Metro Girl (Alex Barnaby 1)

“Sure you are,” Hooker said, flipping a leech into the bushes. “Anybody could see how brave you are.” He tossed another leech. “Yuk,” he said. “Ick.”

“I don’t usually lose it like this. I’m always the sensible, dependable person. Okay, so I don’t like heights and I don’t like spiders, but I’m pretty good with snakes.”

“I hate snakes. And I’m not too crazy about leeches. Oh man, this is a big one. Hold still.”

I wiped my nose with the back of my hand. “Life sucks,” I said.

“Life isn’t so bad. You’ll feel better about life now that the spider guts and the leeches are all gone.” He took half a step backward and his gaze wandered south. “Maybe before you get dressed I should check out the rest of you for leeches. They seem to like ah, hairy places.”

I started shrieking and Hooker clapped a hand over my mouth.

“Not so loud!” Hooker said. “The bad guys could still be out there.”

I felt around and was relieved not to find any more leeches.

“Sorry,” I said. “I got a little hysterical.”

“Perfectly natural,” Hooker said. “Even NASCAR Guy would get hysterical if he thought he had leeches on his stick shift. You just need to relax. You know what you need? Sex.”

“Sex? You just finished picking leeches off my head and you want to have sex?”

“Yeah.”

Men never cease to amaze me. I remembered reading somewhere a description of men and women in terms of boxes. The female box had a bunch of knobs and buttons and complicated instructions. And the male box had an off/on switch. That was it. Just a single switch. Hooker’s switch was always turned to on.

“I’m not feeling really sexy right now,” I said.

“I just thought since you were already naked it would be a good idea. This way we wouldn’t have to go through that awkward getting undressed part.”

“Speaking of clothes…”

“Seems like a shame to cover you up, but if that’s what you want, NASCAR Guy is here to help.” And he scooped my panties out of the boat and dangled them by one finger.

I took the panties and the bra that followed and put them on. Hooker waded into the stream, swished my shorts and shirt around, looked them over, and threw them into the jungle. “Not gonna happen, sweetie. Trust me, you don’t want to ever wear those clothes.”

“They’re the only clothes I have!”

He took his shirt off and gave it to me. “Wear my shirt until we get back to the boat.”

“Do you think we can go back to the boat?”

“I don’t know. I’m going to walk back and take a look. Stay with the RIB. If you hear any noise at all, hide in the jungle.”

An hour later, Hooker crashed through the brush behind me.

“The boat is still there,” he said. “It looks like a Sea Ray. No sign of life on it. I watched the Happy Hooker for a while, and I didn’t see any activity there either, but I think chances are good that someone’s on board. It’s what I would do. I’d sit and wait. I have a hoist, so it’s obvious I have the ability to carry an inflatable. Since no one’s come upstream, I can only assume they decided to wait for Bill and Maria to return.”

“They’re going to be disappointed when we show up.”

“Yeah, they’re going to torture us and make us tell them where to find Bill and Maria.”

“I’d faint but I’ve already done that.”

“We can stay here until we starve to death, or we can go back and rat on Bill and Maria. What do you think?”

“I think I’m tired of sitting here in my underpants.”

We moved to get into the RIB, and we both stopped and stared at the canister.