Nerds Like It Hot (Nerds, #6)(19)
Author: Vicki Lewis Thompson

"I don’t even know if Lex dances." Gillian stood and walked over to the dresser to get out one of the nightgowns Cora had loaned her. Might as well go to bed. "If he does dance, he probably doesn’t think there’s a single romantic thing about it."

"There was another event for tomorrow that sounded like fun. Couples get in the pool together and go underwater. Then you have to guess the word your partner is saying."

"Oh, God. Bathing suit time. I’d forgotten about that." "You’ll look great. And Lex’s tongue will be hanging out."

"Well, sure. Because he’s all about the sex, and bathing suits are sexy." Gillian sighed. Until the professor had introduced Couples Astrology, the evening had been going along so well. They hadn’t won the trivia contest but they’d come close, and Gillian had thoroughly enjoyed the flirting that had been involved in collaborating on the answers.

Then, supposedly just for fun, the professor had thrown in the astrology info. That’s when she’d discovered the Aries and Cancer situation, and the professor had provided an overview of that combination. None of the news had been good.

Afterward, Dante and BJ had wandered off for a stroll around the deck, but Gillian hadn’t felt like it, especially after Lex had said he thought astrology was stupid. So when Little Ben had said he’d walk Cora to her stateroom, Gillian had decided to go back with them and turn in. Lex had followed, and they’d argued all the way down the hall.

All the good feelings from the day and evening they’d spent together had vanished. Now she wanted her panties back. But she could hardly have asked for them with Cora and Little Ben right there.

The older couple had tried to mediate the argument, but it had been no use. Finally Little Ben had given Cora a sweet good-night kiss on the cheek and left. With a glare, Gillian and Lex had parted, each going into their separate rooms.

What a crummy ending to the evening. Disgusted with the outcome, Gillian wrenched open the drawer to get her nightgown. Then she paused in confusion. Everything in the drawer was a jumbled mess. Bathing suits, shorts, and T-shirts were all tumbled together as if they’d been whirling in a dryer.

Surely she hadn’t left it that way. "Cora?"

"What, darling?"

"Did you go into this drawer looking for something?"

"Sweetheart, that’s your drawer. I wouldn’t go rummaging through it without asking you first. You know, I think I’m going to try that limbo contest. What’s the worst that could happen? I could end up in traction. Then Benjamin would have to visit and bring me flowers."

"You’re absolutely sure you didn’t look for something in the drawers I’m using?"

"Yes, dear, I’m sure. I may be a little absentminded, but I would remember going through your things, which I definitely didn’t do." She paused and looked at Gillian. "Is something wrong?"

"I hope not." She opened the other drawer where she’d put her underwear. Complete chaos. Her stomach started to hurt. But everything seemed to be there. Everything except… with growing panic she pawed through the silky Victoria’s Secret items that Lex had bought her.

"Gillian, what is it?" Cora came over to stand beside her. "Is something missing?"

"I put my passport in this drawer." She started throwing the underwear out on the floor. "I know I did."

"Maybe it’s in the other drawer. Sometimes I’m sure I’ve put something somewhere, and it turns up somewhere else."

"God, I hope you’re right." She emptied the drawer and opened the other one. When she’d emptied that one, too, and she was surrounded by piles of her clothes, she tried to think. Had she moved it somewhere else?

But even if she had, that didn’t explain the state of the drawers, which had been ransacked.

Her throat dry, she stood on shaky legs. "Cora, I hate to say this, but somebody’s been in here. And I…" She swallowed. "I think they took my passport."

Fourteen

STEWING IN HIS FRUSTRATION, LEX HAD TROUBLE realizing that the noise he was hearing was his walkie-talkie. He grabbed it from the dresser where he’d tossed it when he’d stalked into the room.

If it was Gillian wanting to make up, he shouldn’t do it. What he’d told Dante was absolutely right. Getting involved with a client was a mistake, and he should have that tattooed on his butt. Better yet, he should have it tattooed on a body part that he was more likely to see every day. Like the body part that had gotten him into this fix in the first place.

He clicked the button on the walkie-talkie. "This is Lex."

