Cashed In Part 25

"This is your study." I said aloud as I realized it. "Is it worth our lives to get tenure?"

"More than tenure, Belinda," Ian said. "I will be gaining worldwide renown and a place in history forever."

I shook my head. Rawhide growled. Paul cuffed him on the back of the head and moved forward to duct tape my mouth again. Ian waved him off. "She's a fascinating conversationalist. It's a shame she won't be around to talk to after tonight."

"You don't think I'm going to win?"

Ian c.o.c.ked his head and considered. "It's possible but highly improbable. The odds of a woman winning any tournament are extremely low. I think they put them at two thousand to one for the World Series of Poker this year."

"That's the percentage of women who play in the WSOP, so I'd say those are fair odds for a woman like me. Now, Jennifer Harman would have to have a bit better odds."

Ian dismissed my observation with a waving hand. "No woman is going to win the WSOP until my study is published." Glancing at his watch, he motioned to Rhonda and Paul. "We need to get started."

"What happened with Rick anyway? I a.s.sume you tried to kidnap him to be here as well." I asked quickly. I still couldn't figure out who the woman was who'd lured him to the closet. Rhonda didn't fit the profile.

"Rhonda is what happened to Rick," Ian said, disgusted. "She has a fatal flaw that I didn't antic.i.p.ate or I wouldn't have partnered with her in this project. She is sentimental. Who would have guessed? She couldn't stomach feeding him to the fishes once we finished studying him in action."

What a softy, that Rhonda. Besides a stiffening in her spine when Ian criticized her, Rhonda didn't react as she bent over each man at the table, checking the probes, adjusting a few here and there.

"So after Callie bashed him on the head, we just had to leave him. I was really looking forward to making some corollaries between his ability to strategize with headlocks on the mat and bluffs on the felt."

"Callie?" I said, aghast, suddenly worried for my whole family. She was staying in Ben's room, eating meals with Mom and Dad. I had to get out of here.

"She's addicted to benzodiazepine and Valium. Easy to have someone work for you as long as you keep her in pills. She just does little jobs here and there. We really wanted her to arrange to stay with you but that bossy Amazonian G.o.ddess is stronger willed."

"But I thought my involvement was accidental."

"No, I'd planned to use you as the subject of the pheromone study from the beginning." Ian smiled and I shivered.

A crisp knock rattled the door. Ian looked sharply at Rhonda who frowned in return. The person on the other end started shouting. My throat constricted. My stomach clutched. I recognized that voice. "If you don't open up right now, I'll report this game to the ship authorities!"

I shook my head frantically. "Don't do it, it's a bluff. Just wait for the guy to go away."

Ian raised his eyebrows. My advice was all he needed to make his decision. "Open up." He nodded to Paul as he slapped a piece of duct tape over my mouth.

Howard sauntered in, still dressed to the nines, brandishing a wad of cash. I rolled my eyes. Did my parents never listen to anything I said?! "I'm here to play! Deal me in!" he announced. He faltered a step as he looked around the room. "Hey girlie," he said to me, then to Ian, "What's the tape about? Want a quiet game, eh?"

Ian narrowed his eyes at me. "Why is he here?"

I started to shrug, but then realized this was an opportunity. I moved my mouth like I was dying to say something. I was, in fact, because I figured I'd be dying if I didn't. Mahdu and Ferris threw each other panicked looks. Rawhide growled louder. Rhonda nervously hid behind her computer. Paul shifted from foot to foot. Ian studied me for a moment, in which I tried to look extremely earnest and trustworthy, then blew out an exasperated breath as he carefully pulled the tape off my mouth.

"Mom's secret weapon!" I shouted before it was slapped back on, much less gently. Ian knocked me over on the floor next to the bed as he leaped for Dad. Thank goodness for that stunt, because Howard moved quick as lightning, grabbing my purse. Ian knocked Dad down but Dad must have landed right on the trigger of the pepper gas because I heard a hiss and he started coughing.

