Gone With the Nerd (Nerds, #4)(37)
Author: Vicki Lewis Thompson

"But she did. That took some real effort, and some ingenuity. And she also contacted Jeff."

"That’s crazy! Why would she …" His voice trailed off and he looked stricken. "He lied to his parents about where he was Friday night."

"She might have hired him. I thought the same thing."

"I hope to hell that’s not the explanation."

"But you’re not so sure, are you?"

He shook his head, and his gaze was haunted. "No. No, I’m not so sure."

"She wants to see you at the motel. She’s in room fifteen. She asked Margo to pass on the message."

"I’ll go right now." He ran a hand over his bristly chin. "I was planning to get cleaned up before I went to see her, but I think I’d better just leave."

"Do me a favor. Have the conversation out in the parking lot, not inside her room. And take your cell phone."

Flynn opened his mouth as if to say something, but then he closed it again. "Okay, I’ll do that. I won’t be gone long, but maybe you should start packing up. Once you’re out of here, we can get the police involved."

She felt the urge to laugh, which was bizarre considering the circumstances. Maybe she was getting hysterical.

"What’s wrong? What did I say?"

"You told me to start packing." She swallowed a giggle.

"So what? It’s a good idea. Get a jump on it so Margo can take you back to Sacramento."

"Flynn, in order to pack up my stuff, I’d need a chain saw."

He blinked. "Oh. Right." Pausing, he took a deep breath. "I apologize, Zoe. I know an apology doesn’t cut it considering everything that’s happened, but I take full responsibility. If I hadn’t told Kristen where I was going this weekend, none of this would have happened."

She stepped closer, until they were almost touching. "I wouldn’t change a thing."

"Are you kidding? You’ve risked getting stung, blown to bits, and flattened. I would sure as hell think you’d like to change some of that!"

"Not if it means changing the rest of what happened." She put all the things she couldn’t say into her eyes as she looked up at him.

His expression softened. "I think that would have happened without all the scary stuff."

"You never know. Change one thing, change everything. Besides, what if you hadn’t found out about Kristen? What if you’d married her?"

He cupped her face in both hands. "I figured out yesterday that wasn’t an option anymore."

"When yesterday?"

"After I realized that I didn’t know the color of her eyes, but I had a dozen different ways to describe the color of yours."

She grew warm and shivery at his implication. "Oh."

"Yeah. Now I really need to go. I’ll let her know it’s over between us, and warn her that she’d better not retaliate in any way."

"Margo already said something along those lines. Long Shaft’s a small town. I don’t think she’ll get away with anything else."

"But we need to bring an investigative team in here. If she’s responsible, then she needs to be charged, along with whoever’s been helping her."

"Don’t tell her that." Zoe was still worried about his safety.

"I won’t." His kiss was gentle. "I’ll be back soon." "Good."

With another quick kiss, he released her and walked quickly through the living room and out the door.

"Be careful!" she called after him.

"I always am!" he called back.

And she loved that about him. A girl wanted to know that a man was careful when she was about to hand him her heart.

Now that she realized that Kristen was all wrong for him and might even be a psycho stalker, Zoe didn’t feel so guilty about the sex. In fact, she believed that she’d saved him, in a way. Without hav**g s*x with her, he might have married Kristen, only to find out too late that he’d hitched up with a loony.

What if they’d had kids? What if the kids had inherited the psycho gene? Yep, she’d done Flynn a huge favor. The favor had been more than returned, though, because she had a much better idea of how to tackle the nerd role, and then there was the whole sexual compatibility thing combined with a possible happily-ever-after thing. In die area of favors, she still owed him, big-time.

Because she couldn’t pack, she decided to make another pot of coffee and open up the cornflakes Flynn had bought yesterday. When he got back they could each have a bowl while they discussed how to leave Long Shaft with as little fanfare as possible.

She was setting the table when she heard Margo’s "hello" drift through the front door. Apparently she had decided to come over and inspect the tree damage for herself. Zoe couldn’t blame her. It wasn’t every day you saw a bedroom full of tree branches and pine needles.

"I’m back in the kitchen," Zoe called out. "I started a pot of coffee, if you want some."

