Beachcomber Gone
Beachcomber Investigations Book 10
By Stephanie Queen
Sample Chapters
Chapter 1
Dane Blaise leaned back in his business-class seat in the first row of the Virgin Australia airliner. After handing Shana George her champagne, he accepted his first drink from the flight attendant. Likely his first of many. This second leg of their trip would be a long haul from Los Angeles to Sydney. He leaned close to her and whispered.
“You’re going to ruin our badass reputation with that sissy drink.”
Shana laughed, her mouth soft and her eyes sparkling, untroubled by a worry in the world. For no reason other than that too-good-to-be-true notion, his chest tightened. She was too good to be real and he was a lucky no-good bastard to have her. Too lucky.
And there was no rational reason, no logic in why his heart tapped faster than it ought to—not unless you counted his escalating age. Shana clinked her champagne flute against his tumbler of tequila on the rocks. The hairs on the back of his neck stood straight followed by a chill, raising goose bumps on his arms. The seeping dread slid like a glacier through his insides. For no goddamn good reason. He kept a mask of contentment in place, but he felt it slipping.
“What’s the matter?” She gave him her usual skeptical squint without losing her smile. “We’re off the ground and on our way to Australia. You can’t change your mind now.”
He smiled, hiding the frisson of dread though he’d promised himself—and her—he wouldn’t hide anything. It had been a rash promise. In his defense, he had no idea what he was hiding, so it made more sense to figure out what the hell his problem was before raising alarms and talking about the boogeyman hovering in his head. Looking at his glass of booze—damn good booze—he figured this was a good time to take a big gulp and calm his paranoia. But with his senses on high alert, he noticed a movement in his periphery that stopped him.
When he looked up, he saw the cabin door to the cockpit swinging open. A man dressed like the pilot or copilot stepped out. Dane didn’t stare, but watched the presumed pilot from his periphery while he sipped less than a teaspoon of tequila. The man spoke to the business-class flight attendant, Wendy, and they exchanged whispers.
Satisfied that the view of the Atlantic coast fascinated Shana, he turned back to Wendy and the man from the cockpit. His eyes met the man’s head-on. He studied Dane for a beat as if he suspected him of something unscrupulous. Dane’s heart took a leap forward to the kettledrum stage, not because he was guilty of anything unscrupulous, though he was, but because something wasn’t right. And it involved him.
The man—whose name badge, when Dane squinted, read Captain Emory Lane—took the few steps to stand directly in front of him. Dane said nothing while he waited for the pilot to speak, but went into professional mode, slowing down his thoughts, preparing to keep irrational emotions at bay, keeping the adrenaline rush from spooking a crazy reaction. He played it cool while Shana’s attention turned to the pilot.
“Come with me, Mr. Blaise. I need to speak with you. In the cockpit.” The pilot turned without waiting for a response, no animosity, but not much in the way of politeness either. Without hesitation, or a word, Dane unbuckled his seatbelt and stood to follow him. Shana stood too.
“You wait here,” he said, doing his best to sound authoritative but without much hope that she’d comply. She’d never been known for being compliant, and was much less so now that they were planning to marry.
She gave him a look. The look spoke volumes, mostly swear words and cusses if the spark in her eye was any tell. He took a deep breath of resignation and she followed him. They crowded inside the cockpit, which was clearly not designed for a couple of spectators. The pilot handed him a headset.
“The Governor of Massachusetts wants to talk to you, Mr. Blaise. Evidently he contacted the airline and got them to patch him through.”
Dane didn’t bother thanking him. Emory appeared to be too annoyed to bother about social niceties. He took the headset and put it on, adjusting the ear pads to fit snugly. He was grateful that Shana wouldn’t be able to hear whatever his friend Peter John Douglas had to say. One thing was for certain: Peter wouldn’t go through the trouble to get patched through to the airliner in mid-flight to talk about the weather.
He stood while the pilot sat back down, presumably to fly the damn plane. Shana stood facing Dane, watching his face as if she were reading a book. It would have been unnerving if he was the kind of guy who got unnerved. He wasn’t. Didn’t stop Shana the Beautiful from doing her best to try, one of those quirks he loved about her. She was no quitter. Kept him on his toes.
“Governor,” he said once he’d adjusted the headset microphone.
“Get off that plane before you land in Sydney.”
Chapter 2
“Since I forgot my parachute at home, Gov, that ain’t happening.”
“You got a nonstop flight? Damn it, Blaise—no one gets a nonstop flight to Sydney Australia. Get the plane to land somewhere else.”
Dane looked at the pilot, who eyed him over his shoulder upon hearing the parachute quip. Dane smiled, keeping the governor’s suggestion to himself. No need to get the pilot worried or any more annoyed than he already was. And especially no need to get Shana worried. Not yet. That part would be trickier. She knew the governor wouldn’t call them like this to ask for a cookie recipe. She knew Dane too damn well to be fooled by his calm.
Her expression went from grim to neutral, to her professional game face, the minute he mentioned the parachute. Now Dane didn’t dare look at her squarely as he spoke as quietly and conversationally as he could.
“We’re over the ocean now. Looks like we’ll have this lovely view for a good fifteen hours now.” He looked at his watch as if it were relevant. He lowered his voice. “Give me a clue.”
“Mrs. George called me when she couldn’t get hold of you and Shana. There’s a trap for Shana when she lands.”
“At the airport?”
“It wasn’t clear to me—or her—how or when, only that it was certain. She shared some details with me. Apparently, there was a police pension fraud case that Shana helped resolve just before she left Australia—her involvement in the case was key and was what got her the job as investigator for Scotland Yard. They’d kept who’d been involved under wraps because there had been threats at the time—from organized crime in Sydney. Her mother had testified, among others, and some bad people got put away for a long time.”
“I remember. Chancy Peterson got put away. Shana talked about it.” Dane remembered the deep despair in her voice when she did.
“Until recently. Peterson was sprung because he’s supposedly become terminally ill. Mrs. George said she’d gotten threats—or promises—that he wanted to exact revenge, but she thought nothing of it because lots of the people involved in the case were getting them, the police commissioner told her. Then somehow someone found out you and Shana were headed Down Under and the threats ratcheted up, accusing Shana of retaliatory action.
“Today Mrs. George got scared when she recognized one of the men in an SUV that was following her and she was too scared to call the police—she was told not to. She was told to get rid of you two or something bad would happen to you—and her. They’re sitting on her house. She didn’t know what to do besides call Shana, but it was too late to reach you.”
Shit. Shit. Shit. Dane said nothing and forced himself to breathe regularly, not something he usually had to force. Shana watched him closely. He wanted more intel.
“They do anything else?” To scare Shana’s mother. He left half the question unspoken, but Peter was smart and knew what he meant. There was a beat of dead air on the other end of the line, long enough to send his blood pressure up a few more counts, long enough for him to cool himself down, put up more walls of professional distance.
“She said she was worried about her dog. She hasn’t seen Scruffy in a while.”
Dane didn’t know what to say about that, so he said nothing, kept breathing evenly, letting the pause grow into a silent gap pretended to Shana’s flashing green stare that he was still listening, that Peter was still talking.
“Sounds like a legitimate threat to me,” Peter said. “Take your vacation somewhere else. Somehow arrange to have her family meet you there—have them take a few detours to throw off Peterson’s men.”
“Sounds like the sensible thing to do.,” And it was, but there was no way in hell Shana would leave her mother vulnerable with some bad actors in the neighborhood while she detoured out of harm’s way. Hell, there was no way Dane wanted to leave her mother vulnerable either.
