Nerds Like It Hot (Nerds, #6)(29)
Author: Vicki Lewis Thompson

"Yeah, but I have a new theory. I’ll tell you about it later."

"Right. But keep an eye on him." Dante fanned out the bills in his hand and raised his voice. "Looks like everyone’s ready to back his woman." Eyebrows lifted, he glanced at Lex.

"Oh, for crying out loud." Lex reached in his back pocket and took out his wallet. "Here." He held out a ten to Dante. After he handed it over, he checked to see if Gillian had seen the exchange.

She was staring straight at him, so obviously she had. He couldn’t tell from this distance how she’d reacted to it. He hoped she’d think it was funny.

Jared raised the microphone. "We’re ready to start! Music, maestro, please!" The sound of a steel band poured out of the speakers mounted on deck, and the first contestant shimmied under the bar as the crowd began to clap.

Lex evaluated her performance and decided she wouldn’t be a contender. He didn’t care about his ten bucks, but he wanted Gillian to win. She’d had a tough time, and she deserved this.

Dante nudged him in the ribs. "Here comes BJ." As she wiggled under the bar, Dante whooped and hollered in encouragement.

BJ gave him a big smile when she was finished.

A couple of contestants later, Emily came through and Irwin went crazy yelling for her. Lex was seeing a pattern. Although he wasn’t the type to make a public spectacle of himself, he’d better do it in this case, or Gillian might never forgive him.

As it turned out, cheering her on was easy. Once she started under that bar, her back arched to show off her br**sts and her body moving to the beat, he not only shouted and clapped, he whistled.

She was laughing by the time she stood upright again, and she waved at him before getting back in line for the next round.

Lex punched Dante on the shoulder. "Did you see that? Did you see how good she looked? Wow! She’s something!"

Dante chuckled. "So are you, buddy. It’s good to see you in the game."

Lex barely heard him. He was too busy concentrating on the other contestants and looking for weaknesses. By the time the field had been cut down to ten, he was convinced that Gillian had it in the bag.

And he could hardly wait to get her back to the room. She had moves on top of moves. As far as he was concerned, she was the sexiest woman to ever wiggle her way under a limbo stick. And he wanted some of that. Very soon. It was a damned shame they’d have to stop off for condoms on the way.

A couple more rounds, and the field was down to five—Gillian, Cora, BJ, Dorothy, and Emily. Lex was surprised that Nancy was out. She’d had an awkward fall that eliminated her. He’d thought she might be the one to beat, but now that she was gone, he thought Gillian would walk away with it.

On the next round, Dorothy lost her balance and fell, eliminating her chances.

"I hope one of us gets to take home Hector’s money," Dante said. "Just for the principle of the thing."

Lex had already decided that if he won the pool, he’d leave the money for Dante. It wasn’t much, but added to the value of Lex’s car and a few other personal items, it might help the PI agency a little.

He watched as Hector comforted Dorothy, and then the two of them melted into the crowd. "I can’t see Hector anymore," he told Dante quietly.

Dante lowered his voice. "He was with Dorothy, though, right?"

"Yeah, but I don’t know if that means anything. I suppose they could be working together."

"That doesn’t fit," Dante said. "I’m no expert, but I don’t think the Mafia guys use women as partners. Anyway, it may not matter. We’re out here with a ton of witnesses."

"Good point." Lex did feel better when there was a crowd.

"We can relax, I think. Nothing’s going to happen right this minute."

Lex grinned. "Except my girlfriend’s going to whip your girlfriend’s ass." "No way."

"You watch how she goes under that pole like she owns it." Lex’s grin widened as Gillian leaned back. How she kept her balance in that position he had no clue, but it was giving him ideas for later. He began to cheer her on.

She was nearly under the pole when a funny rumble caught his attention. He wanted to keep watching Gillian, but some instinct told him to find the source of that rumble. He looked up in time to see a large metal drum topple from the catwalk. It was falling straight toward Gillian, and she didn’t see it

Twenty-two

INSPIRED BY LEX’S CHEERS, GILLIAN WAS GIVING THE performance of her life. Closing her eyes, she concentrated on the rhythm of the steel drum band and the delicate business of keeping her balance. She’d forgotten that balance had been one of her talents as a teenager. Recapturing that ability had been easier than she’d expected. She was going to win this limbo contest.