"No, thanks," Margo said as she walked through the kitchen door. "I don’t have the time." She had on a white vinyl mini and a white stretch top this morning. A sparkly headband held her hair away from her face, and her makeup was gaudy but perfect.

"Are you headed to work?" Zoe couldn’t imagine slogging off to the Sasquatch Diner on Sunday morning to wait tables. She felt sorry for Margo, whether Flynn thought she should or not.

"No, I have the day off, remember?" Margo carried a pink vinyl satchel over her shoulder. "You were supposed to need a ride back to the airport."

"Oh, right! I still do need one. But as you can imagine, I won’t be hauling along any luggage this time. Wait until you see the bedroom. It’s a mess." She put down the two cereal bowls she’d brought over to the table. "We can go look now, if you want."

"Not now."

Zoe glanced at her in confusion. Something about Margo’s behavior wasn’t right. "So did you change your mind about the coffee?"

"No. I haven’t changed my mind about anything." She pulled something that looked very much like a gun out of her satchel.

Zoe didn’t like guns, and if Margo thought she needed one to defend herself from Kristen, well, too bad. "If you brought that for me, I’m not comfortable taking it," she said. "Flynn will be back soon, and I don’t know how to use guns anyway."

"That’s okay. I do." Her dark eyes gleamed.

Alarmed, Zoe shook her head. "No, Margo. I won’t have you standing guard over me with a gun. That’s too weird." And she noticed something else. Margo was wearing little white gloves, like the kind they used to use for some of their cheer routines. Zoe couldn’t figure out why, unless …

Margo lifted the gun and pointed it at her. "Then how about if I just shoot you with it? Would that be a little less weird?"

Zoe’s eyes widened and she found breathing was a real chore. "Don’t even kid around about something like that!"

"Believe me, I’m not kidding."

Zoe hadn’t thought she was kidding, either. From the moment she saw the gloves, she’d begun to figure it out.

Kristen Keebler, Harvard law professor, might not like Zoe very much, especially now that Flynn was no longer a viable marriage prospect. Kristen might be delighted if Zoe suddenly had to go on location for several months in the crocodile-infested waters of the Amazon.

But Margo fit in a whole other category. Margo didn’t like Zoe at all, not even a little bit. In fact, Margo wanted her dead.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Flynn had barely arrived at the motel when his cell phone rang. He pulled into the parking lot and shut off the engine. Might as well answer his cell before heading to room fifteen. Zoe might be calling him. Or even Kristen. At times like this, he couldn’t ignore his cell phone.

"Tony!" Luanne sounded as if she’d been running.

Flynn groaned. "Luanne, I’m sorry I didn’t call you back. But I don’t have time to talk now."

"Me, either! You have to come back to the cabin!" She was panting.

"Luanne, if this is about the tree, I know about the tree."

"No! It’s about Miss Taggart!"

An alarm buzzed in his brain. "What about her?"

"I was going over there to see you guys because I. figured you forgot to call, and I saw Miss Taggart’s car there instead of yours. Well, I don’t like her, which is why I never asked if I could call her by her first name, so I started walking around the house, and then I saw the tree, and—"

"Get to the point, Luanne." Tension was building in his gut.

"I’m trying to! I heard loud voices, so I went sneaking up to the kitchen window and peeked in. Tony, Miss Tag-gar t was pointing a gun at Zoe! So I ran home to call you!"

The world tilted, and when it settled back onto its axis, Flynn saw everything with complete clarity. Of course. He reached for the ignition. "Call nine-one-one."

"I did! They put me on hold, so I hung up! Tony, you have to come back and save Zoe!"

"I will." His body felt as if it had been chiseled from a block of ice, but he would get there and he would save her. He had to. Peeling out of the parking lot, he gunned the motor on his way down the main drag. Then he deliberately ran the red light. Maybe he’d attract the attention of a cop who would follow him to the cabin.

But the street was deserted this early on a Sunday morning, so he was free to drive 80 miles an hour past the Sasquatch Diner and the Bigfoot Trading Post. The road to the cabin was filled with potholes and he hit them all at speeds guaranteed to ruin the shocks.

