Marty Ambrose - Mango Bay 03 - Murder in the Mangroves (10 page)

“Sorry to hear that about Gina. She was a good kid who
worked hard. Mama Maria must be cut to pieces.”

“She is.”

“All I can tell you is, keep your focus, kiddo. Follow the
story, and press Nick Billie for details when you can”

“Bernice might make that difficult to-“

“You can handle her.”

“But-“

“Kiddo, you’re what we used to call a `body magnet.’”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Whenever there’s a body, you seem to be there. Don’t
worry-it’s a good quality for a reporter. Some journalists go
their whole lives without ever seeing so much as one corpse.
You’ve seen three now, and it’s only been your first year on
Coral Island.”

“Lucky me” What the heck was I doing wrong?

“I’ll say. I’ve only seen half a dozen in thirty years.”

Leave it to Anita to keep a head count. “Does Mr. Benton
know you’ve put Bernice in charge?”

She laughed. “Yeah, he knows”

I detected another guffaw in the background. A masculine one. All of a sudden something clicked in my brain. Benton
was gone. Anita was gone. Had they gotten that chummy when
the office was being repainted last year? Double yuck. “All
right, Anita. Fess up. Is Mr. Benton with you?”

“She wants to know if you’re here with me,” Anita said, directing her voice away from the receiver.

The man laughed again, and she hung up after instructing
me to “hang in there”

Ohmygod. Anita and Benton. Hadn’t my world been rocked
enough today? Now I had to deal with the mental image of my
skinny, gum-cracking, sixtyish boss hanging out with Mr. Benton, a short, stout, balding cheapskate.

I replaced the receiver and slowly sank onto my kitchen
chair.

The phone rang again, and I stared at it, not daring to pick
up. After five rings, the answering machine kicked in, and I
listened.

“Mallie? Are you there? It’s Sam. I wanted to remind you to
bring your sparring gear to Tae Kwon Do tonight and-“

I snatched up the receiver as if it were a lifeline and not just
Sam, the island’s metaphysical handyman and my Tae Kwon
Do mentor. “I’m here. I was screening calls.”

“Are you okay? You sound funny.”

“It’s been one of those days-the kind where you want to
curl up under the covers and hide for the rest of the week”

“It’s only Monday. You’re not going to do that,” he replied
with thinly veiled amusement in his voice. “Come to class tonight. You need it. And you can tell me all about your day.”

“You sure?”

“Yup. See you in an hour.”

As I hung up, my mood lightened. Sam was one of the
smartest people I knew-and the most patient. He’d help me
make sense of today.

My glance fell to the tee from the Frozen Flamingo where I
had flung it onto the table.

That might be too much, even for Sam.

An hour later, I strolled into the Island Health and Fitness
Center, wearing the white pants from my Tae Kwon Do uniform, called a dobok, along with the Frozen Flamingo T-shirt.

A few muscle-bound guys doing free weights threw me wolf
whistles. “It pays to advertise, babe,” one of them joked.

“Thanks a lot.”

I quickly moved into the small room off to the left where
we had Tae Kwon Do class. Sam was already there, his black
belt tied neatly around his trim waist. He was close to sixty
but had that ageless look of a man totally at peace with himself. Head mostly bald, a tiny gold hoop in one ear, he appeared
to be a cross between the guy-next-door and the Dalai Lama.
Sam could talk about Descartes or the current American Idol
and fix whatever ailed your house-or trailer, in my case-all
in one visit.

The Jordan twins, Morgan and Megan, were already there
warming up, along with a tall, broad-shouldered guy who had
his back to me. I allowed the blue-belted twins one envious
glance. At seventeen, they could kick as high as professional
dancers and move like lightning. I hated sparring with either
one of them because I always ended up with bruises from head
to toe. They showed no mercy to someone of my advanced age
of twenty-nine.

“Mallie, what’d ya do? Put your face in an oven?” Megan
sniggered.

“No, I used the microwave.”

“Morgan, Megan, finish your warm-up” Sam motioned them
to the bane so they could stretch their legs. As if they needed it.
Then he turned to me, concern in his eyes. “What happened?”

“At the last minute, I was given the assignment to cover the
Little Coral Island trail opening this morning. I didn’t realize
it would take almost three hours to hike it. You know my skin
and the sun”

“Did you get some aloe?”

“I bought some lotion right after the walk.”

“No, you need to take the raw stalks from the plant, split
them open, and rub the gel on your face. There are some growing outside-I’ll break off a couple of pieces for you after
class.”

“Mucho thanks, my friend.”

He eyed my Frozen Flamingo tee. “Nice shirt.”

“That’s only part of this day from hell.” As we stretched together, I gave him an abbreviated version of the sequence of
events from finding Gina’s body to being transformed into a
human billboard.

The only part that caused a reaction from him was my meeting with Aunt Lily. A mere flicker behind his eyes, but I caught
it nonetheless. “So, what do you think? Was she right in asking me to investigate Gina’s death? More important, will I end
up telling off Bernice before the end of the week?”

“I think I need to mull it over. Let’s finish our talk after
class.”

“But-“

“Exercise first. Then we’ll solve the problems of Mallie’s
Mad World.”

Reluctantly I nodded and slipped my jacket over my head.
Then I wrapped my white belt with its yellow tip around my
waist. It had taken me six months to earn the tip, which meant
I was halfway to my yellow belt. God only knew how long it
would take to actually have a colored belt, but I was determined to stick it out-if only to show those annoying Jordan
twins.