Then Lex’s happy cheers changed to a shout of alarm that ruined her concentration. She fell with a thump and her eyes popped open. That’s when she saw the barrel heading in her direction. Even without her glasses she could see it was big enough to squish the life out of her.

Before she could react, someone grabbed her arm and dragged her out of the way. The barrel smashed into the deck, splintering the boards as it landed. Gasping for breath, Gillian looked up to see who’d dragged her to safety.

There was Lex, his face drained of all color as he stared at the barrel imbedded in the deck. He was clutching her arm so hard it hurt, but she didn’t care. He’d saved her life.

Pandemonium erupted after that. Jared rushed forward, still clutching his live mike, so his wails of concern carried all over the deck. Nancy was right behind him, along with Dante, BJ, Cora, and Little Ben. They crowded around so tightly that Gillian had no room to stand up.

Maybe she shouldn’t stand up. She was feeling a little woozy. Her throat constricted when she tried to speak, but finally she cleared it and got some words out. "Lex, I need some air."

Immediately he lifted his head and began to shout orders. "Get back! Everyone step back. She needs to breathe!" Then he helped her up. "That’s it. Take a deep breath. Another one." Although he loosened his grip on her arm, he didn’t let go of her.

She discovered that was a good thing, because now that she was standing, she was starting to shake. "M-maybe I should sit down."

"Right over here." Lex guided her to a lounge chair. "It’s an adrenaline rush. I’m feeling it, too." He made sure she was settled before crouching next to her.

"How about water?" Cora edged closer, as if wanting to do something, anything, to help.

"Thanks, Cora." She managed a smile. "Not right now."

"Anything she wants, she can have." Jared hovered nearby. "I can’t imagine what happened. One of the crew members has gone to get the captain. This is horrible. Terrible. All our equipment is inspected thoroughly before we sail. We take no chances with the safety of our passengers, I promise you that."

"Shut up, Jared," Cora said. "We don’t need your blathering to complicate the situation. Have you sent someone up to investigate how that barrel came loose?"

Dante appeared beside Cora. "I just checked it out the cables were cut."

Everyone gasped except for Gillian, Lex, and Cora.

"Why, that’s insane," Nancy said. "I’ve heard about sore losers, but this is ridiculous. It was only a silly limbo contest."

"No kidding!" BJ said. "You really think somebody’s that upset about missing out on a free manicure?"

"You never know," Nancy said. "Some people can’t stand to lose, no matter what’s at stake."

BJ moved closer to Dante and linked her arm through his. "In that case, we have a sicko on board, and we’d better find out who it is."

Lex continued to concentrate on Gillian, massaging her hand and looking intently into her eyes. "What can I get you?"

"My glasses."

He reached in his shirt pocket and pulled them out "It’s a miracle they didn’t break when I dived for you." Opening the earpieces, he put them on with all the finesse of an optometrist.

"Thanks." Her lips felt frozen.

"Anything else? Water?"

"Nothing, thanks." She was afraid to put anything in her mouth for fear she’d choke. "I’ll be okay." But she doubted it. She’d thought the theft of her passport was a scary thing. That was baby stuff compared to this.

Someone had tried to kill her. She gazed at Lex. It was good to have him in focus. "Did you… see what happened?"

"No. I heard a noise and looked up. The drum was already falling."

Cora glanced around at the circle of passengers. "This is positively maddening. There are a bunch of us out here who witnessed this. Somebody must have seen something. There was obviously a person up on that catwalk. Did anyone notice who was up there?"

"I saw some movement up there," Nancy said. "But I couldn’t actually see a person, I mean, not well enough to tell if it was a man or a woman."

Gillian’s gaze came to rest on Nancy. Something about her wasn’t right, and the comment about a man or a woman tickled a thought that had been bothering Gillian ever since she’d met their dinner companion. The limbo contest had caused Nancy to sweat, and the makeup along her jaw had come off.

Because she worked in makeup, Gillian was familiar with the texture of a woman’s skin, especially along the jawline where a man had a beard and a woman didn’t. Nancy’s skin where the makeup was gone had the rougher texture of a man’s skin. There was a good chance that Nancy Roth was a man.

