Stand By Your Hitman (10 page)

“I’ll take the watch,” he said.

I looked at him sharply. “Do you think we’re in danger?”

He shook his head. “Most likely someone just wanted to scare us.” I couldn’t tell if he was lying to make me feel better. Eventually I succumbed to sleep, my head in his lap, grateful for his presence.

I came to as dusk settled on the beach. My head was pounding, my mouth felt like I’d eaten a monkey—fur and all—and I noticed that half my team was asleep out in the sand. I never did well with hangovers, being a lightweight and all. Amid all the commotion of the afternoon, the effects hadn’t seemed so bad, but now they were back full force.

“Missi!” Isaac whispered and I crawled over to where he and Lex were sitting with a bunch of bananas and a couple of coconut halves filled with water. I drank and ate like I’d never had food and water before.

“We’re trying to decide whether to vote off Cricket or Silas tonight,” Isaac murmured. We quickly looked over our shoulders to see Sami, Cricket and Silas still out.

Oh. Right. In spite of the explosion, we still had a game to play. And we still had Tribal Council coming up that night.

“I was thinking we should vote off Cricket.” Lex put his hand on the back of my neck and began to massage. I started to melt.

“But what about Silas?” Isaac pressed. “He’s just as bad as she is. They are both moody, surly and awkward during the challenges.”

Yeesh. I had no ideas for them. “We could pull what Inuit tried yesterday?” I suggested.

Lex shook his head. “No. They’ll be ready for that.”

“But I don’t want to vote anyone off!” I was getting a little whiny.

“Neither do we, but something has to be done.”

Isaac was right. We’d all signed contracts, agreeing to play the game as it was. There was no getting out of it.

“Fine. I vote for Cricket then. Silas at least pulls his weight around camp and we can use him in the physical challenges.”

Lex nodded solemnly. “I’ll wake Sami and tell her.”

I felt like shit. I didn’t want Cricket to go home. She had been pretty helpful during the ropes course challenge. But she was also conveniently missing when the shelter caught fire. If she was the saboteur, it would be good to get rid of her. And if she wasn’t, at least she’d be safe at the resort. Either way, voting someone off was a bad situation. The beer was wearing off and my tongue was starting to shed, but I still felt awful.

Silas came to and skittered over to me, taking a banana.

“So.” He peeled the fruit slowly and popped it into his mouth. “Who’s it gonna be?”

I didn’t have the heart to mess around. “You are staying. Cricket is going.”

Silas looked at me quietly for a moment. He’d never
really spoken to me before. I felt like I was seeing him for the first time.

“Okay,” he said. “How much time have we got?”

“Not long,” Isaac replied. “They should be here any minute to take us to Tribal.”

I wandered off into the trees to clear my head. Birds shrieked, snakes slithered and monkeys chattered, all amplified by my alcohol-addled brain. Within a few minutes I found Monty and Jack’s tree—at least the tree I usually saw them in.

“Boys!” I managed a stage whisper, then looked around uneasily.

“Hi, Mom.” Jackson unfolded himself upside down like a giant, red-headed bat. Monty was hanging next to him.

“You wouldn’t happen to have toothbrushes, would you?” I asked hopefully.

Monty laughed and handed me a bag. Inside were six toothbrushes and toothpaste, six sticks of deodorant and a bottle of aspirin. Damn, I love those boys.

“We don’t really have any info for you,” Jackson said.

“It’s hard to find out about Isaac. It’s like he doesn’t exist. I’ve found a few references to an Isaac Beckett who worked in Vegas a few years back, but the info is old and a lot of it is sketchy at best. There’s nothing about the kind of work he did, which is weird. It’s like he tried to have all records of him erased,” Monty finished.

“Well, that would fit his MO.” I tapped my chin. It
was very likely a bad guy would be hard to trace. My fingers itched for my special computer equipment, but unless I knew how to power a laptop using a banana, it would be useless. Now lemons, I could work with. I used them to power radios all the time.

“Hold off till we find something on Vic,” Jack said.

