Hijack This!

[moonshadows]

With how Tobias the creep has been trying to make significant eye contact with me and smirking when, by chance, he does, it’s a relief to be able to say, “I’m out.”

It’s not like I could keep up with Duke even on a good night, but I haven’t even been remotely trying to win. No, I’ve been broadcasting my intentions with loud thoughts and watching Ezra react to them. I could even have won a hand, but even though I played it timidly, he still folded almost as soon as I looked at my cards. Luckily, my part in this evening is to be unthreatening and being able to think naughty thoughts about the gypsy-pirate sharing the red bench with me is an excellent bonus.

“I want to be in,” I lie, throwing them down before slumping back, “but my cards won’t let me.”

“I call,” Duke announces. He’s the very picture of casual arrogance, leaning back with cards in one hand and beer in the other, one foot crossed over his knee, and I want to kiss right up the curve of his neck and tease his earlobe with my teeth. The good thing about his short hair is unimpeded access to those sensitive parts of his body. If I wanted to ruin all the respect he has for me by pursuing an angle he hasn’t indicated is welcome. “Call, raise, or cower from me and fold,” he challenges Audrey.

“Alright,” she challenges right back. “Do…I make my own day, or do I ruin all of yours?”

Unless you’re going to strip all of Duke’s clothes off, my day has pretty much been made as much as it’s going to be, thanks.

Duke shakes his head, still supremely confident. “Oh, big talk, but I don’t see a while lot of action.”

I’ll give you action, Boss. Just say the word. Except that the last time he said the word, that word was ‘no’.

“Miss Parker, do you have um…a…a favorite nut?”

Tobias watches Audrey’s face intently as Ezra questions her and announces that her choice, the pistachio, is actually a seed and that she will call because she has no choice.

I’m just glad the nervous little freak didn’t ask me what my favorite nut was because I’m not sure I would have been able to keep that thought quiet, and Duke wouldn’t have to be a mind-reader to figure out that my favorite nuts…are his.

Oh god. Am I blushing?

“How can you be so sure?” she asks.

He hems and haws for a second before announcing, “You’re not much for cards. Never have been. You tried to be; couldn’t make it work.”

Sure enough, Audrey calls. Three jacks. Duke had two pair. Now I’m thinking about his nuts again, and I haven’t even had a quarter of this beer.

“All that big talk,” I tease, “I thought you’d have five of a kind.”

“F-five of a kind would require cheating,” Ezra announces loftily, squaring his cards as the gypsy-pirate mock-glowers at me. “And cheaters never prosper.”

My CV says differently, but that’s neither here nor there and I should be thinking more innocuous thoughts. Like how maybe if I shift position I can casually put my hand on Duke’s arm.

“Hold on,” Duke says as Tobias reaches for the cards. “He was in the hand. We get to see those cards. Let’s see how bad it was,” he teases as he flips them over and spreads them out. “Full house,” he says disbelievingly, throwing them down for everyone to see. “Queens over fives. Hey, you hustling me?” His voice is hard – stop thinking about hard with relation to Duke – and he fixes Ezra with a look I’m assuming is stern from the way he quails and looks at Tobias.

“No. No,” the creep says quickly. “He’s, uh…he just…just gets a bit confused,” he finishes lamely, his hand reassuringly on Ezra’s shoulder.

“Not that confused,” Audrey says warily before aiming for a more teasing tone. “He took all my money last week...no matter how good of a hand I had.”

“Yeah, same here.” Duke’s clearly not buying the ‘confused’ excuse. But it puts him on familiar ground, and he dons the air of supreme confidence again. “Is that what this is, boys? A con?”

Ezra’s got his arms crossed over his stomach. He looks like he screwed the pooch, and he knows it, while Tobias visibly goes into damage recovery mode.

Duke sits up and leans forward, arms on his knees, hands clasped. “I invite you here, and you try to cheat us?”

“No. No. I don’t…I…” Ezra’s folding like a cheap lawn chair. Good to know. “I felt bad. Okay? For…for taking all your money last time. So…I…I thought I should lose for a while.”

Wow. That was actually pretty smooth. I wonder if it was rehearsed. Think about something else, like stuffing the contents of the pot into my bra and making Duke claim his winnings with his teeth. Mmmm.

