He nodded toward her hand. “My hat?”
“Uh huh,” she grunted and held out the cap.
“Yeah ... cool,” he said, reaching for it.
Her grip didn’t quite let go when he grabbed it. His thumb briefly brushed her hand and he thought she might faint. Her eyelashes fluttered wildly and she seemed to snap out of a daze. She let go of the hat and smiled.
“You’re welcome,” she cooed sweetly.
All in all, quite an attractive picture; too bad she was all hopped up on some new club candy she’d probably picked up on South Beach.
“Well ... um ... thanks.”
“You’re welcome,” she said in exactly the same tone she’d used before.
He shrugged his shoulders and closed the door in her face. He shook the dampness out of his LSU hat and slipped it over his drying hair. He looked back at the door. Through the blinds over the front door window he could see the girl was still standing outside. Poor thing was probably stoned out of her gourd.
He wondered idly if he should call the police, but then another thought crossed his mind; how had she known it was his hat? He replayed the morning’s events and came to the conclusion that she must’ve seen the whole boat incident. Had she seen him steal the cowboy hat? That settles that, he thought, no police.
He squinted at the girl’s blank face through the partially closed slats on his front door ... but what if she goes to the police? And does what? Reports a stolen cowboy hat?
He glanced over his shoulder to see the straw hat precariously balanced on one of the futon’s wooden armrests. The cool ocean breeze drifting through his open windows teetered it back and forth ... beckoning him.
Well that certainly didn’t go anything like I had planned, thought Karah Campobello as the door politely closed in her face. She stood on his front porch in a daze.
God, he’d been so stunningly good-looking she’d frozen up when he opened the door. It was probably the fact that his tan chest was still dripping with salty water and his waist was barely wrapped in a beach towel.
He’d taken off the cowboy hat and sunglasses (and his khaki shorts) and put on a towel that exposed a fresh tan line ... and a glimpse of a script tattoo on his waist that read, Geaux Tigers! She’d been right; his eyes (framed by a slight raccoon tan line) were an amazingly deep ocean blue. She caught herself starting to drool and snapped out of her trance.
She tried to think of an excuse to knock and start again, but nothing came to mind.
“Dammit, Karah,” she muttered, “think!”
As she stood there, she realized she could see him through the blinds on the door’s square window. Suddenly, she felt very much like a Peeping Tom, or Peeping Sally, as it were. Instantly, she crouched down to hide herself from the window ... and immediately regretted it.
She wondered how many people strolling up and down the beach had witnessed her odd behavior. So, she turned toward the ocean, sat down, stretched out her legs and pretended to belong on the porch.
She cringed when she heard the door open behind her. Surprisingly, the man (now wearing the LSU cap) sat down beside her. He had his hat tipped back and his sunglasses hanging from green Vineyard Vines Croakies around his neck again. He held two open Coronas.
“Beer?” he asked and held one out for her. “I’d offer you a lime,” he said with a smile, “but they went bad last week.”
Karah took the beer and took a long drink. It was ice cold. A few grains of sand bit her lip in a way that made it taste like the best beer she’d ever had.
“I guess you’re wondering what I’m doing sitting on your porch?”
“Yeah, somethin’ like that.” He sipped his beer. “Kinda strange, really.”
She grimaced. “I know it’s a little creepy (he nodded) but I just saw you lose your hat and it washed up to my dock and I thought it’d be a good way to get to meet you and—”
“So,” he interrupted her, “you’re not all jacked up on pills or speed or somethin’ are ya?”
She crinkled her nose. “Huh? What? Ha! No!”
He visibly relaxed and laughed, and Karah smiled her best million-megawatt smile. “I guess I did sound a little crazy, huh?”
“That ya did, that ya did.”
She slapped her hand to her forehead and laughed. “Ugh ... I’m sorry.”
“Next time,” he said, flashing his own Tom Cruise-esque grin, “just knock on my door.”
They sat in silence for a moment with the waning sunlight and the briny breeze blowing across the porch.