“And there’s something else,” Monty added. “I think one of your teammates is sabotaging the show. I saw—” He cut off his words, shrinking up into the tree.

“Missi!” Sami was right behind me. I turned slowly with a grin.

“Hey, Sami.” I tried to be nonchalant. Maybe she hadn’t seen the boys.

“What the hell are you doing here? The dumbasses are gonna come and get us soon. You hear about Cricket?”

I interrupted her. “Sami, what do you think about Isaac?”

She looked up with a grin. “Hell, you want to fuck him too? Damn, bitch, you are greedy.”

I shook my head quickly. “No! No, I mean in the game. I don’t think of Isaac like that.” No. More like dead victim, really. Dead victim I was in danger of liking.

“He’s okay. I don’t think the son of a bitch is all as good a poker player as he thinks.”

“What makes you think that?” I didn’t recall any poker games around the campfire.

“He’s just not good at bluffing. You can read him like an open book. Like the times you’ve given him
the cold shoulder—he tried to play it off like he didn’t care, but you could see he didn’t like it. Like I said, bastard’s got no poker face.”

I smiled. “Oh, and you do?” I felt a little bad that she’d noticed my avoiding Issac. But Sami was a different animal altogether, and I had yet to figure her out.

Sami stopped what she was doing and gave me a hard look. “Well, I haven’t made it this long as the only female electrician in my union without bluffing.”

It had never occurred to me that Sami might have had trouble in her profession. I mean, I worked in a usually male-dominated field with no worries. Of course, I worked alone and only the Bombays knew what I did. And if they gave me any trouble they knew I was a bitch at paybacks.

“How bad is it?” I was curious and I liked Sami.

“I could tell you stories that would make you shit your spleen.”

I didn’t press, mainly because I didn’t want to shit my spleen.

Sami continued anyway. “You know, folks think times have changed, but nothing could be further from the truth. Men are real bastards. They want to be able to say they have a woman working for them, but they treat you like a whore or an idiot.”

“I didn’t know it was that bad.” And you wouldn’t think so, would you? “Do you have any recourse through the union?”

Sami laughed angrily. “The union ignores me. When I complain about sexual harassment, they call me a
bitch. When I tell the guys I work with I don’t want to sleep with them, they call me a whore. It’s a no-win situation.”

“How do you deal with it?”

Sami grinned. “I call their wives or threaten to tell their daughters how they act. It isn’t a huge threat, but it works.”

I shook my head. “That’s horrible.” Suddenly I wanted to kill male electricians. I was lucky in that I didn’t really work in a sexist environment. Things tend to even up real fast when there’s the chance you can electrocute them with the lawn sprinkler. Actually, the Bombays have been pretty progressive over the centuries. I always suspected that went back to the beginning when the family realized the women were just as deadly as the men (if not more so).

“Yeah, well, dem’s da berries.” Sami stood. “Enough of this whiny shit. Let’s get back.”

As I followed her, I had a newfound respect for the woman. My guess was that very little in her life came easily. While I was impressed that she’d chosen such a male-dominated field, I was even more impressed that she hadn’t cracked. Or maybe she had. Maybe that’s how she ended up here.

The crew was AWOL again, so I doled out the toothpaste, toothbrushes, deodorant and aspirin to the group. Again, no one questioned me. That was weird. By the time Julie arrived we all smelled better. She looked at us suspiciously, but said nothing.

Each of us grabbed our torches and followed her in
the direction of the Blanco Tigre. Even though we had minty-fresh breath, we were pretty miserable (and by miserable, I mean hungover). Voting a member off was not something any of us wanted.

And then there was that other matter. The boys had said they’d seen something or someone that looked like the show was being sabotaged. From the mysterious fire, lighter and disappearance of Cricket to the exploding keg fireball, I had too much to think about.

I really didn’t care about the show. Alan and Julie were useless as far as I was concerned. But I was worried about one of the contestants getting hurt.

That concern, added to the fact the boys hadn’t been able to dig up anything on Isaac, made me very nervous. I wasn’t going to kill him without some real evidence of his wrongdoing.

