Nerd In Shining Armor Part 26

Now that he was on his own he'd still been wimpy about his coffee, buying a bargain preground instead of pricey beans and a grinder. After tasting Annabelle's coffee, he was ready to make the switch.

"Here you go." Annabelle handed him a mugful of heaven.

"Thank you, Annabelle." He said her name because he liked using it. You could smile and say her name at the same time. He'd never known an Annabelle before, and he couldn't imagine the name suiting anyone else.

"You're welcome." She looked so serious. No smiles for her.

He'd tried not to communicate his concern, but she was no dummy. She had to know this was a desolate place for a crash landing.

He longed for some way to make her feel better. "You make the best coffee."

"Thanks." She handed Lincoln a can of c.o.ke.

Maintaining his cool-guy slouch, he took it and thanked her.

Matt wondered if posture was another thing Annabelle had decided not to ha.s.sle the kid about. Every time Matt noticed the curve of Lincoln's spine he fought the urge to tell him to sit up straight. That was probably another reason Annabelle didn't date, so she wouldn't have to deal with guys thinking they could step in and demonstrate their own brand of parenting.

"I'll be back with the rest in a minute," Annabelle said. "I made ham sandwiches so you could eat and drive at the same time."

"Perfect." Matt vowed he'd choke down that sandwich. Not eating it would let her know that worry had taken away his appet.i.te. That could only upset her more.

While she was down in the galley getting the sandwiches, he sipped his coffee and allowed himself a small escape from reality. In his world, he'd have married someone like Annabelle the first time around, someone who cherished good coffee and understood kids. Then Matt would be sitting here with his son, Lincoln. His son of the wild and crazy hair and the gentle heart.

Genevieve didn't fit into the picture very well, though.

Annabelle had admitted during lunch that she'd had Genevieve when she was fifteen. Matt had been raised not to get fifteen-year-olds pregnant. He'd always heard that teenage pregnancies screwed up everything and everybody, yet Annabelle and Genevieve seemed to be fine, so there went that theory.

This time as Annabelle climbed the steps to the c.o.c.kpit, Matt smelled her perfume and got hard. Certainly inappropriate under the circ.u.mstances, and yet emotions were running high with all of them. s.e.xual urges could be closer to the surface now, at least for him, maybe even for her.

He glanced over at Lincoln, afraid that the kid would sense something and check out Matt's fly. Having an adolescent around as a chaperon meant no public displays of l.u.s.t. Knowing the adolescent could be psychic ruled out private l.u.s.ting, too. Matt started reciting baseball statistics in his head and finally got his erection under control right before Annabelle approached with her plate of sandwiches.

"Can you manage a sandwich and your coffee?" she asked.

"Sure." He set his mug into a cup holder and picked up a sandwich.

"Yikes!" Lincoln bolted upright. "What is that!"

Annabelle dropped the plate of sandwiches. "What, Lincoln? What?"

Heart pounding, Matt looked in the direction Lincoln was pointing.

"That big freakin' bird! It looks like a seagull on steroids!"

Matt gazed up at the large gray and white bird gliding in the sky just ahead of them. Then he sank back against the seat and gulped for air. "It's an albatross. They're more common out here in the Leewards than back in Honolulu, so I guess you've never seen one before."

"Lincoln, you got us all excited about a blessed bird?"

Annabelle sounded all choked up. "I ruined this whole plate of sandwiches for a gol-danged bird>n Then she turned and ran down the steps.

Lincoln pulled off his earphones and looked miserable. "Aw, geez. I didn't mean to-"

"Go after her." Matt couldn't leave the c.o.c.kpit, couldn't even slow the engine and let Lincoln take over.

"But I didn't think she'd-"

"Go after her, d.a.m.n it! She's hanging on by a thread, and I think the thread just snapped. She needs somebody to hold her and tell her it's gonna be okay. I can't do it or we're liable to end up on a reef somewhere with a hole in the side of this boat. So it's up to you."

"Right." Looking shaken, Lincoln headed down the steps.

Left with sandwiches underfoot and an albatross flying ahead of the boat as if showing the way, Matt s.h.i.+vered as a chill ran down his spine.

He'd picked up the old superst.i.tion about albatrosses from his father and his father's sailor friends. It wasn't logical, and it wasn't modern, but many old salts still thought of the big birds as the reincarnated souls of dead seamen. Matt had been indoctrinated early, and the sight of the bird always gave him the creeps. He wished to h.e.l.l they hadn't run across this one.

Chapter 19.

Genevieve wished Nick would choke to death on the guavas. He'd already eaten three of the five they'd brought in the suitcase. He reminded her of a hog with his snout in the slop bucket. To think that she'd once thought he was the spitting image of Cary Grant. Right now he looked like Frankenstein.