Gillian didn’t sound like she wanted to make up. Instead she sounded petrified. "Someone’s been in the room. I think they stole my passport. Uh … over."

"I’ll be right there. Over." Lex clicked off the walkie-talkie. Then he switched to Dante’s frequency and headed for the door as he waited for Dante to answer. Lex was in the hall by the time Dante responded. "Someone’s been in Gillian’s room" he said. "Get down here. Over." "I’ll be right there. Over."

The metallic taste of fear sat bitterly on Lex’s tongue. Someone had penetrated the Marilyn disguise. Damn it, damn it, damn it.

Embarrassing as it was to admit, he’d been trying to convince himself that nobody on board this ship was a threat to Gillian. He’d wanted her to make a clean getaway via this cruise ship, but that had been unrealistic. Phil Adamo had a reputation for a reason. Obviously he didn’t want his stepson to go to prison, and the only way to guarantee that was to eliminate the witness.

Lex knocked on Gillian’s door once, and she flung it open immediately. Dante came running down the hall, and they both crowded into the room and locked the door behind them.

"Locks don’t mean anything." Gillian was breathing hard. "They were in here. We noticed some other things— makeup moved, shoes out of place in the closet, clothes on hangers shoved to one side. I’ve messed up my two drawers, but Cora hasn’t touched hers and they’re in the same condition."

Lex took a look in the closet and opened a couple of dresser drawers. There was no doubt someone had been going through Gillian and Cora’s stuff.

"Not very subtle, were they?" Dante said.

"That’s what worries me," Lex said. "If they got in that easily, they could have looked for what they wanted without disturbing anything. It’s as if they want us to know they were here."

"Why?" Gillian was wide-eyed, obviously fighting terror.

"I don’t know." Lex couldn’t make any sense of it. If Adamo had a man on the cruise who was assigned to get rid of Gillian, maybe even Hector Michelangelo, he’d have no emotional investment in the job. He’d be efficient, careful. He wouldn’t ransack someone’s room and steal things.

‘This is sort of creepy," Dante said.

Lex agreed, but saying so wasn’t going to help Gillian any. He turned to her, and all he wanted to do was take her in his arms, but that wouldn’t accomplish much at the moment. "Are you sure the passport is missing?"

"I don’t know where it could be if it’s not in one of those drawers. You’re welcome to double-check. I dumped everything back in the drawers, and I didn’t find it, but maybe I’m too upset to see what’s in front of my eyes."

"I’ll look," Dante said.

Lex shouldered him aside. "I’ll do it." He had the same aversion to Dante’s going through Gillian’s underwear that he’d had earlier today. Was it only this morning that he’d gone shopping at Victoria’s Secret?

"I’ll check my suitcase and my purse." Gillian hauled her rolling bag out from under the bed while Lex went down on his knees in front of the dresser.

He checked the bottom drawer first, and there was no passport lurking in the midst of her nightgowns, bathing suits, shorts, and T-shirts. Then he tackled the next drawer. Ah, that underwear. He’d agonized over what to buy, and here it was, ready to cradle her voluptuous body.

He had much more knowledge of that body, now, and touching her bras and panties brought back the pleasure of making love to her up on deck under cover of darkness and a very boring astronomy lecture. None of that mattered now. Everyone would be much happier if he could find her passport tucked somewhere in the midst of all this colorful silk and lace. He needed to concentrate on that.

But there was no passport. He closed the underwear drawer. "Sorry. It’s not in there."

"It’s not in the suitcase or my purse, either." Her color wasn’t good.

"We need to check the floor," Cora said.

"Right" Lex started with his quadrant. "Cora, you don’t have to do this."

‘Thank you for the special consideration, Alexander, but I can still get on my hands and knees."

"Okay, then let’s each take a quarter of the room. Look under both beds."

For a couple of minutes, there was no sound in the room other than the scuff of knees and hands over the carpet. They kept bumping heads and fannies in the process.

"I would hate for this to end up on America’s Funniest Home Videos," Dante said. "Four people crawling around on the floor of a place this size is not cool."

Gillian sat back on her heels, and her voice quivered. "We’re not going to find anything."

"I don’t think we are, either," Cora said. "And I’m happy to report that my back didn’t go out."