This whole mess was just going wrong. Well, except for the Lex part. He was smokin’ hot. And he liked me. But I could work on that after the show was over.

As if he read my mind (which made me a little nervous, considering the fantasies I’d had about him recently), Lex put his arm around my shoulders.

“Are you okay?” he asked quietly.

“Oh, sure. I love screwing over a teammate. I’d do it every day if I could.”

Lex shook his head. “No, I mean after last night. We haven’t had much of a chance to talk about it.”

I nodded. “I’m fine. It just…” Just what? Freaked me out? Worried me? What should I say? “I guess I was a little shaken up. I’m okay now.”

“I think it’s pretty amazing that you saved us like that. How did you know the keg was a bomb?” he asked.

“I didn’t. I just had a bad feeling that something was wrong. It was pure gut instinct.” That was true. That and my superintuitive superpowers.

“Well”—he gave my shoulders a squeeze—“I don’t know what I’d do if something happened to you, Missi.”

I was just about to launch into an “Awwwwwww!” moment when that prick Alan spoke.

“Welcome to Tribal Council, Ottawa.” Alan had a torch lit directly under his chin to give him a scary face. How long had my mind been wandering? I didn’t even realize I was there. I had to try to stop doing that.

“As you know, one of your members goes home tonight. Missi!”

What? Did I do something wrong?

“Missi, what do you think of my little twist on the reward challenge this afternoon?” He smiled. Apparently he felt this was solely his show.

“Well, Alan, I thought it was dangerous of you to insist on alcohol poisoning. Using extremely strong beer and giving six people two hours to drain a whole keg is grounds for a serious lawsuit. My attorney will be in touch.”

Okay, so maybe that was a bit rough, but it was true. And I have to admit there was more than a little satisfaction in watching his face turn purple as I said it.

“Yeah, dumbass!” Sami shouted. “What kind of
morons are writing this fucking show anyway? I’m gonna kick your ass when this is over.”

Lex chuckled softly behind me. Isaac winked at Sami and me. Silas was quiet as usual, and Cricket, probably realizing her number was up, said nothing.

“Well…um.” Alan tottered. “Let’s get on with the vote. And don’t try to pull what Inuit did last time.”

Julie pointed at me and I walked over to the pad of paper. They were using the hotel stationery again. But the pen said
HAPPY JOE’S PIZZA
. Real authentic. I wrote Cricket’s name down, wincing as I did.

One by one my teammates cast their votes. No one looked happy. It was sad, really.

“I’ll go tally the votes.” Alan retrieved the lidless, clay pot and turned his back on us to hide the fact he was looking at the votes prematurely. Obviously, he didn’t trust us. And we felt the same way about him.

“The first vote is for Cricket,” he said, as if he hadn’t already read them.

I looked at the camp counselor for a reaction, but her face was impassive. She was holding up pretty well each time Alan read her name.

“And the last and final vote is for…Cricket?” He looked at all the tallies then looked at her. “You voted yourself off?”

Damn. Wish I’d thought of that. Here I’d been feeling sorry for Cricket and she wanted to go! In spite of my hangover, I felt a little better.

“You can’t vote yourself off! You’re supposed to want to stay!” Alan threw his hands up. Clearly the
game wasn’t being played the way he wanted. “What is wrong with you people?”

Cricket grabbed her torch and walked up to Alan, who stood there ranting and raving while she waited. After a few moments, she grabbed his snuffer and snuffed out her own torch.

“Me,” she said, “the tribe has spoken.” And then she walked off to the resort, leaving a stunned Julie to follow in her wake.

“Right. We’re done. Off you go.” Alan waved us away and we walked unescorted back to camp.

“Man, this game is fucked-up!” Sami said with a smile once we got back. Bert and Ernie hung with us, but they didn’t have their cameras on.

“Hey! Where were you guys last night? Not that we mind or anything. And where’s Jimmy?” Isaac asked.

Bert and Ernie shrugged. It was clear they weren’t going to answer. I had no idea why they were even here.

Lex and Silas built a nice fire and we opened up a few coconuts. Not a big feast, but the taste of Bavarian brew still lingered in my brain.

