Gone With the Nerd (Nerds, #4)(21)
Author: Vicki Lewis Thompson

"May I ask who’s calling?"

"It’s Zo—Vera. Vera Parsons."

"Zovera?"

"No, just Vera." Zoe didn’t know if Margo would recognize the name she’d decided to use. "Tell her it’s her friend from high school."

"Are you the person who was in here a few minutes ago? The one in the flowery blouse and plaid skirt?"

"Um, yes." Zoe crossed her fingers and hoped that wouldn’t keep Ray from putting Margo on the line.

"The reason I ask is that some of us got to talking, and we think you look a lot like Zoe Tarleton."

Zoe’s heart started pounding. "I get that all the time," she said. "I’m sure Miss Tarleton would be horrified by the comparison. I’m definitely not her."

"Oh, we know that!" Ray chuckled. "Anybody can see you’re not a famous movie star."

Zoe wasn’t sure she liked being dismissed so quickly as a loser. But she didn’t have time to chat about it with Ray. "Is Margo available?"

"Sure. I’ll get her. But my associates and I were talking, and you would make a perfect look-alike. Have you ever thought of creating a role for yourself as a Zoe Tarleton impersonator?"

"Not really." Zoe glanced at the door to the food mart. If Flynn shopped fast, he could be out any minute. "Listen, I don’t have a lot of time, so if you could get Margo, I would appreciate—"

‘Certainly. I’ll be happy to flag her down. But back to this impersonation idea—we’re in the market for tourist attractions in Long Shaft. I think Hollywood look-alikes are a viable concept, don’t you?"

"Ray, I really do need to talk to Margo."

"How did you know my name was Ray?"

"Margo told me." And she also mentioned that you got lucky recently, but let’s not go into that.

"Oh. Anyway, here’s Margo. Please think about the impersonation idea. Even though you’re pretending to be someone else, it’s still an honest way to make a living." His implication was clear. As opposed to being a prostitute.

Torn between laughter and frustration, Zoe massaged her temples. She shouldn’t have gone to the diner, but she’d been so damned hungry.

"Hello?" Margo sounded uncertain. She probably didn’t remember the Vera Parsons name switch.

Or had Zoe remembered to tell her? Life was getting way too complicated. "Margo, it’s me, Zoe. I found out the name of the hotel in Chicago. It’s …" She saw Flynn coming out of the food mart. "Shit."

"The hotel is named Shit? What is that, some Asian chain?"

"Sheraton. On Lake Shore Drive," Zoe murmured. "Gotta go." Snapping her phone closed, she tucked it back in her purse.

Flynn climbed in the car and tossed a plastic grocery bag into the backseat. "So you decided to call Trace after all?"

"No, I… uh, called my mother."

"That’s nothing to be ashamed about. When I came out you put the phone away like I’d caught you doing something wrong. I believe in checking in with moms. I call home every couple of weeks."

Zoe felt like such a rat for getting into this cloak-and-dagger business. A guy who called home every couple of weeks wasn’t the type to be hooked up with a stalker. Kristen was probably registered at the hotel and the bees were the work of a prankster who had no idea someone in the cabin was allergic.

"So where’s home?" she asked, wanting to talk about normal things.

"A little mining town in Arizona." Flynn started the car. "You never would have heard of it. I grew up there. Mom runs a B and B and Dad stages mock gunfights for the tourists."

"Really?" Just as she’d never picture Flynn having a girlfriend, she’d never pictured him with interesting parents, either. "Was your dad an actor?"

"Nope. Miner. But the mine played out, and the town stayed alive through tourism, so my folks got into that. I can relate to the struggles here in Long Shaft. It’s a similar situation." He made a U-turn at the end of the street, which wasn’t difficult because no traffic was coming into town.

"Is the B and B one of those Victorian places with all the gingerbread?"

"Uh-huh. And my mom puts on a high-necked dress with a hoopskirt."

"I’d love to see that." She was suddenly taken with the idea of visiting Flynn’s parents and looking at scrapbook pictures of him when he was a little boy. Maybe there would be one of him in his eggplant costume.

"My hometown would love to have you. You’d be the star attraction."

"I was thinking more along the lines of quietly sneaking in by the back."