"Glad to hear that, at least," Lex said. "Dante?"

He got to his feet. "I think we have to face the fact that the passport’s gone."

"So do I," Lex said. "We’ve scoured the place. Assuming someone was in the room, it seems likely they took the passport."

"They could have had anything in here." Gillian twisted her hands in front of her. "Why that?"

Lex grasped at anything that might calm her. "I suppose it could be a crew member who is into identity theft."

"That wouldn’t explain the stuff tossed around," Dante said. "Someone who wants to steal her identity wouldn’t want her to discover that the passport was missing right away. They might even plan to return it after they’d scanned in all the info. So they’d want to be very careful and not leave a mess like this."

Cora stood and smoothed her dress. "So they intended for us to know they were here. What now?"

"Ordinarily we would notify ship security," Lex said. "But if we draw extra attention to the situation, the crew will be watching Gillian like a hawk and it’ll be harder for her to disappear once we dock in Mexico."

Gillian swallowed hard, loud enough so that everyone could hear her. "Or m-maybe I’ll disappear s-sooner than that. Maybe soon I’ll be swimming with the f-fishes."

Lex glanced at her and could tell she was about to lose it. She was blinking fast, but the tears gathering in her eyes would start falling any second. "Here, take my handkerchief." He reached into his pocket and pulled out… her panties.

For one awful moment, everyone stood staring at the red Victoria’s Secret item dangling from Lex’s hand. There was no retracting what he’d done. Each person in the room knew exactly what he’d pulled out of his pocket.

"Wow," he said. "This is awkward."

Dante coughed. "What I have to know is whether you had them in your pocket before you came in the room just now, or whether you filched them from Gillian’s underwear drawer while you were looking for her passport."

"Um, well, I—" Lex snuck a peek at Gillian. She looked on the verge of something. She was sort of red in the face, but he couldn’t tell if she was about to laugh or cry.

"Take your time, buddy," Dante said. "If it’s answer A, then okay. You’re a stud and I have to give you credit. If it’s answer B, then there are some things you and I need to talk about, you being my partner and all. I mean, you did insist on shopping for that stuff, and I didn’t think too much about it at the time, but—"

"Before," Gillian said. "He had them in his pocket before." Then she burst out laughing and snatched the panties from Lex’s hand.

At least Lex hoped she was laughing. It sounded like it, but tears were streaming down her face at the same time. He dug deeper in his pocket, and this time he came out with an actual handkerchief. "Here," he said. "And I’m sorry."

"Personally, I’m relieved," Dante said. "I’m all for alternate lifestyles, so long as somebody else is leading them. I might have been able to work through discovering that my best friend was into women’s underwear, but I’m not saying it would have been an easy transition for me. We go back a long way, and I—"

"Dante," Cora said. "Shut up."

"Yes, ma’am." Dante sat down on Cora’s bed.

Gillian used Lex’s handkerchief to mop her eyes and blow her nose. "Thanks." She held the handkerchief in one hand and her panties in the other. "I’ve never known the etiquette of this."

Cora cleared her throat. "I don’t believe Emily Post ever envisioned something along these lines, darling. If you gave the panties to Lex and you want him to keep them as a souvenir, then I suggest you return them now. We’ll all pretend this never happened."

"You can pretend if you want," Dante said. "But I’m here to say I’ll never forget it. The look on the Lexter’s face when he pulled those undies out of his pocket… now there’s a moment for America’s Funniest Home Videos’"

"Dante . . ." Cora sent him a warning glance.

Gillian hiccupped. "I wasn’t talking about the panties. I meant Lex’s handkerchief. Do I give it back to him now, or what?"

"Full of snot?" Dante made a face. "I should hope you wouldn’t. See, this is why tissues were invented, although if Lex had been a tissue kind of guy, we wouldn’t be sharing this special moment."

"You can give me the handkerchief," Lex said.

"Well, now." Cora glanced at Gillian. "I would say that’s a very romantic gesture."

Dante wrinkled his nose. "You would? Then let me pass that on to Little Ben. We’ll see if he has any used hankies around. Maybe he could make a little bouquet of them."

"Honestly." Cora put her hands on her hips. "That’s not what I meant and you know it."