“Troy,” he said simply and held out his palm.
“Karah,” she said shaking his hand.
“Nice to meet you, Karah.” He stood up and wagged his empty beer bottle. “Another?”
She nodded and handed him her dead soldier.
“Cool.” He tilted his head upward. “Let’s have these on the roof and catch a killer sunset.”
Now this, she thought, is a little more like it.
8
Georgiana On My Mind
Georgiana Starlington was more than a little tired when she walked into Lee’s Inlet Kitchen this morning. It’d been a long night of bartending at Drunken Jack’s and after work she’d been coerced into having a few more fruity-umbrella drinks with her cousin.
“Just one more!” her college aged cousin had yelled. “Woooohooooo!!”
And one more had inevitably turned into four—or maybe it’d been five more—before they crashed for the night.
The breakfast crowd was shuffling in, booths and tables filling with old salty dog fisherman types getting ready to hit the sea up for its daily bounty. Some smoked while they ate and Georgiana thought hazily that she might’ve even smoked a cigarette last night.
She shook her head to clear the cobwebs. Not as young as you used to be, girl, she thought.
She dropped her things into a locker in the back, pulled on her apron, grabbed two plates and hurried out to the dining room.
As she put the breakfast specials in front of two white-haired men, she found her smile and tried to brighten her voice to match. “Good morning, boys,” she said and winked at one of them. Neither replied, and just nodded thanks and started to eat.
Yikes, she thought, I must look worse than I thought. The two men, who she knew as Whitey and Felton, were usually quite chatty. Whitey just stared at his newspaper and Felton smiled a little, but she could see it was just to be polite.
She was about to ask what was wrong, but as she did the bell on the front screen door dinged and a police officer walked in ... they often ate here before their morning shifts.
Grabbing a menu, she ushered the officer toward a seat at the bar. As he sat, Martha, behind the counter, shoved a cup of steaming black coffee in front of him.
‘I—” he started, but Martha interrupted.
“Two plates up, Laura-honey.”
“Martha!” Georgiana snapped back at the older lady behind the bar. “Who’s going to get the plates?”
Martha silently mouthed the word sorry and spoke louder. “Two plates up, GEORGIANA.”
“Yes, ma’am,” she said and headed back to the kitchen.
Georgiana Starlington was actually not her real name. After years of experience with stalkers and crazy guys, she’d learned never to use her real name when she was serving, daytime or night. Laura-Kate was the name given by her mother when she was born, but there were very few people who knew her by that name.
She’d chosen Georgiana to remind her of the last few years she spent with her mom in the Tanner Hospital in Carrollton, Georgia before the cancer took her away. After she graduated from the University of West Georgia with a bachelor’s in Environmental Science, she packed a suitcase with her most prized possessions (some clothes and a couple of books) and drove east, all the way to the coast. She’d thought finding work in her field would be an easy thing to do, given the current administration’s fervor over the environment, but apparently, everyone else had thought that too. So,
bartending and serving paid the bills ... for now.
It was a crazy morning at the Inlet Kitchen that never let up. Through lunch until two-thirty, Georgiana never got a break and never had anything to eat herself. Her hangover had become a throbbing headache, and threatened to sideline her for her dinner shift and late night bartending at Drunken Jack’s if she didn’t get something in her stomach. She pulled her apron off, put in an order for some clam chowder, and poured herself a sweet iced tea.
She slid into a seat at the bar next to the police officer that had come in earlier.
“You still here?” she asked, smiling.
“Ha, no, made a couple of stops and came back,” he said and smiled over his own iced tea. “I actually didn’t come in for breakfast earlier. I came to see you.”
Georgiana’s mind raced. What had happened last night? Oh God, did we drive? No, we took a cab, I remember that much ... What could it be?
He must’ve seen the trepidation leap into her face, because he immediately held up his hands, and said, “You haven’t done anything wrong, miss. I just needed to talk with you about something.”