My throat started to burn like I was breathing in pure acid. The pain was intense. I closed my eyes and put the bedspread over my nose. I could hear everyone else coughing and wheezing. Ian, still trying to function, dragged my chair to the balcony, hacking and moaning. I guess I was going to be the first to go. Ferris had worked the duct tape over those sharp teeth of his and could get his tongue out the hole he made, he started screaming in between bone-rattling coughs. The whites of Rawhide's eyes were bright red as he growled at Ian, rocking his chair loudly. The pepper gas kept hissing.

I tried to brace my feet against the balcony door frame but Ian just pulled harder, ripping the strap off my right Manolo. Man, was I ticked off now! I bucked and writhed, making it difficult for him to get his awkward load to the railing. He hollered to Paul to come help, but instead the blonde lumbered to the door, hand on his mouth, tears streaming, coughs wracking his body. He threw the door open and ran into the hall.

Ian called to Rhonda. After a moment, I felt the chair lift and balance on the edge of the balcony railing. My heart squeezed in my chest. This was it. I couldn't swim duct taped to a chair. I wondered what it would feel like to drown. Maybe I'd break my neck on the impact with the water. I wished for that.

"Put her down."

"It's too late for that."

"If you don't put her down now, I will cut your hands off and throw them to attract the sharks so you can see them waiting for you as I pitch you over the side."

Wow. That was pretty mean. I knew Frank had a temper, but I didn't know he could be this cruel. Cool.

Since I was facing the ocean, I could only hear and feel Frank. For some reason, although I hung precariously five floors above the unforgiving sea, I was comforted by the sound of his breathing. I wondered why he wasn't coughing and gagging like the rest of us. Maybe he was really Superman. I could see the lights from the sh.o.r.e twinkling on the far horizon. I wondered where we were. What normal people were doing behind those lights. Which of us was going to feed the sharks first.

Ian looked back at Frank, and then at me. "I must continue my work."

He lifted his hands off the chair seemingly in slow motion, slithered over the railing and into the blackness. I waited to follow him but was jerked back instead. A splash sounded below. I shivered and sniffed, my nose running from pepper spray and fear. Other damsels in distress gasp winningly, and I get snotty. It's that karma thing all over again.

Frank dabbed at my nose with a handkercheif and put his knuckle under my chin as he lifted the face mask he wore to the top of his head. Slowly he peeled the duct tape off my mouth. His brown eyes warned and warmed simultaneously. How did he do that? "You are in big trouble, Honey Bee."

"I keep hearing that."

"And it's done no good, I see. You ditched Superwoman again."

"I didn't ditch her. I was kidnapped."

"By Ian?"

"By Sam Hyun."

Frank drew his eyebrows together and glanced back into the room. "Where is he then?"

"He doesn't have anything to do with this. Ian saved me from Sam."

"And you ended up taped to a chair dangling over the Gulf." Frank shook his head. "Honey Bee, only you would be rescued by someone more dangerous than your attacker."

I sighed. "I know. I guess I disproved Richard's theory. I didn't even get to win the tournament."

Frank leaned down. "Ah, but you might just win at love." At first his five o'clock shadow sc.r.a.ping across my duct tape-treated lips burned, but then when his kiss made me burn other places, I didn't notice the pain at all anymore.

"Break it up, would you?" Ingrid called from inside. "We've got better things to do."

Frank slowly pulled his lips from mine. "Speak for yourself, Superwoman."

Ingrid snorted behind her mask, as she held Rhonda to the floor with a knee to her back and an arm up around her shoulder blades.

"Where did you guys get masks? How did you know we even had pepper spray?"

Frank shrugged. "We come prepared."

"Who's we?"

"FBG Enterprises." Frank grinned. He knew I already knew this. Dammit. "Now you can't tell me you don't know who I work for."

I shook my head, glaring. "Cut me loose."

"Nuh-uh," Frank said. "Not until I get all the rest of these creeps taken care of and can keep an eye solely on you." He motioned to someone behind me. Joe lifted me off the ground and walked through the cabin and out the door. "Hey! Hey! What about my Dad?"

