Page 22 of Beachcomber Danger

Chapter 6

It was six p.m. and the sky was still bright when Dane emerged freshly shaved from the bathroom—the only one in the small house—to find Andrews and Goodley still hard at work, sitting at the dining table in front of their laptops tapping away.

Sassy was in the guest room, but Dane had reminded her that when he and Shana left, her assignment was to stick with the two agents and not let them out of her sight while they were in the house.

Andrews took his attention from his keyboard and stood. Dane noticed that the process of straightening was not fluid or quick. The agent couldn’t be ten years older than him. Dane didn’t appreciate the insight that getting up from a chair as if he were the squeaky Tin Man from the Wizard of Oz might be in his near future.

“Let’s talk first. I know you don’t like this, or us.” Andrews spread his arm to encompass Goodley. The younger man grunted and scowled at the screen, but didn’t take his attention away from it.

“So?”

“We’re relying on you.”

Andrews let that sit without explanation. Dane read his mind, or tried to. He could outwait the man, but they were scheduled to meet Acer. Shana sauntered from the hall and met him, looping her arm through his. She smelled like an impossible combination of angel and devil, or it could have been his wishful thinking. The effect would have been dizzying if he hadn’t had his guard up.

Dane noticed that Andrews’s guard hadn’t been up if the sudden dilation of his pupils was any indication. She was dressed to kill—someone—way past the dress code for the Lucky Parrot. Her slinky black dress with the missing back and short hemline was one of his favorites.

“Get to the point, Andrews. And quit eying my wife—”

“You’re married?”

Dane heard Andrews’s disbelief and felt rather than saw the singe from Shana’s shock. His blood heated but he kept his cool. He’d never been such an idiot before.

“Not yet.” Shana moved in closer. “You’re jumping the gun, darling.” She sounded part cat, part woman the way she purred, like she was channeling some siren from a sixties cold war spy movie. He’d have to start monitoring what she watched on late-night TV.

More importantly, he needed to monitor himself and get back to that detached professional persona that kept him alive all these years.

“Get to the point,” Dane repeated without taking his eyes off Andrews. He remained undistracted on the outside, managing to prevent himself from staring at his almost-wife. Later he’d analyze why he’d needed to prematurely claim Shana as his wife. Or more likely she’d analyze the hell out of the episode for him. For now, he could tell she enjoyed it, could feel the vibration of energy sizzling off her.

“The point is,” Andrews said, his lips hardly moving as if he were a ventriloquist—an angry ventriloquist. “That if you want to go out, you need to be in touch at all times and say nothing to anyone. That includes Captain Lynch, the Gables, and any other friends you might have.”

“Might have? We have plenty of friends,” Dane said. Purposely missing the point, he refused to react to the crack about the Gables. Dane had known they’d been followed.

“Don’t be a wiseass. We’ll be watching you. Because as I’ve said, we don’t trust you. Maybe you should keep that in mind.” Andrews went back to his laptop at the dining table.

Dane knew when he’d said “watching” he’d also meant “listening,” but couldn’t say it because strictly speaking it would be against the law in Massachusetts to listen to someone covertly without their permission.

They’d managed to evade the listening devices out on the Gables’ yacht, but that was no long-term solution to the private communications problem they were developing. Dane hoped Acer had the problem under control in the basement of the Lucky Parrot. His assignment had been to construct a surveillance-proof space, an NSA-spy-free zone where they could meet and talk, using it as a base of their own counter-surveillance operations.

Acer had been game. When wasn’t he? If his old special ops team member thought Dane was paranoid out of his mind, he didn’t show any sign. So far Shana was going along.

“Let’s go, darling.” He took Shana’s hand and led her out the door after calling Sassy up from downstairs.

Dane didn’t bother trying to evade the car he noticed following them starting three blocks from their house, presumably Secret Service. He turned the radio up and opened the window then, before he had a chance to pull her to him, Shana leaned in and put her face close to his. He took a deep breath of her scent and let the intoxication of her cloak him.

“We’ll head to the basement first before we eat.”

“You don’t think they’ll notice?”

“Make it look like you’re going in to the ladies’ room and slip through the basement door instead.”

“You think Acer’s set up and waiting for us?”

“We’re in a shitload of trouble if he isn’t.”

“I love your optimism.” She kissed him on the side of his mouth while he drove. He knew if the Secret Service men could somehow see inside their car they’d guess at the intimate conversation. He knew the loud radio and open window didn’t fool them. But it didn’t tell them what was going on either.

When they walked in the back door of the Lucky Parrot, Dane hid his surprise. He counted no fewer than three tables occupied by various feds. No one he knew. He and Shana both managed to slip down through the door off the back hallway that led to the basement stairs. Shana went to flick on the light switch and Dane slapped his hand over hers, stopping her.