The Beachcombers
Book 1 – Beachcomber Investigations
By Stephanie Queen
Sample Chapters
Chapter 1
Dane checked his rearview mirror. The damn perp was still on his tail. The French man had skills considering he wasn’t from the island. Considering he was supposed to be a con man, not a wheel man. It might be a disadvantage trying to lose a tail on an island the size of Martha’s Vineyard, but Dane knew it like a native and had a few tricks in reserve for such occasions.
Stomping on the accelerator, Dane spun his rusty old Jeep around and sped back into town, leaving behind the winding ocean road. It was a damn shame he found himself tangled with another perp on another mission when he was supposed to be resting. Supposed to be healing at his beach shack after spending months in the last hell-hole, barely escaping. Leaving too many behind. He shut his mind down before he could think more. If he allowed those thoughts to grab hold, he’d drive straight to the Lucky Parrot and settle in with a bottle of tequila. Damn the governor and his favor.
The last mission had been too nasty. He’d come home to the Vineyard like he always did between missions, to rest his soul, not to mention a few body parts that could use some healing.
Heading for Vineyard Haven’s grocery store, he supposed he wasn’t in between missions anymore. He pulled into the lot and parked front and center. As he got out of the Jeep, he spotted Frenchie turning into the driveway and heading toward a parking spot a few rows over. Dane walked unhurried to the glass doors of the store and pushed inside.
If he didn’t owe the governor more than he could ever repay, no way would he be playing hide and seek with some French con in his own neighborhood grocery store. He trotted through the aisles, skirting people and displays and pushed through the double doors near the deli counter into the storage room.
And there was especially no way in hell he’d be working with an unknown partner if his so-called friend hadn’t insisted. Some young up-and-coming detective chick from the Met. Dane didn’t know enough about this mission yet, but it had damn well better be worth all the trouble. And the pain.
In the storage room, if anyone had a problem with him being there they didn’t say. No one stopped him. He’d mastered that quality of seeming to be in complete charge no matter what the circumstance. People didn’t question him because he knew what he was doing. Even when he was racing through a grocery store, the assumption was that he was supposed to be running through the grocery store.
On the back end of the storage room he found the unmarked door and slipped outside. Jumping down the steps, he landed in the alley behind the supermarket between two parked trucks. Ignoring his knee, he headed to the street and ran. It was under two miles to State Police Headquarters in Vineyard Haven. He could get there in under ten minutes. Never mind his left knee.
Looking over his shoulder once before he turned the corner, he checked the door where he’d exited the back of the grocery store. Still closed. No one in sight. He stepped up his pace to full speed then and kept going.
Passing by a white picket fence lined with rose bushes he reached out and plucked one. A rose would not make up for him behaving like an asshole to his unwanted partner Shana George.
Because he was certainly would act like an asshole. But he couldn’t forget his mother’s words when he saw the roses. She’d told him something about the power of a rose once when he was not too young to understand.
There’s something about a rose that makes a woman smile inside like a young girl.
Thinking about his mother made him smile. So there was that. A good enough justification to do almost anything.
Chapter 2
Shana sat across from the affable Captain Colin Lynch who looked comfortable in his office behind his desk. And wondered how long they’d have to wait. It had been a long trip. From Australia to London to Boston. And then to damn Martha’s Vineyard. All within seventy-two hours.
“I don’t suppose you have a bowl of spaghetti in your top drawer?” She slung her right leg over her left knee and leaned back in her chair while the captain laughed.
“Tell me about Dane Blaise.” She needed to know who her partner really was beyond the sketchy bio she’d been given. All she’d gotten from the bio was that he was seasoned. That made her uneasy. The last thing she wanted was some bossy old man not giving her respect, worse, not up to keeping up with her or whoever their opposition was.
“What do you want to know?”
Why should I trust him?
“The usual.”
“More like the unusual. He’s a legend in the business. Except the stories I heard are true.”
“What stories? How do you know they’re true?”
“I know they’re true because the governor told me.”
“So tell me.”
He looked at his watch. She hoped she wasn’t too sleepy to pay attention.
He said, “Okay. This is my favorite. Dane was with a team and they were in a situation in a foreign country—undisclosed location. They had chased down a guy in a car with a high-value hostage who was unconscious at the time. They had reason to believe the hostage needed medical attention. The team trapped the car between them on three sides and a building on the fourth with nowhere to go.