He didn't scare her as much as Frankenstein would, though. When he'd first grabbed her, she'd about jumped out of her skin, but she'd found out that a person couldn't stay scared forever. Sooner or later the feeling wore off, and now she was busy calculating how to get out of this fix.

Cousin Festus down in the Hollow used to like to jump out and grab folks like Nick had, until the day Lyda Mae kicked him in the b.a.l.l.s with the heel of her army-issue boots. Genevieve had meant to practice that move herself, but she'd left the Hollow and forgotten all about it. She could have used that move when Nick grabbed her.

Except Cousin Festus never came at anybody with a gun. Maybe kicking Nick in the b.a.l.l.s wouldn't be such a good idea. But she needed to think of something, because once he figured out how to dispose of their bodies, he'd kill both her and Jack. He could feed them to the sharks, but Genevieve had seen Jaws and she knew you couldn't count NerJ in <5hinin armor="">

on a shark to eat everything. A shark could leave the exact body part with a bullet in it that would incriminate Nick.

No, if Nick was thinking straight, which he might not be, the only way to dispose of two bodies was to tie a rock on them and sink them out in the ocean. That would require a boat, so logically Nick shouldn't decide to kill them until his pickup men arrived.

Genevieve was worried that Nick might not be logical, though. When she looked into his eyes, which she mostly tried not to do, he reminded her of Uncle Rufus's old hound dog Sour Mash, who got bit by a rabid skunk.

Anybody using logic wouldn't drink all the water and eat all the food. All three of them could be stuck here for a while, and although Nick certainly didn't care if she and Jack died of thirst, he ought to have sense enough to save something for himself. Genevieve thought maybe the strain of being so dose to getting all that money and not being able to finish the job might have affected Nick like the skunk bite had affected Sour Mash.

Sure enough, Nick ate the fourth guava, and all that was left was the one that had rolled in front of Jack's face. Grabbing his gun, Nick stood up, probably to walk around and get it.

A moment later, Jack cursed softly.

"Hey!" Genevieve struggled against the belt holding her wrists. "Whatever you're doing to Jack, cut it out!"

Nick came back into her line of vision and grinned, revealing the guava seed stuck in his teeth. "You have a thing for Farley, don't you, Genevieve?"

She started getting scared all over again. Nick had that crazy look in his eyes, and if he thought she cared about Jack, he might start torturing Jack just to pa.s.s the time. "No, I don't. Just like you said, he's a computer geek. Not my type."

"Maybe, maybe not." Nick's gaze swept over the two of 266 Vicki Lewis Thompson them. Then he glanced down. "Well, look at that! If it isn't a condom!" He stuck the guava in his pocket and scooped the condom from the sand.

"So what?" Genevieve tried to look bored with his discovery. "I always carry one in my suitcase, for emergencies."

Nick tossed the condom in the air and caught it again. "I don't believe you for a minute. You brought this in case you needed it on Maui. And with all the rumors about me, I doubt if you only brought one. So I ask myself, what happened to the rest of them?"

"She only brought one," Jack said. "She knew you were a one-shot-and-it's-over kind of guy."

"f.u.c.k you, Farley." Nick walked back over in front of Jack.

From the sound of it, Genevieve figured he'd kicked sand in Jack's face. "Jack, shut up." She nudged him from behind. "I did have more condoms," she said. "And we used them to ... to hold rainwater. Which we already drank." They could have used them that way, she realized now, but they hadn't thought of it. The condoms had been too precious to think of using them for anything besides their intended purpose.

"Considering what a geek Farley is, I can picture you doing that. Better to have something to drink than to waste a condom on somebody who can't get it up unless he's looking at pictures on a p.o.r.no site, isn't that right, Farley?"

"I guess you know all about that," Jack said. "I'll bet you get off calling nine-hundred numbers from the office."

"Jack." Genevieve clenched her jaw and punched him hard in the back. He was going to get himself shot any second, talking that way.

"You weren't by chance hacking your way into company records, were you, Farley?"

Jack laughed. "No, just a lucky guess."

"Yeah, well, I'm beginning to realize that you're a dan- Nod in s.h.i.+ning Armor Q/Qj gerous guy to have around. With your computer skills, you might be able to figure out how I cooked the books when I made my withdrawals. I'd planned to kill you anyway, but the urge is getting stronger by the minute. Time to say bye-bye, Farley." Nick crouched down and aimed the gun at Jack's head.

"No!" Genevieve screamed.

"What's the matter, Genevieve?" Nick kept his attention on Jack. "Maybe you're more attached to this nerd than you think. That's a little joke, there. Attached. Get it?"

