Chapter 4
Dane gripped the wheel and the plane jerked up a notch. Regaining his heading, he took several breaths, choosing not to let loose the string of expletives waiting to explode from him. The stabbing tension through his shoulder blades returned in full force.
“Damn,” he whispered.
She reached over and rested her hand on his thigh. Her eyes were closed, her head back against the seat. She looked exhausted, like she needed to recoup her energy, her fight, her belief in the system. He knew it had been given a tough blow.
Unlike him, Shana was not a cynic. She would be deeply offended by the injustice of this man’s release. Dane? Well, he knew better.
The determination to administer his own justice redoubled and solidified into a leaden force running all the way through him, as if his blood were made of molten retribution.
If Dane hadn’t been flying a tiny prop plane in the dark, he would have given Shana the hug she deserved and needed.
“Goddamn it,” he muttered and squeezed her thigh. Luckily it was only a few minutes to the airport and time to scour the horizon for the lights along the runway. He hoped like hell he’d be able to find it right away because this toy plane didn’t have much wiggle room for fuel.
It was Shana who spotted the runway lights after only a few minutes of searching.
Once they landed, they headed to the small building that couldn’t even be called a terminal.
He paid the tie-down fee for a week. He wasn’t sure if they’d need it again or when Vendi would be able to pick it up.
Dane was under no illusion that the man would sell his plane.
The offer of a hundred clams had been for insurance.
It was closing in on midnight by the time their taxi came.
An Uber ride would have been quicker, but they didn’t have cell phones.
It had taken a ten-dollar bribe to get the airport’s night manager to let them use the airport’s phone.
Shana had been about to punch the young man, so Dane did the expedient thing, bribing him before he had a chance to anger her more with another word.
The sudden role reversal between him and Shana unnerved him.
This time they were dealing with an enemy from her past instead of his, a legendary if questionable act from her past, not his.
Most jarring of all, her simmering fear-turned-anger now made her too volatile to deal with the public—a thing he’d been guilty of more times than he cared to admit.
“Where are you fine young Coasties heading to?” the taxi driver asked. The USCG reference shouldn’t have startled him since Dane had put the cap on his head purposely to hide under before they left the plane.
“Drop us in Falmouth.” Dane gave him the address of an inn he knew to be near a commuter bus and some shopping.
After they got out of the cab, Dane held Shana in place until they watched it disappear into the distance.
“What’s with you?” she asked.
“Have you no tradecraft?” he asked. “I don’t want the cabbie—or anyone else—knowing where we are or where we’re going.”
“Who do you suppose will be asking? Everyone thinks we’re dead,” she said.
He saw the glitter in her eyes and knew she was talking about her mother, her family.
Dane had no mother, no immediate family, but he felt a pang on her behalf.
Her mother would soon be his mother-in-law, his almost-mother, someone he’d need to treat as his mother because she was important to Shana.
He whispered, “It’ll only be for a few days, Shana. Then you can call your mother.”
She nodded and turned away. He knew she was hiding her unshed tears, knew she was working hard at not crying. But he had no idea why she was so particularly emotional.
They’d had close calls before, been pursued by enemies with a vengeance trying to kill them before. Shana had always been tough as nails.
Why not this time? Was the life catching up with her, overwhelming her? Or was there some other reason he wasn’t clear about? He needed to find out, but there was no way he’d get a straight answer if he asked directly. It was possible she herself had no idea of the answer.
“Let’s duck into that 7-Eleven and get some phones,” he said, jutting his chin in the direction of the store a few doors down on the corner.
“Then what?”
“Then we take the commuter bus to Boston.”
“Dressed as Coast Guard officers? Way to stand out in a crowd.” She spoke as they walked, her tone brisk.
“Hiding in plain sight then. Keep your shades on and your hat low.”
“Lucky for us it’s turning out to be a sunny day.”
They were lucky. Dane watched the sun rising and hoped to hell their luck would hold out for three more days. That’s all they needed, by his calculations, before they would be able to trap Whitey Nash.
When he came to their funeral.
Dane didn’t like the people saluting them and thanking them for their service as they waited for their bus to Boston after they’d bought phones. He felt like the fraud he was. If her tight smile was any indication, Shana liked it even less.
“I’ll be glad to ditch these uniforms. If I have to acknowledge another person telling me what a brave young woman I am, I might scream.
” She spoke the words into his ear as he held her close.
Their bright white uniforms might as well be ads inviting one and all to show their patriotism.
After a night of no sleep, parading around in disguise was exhausting.
On the bus, they sat down with relief at the very back where few people would encounter them.