Flynn glanced over at her. "Zoe, I don’t think that’s your destiny." He found a parking space in front of the Long Shaft Trading Post. "I have one more stop to make. I want to buy a flashlight."

"In case Bigfoot shows up again?"

"Right. I’ll be back in no time.”

"Okay." After he left, Zoe pulled out her cell phone again and called the diner. This time she was in luck Margo answered.

"Margo, it’s me. Did you call yet?"

"I called. She’s not there, Zoe."

Chapter Fifteen

Flynn had been so intent on getting a flashlight that he temporarily forgot that Jeff worked at the trading post and Luanne had asked to be dropped off there. He remembered both things when he spotted Luanne sitting on the floor over by the magazine rack, an open copy of People on her lap. She was so engrossed she didn’t look up.

He was free to study the rest of the store, which turned out to be a bewildering combination of snack food, junk jewelry, discounted CDs and videos, T-shirts and sweatshirts, plastic toys, and souvenir mugs. It could have been a truck-stop convenience store anywhere in the country except for the overriding theme of Bigfoot. Flynn spotted some of the same merchandise he’d seen in the Sasquatch Diner.

"Hey, dude!" Jeff appeared from around the end of an aisle featuring stuffed versions of Sasquatch in varying sizes. "Welcome to the Long Shaft Trading Post. We’re all Bigfoot, all the time."

"I can see that." Flynn glanced around, not finding what he’d come in for. "I need a flashlight, but you might not carry—"

"Oh, but we do, we do! Walk this way." Lumbering along in a great imitation of a Sasquatch, Jeff disappeared around the end of the same aisle.

Flynn followed him and came upon an aisle of camping supplies. Only these weren’t ordinary camping supplies. All of them had been molded, stamped, or otherwise branded with the image of Bigfoot.

Sleeping bags were covered in fur and had huge fake feet sticking out the end. Tents had oversize footprints all over them. Supports for a camp stove were made of metal painted to look like two hairy legs with oversize feet.

"Who manufactures all this stuff?" Flynn had never been camping in his life, but if he could camp with this gear, he’d consider it. What a hoot.

"Some dude in San Francisco. I think he did a lot of LSD back in the sixties, so he’s kind of whacked. But he inherited a bunch of money and he’s having fun with it, like designing Bigfoot camping gear. He doesn’t even, like, care if we sell it. Every once in a while he drives over to look at it on the shelves. He nods and smiles and goes away again."

Flynn walked up and down the aisle, finding new treasures by the second. He’d also been around Hollywood long enough to know this kind of crazy merchandise might catch on.

"What you need is a write-up in the LA Times," he said. "I can imagine this becoming the next new thing, with people making a pilgrimage to Long Shaft to buy a Bigfoot sleeping bag."

"Are you serious?" Jeff walked over and stroked the fur on a rolled-up sleeping bag. "Could you, like, make that happen?"

"I’m not sure. Maybe." Flynn had a soft spot in his heart for struggling little mining towns. "I’m not in the cool crowd, so I can’t promise anything, but I know a few people." Like the one sitting out in the car right now. "When I get back I could see if anybody’s excited about the concept."

"That would be awesome, dude." Jeff gazed at him with reverence. "Because I don’t know if you noticed, but this town is in trouble."

Flynn nodded. "I noticed. So where are the flashlights?"

"Right here!" Jeff lunged forward and plucked a statue of Bigfoot from a shelf. "Wa-la!" As he twisted the feet, light poured from Bigfoot’s open mouth.

"Excellent." Flynn took the flashlight and twisted the feet to make the mouth light up. Apparently the kid who had craved toys like this was still alive and kicking inside him. "Tell you what, I’ll take a sleeping bag, too, so people can see what I’m talking about."

It was the best excuse he could come up with to justify buying something he wanted anyway. He wasn’t even sure what he’d do with it, but he couldn’t leave the store without having one.

"Outstanding." Jeff tucked a sleeping bag under one long arm and started up toward the cash register. "Syd, that’s my boss, is gonna be, like, doing the bunny hop in the aisles when I tell him about this."

"Maybe you should hold off." Flynn hated to get anyone’s hopes up and not deliver. "I could be wrong. Like I said, I’m not one of the cool people."

"I know."

Flynn wished Jeff hadn’t said that so quickly.