Audrey laughs silently. “Okay. Well, in that case, you can definitely keep playing. Right?” she asks with a supposed-to-be-friendly kneeslap for Ezra, who looks like a neurotic dog that’s just been praised.

Duke reaches for his beer. “…yeah, that’s good enough for me.”

And the game continues.

I’m down to about half of my beer when it occurs to me that Ezra picks up on intent rather than just thought content, and smugly I pull my bare feet up onto the bench so I can lean against Duke. Now I don’t bother trying to evade eye contact with the creep; I’m in full heartbreaker mode, showcasing what he can’t have. I can also peek at Duke’s cards, and when it looks like he has the makings of a winning hand, I enact a tricksy plot.

I visualize, in explicit detail and with all the intent my shameless little libido can provide, unbuttoning Duke’s jeans and giving him the best BJ he’s ever dreamed of having. It takes a long time. I’m very good. But it accomplishes my goal: Ezra is distinctly off-balance, and Duke wins a pot that’s easily two hundred dollars in what was probably a masterful display of poker skills. I wouldn’t know; I was focused on making myself hot enough to spontaneously combust.

“That deserves a little celebration,” he announces. “Wouldn’t you say, boys? …and Parker.”

Whatever protest she makes is verbally trampled by our two “guests” voicing eager enthusiasm for celebrating that win.

“Julia. My dear,” he says regally, urging me to sit up, “would you fetch some refreshments for us? Third bottle, left side.”

My vivid imaginings have left me a little drunk on hormones, and I flutter my eyelashes at him. “Shore thang, Boss,” I drawl. Then, on complete impulse, I lean over and kiss his cheek before standing and sashaying to the cabin door, putting as much wiggle into my walk as I’ve ever been able to manage, and tossing a flirty look over my shoulder before vanishing from sight.

Third bottle on the left. Good stuff, but not the best stuff. Five shotglasses. I lay it all before him like an offering, lining the glasses up and opening the bottle before handing it to him. He pours neatly, not spilling a drop, and distributes them before lifting his own.

“Champagne for my real friends, real pain for my sham friends,” he toasts. “To a life worth living.”

Ironic. Neither of us drinks champagne.

Ezra looks like he’s desperately trying to sort out his own train of thought.

“I’ll drink to that,” I chirp, mentally patting myself on the back.

Glasses clink; shots are tossed back.

“Alright, so…” Audrey fishes her phone out, failing abysmally at being nonchalant. “Is there a signal in this rust bucket?”

My inarticulate protest is drowned out by Duke’s. “Whoah! Rust bucket?” She doesn’t answer as she stands and moves towards the dock, turning almost at the last step to tell him to deal her out. Duke grins, ready to rattle her chain. “You gotta call the wifey?”

Surprisingly, she laughs. “That I do.”

Ezra babbles about which states same-sex marriage is legal in. Tobias takes his shot and drinks it.

Audrey keeps her eyes on us all as she puts the phone to her ear. “Hey. What’s up?” There’s a pause. “Here in Haven?”

Then a black man I’ve seen pictures of steps up behind her. “Yes, here in Haven. It’s time to come home.”

The uncles told me about this. How every time, the entity known as Howard shows up to push Audrey-entity’s incarnation into staying. I focus very hard on all the things I want to do to a naked gypsy-pirate while Howard and Audrey get Duke’s permission to hold an impromptu meeting in the state room.

Naturally, this does nothing good for his nerves, and my thoughts go to the less R-rated subject of wanting to give Duke shoulder massages. Between me and him, Ezra’s back on top of his game, and the next several hands go badly for Team Pirate. In fact, most of that $200 pot is back on Ezra’s side of the table when he smugly announces he’s calling.

“You call,” Duke repeats in disbelief. “You call. That would be…ten winning hands in a row. What are you up to?”

Tobias takes a pull from his beer but it doesn’t hide his smirk. “Easy, Duke. It’s cool.”

“I don’t cheat,” Ezra says, which is hilarious because if using a Trouble isn’t cheating then I don’t know what is. “But, um…I’m pretty sure I’m gonna win this one, too,” he says like he’s trying to let Duke down easy.

