” Billy said. “Or it could have been the girl.”
“It wasn’t Maggie Baker. Unless she was forced.”
“You going to tell me what happened?” Shana leaned into him, inviting him to tell all in an intimate whisper that said she knew he wasn’t the bad guy they made him out to be. He wished he agreed. He felt like a bastard.
“They’re saying that two men found Maggie all shook up, that they were friends of hers and when she didn’t come back inside Muddy Mary’s they knew something was wrong.” Billy spoke in a low voice, leaning forward.
“What are the charges?” Dane asked, grateful the kid had supersonic hearing because he didn’t want to have to ask Faux Flo to turn up the volume.
“Assault is all I heard. But Maggie Baker’s a police officer so the news people and the whole New South Wales police force are taking it seriously enough. Hunting for you.”
“Shit.” Dane might be half blind with the glasses on, but he could still see well enough to recognize his own photograph when it was flashed on the television screen.
Billy turned around.
Shana sat back in her chair. “What the hell did you do, Dane?”
“I took Maggie Baker out behind Muddy Mary’s,” Dane said, feeling a bit like he was confessing his sins.
“I asked her for the safe house location because I figured she knew it. I tried persuading her with reason, but when that failed. I threatened her. No more or less than I would have done to anyone when your safety was at risk.” My love.
He added the unspoken words with his eyes.
He wasn’t up to saying them aloud, not in front of Billy.
Not outside of their bedroom, if truth be told.
Shana telegraphed the same message back with her eyes and nodded.
“That’s what I thought.”
“I could be in trouble, too,” Billy said.
“I was watching the two men Maggie was with—fellow cops. They saw you take her outside. When she didn’t come back in, I heard them say they knew something was wrong.
I tried stalling them and explained you were talking about Shana, thinking that would pacify them, but no.
They sneered and got nastier and said she was a thief, a traitor, and that it was no wonder she’d left town in a hurry.
I’m not surprised they filed a complaint against you the way they were talking. ”
“Maggie had to go along with their complaint. If she tried to defend me, she’d put herself in danger. I only hope she didn’t tell them what I wanted from her.”
“My location.” Shana said. He nodded.
“Did you rough her up at all?” Her voice sounded skeptical.
“No. Only threatened to. I think she knew it was an empty threat, but I’m still not so sure.”
Shana said, “So you think she turned on you to cover her own ass?”
He nodded. “I hope so.”
“Wait—what?” Billy said.
Shana sighed. “It’s his chivalrous streak. He wouldn’t want her to get in trouble for helping him.” She shook her head and from under lowered lashes, he saw that look of adoration that always nearly stopped his heart.
“This puts me in a pickle,” Billy said. “I have things to do. A meeting scheduled at work. I have a supervisor.”
“I’m afraid you’ll need to put your life on hold for a bit,” Dane said. He knew Billy would take it better coming from him than his sister. “Call your boss and tell him you need some time off—family emergency.”
“What about my car? What about getting around?”
“I’m meeting Joe at the airport in a couple of hours. He’ll get a car and we’ll come back here and get you both later.”
*****
Dane stood against the wall in his Mr. Johnson getup in the baggage claim area of the international terminal at the airport.
He wouldn’t have been surprised if there was a camera in the ceiling somewhere aimed directly at him.
He was only marginally worried about whether his unsophisticated disguise would fool any facial recognition software—mostly because he didn’t think anyone was going to be running his mug past the airport surveillance at this point.
Maybe later. Not even Maggie Baker would have known to watch for him at the airport.
They were probably checking out all Shana’s friends and known hangouts, confident that he and Shana were together. They might even be looking for Billy now. Detective Kevin Ivory knew Dane had come for Shana and now he knew or suspected how Dane had found them.
The jury was still out on which side Ivory was on. Maybe he didn’t know either and had wanted Shana to convince him.
It was only a matter of time before the insider—whoever it was—tracked them all down. Thanks to his talk with Maggie Baker at the cop bar he’d conveniently become a fugitive. Right along with his fiancée, now or soon to be wanted for fraud in the police pension fraud case.
Dane had a very bad feeling that he was right about this speculation and that the cops would play the media. He slipped into Coopers Alehouse and sat at the end of the bar. He ordered a coffee and watched the television reporter talk about the weather until he got around to the news.
The newscaster ran through the latest items about a multicar crash on the M1 Pacific Motorway outside of Newcastle, a rash of burglaries in the Waverly suburb, and then a special news alert.
A photo of Dane and Shana plastered itself on the screen.
The man claimed they were being sought for questioning, reminding viewers of the heinous crime that robbed so many pensioners of their retirement funds.
Over a hundred million dollars had never been recovered, about eighty percent of the fund.
They went on to cite Dane’s recent assault of a police officer the night before and Shana’s brash return to the scene of her alleged crime with the recent release of her alleged partner, Chancy Peterson.
Then the flashy co-anchor made the observation that Dane and Shana were like Sydney’s version of Bonnie and Clyde, wanted and on the run.
Fighting a losing battle to keep his heart rate under control, he at least managed not to pound his fist through a wall or throw his mug at the television screen.
To any observer, his facade remained impassive, not that there were any observers.
He slid his eyes around the place, scoping out the surrounding crowd.
He and Shana and Joe and maybe even Billy would need to solve this case to get out of trouble. In addition to keeping Tillie George safe, their mission had now become to fry the ass of the real insider behind the police pension fraud.
He was glad he’d talked Shana into staying with Billy at the diner, where they’d made fast friends with the waitress, albeit they’d told her their names were Susie and Buddy and they were visiting their Uncle Don Johnson.
It had been Shana’s idea to give Mr. Johnson a first name.
Luckily Faux Flo didn’t get the eighties-era TV detective reference.
Dane spotted Joe hefting his bag off the carousel. He approached Joe as if he were his long-lost uncle, Mr. Johnson.