"But I don’t think you’re wrong," Jeff added. "You look like you have your shit together, with your cell phone and everything. If you think that LA people would go for this, I believe you." He plopped the sleeping bag on the counter. "I can give you a discount on your purchases because you’re local."

"We’re only renting for the weekend."

"That’s good enough for me." As Jeff keyed in the sale, Luanne appeared at the counter.

"Tony, tell me you’re not buying one of those mangy sleeping bags."

"Sis, I’m warning you. Back off." Jeff punched the last button and the receipt started printing. "We’re executing a transaction here."

By the time Jeff finished lecturing his sister, Flynn remembered his name was supposed to be Tony. "You don’t like the sleeping bags?" he asked.

Luanne rolled her eyes. "No offense, but I think they’re dorky. I mean, what’s the point in Bigfoot anyway? Is Bigfoot cute? No. Does he run around fighting bad guys like Spider-Man? No. Bigfoot is plain useless if you ask me, which nobody ever does."

"That shows what you know," Jeff said. "Bigfoot is, like, a major tourist attraction."

"Then where are all the tourists?" Luanne planted her hands on her skinny hips. "We’ve had exactly two this year, Tony and Vera!"

"But my man Tony has a plan." Jeff beamed at him. "Right, Tony?"

"A possibility, at least." Flynn pulled cash from his wallet to pay for the flashlight and sleeping bag. His credit card happened to be issued to Flynn Granger, which would cause some problems.

Luanne plopped her People magazine on the counter and flipped it open to a picture of Zoe and Trace at a Hollywood party. "I want you to see this, Tony." She pointed to the picture. "Doesn’t Vera look exactly like her?"

"There’s definitely a resemblance." Flynn should probably buy a copy of the magazine and tack that picture of Zoe with Trace on his bedroom wall at the cabin, to remind himself that she was involved with someone. He didn’t care what she said about the level of involvement Trespassing was trespassing and he didn’t want to do it.

"Zoe and Vera could be twins. Even the smile is the same, and that’s the part that usually is so different When you see a movie where a person is playing the part of somebody famous who died, when they smile it really looks fake."

Flynn thought this munchkin was getting too close to the truth and needed to be diverted. "They say everyone has a perfect double somewhere in the world. That means that somewhere an exact replica of Luanne Dunwoodie is walking around this very minute."

Jeff snorted. "There’s a sickening thought. One is bad enough. If there are two like her, I’ll have to kill myself."

"You’re in a heap of trouble anyway," Luanne shot back. "Janice called this morning after you went to work."

Jeff tensed and his glance shifted. "What did she want?"

"To tell you that she couldn’t go out until eight tonight on account of she has to watch her little brother until then."

"Oh. Okay. No problem." Jeff’s expression relaxed again.

"There’s a problem all right. I asked her if you guys had fun last night, and she said you guys didn’t go out."

Jeff groaned. "Luanne, you have a really big mouth, you know that? And how come you didn’t tell me this when you first came in here this morning? Now Janice is probably madder than ever!"

"She thinks you’re two-timing her with Becky. So are you?"

"No! No, I am not. Becky is nothing to me. Wow, I need to call Janice and explain." He reached for the phone behind the counter.

"This I want to hear." Luanne crossed her arms. "You told Mom and Dad you were out with Janice last night. Something fishy is going on."

And Flynn didn’t really care what. At least Luanne was off the subject of Zoe look-alikes. He also didn’t want to leave Zoe out in the car for too much longer. Somebody might proposition her, for one thing.

He picked up the flashlight and sleeping bag. "Thanks for the help. I need to be going."

"Wait." Jeff looked distraught. "I didn’t put it in a bag or anything."

"That’s okay. I don’t need a bag." He wanted to leave before Luanne asked for a ride back to her house. Much more time with Zoe, and Luanne was going to figure out the disguise. "See you later."

As he went out the door of the trading post, he wondered if he should be concerned about where Jeff had been last night, after all. He’d met the guy out in the woods. Jeff could have come back later and put the bees under the porch, which would explain why they’d suddenly appeared first thing in the morning.

But suspecting Jeff of such a thing made no sense. Unless Flynn had become a lousy judge of character, Jeff wasn’t a vandal, and he’d have no other motivation for doing something like that. Early that morning, though, Flynn had heard soft footsteps right next to the cabin. Someone could have been out there.