"Nick, you don't want to shoot Jack." The blood whoos.h.i.+ng in her ears was louder than the surf. "You said yourself that you can't let somebody find either of us with a bullet that could be traced to you. Jack's feeling a little cranky tied up like this, so that's why he's-"

"A little cranky?" Jack said. "Try p.i.s.sed as h.e.l.l! You eat our food, you drink all the d.a.m.ned water, and then you throw sand in my face and insult me! I've had it with you, Brogan!"

"And I've had it with you, a.s.shole!" Nick pressed the barrel of the gun to Jack's forehead.

"Stop it, both of you!" Genevieve couldn't believe that Jack was being so stupid. "Nick, you can't shoot Jack right now, and you know it, so quit acting like you're going to! And, Jack, shut your trap! We're in enough trouble already without you making it worse."

"I'll shoot Farley if I want to!" Nick said. "No secretary is going to tell me if I can shoot somebody or not. And I really feel like shooting this guy. I'll worry about what to do with him later."

"Brilliant," Jack said. "Act now, think afterward. You're a regular mental giant, Brogan."

"Whatever. I have the gun and you don't. Any last words, boy genius, before I blow a hole in that super-size brain of yours?"

Gencvieve's fingers brushed the inside of Jack's wrists, where the blood pumped fast. One bullet, and that blood would stop pumping. She didn't know how to stop Nick, with Jack egging him on, acting more like an idiot than a genius. "Nick, don't," she said.

"Give me one good reason."

"You're not a murderer yet. If you don't kill anyone, this could all be cleared up. You could plead temporary insanity. I'm sure Matt-"

Nick's laughter cut her off. "And give up my three mil? Not likely, sweetheart. Nope, you two are in my way. Time to get rid of one of you, at least." The soft click as Nick pulled the hammer back with his thumb seemed to echo in the lava rocks surrounding the beach.

A large shadow pa.s.sed over them, and Genevieve looked up quickly, praying it was a plane or a helicopter, although she knew immediately it couldn't be, because there was no engine noise. In the sliver of time she recognized the albatross soaring above them and instinctively went for the diversion.

"OmiG.o.d!" she yelled. "Look out!"

Nick's head jerked upward. He leaped to his feet and raised the gun.

Frantically Genevieve tried to squeeze one hand out of the belt loop.

Before Nick could register the fact that what was circling overhead was only a harmless albatross, he had reflex-ively pulled the trigger.

There was a click, and nothing.

"Son of a b.i.t.c.hin' gun!"

Genevieve worked harder, like a fox in a steel trap, not caring if she tore the skin from her hand if she could work it free. She and Jack had just gotten lucky. Something seemed to be wrong with Nick's gun.

Another loud click echoed in the rocks.

"f.u.c.king thing's loaded, it's dry, and it won't fire. Stupid f.u.c.king gun."

Gcnevievc tore one hand loose, skinning it good in the process. Then the other hand came free. She glanced over in time to see Nick point the gun at the sand, pull the trigger, and then howl in pain. Somehow he had managed to shoot himself in the foot.

"Help-I'm shot!" he yelled hysterically.

"I wish I could help you," Jack said. "But I'm all tied up at the moment."

Genevieve murmured to Jack, "I'm free. Here-" She began to work on the knots she'd tied so well earlier, but her fingers were shaking so badly she was having trouble. And the hand she'd forced through the belt loop was bleeding.

She struggled with the knots, but the blood dripping on the curling iron cord made it slippery.

Fortunately Nick was hollering loud enough to drown out the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, plus he was so busy ripping up his s.h.i.+rt to use as a bandage that he didn't seem to be paying them any mind.

Finally Genevieve loosened the last of the knots and unwound the cord from Jack's hands and his ankle.

"Oh, thank G.o.d." He started to unbend his leg.

"Don't. He might figure out you're loose."

Jack groaned but stayed where he was. "We need to get him over here so we can tackle him and get that gun away from him," he whispered.

"Right." Calling to Nick felt like splas.h.i.+ng around in the water to get the attention of a shark, but at least he was a wounded shark. Genevieve got back in position beside Jack, as if she were still tied up. Before speaking, she had to stop to clear her throat. "Nick!" she called.

He was moaning so loudly he didn't seem to hear her.

She tried again. "Nick!"

"I got a problem over here!" he yelled back. "Oh, Sweet Jesus, it won't stop bleeding."

"You need to put more pressure on it, Nick! And make sure it doesn't get infected. I have some antibiotic ointment in my makeup bag. It's the little flowered thing with the zipper lying over here about a foot from me."

"Why would you care what happens to me?"

"Because if that bullet wound gets infected, and you pa.s.s out and leave us tied up like this, we could all die."