Metro Girl (Alex Barnaby 1)

“Listen to me, you sack of slime,” I yelled, coming out of the RIB wielding an oar. “I’ve had a really bad day. First the spider and then the leeches. My underwear’s riding up my ass, and I hate this freaking humidity. I’m not going into the cabin. The only way you’re going to get me into the cabin is to shoot me, like you shot Hooker.”

“Lady, that’s really tempting, but I need to get some answers from you.”

“You’re not getting any answers from me. And get off our boat.”

Both guys blew out a sigh.

“Get her,” Slick said to Gimpy.

Gimpy stepped over Hooker and reached for me. I spun around and caught him square in the stomach with the oar. Thwack. And Gimpy went down to the deck with the wind knocked out of him.

The move had been instinctual, the result of a bad engagement to a great kickboxer. Bruce Leskowitz didn’t have a lot upstairs, and his Mr. Stupid had a tendency to roam. On the plus side, Leskowitz had a fabulous body, and he brought me up to a brown belt. Who would have thought I’d ever use the moves? God works in mysterious ways.

Slick leveled his gun at me. “Put the oar down.”

“No.”

“Don’t make me shoot you.”

“Go ahead, shoot me,” I said to Slick. “If you don’t shoot me, I’m going to kick your ass.”

Okay, I admit it. I was a little nuts. I was rolling on adrenaline and desperation. The bad guy had a gun, and I had an oar. And the truth is, even though I knew some karate, I didn’t have a lot of history behind me in the ass-kicking department. It just seemed like the thing to say. It’s what The Rock would say, right?

Since I don’t have entirely the same presence as The Rock, Slick started laughing. It was a perfectly appropriate response, but it’s not something you want to do to a woman on the edge.

I lunged at him with the oar, and he stepped to the side. He didn’t have a lot of room to maneuver away from me. I whirled and tagged him in the bad arm with the blade. He got off a wild shot. I shoved the oar at him, knocked him off balance, and he went sailing into space, off the side of the boat.

Gimpy was on hands and knees, sucking air. I grabbed the revolver that had fallen out of his hand when he went down, and I jumped back to a safe distance. I dropped the oar, and I two-handed the gun. Even with two hands, the gun was shaking.

Gimpy’s eyes were on me, wide with terror. And I thought my eyes probably looked like that, too.

“Don’t shoot me,” he said. “Take it easy. Jesus, I never believed in gun control until I met you.”

“Into the water,” I said.

“What?”

“Jump!”

“I got a bad foot. I’ll sink like a stone.”

I sighted down the gun barrel, pulled the hammer back, and he jumped off the boat.

He bobbed to the surface beside Slick, and the two of them hung there, about fifteen feet off the starboard side.

“Swim!” I yelled at them.

Gimpy was floundering, taking in some water, and Slick wasn’t doing much better.

“For Pete’s sake,” I said. “Take the RIB.”

There was a lot of splashing and sputtering, but they weren’t making much progress moving, so I grabbed the line to the RIB and dragged the RIB around to them. They hung on for a while, catching their breath, coughing up seawater. Then they dragged themselves into the RIB and lay there like a couple dead fish.

I gave the RIB a shove with the oar, and the RIB drifted off. When I turned back to Hooker he was sitting on the deck, knees bent, head down.

I knelt beside him. “Are you okay?”

“Give me a minute. I’ve got a real bad case of the whirlies.”