Her mind leaped to another unacceptable conclusion; oh geez, he was here to ask her out.
“Look, Officer ... ?”
“Biggins.”
“Officer Biggins, I’m flattered. I truly am, but I’m really ... unavailable at the moment.” She couldn’t remember how many times she’d waved off potential suitors and wannabe daters at the bar with one line or another like this.
He picked up his napkin and wiped his smiling mouth. She was having trouble reading this guy.
“No ma’am.” He blushed. “I’m not here to ... well, never mind that. I’m here because we’ve had a piece of evidence come up in a case that ... ”
He paused and stepped off his barstool. He reached into his pocket and produced what looked like a Ziploc bag. It said EVIDENCE on the side and contained a rumpled piece of paper.
It was her turn to be a little flustered. She’d basically just accused him of hitting on her, which in his case might not have been all that bad. She guessed most people would say he was plain. He wasn’t particularly tall, not ridiculously handsome, but good-looking enough. His hair was cut short, but not quite a cop buzz cut. He did have a nice smile though.
“Tell me what you can about this,” he said, handing it to her.
Georgiana flinched ... Oops, was I staring? She felt the warmth in her cheeks and hoped they weren’t too red.
“It’s a receipt.”
“Yes, I can see that. But we found this receipt on someone that was apparently tortured ... and ultimately murdered.”
“Murdered?” she asked, looking closer at the receipt.
Chesney nodded, pinching his lips together.
She checked the date and time stamp. Couple of days back, lunch rush ... her mind searched back through the faces she had seen, but there were too many such days and they all ran together.
The signature line was a scribble, no help there either. The tip line was written in a curvy scrawl too, kind of familiar, kind of like ... Georgiana felt her hands go numb.
“Twenty-five dollars,” she whimpered and felt tears sting her eyes. “Oh my God.”
Apparently not noticing her sudden surge of emotion, the officer said, “Yes, quite a lot, we thought, but hey, you are the town’s best ... ”
That was the last thing Georgiana (Laura-Kate) heard before she fainted.
9
Ev’rybody Jus’ Be Cool
Darren “The Body” McGlashen was sweating something fierce. He could tell his foot was swelling in his shoe, but he was afraid to unwrap the tourniquet. His tattooed accomplice, Man’ti, was driving, but the New Zealander kept trying to drive on the wrong side of the road. He’d nearly killed them both heading straight into the headlights of a UPS truck. They swerved just in time to leave a brown scrape where the driver’s side mirror had once been ... not that he cared.
It was a stolen van that the previous owners had apparently stolen from the seventies. Bronze, with white pin striping around each and every panel, the van’s look couldn’t be considered complete without the airbrushed sunset on the back doors. Two crescent-moon shaped windows in each side near the back let light into a bed built for two. Orange shag carpet on the walls carried the musty odor of long past parties with beer, wine, cigarettes and cigars. Under the dash, clearly bolted on aftermarket, was an 8-track tape player, currently housing The Best of The Doors. Darren had insisted on fast-forwarding and flipping, fast-forwarding and flipping, again and again in an attempt to find his favorite Doors song, Been Down So Long. After several of Darren’s failed search attempts, Man’ti grabbed the whole 8-track player, jerked it out from its loosely screwed in perch, and flung it out his window.
“What the f—” Darren cried, incredulous, but upon seeing his companion’s dark eyes, he let it go.
Man’ti swerved again, jerking Darren so hard to the right he hit his head on the passenger side window.
“I dunno which is worse, mate,” Darren said through his fevered haze, “the pain in m’ foot, or your drivin’.”
Man’ti said nothing.
A muffled ding sounded from Darren’s pocket and he murmured something incoherent about a big trouble and flipped open his prepaid anonymous cell phone. He squinted into the blue light of the phone, trying desperately to make out the last message. He held the phone closer, then farther, then closer. The haze of pain in his head blurred the image, making it completely unreadable. Frustrated, he snapped the phone shut and shoved it back into his pocket.
