Nick stretched and opened his eyes. It was still dark out. The only light filtering up the hall from the living area was from the dock lights. The curtains remained carefully drawn in the bedroom, shutting out the light and the prying eyes of any intruders.
Before they had gone to bed the night before, Nick had bolted the hatch to the door again, not because he thought it would calm Jo, but because it calmed him. Nick couldn’t really get a handle on the situation, but he was sure of one thing. He wanted to get the hell out of it.
He and Jo hadn’t talked much the night before. Even though it hadn’t been late, they‘d gone to bed right after dinner…well, right after a pretty hot necking session on the sofa. It was kind of weird. The necking session was an entity unto itself…it wasn’t foreplay for sex. Somehow they both seemed to know that.
When they took a break, Jo said she had to go to the bathroom. Nick suggested that they watch a movie in bed. He thought that was a pretty clever way of putting it. It meant that he figured they’d be sleeping in the same bed but that they weren’t going to just jump in and go at it.
Jo nodded her agreement. She said, “I’ll just get into my jammies then,” and she disappeared into the bathroom.
Nick opened the cupboard in the dining room and ran his eyes over his DVDs. He didn’t want something that was about killing, but that seemed to be all he had. Every movie struck him as pertaining to the situation he was now in. He had Liar Liar with Jim Carrey. He had The Fugitive. Even though that was an older movie, it was one of Nick’s favorites. But he didn’t think a movie about a falsely-accused man would sit too well with Jo right now.
He ran his finger across the cases. Man, he had a lot of violent movies here. He pulled The Phantom Menace out of the cupboard. Maybe Jo wouldn’t mind if it was aliens getting killed.
“No chick flicks?”
Jo’s voice startled Nick. He turned to look at her and his heart stopped. She was holding a knife in her hand, and it was raised over her head ready to stab him.
Nick blinked, and the knife became a hairbrush, and Jo ran it through her hair.
“How about this?” he said, and he knew his voice sounded squeaky.
Jo looked at it and shrugged. “Anything will do,” she said. “I’ll probably just fall asleep. I always do when I try to watch TV in bed.”
Nick went up the hall and stripped down as far as his boxers. He popped in a DVD, and they watched it for a while. Jo wasn’t wrong. She was asleep within twenty minutes. Nick thought that was interesting…that neither one of them seemed to either want sex or expect the other person to want it either.
Nick smiled. After all, they’d already done it twice today. He leaned back on the pillows and closed his eyes, remembering. It had been good…really good. Give and take. It didn’t always happen that way for him.
Sex with women usually went one of two ways with Nick. First, there were the star-fuckers who would do anything he wanted and spent most of the time telling him how good they were for him and how he should call them. The second kind were the selfish ones…okay, Mr. Hotshot, show me what you got.
Nick grinned in the dark. He had a lot, and he knew how to use it, but he performed enough on stage, thank you very much, he didn’t feel like doing a star turn every time some girl laid down on her back.
Nick fell asleep soon after Jo. He woke up an hour later and turned off the movie. Then he shifted around in the bed trying to get comfortable. Jo nestled back against him, and for a few moments, his nether regions tried to talk him into waking her up. But his tired brain prevailed over his libido, and he went back to sleep.
Now it was morning. Nick stretched again, trying to decide if this time he was really awake. He decided that he was. He got out of bed as quietly as he could and made his way up the hall to the bathroom, pulling on yesterday’s t-shirt as he walked. He went to the toilet and brushed his teeth. Then he crept out to the kitchen and put on a pot of coffee. While he was pouring the water into the coffee maker, he heard the toilet flush.
Nick pursed his lips. He guessed morning sex was out if Jo was already up. He got out two mugs and set them on the counter. He listened to the hiss and gurgle of the coffee maker and he drummed his fingers on the counter, humming his I’m Cool song under his breath.
Suddenly, he stopped and looked around. He stepped back from the counter and looked up the hallway. There were no lights on. Hmmm…Maybe coffee wasn’t his first priority, after all.