"I'm right here, girlie," Dad said as we made it out into the hall that was swarming with the playing-card shirts of cruise security. I thought I was going cross-eyed from all the red and black-spades, clubs, diamonds and hearts. Dad called as Joe weaved through the crowd, "Listen to these guys, they know what's best for you."

Grr.

"I need to find Jack," I informed Joe.

"Jack's fine. He marched Sam Hyun at video camera point to the ship security. He's being debriefed right now."

"Where are you taking me?" I asked Joe.

"Where Frank says you belong."

Twenty-eight.

I heard the door open and I didn't even look around. The morning sun was rising, casting a golden sheen on the water that I had been watching for so long I'd become nearly hypnotized. When you're almost thrown off a ship three times in as many days, it's time to trust that fate will step in if it's not meant to be.

Fate or Frank, that is.

"You know," I said to the sea. "It's not a safe idea to tell a woman where she belongs and leave her to think about that for hours."

"Is that right?"

"Yes. It leaves her a long, long time to plan."

"Plan what?" His breath ruffled the hair at my nape.

"Her revenge," I answered as I felt his hands wrap around me, diving into the parting of my robe.

"Will it be painful, her revenge?" he asked, his fingers exploring lightly.

"Oh very."

"Will it be cruel?" He nuzzled my left earlobe.

"The worst." I pressed my backside into his Levi's zipper.

"Will it be inhumane?" His baritone caught as he drew in a sudden breath. I smiled. Slowly.

"You are going to be out of your mind," I a.s.sured him as I turned around and began.

And we both were. For hours.

And hours.

"I think I've changed my mind about cruises," I told Frank later as we lounged, legs stretched out, intertwined, sun warming our damp bodies on the balcony.

"Hmm?"

"They're not so bad after all."

"As long as you don't seek out murderers and mad scientists, I think they can be relaxing."

"Who knocked off the insurance investigator?"

"Rhonda says it was Ian, because he was connecting the dots. We'll know more when they examine his notes. If they find them."

"There are still some things I don't understand. Why did Rhonda, Ian and Paul go into Cozumel?"

"They were trying to see if they could arrange to get their brains off the ship at the next port. That's been their MO. They bribe someone to take them or mail them to their secret lab in the mountains above Oaxaca. The authorities there located it."

I shivered. "Glad I wasn't there to see that."

"You ought to be glad you weren't there to be part of that." Frank shook his head. "You almost were. The winner of the ring game was going to be drugged like Rick and walked off the boat at Tampico and kept for further study. Honey Bee, you have to learn to avoid this kind of danger from now on."

"Frank, how do I avoid it? Danger seems to find me. I mean, how many people go on cruises and have the excitement we had on this one?"

"You know, Bee, very few people on the ship were aware of any of that 'excitement' otherwise known as danger. You, on the other hand, were right in the middle of it."

"But it's not my fault!"

"Okay," Frank said with a patient sigh. "Let's say it isn't your fault. After all, your life was pretty dull and drab before a year ago, wasn't it?"

Now I was dull, drab and fat. Humph. I didn't answer.

Frank continued. "So, let's find a common denominator. Your brother is one. Poker is two."

"And Frank is three," I added.

His eyes darkened dangerously. Ominously. s.e.xily. I untangled my legs from his and crawled on my hands and knees until I was lying on top of him. "You have to admit, you are a common denominator amid the trouble. Now if I knew more about you, I might decide that you are just a coincidental offshoot of the danger, but not knowing every detail of your life . . ."

Frank shut me up by kissing me, long and hard. When we came up for air, he whispered, "Promise me, Honey Bee, you'll give up poker."

"Promise me, you'll tell me who Frank Gilbert really is."

"Hmmm."

We docked back in Galveston hours later. As we stepped onto the dock, we saw Rhonda, Paul and Sam being loaded into separate FBI rides. Reporters and cameramen swarmed around them, held back by uniformed Galveston police.

A woman approached us on our left. "Hi, I'm a producer for Eyewitness News in Houston. My reporter was called off with our other cameraman to cover a bomb threat at the Galveston city hall. Can I ask you a few questions about what happened on the cruise?"