“Gotta stop, mate ... ” Darren’s head lolled from side to side, “ ... find me a chemist, mate. Amcal, Saugatuck, somethin’.”
“You’re delirious,” Man’ti growled, “ain’t none o’ them places here.”
Darren gritted his teeth and screeched, “DRUG STORE!! Find a damn drug store—”
His scream was abruptly interrupted when Man’ti’s fist slammed into his jaw. The darkness that closed in around him was comforting. So, so comforting.
Man’ti had had enough of the scrawny guy’s wailin’, so he knocked him out. He thought he might be right about needing meds though, so he pulled into the CVS just a few blocks away from Crazy Sam’s Mini Warehouse where they’d been camped out.
He wasn’t sure what to get, but he thought the Pharmacy bloke ought to be able to point him in the right direction. He parked the stolen van, but left it running. When he walked in, he could feel the stares of the workers inside, but he was used to it.
He stood almost two-hundred centimeters and weighed one-hundred-fifteen kilograms, average for most inmates at Rimutaka Prison in New Zealand, but way above average for CVS #2736 in Murrell’s Inlet, South Carolina. Picture an American Football linebacker, but meaner.
The girl at the register in the front of the store just stared and pointed when he asked for the druggist. He walked slowly to the back of the store, picking up duct tape, diapers and petroleum jelly on the way.
The pharmacist’s eyes went wide at the site of the hulking man at the counter. Man’ti calmly put his things down in one of the chairs near the pharmacy window, pulled the .38 from his belt, and pointed it at the man in the white coat.
“Larry,” he said, finding the man’s name on his CVS nametag, “I need somethin’ fa pain and somethin’ fa infection.”
Larry didn’t move. Instead, he peed. Man’ti smacked the man on the side of his head, not to kill him, just to put him out.
He walked behind the counter and two female pharmacists cowered behind the medicine shelves. One was crying, the other was shaking and moaning.
“Ev’rybody jus’ be cool,” he said as tucked the gun back into his belt. “Jus’ gotta get some drugs for m’ friend.”
Friend was a stretch, he thought, but he needed Darren alive to get what he was after.
He pointed to the pharmacist who was crying. “You, get the pain pills.”
She grabbed
a prescription bag from the counter and began shoveling medicines in and sobbing.
“And you,” he said, turning to the pharmacist who was now rocking back and forth, but seemed to have it together somewhat, “antibodies.”
“Well, what’s the infection? I can’t just give you anything ... ”
Man’ti lurched forward, jutting his jaw an inch away from her nose. She yelped like a hurt animal.
“Toes,” he growled, “ripped right awf.”
She nodded and grabbed a bottle of pills. She shoved them into Man’ti’s hand and sputtered, “This will help fight infection, but if there are bone splinters or jagged edges, it could become re-infected at any—”
“Got it.” He grabbed the bag of pain pills and shoved the antibiotics in with them. “G’night, ladies.”
He stepped over Larry, the pharmacist, and gathered his things from the chair in front of the counter. As he walked by the candy aisle, he grabbed a giant bag of orange circus peanuts, some peanut M&M’s, and three bags of Haribo brand gummi bears.
It was tough to carry all that he’d picked up and things kept slipping and falling from his arms. At the front door, he dumped all his stuff into one of the shopping baskets.
“May I?” He raised his eyebrows at the girl standing at the front register. She turned and ran toward the back of the store.
“I take that as a yes.”
10
#Hottie #Headboat #Ouch
Troy woke in the hammock hanging from the pilings under his beach house. He had come here to sleep so that Karah could have the bed to herself. She’d protested, saying that she would take the futon and he could have the bed, but the futon was unsleepable for more than a nap, so he’d insisted she take the bed and he would make do. And so, here he lay. He didn’t mind at all, as he’d spent more than a few nights under the house in the hammock; sometimes it was planned, sometimes it was due to the fact he couldn’t find his keys.
The Complete Troy Bodean Tropical Thriller Collection Page 12