“How come you motherfuckers aren’t filming us?” Sami asked Ernie point-blank.

“Nothing’s really happening,” said Bert.

“Okay,” I began. “Do you have any idea why we had to run through two challenges in one day?”

“We’re going over budget,” Ernie said. “Looks like we’ll be shaving a few days off the schedule.”

Isaac asked the question on our minds. “How in the hell did you go over budget? You aren’t overspending on the challenges. Charades costs nothing. And the rewards are lame.”

“Yeah!” Sami kicked in, “where’s the money going?”

“Well,” Ernie said, squinting as if he didn’t completely trust us, “Alan’s using the presidential suite at the Tigre and running up huge bills with all the liquor and prostitutes.”

We just kind of looked at each other. Poor Inuit was starving to death and Alan was paying women to have sex?

“And then there’s his Hummer”—I assumed they meant his vehicle—“his driver, his daily hot stones massage…”

“I don’t think I can take much more of this. Please stop,” I begged. Picturing Alan naked with prostitutes was bad enough.

I told the group I needed to find coconuts and headed down the beach. Lex caught up with me.

“So, do you still think we made the right decision on our alliance?”

“Yeah. Sami is kind of a go-to guy, and Isaac seems okay.”
Oh yeah, and I need him in my alliance
so I can maybe kill him later
. I thought I’d leave that part out.

Lex looked at me for a moment. “Something’s bothering you.”

“No, it’s not.”
Yes, it is
. “Aside from being on the world’s silliest reality show, hosted by a narcissist on a beach near a resort, I’m fine.”

“You just seem a little distracted.”

“You don’t know me very well. According to my family, I always seem a little distracted.” And I usually
am when I’m about to kill someone. That’s just par for the course.

“All right.” Lex seemed to drop the issue. In all honesty, I was flattered that he was concerned about me. On the other hand, if he could read me like a book, that would be a problem.

“Changing the subject,” I said, fumbling for a segue, “what does a stunt man like to do for fun?”

He smiled. “You mean like on a date?”

I could feel all heat flushing to my skin as I floundered, “N-No! I mean, for fun. Leisure stuff.” I ended with a nervous giggle and hiccup. Real smooth.

“You’d be disappointed. I’m a pretty laid-back guy. I like hiking, going to movies, eating out.”

All date things! “By yourself?” Gak! Why did I ask that?

“That’s how it turns out most of the time. How about you?”

“Well, pretty much the same, really. I’m kind of boring that way.” What was I doing? “I mean, not that I’m saying you’re boring! I’m sure you aren’t! I mean…”

Lex brushed my hair out of my face. “It’s okay, Missi. I think I understand what you’re saying. And I don’t think you are boring either.”

“Okay, do you have any hobbies?” Why did I have to open up that can of worms? I sure as hell didn’t want to answer that question!

“I used to do a lot of sailing when I lived in California. I’d like to get back into that someday, but I’m kind of landlocked right now.”

Distract him! “Um, what did you like about sailing?”

“I love being outside. The sounds of the ocean are very relaxing and I like the rocking of the waves. There’s something very humbling about the whole experience.”

I could relate to that. I loved time to myself. Living on an island, there was always someplace I could go to work through my thoughts when I was working on a project. And being the mother of twins made alone time sacrosanct.

“And you? What are your hobbies?”

Oh, you know, killing people in mysterious ways. Confounding
CSI. The usual
. “I like to knit. And I travel whenever I can. I jog for exercise. Nothing as profound as you.”

Lex smiled. “I think anything we do for ourselves is profound. It’s easy to forget how valuable life is sometimes.”

Damn. He was getting to me. Smart and philosophical too? I couldn’t stand it!

The howler monkeys began hooting it up as dusk settled around us. The fading sunset was spectacular. On Santa Muerta, I usually enjoyed these scenes alone. It was weird to share it with someone. Especially a man like Lex.

“I suppose you even find the howler monkeys soothing?”

He shook his head. “No. And I can’t understand why they aren’t extinct here.”