Once the bus got rolling, he and Shana would need to speak in church whispers because it was uncommonly quiet, like a cruising coffin bringing half-dead people to their cubicle graves.
Dane didn’t mind the closeness, liked having his mouth grazing her ear, raising her goose bumps, causing her shudders.
“Whoever sent me the text messages has terrific hacking skills,” she said. “Whitey had nothing like that and the facility where he went wasn’t about to teach him. He was an old-school kind of guy. Kept it simple.” She looked at Dane. “I don’t know how the hell he managed to get into my phone.”
Dane had a very cold feeling that he knew. “You say he kidnapped young girls.”
She nodded.
“Then there’s another way he could have called your phone. He could have gotten the number from someone who knew—”
She turned to him with a flash of abject terror on her face, not for herself, he knew. Holding the rising bile down he spoke the words because he had to, had to deal with their reality. “He could have kidnapped Sassy.”
“But Sassy is too old for him to be interested in—”
“It wouldn’t have been difficult to find out who our friends are once he got to the island.
Wouldn’t have been hard to find us after the fiasco in Sydney last winter.
Our names were prominent. After you testified against the Deputy Commissioner of the New South Wales police force, your name, mine, and Beachcomber Investigations were all over the news in Sydney and all of Australia.
And they reported that we lived on the Vineyard. ”
He knew he should have considered moving then. Had considered it before. All the enemies he had finally knew where to find him.
But leaving had felt too much like giving up, conceding the fight. And Dane never backed down from a fight.
Today would be no exception.
She composed her face and spoke in a low growling whisper with less fear and more anger in it. “Do you think—”
“He has Sassy. For leverage.”
She leaned into him and he held her as he heard her sob escape. One single sob.
“Hey now. You’re dressed in a Coast Guard uniform. We can’t have you blow our cover. I know Vendi’s not so tough, but I’m sure most Coast Guard officers—”
She moved away from him with eyes glistening, but no tears on her face.
“You’re too hard on Vendi, you know.”
“I was kidding.”
“More like half kidding.”
“You shouldn’t be so sure he has Sassy. He could have gotten my phone number some other way.” Her voice betrayed her doubt.
“You said he likes young girls. They’re vulnerable.
Of all our friends on the island, Sassy fits the bill.
” There were a few other strategic reasons Dane could think of why Whitey would snatch Sassy besides intel.
There was the leverage of holding a hostage.
Dane didn’t know whether and that would be within the man’s wheelhouse.
He’d need to do some homework on this bastard.
He needed to know much more about Whitey Nash than Shana could tell him. Dane sighed.
He said, “We’ll check on Sassy as soon as we get where we’re going.” He lifted his wrist where his trusty waterproof Breitling still ticked away. “In twenty minutes.”
“I’ll call now.”
“It’s still early,” he said as he watched Shana pull out her phone.
“Put in the number. This is an emergency.”
“I’m glad you’re the one calling.” Dane dialed the governor’s well-guarded emergency number he kept in his head for all time. He’d used it before. Once to save Shana.
“Hello,” Shana said after Dane handed the phone back to her. She spoke in a discreet voice, but Dane was so close he could hear everything as if he were the one holding the phone.
“I’m here too.” He didn’t want his friend Peter jumping to the wrong conclusion, getting a call on his emergency line from Shana instead of him.
“Thank God. I heard from Cap about the explosion before it was on the wires. I was just about to have a drink. My way of praying for your safety.”
Dane took the phone from Shana. He put it to his ear and lowered his voice. Shana leaned close.
“Early for a drink. Wait for us. We’ll join you. In about fifteen.”
“You’re here?”
Dane didn’t often have the pleasure of surprising Peter. That’s why the governor was governor. But he was definitely surprised.
“Safe harbor. We need to keep a lid on our still being alive. You’ll need to make it convincing.”
“Can we let Cap in on it? I think we’ll need his help.”
Dane smiled to himself at the fact that Peter hadn’t questioned his plan. Rolled with it in fact.
“You ain’t just whistling Dixie. We’ll need all the help we can get,” Dane said.
Shana gave him a sideways glance, nodding her head in a prompt to find out about Sassy.
“Spill it.” The governor said.
“There may be a hostage situation.”
In spite of Shana’s anxiety, Dane didn’t want to say more while they sat on the bus. Had already said too much, albeit in a near whisper. “We’ll confirm the situation once we arrive.”
Dane disconnected the call. Shana scowled and snatched the phone from him then shoved it back into her bag. She turned to him.
“I can handle it,” she said.
He wasn’t sure who she was trying to convince.