Nick glided silently up the hall and stuck his head in the bedroom. Jo had propped the pillows up in the middle of the bed and was leaning against them, her hair fanned out on the pillow and the duvet pulled up under her armpits. She was no longer wearing the t-shirt.
“Hi,” she said, and she bit her bottom lip, suddenly shy.
“I was making coffee,” said Nick. The shyness was contagious. He looked at his feet.
“Do you want me to get up?” asked Jo.
Nick raised his head and looked at her. His smile turned up the corner of his mouth and turned up Jo’s heart rate as well. “No,” he said, “I was going to come back to bed.”
“Are you still sleepy?” asked Jo.
“Nope,” said Nick, crossing his arms across his chest and pulling off the t-shirt.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~“Nick, don’t you think we should get up soon?” asked Jo.
“Why?” asked Nick, raising himself up one elbow. He leaned down and kissed Jo on the shoulder.
“Because it’s nearly nine o’clock,” laughed Jo. “I think the coffee’s probably ready by now.”
“It should be,” said Nick. “I set it up at six. Geez, that doesn’t seem like three hours ago.”
“Well, you know what they say,” said Jo, “time flies…”
Nick finished the sentence with her, “…when you’re having fun.”
They both laughed and suddenly, Nick sobered. “It was fun, Jo. I mean it. I really, really enjoyed it.”
Jo narrowed her eyes slightly in question. “Weren’t you expecting to?”
“No,” said Nick, “it’s not that. It’s just that…”
Nick paused, realizing that just about anything he said here would be the wrong thing. He went over a few thoughts in his head. Nope, that made him sound like an arrogant prick; nope, that made her sound like a lunatic; nope, that made her sound like a slut; aw, shit!
Jo began to smile. “Do you mean that because of our insane situation here that it’s surprising we took a little time out for ‘fun’?”
“No,” said Nick, deciding that if he had to choose a path to destruction, he was going to go the arrogant rock star route. “It’s that it was just really cool being with someone who didn’t treat me like Nick Carter.”
Jo laughed. “That’s true. I had more of a Matt Damon thing going on in my head.”
Nick’s eyes widened in surprise. Then he laughed.
Jo tilted her head on one side and looked at him. “I get what you’re saying, Nick. I guess it must be really hard for you to sort out the…the…”
”Yeah, it’s hard,” said Nick, “so, thank you.” Nick leaned down and kissed her shoulder again.
“My pleasure,” said Jo, and then she laughed. “And I mean that sincerely.”
They looked into each other’s eyes. Nick was just about to reach for her when they heard voices on the dock. It brought them back into the real world, and with a sigh, they moved away from each other.
A few minutes later, over coffee, Jo asked about Bernie. “When do you think he’ll call?”
“He’s on the west coast,” said Nick, “so that’s three hours time difference. We won’t hear from him until…oh, probably noon or thereabouts.”
“What do you think we should do?” asked Jo. “Do you think we should just stay here?”
“Well, if we head out now, we’ll be in the Dead Zone by noon, so that’s probably not a good plan.”
“What do you think…?” Jo hesitated. She didn’t want to say Pete’s name.
She didn’t have to.
“Let me look,” said Nick, understanding where her thoughts were going because his were going the same direction.
He undid the bolts and slid back the hatch cover. Then he unlocked the door and went up the stairs. The sky was cloudy. A weak sun was trying to shine through the overcast.
Nick crossed his fingers and hoped like hell that the Sunset Voyager was gone. Pete could lurk out in the bay all day waiting for them if that’s what he had in mind, thought Nick. If the Sunset Voyager was gone from the marina, Nick wasn’t budging from it. He squinted in that direction out of the corner of his eye.
Shit! It was still there. Nick swiveled his neck, taking in the whole marina. He didn’t want to seem like he was staring at one boat. As his eyes crossed the path of the Sunset Voyager, he didn’t see any movement. But when his eyes moved past the shower building, he saw Pete coming out, freshly showered and shaved and ready for the day.