I laughed. “I’m with you on that one.” The yowling
grew louder. “What I wouldn’t give for a blowgun right now.”

“I could make you one,” Lex offered softly. My immediate reaction was, Oh yeah? So could I, buddy! But it had been so long since someone offered to make something for me. Well, no one had ever done that. I was the one everyone came to for ingenuity. It was kind of nice to have someone else do it, so I just nodded.

Lex walked into the jungle a ways and returned with a foot-long piece of bamboo. I watched in amazement for ten minutes as he turned it into the perfect peashooter. Now, I would’ve done it a little differently, but I kept my mouth shut and helped him search the sand for pebbles.

A howler monkey dangled overhead at just the right moment. Lex put a pebble in his mouth and fired through the tube. The monkey howled in protest as he fled the scene. I knew the animal wasn’t hurt, just angry.

I kissed Lex on the cheek, and he pulled back in surprise.

“What do I get that for?”

“Because that is the nicest thing anyone has ever done for me.” It may have sounded dramatic, but it was true. This man was the first person who ever made something for me. And I thought it was terribly romantic.

We decided to head back and show everyone our new howler-monkey deterrent. Isaac, Silas and Sami were sitting around the fire.

Sami sighed as we joined them in midconversation.
“Those poor bastards over at Inuit. I don’t think they’ve eaten anything but fruit for the past few days.”

I sat up. “I’ve got an idea.” I pointed at the crew. “We’ll let you in on it, providing you don’t show the footage to anyone until the show is wrapped.”

Bert shrugged and Ernie nodded. Clearly loyalty to the show was a small matter to them.

I filled everyone in and they immediately agreed. Well, Silas mostly agreed. He’d apparently had enough of the bullshit.

Bert followed us with the camera as we made our way to the Blanco Tigre. I made my way to the front desk, trying to look like I didn’t just walk off a reality show.

It only took a few moments to book the El Conquistador guesthouse (I have the number memorized on my black American Express Card). Once I had officially checked in, I gave Lex and Isaac the thumbs-up and they left for the beach. Sami, Silas and Bert followed discreetly behind as the concierge showed me to the cabin. After explaining all the amenities, she left and my three coconspirators joined me.

“Jesus Christ!” Sami sank into one of the leather-bound easy chairs. “This is more like it!”

Bert grinned. Ernie was most likely at Inuit, filming the arrival of Lex and Isaac as they escorted the tribe here. This was going to be great when they revealed this footage during the editing process. I would have given anything to see Julie’s and Alan’s faces in the editing room.

I ordered ten surf and turfs, white wine and extra towels, fluffy robes, toothbrushes, toothpaste and deodorant. Then I took a quick shower before my guests arrived.

Being independently wealthy has its advantages. With a huge trust fund, I could make this show a little more livable. The guest house was a smaller version of the hotel, with five bedrooms and five bathrooms. It was completely isolated, and I had it reserved for the whole stay.

Ernie promised he’d get the other camera crew on board (it helped that I’d created a drinking tab on my dime for them for the duration of the filming) and swore that Alan and Julie never left the Tigre at night. The bastards apparently didn’t see any reason to leave when they had peons to take care of everything for them. They also expected us to live by the honor system. I was just coming out of the shower in my fluffy robe when a confused Inuit tribe walked in.

A couple of seconds after that, room service showed up with the robes, towels and toiletries and I sent everyone to shower up before the food arrived.

Lex came up behind me while I poked around the kitchen. He wrapped his arms around me and I could smell Irish Spring soap. That was interesting. I leaned back against him, closing my eyes.

“I think it’s great you’re doing this. But how can you pay for it?” he asked.

“Well, I charged it all to Alan’s room. I guaranteed
a thousand-dollar tip to the front desk if they kept it off the daily bill until we left.” Now, this wasn’t true, not yet at least. But I didn’t want any questions.

One by one, the rest of the contestants stumbled in, squeaky clean, wearing warm, fluffy robes. There was a knock at the door and Lex answered it, ushering in three waiters with carts full of lobster and steak.