That in itself wasn’t particularly shocking. Hollywood was full of cross-dressers, and so Gillian shouldn’t be surprised to find one on this cruise. Still, she thought Lex and Dante might want to know about this.

As Gillian was contemplating how to make a graceful exit so she could talk to her bodyguards, the captain arrived looking suitably official with his gray hair, mustache, and spanking white uniform.

"Hello, everyone. I’m Captain Hull. My sincere apologies for this terrible incident."

"Wait a minute," Dante said. "Are you saying that you’re a ship’s captain with the last name of Hull?"

"I’m afraid so." The captain shrugged. "One of life’s strange coincidences. And to make things even more unbelievable, my first mate is Mr. Stern."

Dante shook his head. "I’m in the middle of a Monty Python movie."

Irwin raised his hand like a kid in elementary school. "My dentist is Dr. Payne. I thought that was kind of funny."

Emily laughed on cue like a good girlfriend. "It is funny, Irwin."

"That’s nothing," BJ said. "I once went to a sex therapist named Lotta Qunmings."

"You made that up," Dante said.

"Nope."

Dante stared at her. "You really went to a sex therapist? What’s that all about? Do we need to talk about this?"

"We can talk about it later, but I’m all fixed now. And I didn’t make up her name. She’s well-known in San Jose."

"I’ll just bet she is," Dante said.

Gillian felt a smile tugging at her mouth. She hadn’t thought she’d ever smile again. "Thanks, BJ," she said. "Whether you made it up or not, that was exactly what I needed." She swung her legs off the chaise. "I’m okay now."

"Rest assured that we’ll be looking into this," said Captain Hull. "I have no idea what happened, but we intend to find out. In the meantime, any extra services the ship can offer are yours for the asking at no charge."

"Thank you, but I’ll be fine." Gillian’s conscience was pricking her something awful. The very nice captain had a damaged deck and suspicious behavior to investigate because of her. She’d brought her problems on board this ship, complicating life for everyone.

Maybe complicating wasn’t a strong enough word. What if the metal drum had missed her and hit someone else? A killer wasn’t always as accurate as they could be.

If she’d been thinking of anyone besides herself, she should have notified the police right after finding Theo. Then she could have gone into the witness protection program and become a stock girl at Wal-Mart. Problem solved.

Except not really. The Mob could find her, no matter where she relocated. Things like that happened all the time. Wherever she went, she could easily put others in danger from stray bullets or exploding bombs. Murder witnesses were like some creepy virus, infecting everyone they touched.

With that cheerful thought, she stood and discovered that her legs were steady enough to take her away from this crowd of people. And away was exactly where she wanted to go. She wished the ship docked in five minutes.

"I’m going back to my stateroom," she said.

"I’ll go with you." Cora stepped forward.

"That’s okay." She smiled to make sure Cora didn’t take her comment as a rejection. "I really want to be alone."

Lex took her arm. "Sorry, but that’s not happening."

"No, it certainly isn’t." Cora moved to her other side. "Benjamin, walk with me for a while."

"I’m coming, too." Dante hurried after them, dragging BJ by the hand. "BJ, do you mind giving up the rest of the limbo contest?"

"No biggie. The limbo bar was crushed like a match-stick, anyway," BJ said cheerfully.

Gillian moaned.

"Sorry, Gillian." BJ sounded contrite. "I didn’t mean to upset you."

"What about the money?" Irwin called after them "What about the limbo pool?"

"I’ll return everybody’s money!" Dante called over his shoulder.

"Yeah," BJ said. "What was that with all the money changing hands? Were you betting on us?" "Sort of," Dante said. "Were you or weren’t you?"

"Dante, I’ll handle this." Little Ben hurried to keep up with everyone. "Ladies, each gentleman placed a wager on the woman of his choice. I considered it gallant, like the jousting matches in the days of King Arthur."

"Time out, professor," BJ said. "Those were ladies of the court giving their scarves or whatnot to the knights of their choice. There’s a big difference between that and betting who will make it under the limbo stick." She tugged on Dante’s hand. "You’d better have bet on me."