Duke, meanwhile, looks like he’s resisting the urge to throttle the little freak. Sounds like it, too, when he says grimly, “I am going to…”

“You should fooo-oooold,” singsongs the mind-reader. There’s a moment where it really seems like Duke’s going to drop the cards and lunge. “You’re gonna lose anyway,” he continues in a wheedling sort of tone. “You don’t want to waste any more money. M-money’s not important.”

“Or it’s a bluff,” I pipe up. “A…really weird bluff.”

Ezra gestures at me like she knows what she’s talking about, listen to her while Tobias looks like…he’s re-evaluating me. Shit. Is he more than just the mind-reader’s keeper? Has he got a sleight-of-hand thing going on while Ezra distracts us?

Duke looks at me, silently asking if I really think it’s a bluff, but I’m taking a sip of my beer. He braces himself. “I call,” says, like he’s ripping a band-aid off, and throws his cards down. Three fives. Ezra lays his down, satisfaction radiating off of him. Three nines. With an inarticulate sound of frustration and choked-back violence, Duke leaps up from the bench and backs up, presumably to prevent himself from wringing Ezra’s skinny neck.

“Told you,” he gloats. “I did.”

“Yes, you did,” Duke agrees, somewhere between reluctant and livid. “I gotta tell you, I- I have never seen a player quite like you before. And, no offense? I hope I never see one again,” he finishes, gesturing emphatically as if he can’t decide if he’s waving bye-bye to our “guests” or trying to wipe them from his mind.

Ezra’s confused look suggests this isn’t the reaction he was expecting, either that or he’s picking up on something Duke’s thinking. Quick, think about that hand doing something else. Mmmm.

“I’m out.” It’s a remarkably calm statement considering the situation, and he’s already turning away. “Good night.”

“Wait. Duke.” Tobias sounds almost pleading. “One more hand.”

There’s a trick. There’s gotta be a trick. Think of Duke’s hair, wet and tousled and damn him for turning back, but then again there’s an FBI agent in his boat.

But no, Duke declines and repeats that he’s out, and now Ezra looks…desperate?

“Hey, I- I’ll put…double…what I won…into the pot,” he offers. “Double is times two.” Which would effectively be a grand sitting there in front of him. “And I’ll even give you an extra draw. Which is also times two,” he points out.

There really – kissing up Duke’s neck to his earlobe, bighting lightly – has to be a catch, they’ve got something planned. Pirate hand cupping my breast. Ezra looks up at Duke, wordlessly begging like a dog waiting to be told he’s a good boy.

For a moment, Duke laughs, one hand toying with his ear, before he says warily, “Why would you do that?”

“You have something that I want,” the mind-reader says after an awkward hesitation. “Ah…Need. It’s, um…i-it’s important to me. Yeah. Big-time important. Really big. See?” he asks, spreading his hands. “I got my reasons. Right?”

Yeah, reasons. They’re ready to make their play, whatever it is, and I think Duke senses that, too.

Especially when Tobias, cool as a cucumber still, tosses in his two cents. “So…you in?”

“Hmm…” he sits slowly, glancing down at me as if confirming that I still have his back, and spreads his hands with easy confidence now that he metaphorically holds all the cards again. “What do you want?” he asks them.

The answer comes out on a piece of paper that’s passed, folded, to the gypsy-pirate who reads it discreetly and places it, face down, on the pile of cash without letting me catch a glimpse. The hand is dealt, and played. Card are laid down. King, queen, jack, ten, nine.

“Unbelievable,” Duke declares, irritated but not angry, as he throws his down in defeat. The creep is grinning openly with Ezra his Quasimodo pleased at having served his master well.

“I had a feeling he was going to go for the flush,” he announces, rubbing it in. “Lots of feelings about it, actually. Tons.”

“How nice for you,” Duke tells him with a fuck off smile.

Tobias reaches for the folded paper. “So, uh…we can collect on that,” he says, lifting it briefly, “and…be gone.” Like that’s really what’s going to happen. “Far, far away.”

“Finally.” Duke is literally grinning and bearing it. “A silver lining. Julia,” he says nonchalantly as he picks up the folded piece of paper, “would you grab me a Coke while I fetch this from the hold?”