It bothered Nick, made him feel at a disadvantage. He was unshaven and unshowered and smelled like sex. That hadn’t been a bad thing when he was sitting having coffee with Jo but it made him feel like he wasn’t in control of the situation with Pete.
And he needed to be in control because Pete was advancing down the dock toward the Lenore. Nick could see that Pete had spotted him so there was no way to duck down into the cabin and warn Jo. So Nick just stretched his arms up over his head and then out to the side, trying to think. He wasn’t sure what to say to Pete. He wasn’t sure if the other man was as blasé and carefree about him and Jo as he seemed.
Nick couldn’t think of what to say, but it didn’t matter. Because Pete spoke first, and the words took the wind out of Nick’s sails.
“Mickey’s missing.”
“What?” Nick couldn’t believe what he was hearing.
“I phoned her mom. You know…because I hadn’t heard from her…and I didn’t want to believe that she’d…you know…just…”
Pete had come to this decision in the early morning. He realized that he should be showing a little interest in Mickey’s whereabouts. He also couldn’t stand to wait any longer to see if she’d been found. Mickey’s mother had informed him that she thought Mickey was on the boat with Pete, right up until the cop had knocked on her door last night and asked for a picture of her daughter.
“Maybe Jo should hear this,” suggested Nick.
”I am hearing it,” said Jo, walking up behind him. “I’m just not believing it.”
“No, it’s true,” said Pete, deliberately misinterpreting her. “Someone filed a missing person report.”
“Yeah, I know,” said Jo, coldly. “I did.”
Pete and Jo stared at each other for a moment.
“Tell me what you know, Jo,” pleaded Pete.
“What the…?” Jo was dumbfounded by the remark.
“I mean it, I want to know. Was there…is there someone else?”
“You fucking asshole!” exploded Jo. “You know there was no one else. And you knew she was missing because you killed her and hid her body.”
Nick watched Pete’s face carefully. Each of Jo’s statements was like a slap, and Pete reacted physically to them, jerking his head a little and stepping back.
“What are you saying, Jo?”
Nick had to admit that if Pete was lying, he was a damn good actor. If he was lying…
“When was the last time you talked to her?” demanded Jo.
“Charleston.” Both Pete and Nick answered at once.
Pete and Jo both looked at Nick. Pete’s brain experienced a smug smile of satisfaction but he kept it off his face.
“What?” Jo directed this question at Nick.
“That’s what Pete said,” replied Nick. “He told me last night. He hasn’t spoken to her since Charleston. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t want to upset you.”
“Then he shouldn’t have killed her,” said Jo, her voice heavy and leaden. She looked accusingly at Nick. “And you…”
Tears filled Jo’s eyes.
“Jo, I…” Nick reached out a hand to her, but Jo waved him off.
“Forget it,” she said. “I’ll wait for Bernie.” She turned and went below.
“Bernie?” inquired Pete, innocently.
“Yeah, that’s my business manager. He…uh…he’s checking into things for us…we…uh…we called him.”
”That’s great,” said Pete.
Nick raised an eyebrow.
Pete explained that he meant it was great that someone with a land line was looking into things because both Pete and Nick were in such an iffy area, cell phone-wise.
“What are you going to do…just wait here until he calls?” asked Pete.
“I don’t know,” said Nick, non-committally. “It depends what Jo wants to do. We might head out to the ocean and make for Jacksonville. Or we might just hang here until Bernie calls.”
Pete pulled a card out of his pocket. “This is my card,” he said. “It’s got my cell phone on it. If you hear anything, give me a call, okay?”
Nick took the card. “Uh, yeah, sure.”
“And I’ll monitor channel 8…on the radio…on the boat…if you can’t get me by phone, call me on that.”
“Sure,” said Nick again.
“I really want to know, Nick,” said Pete, taking a deep breath and shaking his head to force the tears away.
“Yeah, if I hear anything, I’ll let you know.”
“Okay,” said Pete, “I guess there’s nothing left to do then except pray.”
The dark-haired man turned and walked slowly away, his shoulders slumped in despair and defeat.