I warned Inuit to eat lightly so they wouldn’t get sick. No one spoke for a while. I think they were afraid they’d wake up from a dream to a mouthful of sand.

Sami finished first, pushing away from the table. “Now that was fucking fantastic.”

The others nodded and for the first time, some of them smiled.

“Here’s the deal,” I began. “Everyone will have their own key to this house. Eat, drink, sleep, whatever. Just don’t get caught. The cameramen will film us here, but no one will see that footage until this is over and we are safely home.”

I explained that there were five bedrooms with bathrooms, so we needed to pair up. Lex and Isaac took one room, Sami and I another. Liliana and Kit, Brick and Dr. Andy, and Silas and Moe took the other rooms.

We sat and talked for a little while. EVERYONE thought this was a good idea. Around ten
P.M
. I called the front desk for a six
A.M
. wake-up call and ordered breakfast, and suggested we all get some sleep.

“Thank you—” Liliana started, but I shushed her.

“We all decided to do this. Get some sleep. We’ll probably have a challenge in the morning.”

One by one everyone drifted off to a bedroom but me. I wasn’t even tired. And I had some thinking to do.

I poured a vodka tonic and slipped out onto the patio. While I felt good about helping the others and sticking it to Alan and Julie, I still had a lot to worry about.

Somehow I still had this contract on Isaac. And there was the boys’ comment about a saboteur. What if someone got hurt? I really didn’t like the chances the show was taking with our lives. And the thought of sabotage was ugly.

“Can’t sleep?” Lex’s voice came from behind me and I jumped.

“Not yet. Just trying to puzzle things out, I guess.”

He wrapped his arms around me and I leaned against him. Damn, he felt good. I just wanted to melt into his skin until morning.

Lex’s hands stroked up and down my back, igniting a fire I haven’t felt in years. Ooh, I wanted this man.

“Lex, I…” I started to speak but he smothered my lips with his. This man could kiss. And I didn’t get kissed very often. Actually, not since Rudy.

My brain started swirling as his hands slipped under my bathrobe and I remembered that I had no clothes on. I pulled away for a second.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “Too fast? It’s just been a long time and I don’t know how…”

This time I crushed his lips to mine and slid my hands under his robe. I guess that answered his question and mine. I pulled him to a chaise lounge and within seconds we remembered how this sex thing was supposed to work. It was a quickie, to be sure. But oh man, what a quickie. With a houseful of guests and a jungle full of monkeys and jaguars, I felt like I was kind of in a hurry.

It seemed so simple until he entered me. Then it started to get very complicated. Well, not physically complicated. But my brain seemed to wake up from a coma. I kissed him as he rocked into me and it didn’t take long for me to explode (figuratively, for once, since most of my explosions are actually quite literal).

We lay there in each other’s arms for a long time, staring at the stars (with a cautious eye for jaguars). For some reason, words seemed useless.

“Wow.”

I turned to face him. “Wow?”

“What? Is something wrong with
wow
?”

“I’d just rather hear something more dramatic, I guess,” I said, and he chuckled.

“Missi, I want you to know that it has been a long, long, long time for me. I hope I didn’t force it on you.”

I sat up and turned toward him, closing my robe. “You didn’t. What do you mean it’s been a long time?”

“What? You think I do this all the time? I haven’t made love to a woman in seven years.”

“Really? Are you sure?” Of course I felt like an idiot as soon as I said it. Duh! I think he’d know if he’d done it since.

“Yes, I’m sure. My wife died seven years ago. It’s not something you’d forget.”

“Wow.”

“Wow? Is that all you have to say?” He chucked me under the chin teasingly.

“I’m a widow too. My husband died about fifteen years ago. I guess it’s been a long time for me as well.”

It occurred to me that this was a strange conversation and probably one we should’ve had before the hot sex. Why hadn’t it come up earlier?

“Surely you haven’t been celibate all this time!” Lex feigned mock horror.

I hit him with a pillow. “No. But my love life is staggeringly dull. Fortunately, my twin, teenage sons keep me busy.” Oops. I didn’t mean to mention that.