Beachcomber (44 page)

Christy knew what losing a father felt like. “I’m sorry.”

“Yeah.”

A beat passed.

“So you were in the Marines? Really?”

“What do you mean,
really?
Yes, really. Just for the
record, I haven’t told you a single lie since …” His voice trailed off as if he were trying to remember.

“Since I caught you in all those lies?” Christy filled in sweetly.

“Yeah, about that long,” he said.

“Okay, you were in the Marines,” Christy said. “Then what did you do?”

“I finished college. Then I went to law school.”

Christy sucked in her breath. It was all she could do not to turn around and glare at him. “You lying
scum… .
”

“No, I really did. Emory University. Then I joined the FBI.”

“Is that the truth?” she asked suspiciously.

“Honey, I have to tell you, your lack of trust wounds me, it truly does.”

Christy’s grunt expressed her opinion of that.

“Where are your mother and brother now? Are you close to them? Do you see them very often?”

“My mother’s a teacher. She still lives in Atlanta, in the house I grew up in—see there, I really am a lawyer from Atlanta, I didn’t lie as much as you think—and I see her when I can, holidays, special occasions, weekends here and there. Yeah, we’re pretty close. My brother is thirty—I’m thirty-two, by the way—and he’s a dentist. We’re close enough where every time I get around him he wants to look at my teeth. By the time Christmas is over, I usually feel like a fricking horse.”

Christy laughed.

“You know what? Your laugh is almost as sexy as your legs.”

“That’s it,” Christy said, rolling onto her stomach again. “I’m out of here.”

“My ear,” he groaned. Then, as she got to her feet and reached for her towel, “No, wait, I take it back. Your laugh
is
as sexy as your legs. And that’s saying something, because your legs are really, really sexy.”

Christy could see him now, stretched out on the sand behind her, one arm propping up his head, a teasing half-smile curving his lips. He was wearing faded blue swim trunks and Ray-Bans and that was it, and he looked so gorgeous that he stopped her breath. He was a veritable beach god, all gold hair and bronzed skin and rippling muscles, and she got a severe attack of lust just from looking at him. It was getting increasingly harder to keep the fact that he was a lying jerk firmly fixed in the forefront of her mind, but at the moment, if she was in danger of forgetting, all she had to do was feel the hard plastic of the wire between her breasts. He’d been dealing in illusion since she met him, and his beach godness was an illusion, too. A very good illusion, a sexy, mouth-watering, good-enough-to-eat illusion—and she wasn’t surprised to discover two college-age girls on towels behind him ogling him while they rubbed lotion on their legs—but still just an illusion.

The truth was that he had been hard at work ever since she’d first laid eyes on him, and despite appearances he was hard at work now. The laid-back hunk was kind of his wolf-in-sheep’s-clothing disguise. Underneath he was a federal agent prepared to do whatever it took to get the job done.

Including using her. For all his sweet talk, the fact was that to him, bottom line, she was the means to an end.

Unless she wanted to wind up with a broken heart, it would behoove her to remember that.

“Looking good, babe,” he said in her ear as she walked past him.

Her lips compressed, and it was all she could do not to make like the bullies with the ninety-pound weakling and kick sand in his face.

By the time Christy reached the cottage she was feeling positively grumpy. She knew that Luke was a discreet distance behind her, watching her every move, but still she couldn’t shake the prickly nervousness that had been her constant companion for days. She found herself jumping at every sudden sound or unexpected flutter of movement, and the sensation of being watched was so strong that she could feel it like a touch against her skin. Of course, she
was
being watched, between Luke and the cameras he had set up she was being watched pretty much twenty-four/seven so the feedback her sixth sense was giving her was necessarily muddied. But the knowledge that Michael was out there somewhere, that his goons were out there somewhere, that someone who wanted her dead and had already tried twice to kill her was out there somewhere, kept her constantly on edge.

The fact that she had fallen hard for a man who might very well walk out of her life as soon as he got through saving it was simply the icing on the cake.

As she reached for the patio door handle she happened
to glance through the glass, and stopped dead. The sight that met her gaze drove everything else from her mind. Angie and her friends had gone shopping with Gary as glum-faced escort right before Christy had made her reluctant trek to the beach. Now they were back. Gary perched wide-eyed on a barstool in the kitchen with a sheet around his shoulders. While Angie and Amber hovered around, Maxine was taking a flashing pair of silver scissors to his hair. Fine red hairs fell on the sheet like snow in a blizzard.

Christy’s jaw dropped.

“Oh my God,” she said, and pulled the patio door open.

“What’s up?” Luke’s voice rasped in her ear.

“You’re not going to believe this.”

“Shit.”

Popping the earpiece from her ear, turning the wire off, Christy stepped inside and closed the door after her. Gary’s eyes met hers in a mute plea for help. It took her a minute to realize that he wasn’t wearing his glasses.

“What are you doing?” she asked, looking beyond him at Maxine.

“Giving Gary a whole new look,” Amber said, looking around.

“It’s a makeover,” Maxine explained as the scissors continued to go
snip-snip
around Gary’s head. “You know, like those extreme makeovers on TV.”

“You should see his new clothes,” Angie put in.

“Oh my God,” Christy said again, as it became clear that Gary had already lost at least half of the previously
thick thatch on his head. Her eyes met Gary’s. “Did you volunteer or were you drafted?”

“A little of both.” He gave her a strained-looking smile.

“Oh Gary,” Christy said in helpless sympathy. He was a lying jerk, too, but not nearly as big a lying jerk as Luke, and in that moment she truly felt for him. It was clear that he was in the hands of forces too powerful for him to control.

“It’s okay,” he said, with the air of one who was determined to be brave to the end.