“We’ve got a new member in class tonight,” Sam announced
as we lined up to bow in. “I think you all know him.”

I glanced past the Jordan twins and beheld Nick Billie, looking all-powerful and sexy in a dobok and black belt.

“You do martial arts?” I sputtered.

“For ten years” He tightened his belt and straightened his
jacket. “I’ve been working out in my garage for a while, but
Sam convinced me I needed to be back in a formal class again.”

“Oh” Nice comeback.

“Nick is going to be your sparring partner tonight,” Sam pronounced as he took his position in front us.

My pulse jolted as a tiny thrill snaked through me. I’d be
doing contact sports with Nick Billie tonight-the man who
caused me to go weak in the knees. The man who sparked a
physical attraction from me that could light up a Christmas tree.
The man who had held my hand under the black mangrove tree
only this morning. Wow.

And I thought I’d had an eventful day thus far.

The fireworks were only beginning.

e moved through our usual class activities of punching
and kicking drills, took a short water break, and then practiced
our kata-the sequence of movements that simulate actual combat. Everyone else looked as if they were performing ballet
moves. I, however, resembled an injured bird trying to take
flight but never quite making it off the ground. It wasn’t that I
didn’t try hard. I did. But my sense of balance consisted of being able to stand on one foot for maybe thirty seconds.

Nick Billie, of course, executed each move in the class with
precision and grace. And I couldn’t help but notice his rippling muscles under the dobok jacket. If anything, he looked
even more powerful in his Tae Kwon Do uniform than he did
in his usual jeans and button-down shirt. Hot.

“All right. I want you to pair up with a sparring partner,” Sam
said, as he pulled out the thick, padded mats. “First, we’ll do
some throws, then move into free sparring.”

Oh, joy. My two least favorite parts of class.

Nick and I strode onto the mat and stood face-to-face.

“Which throws have you learned?” he asked.

“The first five”

“Go ahead and do them to me. Then I’ll practice on you.”

I eyed his wide shoulders. He looked tough, lean, and
sinewy. How in the world would I ever be able to throw him
anywhere?

Sam appeared at my side. “Remember, size isn’t important
in martial arts. Everyone can be brought down with the right
kind of force exerted on pressure points.”

I took in a deep breath and started my first throw. I grabbed
Nick’s jacket, pulled him toward me as I slipped my right foot
behind his ankle. Then I swept his leg forward and twisted him
backward onto the mat.

“Wow, I did it.” My eyes widened in surprise at the sight of
Nick Billie lying at my feet.

He swept his right foot around in an arc, catching me around
the ankles. I thumped down onto the mat next to him, jarring
everything inside me-including the potato chips I’d eaten on
my way to the fitness center.

“Don’t assume your opponent is immobilized just because
he’s down,” Sam pointed out.

“That wasn’t fair,” I protested as I struggled to my feet and
brushed off my bruised ego. “You said I was doing my throws
first.”

“Part of the throw is getting out of the way after your opponent is down.” Nick grinned as he rose in one fluid movement.

“Thanks for the warning. I’ll make sure I do that next time.”
I proceeded to do my next four throws, trying to slam him onto
the mat with all the force I could-and stepping back when
the move was over. Needless to say, he didn’t drop nearly hard
enough. Somehow he barely made contact with the mat and
would roll back onto his feet. He was like a jungle cat. Wouldn’t
you just know?

“I’m going to show you some new moves” Nick grasped my belt and pulled me close. His face moved to within inches
of mine. We locked glances, his dark eyes fastened on me with
that smoldering intensity that I found mesmerizing.

“What … what are you going to do to me?” My mouth
turned as dry as cotton candy.

“Just this.” He raised one knee and twisted me around it. As
he dropped his leg, I fell to the mat-yet again.

“Cool move,” Megan enthused. “Could you do it to her
again, so I can learn it?”

“Me too,” Morgan piped up.

I glared at both of them as I struggled to my feet. “I’m not
a human guinea pig.”

“Let Nick demonstrate a couple of times,” Sam said. “It’s
all part of learning.”

“Easy for you to say,” I muttered under my breath.

“Hey, I was careful not to let you drop too hard.” Nick
grasped my belt again. “Trust me, I won’t hurt you”

He repeated the move, though he kept a hold on my belt, so
I didn’t break a leg or anything. My pride was the only thing
bruised-as usual. Megan and Morgan clapped every time I
hit the mat, and I began to plot different ways to take my revenge on the twins from hell. Images of “accidentally” tossing gum into their hair floated through my mind. Or spilling a
whole bottle of Gatorade into their gym bags “by mistake.”

Finally, the throw humiliation ended, and we took a water
break. Drenched in sweat, I knew my sunburned face must’ve
been the color of a cooked beet.

“You looked good out there,” Nick said, lounging against a
wall, water bottle in hand.

“Good? I was squashed on the mat like a mosquito under
your hand” I gulped down my Gatorade.

“It’s all part of martial arts training. You have to know who’s
in charge” One side of his mouth crooked upward.

“Oh, pleeeeease.” I bristled. “You might be a higher belt in
the dojang, but that doesn’t mean you’re superior to me in any
other way.”

“But I might know things that you don’t. And not just in the
martial arts. I’ve been on this island a lot longer than you
have.” He took a swig of water, and his expression turned almost playful. What? Nick Billie acting mischievous?

“I’ve learned a lot in the year I’ve lived here.” My eyes narrowed. “Wait a minute. Are you talking about Gina Fernandez?”