The hold. Shotguns and slip passage. Showtime. “Sure thing.” I focus on thoughts of Coca-Cola bottles in our fridge as I cross the deck, hoping my brief slip didn’t give anything away. Cold glass bottles, fizzing carbonation, polar bears in commercials. Did Audrey bring her service weapon?

There’s a shout from behind me, igniting adrenaline, and I throw the door open and hurl myself down into the state room, slaloming past the two not-really-FBI agents and making all speed for my room because there’s footsteps pounding after me and I really don’t want it to be Tobias but I’m pretty sure it’s Tobias and he’s probably got a gun and I don’t know how much of his being a creep was genuine lust but I can feel it on my back and I slam the door to my cabin shut, leaning against it while I work the closing mechanism, feeling fists pound on the other side and hearing inarticulate sounds of angry frustration. Then the footsteps retreat.

Okay, tiny assassin. Time to defend your home from the boarding party.

The hidden panel swings silently out, and the night vision goggles of my “business suit” stare blindly at me. This is not a drill. Repeat, this is not a drill. Full combat scenario. I strip and dress in about twenty seconds, then take another twenty to make sure all the straps are tight enough and all my gear is where it should be before fishing out my cell phone and tucking it into a pouch. Hood. Goggles on my forehead. Guns at my hips. Knives if I need them. I step inside and pull the panel shut behind me, just in case. No need to give any secrets away. The touchlight gives me enough to see the hatch, and I turn it off again once I’ve got it open. Then, crouching on top of the Cape, I stare out at where the police station should be and pull the phone back out.

I’ve had the Chief on speed dial since my first week back; this is the first time I’ve dialed that number and I hope he picks up.

One ring. Two. “Wuornos.”

“Requesting immediate backup on the Cape Rouge,” I say quickly and quietly. “Two hostiles, reason to believe armed and dangerous.” There’s no one on deck. I haven’t heard gunshots, and there’s no sounds of fighting. “Consider all crew incapacitated.” Then the Cape comes to life, and I swallow. “I think they’re taking the ship.”

“Understood,” he says crisply. “Over and out.”

As I put the phone away, I can see Ezra leave the hold and prepare the Cape for leaving dock. Yeah, they’re taking the ship. Is Duke dead? My blood runs cold, and I curse that I’m just one tiny assassin against two probably-armed men. Not that that’s going to stop me. Goggles down; gloves on. Wait and watch. Check on your allies. And, ironically, don’t interfere with stealing the boat because that could cause a wreck and I’d never forgive myself for doing that to the old girl.

It takes about twenty minutes before I judge it safe and start creeping down to the deck. The gun in the box is gone. I can’t see under the red bench from here or check it without making myself visible from the cockpit, but I’m pretty sure that’s gone, too. Fuck. I probably let that slip last week. They wouldn’t need to bring their own guns, not when we provided some for them. But I didn’t think about the slip passage into the stateroom, so hopefully…

I get the panel about halfway open before Audrey says, “Freeze!”

“Stand down, Parker.” I squeeze through and close it again.

“Julia?” she asks, astonished. I raise the goggles and nod. “What the hell?”

“It was a set-up,” I tell her, ignoring the implied question about my outfit. “I have reason to believe they’ve incapacitated Duke, and they’ve sailed the boat out of the harbor. Are you armed?”

“No.” She sounds disgusted. “I didn’t want to tip them off.”

Footsteps above. I hold one finger to my lips and we all freeze as the creep descends from the cockpit and his footsteps fade off, probably towards wherever they’re most likely interrogating Duke.

“We won’t get far,” I say when I’m sure we won’t be overheard. “I called the Chief before we got underway.”

Audrey gives me a puzzled, disgruntled look. “From where? I can’t get any signal in here.”

“From the roof.”

“You’re quite a resourceful young lady.” Agent Howard eyes me appreciatively, with maybe a silent question in his eyes, but I don’t know what he’s asking. “Tell me, are you armed?”

I draw both guns briefly and then put them back before repeating with the knives.

“But have you used them,” Audrey challenges.

So not going into that. “I’ve had an exciting career in unorthodox conflict resolution,” I say blandly. “Now, I think Ezra has some kind of thought-sensing or mind-reading ability. We’re-”

“That’s how he cheated at cards!”

“Focus, Agent Parker.”