He should have trusted his gut with Margo. He’d known she was bad news. He’d known. She’d thrown suspicion onto poor Kristen, who might or might not be at the Bigfoot Motel. Kristen had been a pawn in Margo’s scheme to get Zoe. But why? Revenge for a missed prom? That just didn’t seem right.

As he neared the cabin he slowed down. If he had a chance of saving Zoe, he’d have to sneak up on Margo. Several yards from the clearing he pulled over, turned off the engine, and got out of the car. Margo’s neon green car still sat in front of the cabin.

He tried to listen for voices, but the blood rushing in his ears made hearing tough. God, he had to be in time. And if he was in time, what then? He was unarmed. He didn’t know martial arts. Where the hell were the cops in this town? He’d broken the speed limit by 50 miles an hour, for crissake!

As he crept around the side of the house, he heard them talking and sent up a silent prayer of thanks. Although he couldn’t make out what either of them was saying, Zoe had managed to keep herself from being shot, at least so far. Maybe she’d convinced Margo to put away the gun.

He had to climb over the tree and snagged the back pocket of his pants on a branch. Rather than bother to untangle himself, he ripped the material free. Cool air blew on his ass, and he didn’t care.

On the far side of the tree he came face-to-face with Luanne and Bigfoot. In broad daylight it was easy to identity Jeff in a costume, but at night, in the shadows, Jeff could have fooled anyone, including him.

Flynn panicked. He wasn’t sure why Jeff was in costume, but neither of these kids had any business being here, putting themselves in the possible path of a woman with a gun. Where the hell were their parents? He mouthed, Go home.

Jeff shook his head. "We’re backup, dude." he said in a low voice.

Shaking, Flynn walked closer. He was getting rid of these two before they got hurt. "Go," he said. "Now." Luanne lifted her chin. "We have a plan."

"Take her home," Flynn said, appealing to Jeff.

"Dude, maybe you should listen. She’s smart."

So was Flynn, but he had no plan. He’d never envisioned a situation like this. So he leaned over and put his face close to Luanne’s. "Okay, I’m listening. Make it fast."

Zoe couldn’t believe that she hadn’t seen the hatred in Margo’s eyes long before this. Surely the woman had given off clues, clues Zoe had totally missed. So now she was in a hell of a fix.

Fortunately, Margo had a laundry list of grievances and apparently wanted Zoe to hear them all before pulling the trigger. She’d started with elementary school. Zoe didn’t remember Margo from elementary school, and that seemed to be part of the problem. Their alphabetical pairing up had started then, but Zoe had been oblivious to Margo, probably because she’d had a crush on Jimmy Switzer, who’d sat in front of her.

From Margo’s standpoint, Zoe had ignored her all through elementary and had barely noticed her in middle school. Margo had worked to get on the cheerleading squad just so she could become friends with Zoe, and even then it hadn’t really happened.

"But now we’re friends!" Zoe said. "Or at least we were, until you pulled a gun on me. I have to tell you, Margo. pulling a gun on someone really puts a crimp in the relationship."

"We’re not friends." Margo sneered at her. "You never once invited me to come and see you in that fancy house in Malibu. now did you?"

"You want to come to Malibu? Hey, we can arrange that. Let’s get out the calendar and—"

"Don’t move!" Margo raised the gun and pointed it in Zoe’s face.

In the course of her career Zoe had done a few movies that involved guns. She’d never much liked them, even as props. She especially didn’t like them when they looked loaded. This one did, although loaded and unloaded guns probably looked the same. Still, Zoe imagined the chambers seemed fatter somehow.

Her job was to avoid having one of those fat chambers discharge a bullet in her direction. In the movies, characters always tried to talk their way out of a situation like this, or at least stall until help arrived. Zoe knew that Flynn would be coming back. She had to stay alive until then.

She took a deep breath, which always calmed her before a scene. "So you’re going to shoot me because I didn’t become your friend? Maybe it’s me, but that seems a little extreme, Margo."

"Oh, there’s a lot more to it than that. Do you remember Rob?"

"Of course I do. I feel horrible about the prom, if it’s any consolation." Judging from the gun in Margo’s hand, it wasn’t.

"The prom?" Margo laughed. "The prom is chump change. I hated not going, but I’ll tell you what I hated worse. Zoe, have you ever been pregnant?"