“But the target had a gun on the hostage. It was a standoff. The team leader negotiated with the target while they tried to line up a sniper. Unfortunately, the locals got involved and put the kibosh on the sniper. The standoff went on for a while—some say close to an hour. Until Dane had had enough. He snuck out of the line, away from his team and back around the perimeter behind the car. No one saw him. They were all busy jawing and keeping an eye on each other. He went to the ground and crawled under the car—still no one noticed. They shouted and negotiated until they told the perp they’d cooperate and the local police ordered everyone to drop their weapons.
“That’s when Dane popped up from under the car and stood right in front of the target at the driver door. He grabbed the perp by the neck and yanked him and his weapon through the car window and out of the vehicle.” The captain paused and shook his head, staring at some mental picture of the scene in amazement.
Shana wished she hadn’t shuddered. Gooseflesh popped as the story took hold of her imagination. Captain Lynch turned back to her and she closed her mouth, holding her breath in anticipation of the rest of the story. She tried her best mental messaging to urge him on, tried not to seem as captivated as she was.
“Then Dane punched the perp once in the face. Popped his nose wide open. I heard it was gushing blood. The guy went down in a heap to the ground. By then Dane’s team stormed the vehicle. He was lucky no one shot him. Then—this is the legendary part—his team leader yelled at him, ‘What the hell were you doing? You could have got killed. That bleeping crazy move was never in any protocol.’ And Dane said, ‘It’s lunchtime—you were taking too damn long. I’d have starved by the time you all wrapped this up.’”
She listened and strained to keep her eyes from widening, to keep a modicum of the cool disdain she’d been working on. But the telltale quickening in her chest was all about excitement. Captain Lynch must have heard it or seen it or sensed it. She licked her lips, stalling for a beat, then said in her best scoffing voice, “That story has to have been embellished.”
Captain Lynch shook his head and gave her a sympathetic you-don’t-fool-me look.
“That’s what I thought. The first time I heard it. But since then I heard it from the gov and two others from the special ops team who all saw it go down the same way—especially the wise-ass comment at the end. So now I tend to believe every last word of it is true. That man is one tough son of a bitch.”
“Who was the team leader?” She had a suspicion.
“The gen—governor. We used to refer to him as the general, but only in the field and only amongst ourselves. The name stuck. All of us from his team still use it whenever he calls on us.”
“You served with him too? Did Governor Douglas recruit everyone on this assignment from his special ops team?”
“Yep. We’re all the governor’s men. Except you. In a way though—”
“Don’t worry about me. I’ll be happy to get back to London and the Yard.”
“We’ll see. Maybe the beachcomber will change your mind.”
“Beachcomber?”
“Dane Blaise.”
“He’s not going to change my mind. Why would he even bother?” She tried to go for rhetorical, but she hadn’t been fooling nice Captain Lynch and in spite of his niceness, she had to give him some of her stingily held respect.
“Trust me. You have his respect.”
“I don’t trust you either.” She snapped. She couldn’t afford blind trust and studied him as she considered this. She could handle him. But Dane Blaise?
The captain’s cell phone sounded and he jumped to answer it.
“Captain Lynch here.”
She watched his face go serious. He had to be telling the truth about Dane, but so far she didn’t get why this mission would warrant a superhero and having her shipped from London to handle it. Why couldn’t Captain Lynch and his troopers handle it? Her superiors at the Met wouldn’t have sent her here to waste her time. She had no doubt. None at all. But there was no shaking her unease and the sense that she was being set up somehow.
He finished listening, said a curt good-bye and hung up. She waited for him to tell her about it. There was something big about this she didn’t know yet. He leaned forward with his elbows on his clutter-free desk and looked at her, his brow furrowed.
“That was Dane. He’s had trouble losing the con so he’s on foot and coming in the back door.”
“Okay.”
Two minutes later, the door to the office opened. A man who she presumed to be Dane Blaise walked in and pulled up the empty chair next to her. She smelled the strong scent of tropical sun lotion. Shana had a sudden wistful longing for home and the beach in Sydney. Feeling on edge, like the room had gotten too crowded and there wasn’t enough air, she kept her professional demeanor and gave Dane a polite smile and a nod.
He nodded back without smiling. Instead he held out his hand to her and gave her a small pink rose.