Guiltily, she looks at her boss. “Yes, sir. Okay. This is going to call for some creative planning. Where’s Duke?”

“I don’t know. That’s our next priority.”

Audrey clearly has other concerns. “No, our next priority is calling our location in while no one’s up there. Can you open that up again?”

I shake my head. “You go out that way, you’ll be seen trying to get up there.” Instead, I go to the wall and pull out the ladder. “Sometimes, weather’s rough and you want to stay dry,” I say in answer to her quirked eyebrow.

Shaking her head, she climbs the ladder and disappears through the hatch.

“How much do you know?” Agent Howard asks me in a low voice. “About me. About her.”

“Vince and Dave told me everything they know,” I answer in the same quiet tone.

He snorts, but all he says is, “Your great-grandmother would be proud of you.”

When Audrey comes back down, Agent Howard is showing me the impressive array of spy gadgetry he’s brought with him.

“They’ve got Duke tied to a chair on deck,” she says. “They’re roughing him up.”

Fuck. “The box. They want the box.” I focus on that and not the fact that they’re hurting Duke.

“What box?” she asks curiously.

“The one we just got back from picking up. The one we left to pick up the morning after last week’s game.”

“Yes, but why do they want it?” When I give her a blank look, she sighs. “What’s in the box?”

She gets an insulted look for that. “How should I know?”

“Okay, you know what? Fine. I have a plan.”

The motion of the boat has changed. We’ve sprung a leak. Okay, don’t panic, Coast Guard will be coming for us soon.

But that doesn’t change the fact that I’m ready to chew chain and spit nails at Ezra and Tobias. They hurt Duke; that’s almost expected and he’ll heal. They hurt the Cape. They are going to regret that. I wonder how loud a thought has to be for the slimy little freak to read it. Well, read this, mind-reader. I start hurling thoughts of maiming and stabbing his way.

“Julia! Are you listening?”

No. “Got distracted. What’s the plan?” Before Audrey can answer, there’s sound and we freeze. Footsteps, two pairs. Dragging noises. Some cursing. “They’re moving Duke,” I say instead. “Hopefully back into the hold.”

Audrey curses. “The plan had been to get him free and have him distract Ezra, but how are we going to get him out of-” She breaks off and looks at me. “Tell me there’s a secret passage.”

“There’s a secret passage,” I tell her. “How’s he going to be a distraction?”

She gestures with an earbud. “He wears this. I tell him what to do and what to say. Ezra can’t read him because there won’t be anything to read, and you sneak up behind them and take them out. Can you do that?”

They. Hurt. My. Home.

“Oh, I can do that.”

“Don’t kill them,” she adds a little worriedly. “Okay. You show me how to get to Duke and then sneak into position.”

Under Agent Howard’s bemused but watchful eye, Audrey and I sneak out through the slip passage and peel back the tape holding the other one shut. I leave her to freeing Duke and explaining the plan; I’ve got the guns, so I’m lookout. The lights are still out, casting plenty of convenient shadow. The two sleazebuckets are talking on the other side of the deck, and I think loud and pointy murderous thoughts at them and take grim pleasure in how uncomfortable Ezra seems. I also notice that the money and cards have been swept up off what we were using for a table and resolve to search them later. Why should they keep our money? Then I focus on the fantasy of cutting Tobias’s wandering hand off at the wrist while he screams.

The lights flicker as Audrey futzes with them; that’s our cue. I move along the rail in a crouch, quick and quiet, as the two scuzzballs exclaim in annoyance and alarm. They move forward a step of two before the light stabilizes and there’s Duke, bruised and a little bloody, whistling to catch their attention.

“How’d he get loose, Ez?” demands the creep, gun trained steadily. Ezra’s shakes as he protests that he doesn’t know.

“Abracadabra,” Duke announces, hands up in a sort of jazzy ‘don’t shoot’ gesture, mocking.

“You know, you forgot to actually escape there, Houdini.” Tobias ignores the fact that we’re half an hour out to sea, at night, and there’s nowhere to escape to.

I continue edging around, smoothly, not drawing attention.

“Hey,” Duke says warningly, pointing at Tobias. “Don’t come any closer!”

Tobias keeps edging forward. “Why not?”