“You bet your booties it’s okay.” Maxine, still snipping, sounded insulted. “I’ll have you know I’m a professional hairdresser. You’d pay sixty bucks for this cut at home.”

The patio door slid open. Christy’s eyes cut around to discover Luke, panting and perspiring, in the opening. Sunglasses in hand, he was wearing only his trunks with his shirt and towel slung over his shoulder, and his eyes had a haunted look as they fastened on her.

“Maxine’s giving Gary a haircut,” she explained.

Luke’s chest heaved. Then his mouth clamped shut. Christy met his fulminating look with innocent surprise, then grinned, realizing that he had raced all the way up from the beach because he’d thought she was in danger. The taut skin around his eyes crinkled as he narrowed them dangerously at her.

“I was surprised, too,” she said.

“Hey, Luke,” Gary said feebly.

Luke’s eyes cut to Gary. He stared at him for a moment, then began to grin.

Maxine put the scissors down. “Amber, hand me some of the gel,” she said.

Amber passed it over. Maxine squirted some out, rubbing it on her hands.

“It’s a makeover,” Angie told Luke as Maxine stepped in front of Gary and ran her hands through his hair.

Luke stepped inside and closed the door.

“Voilà!” Maxine exclaimed, and pulled the sheet away from Gary with the air of a magician pulling a rabbit out of a hat. She stepped to one side, and Gary, looking dazed, stood up.

Except for the blaring TV, there was a moment of profound silence.

Gary’s hair was short and mussed, standing straight up all over his head in the newest fashionable style. He was wearing chunky leather sandals, baggy khaki shorts that reached past his knees, and a bright blue Hawaiian shirt over a loose-fitting navy T-shirt that said Coors. He looked good. He looked cool. He definitely did not look like Gary.

“Unbelievable,” Amber said, clearly impressed.

“Way to go, Maxine,” Angie added.

“You really think so?” Gary looked both pleased and uncertain. His eyes sought out Christy and beyond her, Luke.

“You look great, Gary.” Christy meant it. He wasn’t a hunk by any means; no amount of haircutting and clothes buying could change him into a babe magnet like Luke, but the geekiness was definitely gone. Gary could now go walking out with Amber and Maxine on each arm and have them look like they belonged there.

Luke was grinning as he looked Gary over from head to toe.

“Looking good, man,” he said.

Gary started to say something, but the
beep-beep-beep
from the TV that signified a breaking news bulletin interrupted. All eyes cut toward it.

A reporter stood in front of a modest frame house that had been roped off with yellow crime scene tape. In the background, police and other official types could be seen moving about.

“We’ve just been informed that authorities believe they may have found the serial killer who has been terrorizing women throughout the Outer Banks. Called to a residence in Nags Head by a neighbor who reported hearing gunshots in the wee hours of the morning, police stumbled upon a scene that one officer described as being straight out of a horror movie. The male suspect, whose identity police have not yet made public, has apparently committed suicide inside the residence. The remains of at least five victims have been recovered so far. Police believe there may be more. Authorities are working now to confirm the identity of the victims, but clothing and other personal effects found with the bodies have led authorities to tentatively identify them as some of the missing women previously identified as probable victims of the man known as the Beachcomber.”

32

“Y
ES!”
Maxine gave a punched-fist salute when cameras cut away to another story.

“Now aren’t you glad we didn’t go home?” Amber crowed.

“Christy? Are you okay?” Angie asked quietly, moving to stand beside her, nudging her arm. Christy realized that she had been staring at the TV transfixed. Her heart pounded, her knees had gone weak, and she was feeling distinctly light-headed. Was it possible … ? Could the man who had attacked her really be dead?

It seemed impossible. It seemed too good to be true.

“Christy?” Angie prompted.

Christy glanced at her sister, and realized that Angie was looking concerned.

“Yeah, sure, of course I’m okay. That’s good news,” she said, and summoned up what she hoped was a reassuring smile.

Angie’s attention was distracted just then by Maxine whooping, “
Par
-ty!”

Christy’s gaze swung around to Luke. He was still standing right inside the door. Their eyes met, and he
crossed the room to stand right behind her. She felt his arm slide around her waist, and was glad of its presence. Leaning back against him, thankful for his solid strength, she absorbed the damp heat of his skin against hers, the soft springiness of the hairs on his chest, the firmness of his muscles and the hardness of the arm around her waist, the way a thirsty plant soaks up water. She needed him right now, she realized. Needed his presence, needed his support, needed his shared knowledge of what was at stake.

“Par-ty! Par-ty! Par-ty!” Maxine and Amber were doing a kind of celebratory war dance, chanting and shaking their assets as they went. For today’s shopping expedition, they’d put on microminis, tube tops, and high-heeled wedgie sandals, and their progress around the room could best be described as a jiggle-fest. Marvin, who’d apparently been hiding beneath the couch, took fright at their antics and shot down the hall and out of sight.

“Okay, guys, cool out. You’re scaring Marvin,” Angie yelled at her friends, and at the same time signaled time-out with both hands in case they couldn’t hear her above the noise they were making.

“Who cares about Marvin? They’re scaring
me,
” Gary muttered. He was standing beside her now, Christy discovered at a glance, and she was still so unused to his new nongeeky persona that she had to look a second time to make sure it was him.

“We need to celebrate.” Maxine had stopped chanting, but she was still moving, grooving to a beat that only she—and maybe Amber, who was also grooving—could
hear. Christy watched them for a moment: two big-haired, big-busted Jersey girls in tiny clothes. It was enough to make her nostalgic for home.

“Let’s go out to eat,” Amber said, dancing toward Gary and hooking her arm through his. Christy could feel Gary crowding closer to her in a useless attempt at evasion. “Then maybe we’ll hit a few nightclubs. I feel like having a
par
-ty.”