“Because…” The worn denim overshirt comes off and is dropped to the deck as Duke utters a very fake-sounding karate yell, gesturing like he’s in a bad monster flick. Then he spins around, claps his hands – still making the fake-sounding noises, and segues into some dance step before assuming the cliché ‘I’m about to kick your ass’ pose, both hands and one leg up.

I draw my matte black pistols.

“I got moves that Ralph Machio the Karate Kid himself never dreamed of,” Duke announces as Ezra lowers his gun, distracted by pain, the other hand going to his temple. Duke points at him. “And James Brown, for that matter!” he adds, pointing straight at the mind-reader, who’s helpfully edging closer to the creep.

“What’s happening, Ez!” The creep sounds like he’s covering fear with anger.

“I dunno! I don’t know, it’s…it’s like his…his head is totally blank, there’s nothing there!”

He’s definitely losing the grip on the gun; not a threat. But I need both of them off-guard…and I’m curious to see how this plays out.

“Hey!” And all the threatening posture is gone as Duke protests. “Now, that’s just not nice.”

The two douchebags tell each other to tie him up, neither of them sounding like he wants to do it. Ezra protests unsteadily that Duke might have a gun…probably picking up on me behind them with guns.

Tobias doesn’t want to take any chances. “Well, why don’t I just shoot him?”

“Whoahwhoahwhoahwhoah now! Bad form. I don’t even have a gun. I’m unarmed,” Duke protests. Ezra isn’t even making a pretense anymore of holding the gun on him, but Tobias still is unwavering.

Then Duke drops his ‘don’t shoot’ posture and looks up at the night sky as if to say, really? Really? And I wonder what Audry’s telling him for a brief moment before thinking hard about my knives and how easily I could stab with them.

“Alright, alright,” Duke says. “Look, look, look. See?”

He’s taking the tank top off. I’m looking.

“See?” His hands are…going to his fly.

“Ez…”

“Nothing.”

Oh my god. Is he going to…

“Okay? Happy?”

AND THE PANTS COME OFF. There’s underwear underneath, but he slides out of his sandals and kicks the pants away and that’s all he’s wearing. Underwear. This is the best day ever. Oh my god I want to lick him all over.

“Nothing! No gun.”

Ez isn’t looking so hot. Duke, on the other hand, is looking so hot and that’s probably what’s distracting him.

“But,” Duke continues, “my friend Officer Parker, on the other hand, is armed. And she looooves shooting bad guys.”

Ezra looks around wildly, somehow not seeing me. Tobias calls his attention back to Duke.

Out of the blue, Duke shouts, “I’M NOT DOING THAT!”

“What’s happening, Ez!?”

Tobias sounds just a little freaked.

“I don’t understand what he’s saying,” Ezra whines. “I don’t understand…”

I think very hard about that underwear and the fine, fine legs coming out of it. My hands, sliding up those legs, pushing them apart so I can get at-

“It’s funny,” Duke says somewhat desperately, with gestures meant to be reassuring, “how your life just…passes before your eyes in a moment like this.”

“Aaaa I don’t understand, man! I don’t understand what he’s doing…”

Tobias looks uncertain.

“I never learned how to saddle a horse,” Duke announces, his arms out entreatingly.

I’ve got my saddle. And I’d looove to take that gypsy stallion for a ride.

“I never…” Both hands out, pointing with one finger in a ‘just a second’ gesture. “I’ve eaten cottage cheese,” he says definitively. Then he switches to wheedling. “I never learned how to do the electric slide!”

Ezra whimpers more. “What’s happening, Tobias? What’s happening here?”

The creep’s attention is wavering; one sudden moment of confusion should shatter both of them. As if he senses that, Duke lunges aggressively forward, one hand slapping his chest.

“I NEED A HUG!”

Tobias steps back. “Hey, get away, you lunatic!”

Duke points off to port. “Look! Eggs!”

I step forward and press the barrels of both guns to the small of Ezra and Tobias’s backs. “Drop the gun,” I order.

Two guns clatter to the deck. Audrey darts out of the shadows and scoops them up before retreating and handing one to Duke, and together they train them on the prisoners.

“She was telling him what to do, man! That’s why I couldn’t read him…”

“Good, Ez,” the creep growls. “Timely insight.”

“Enough talking.” I jab them with the guns. “Hands on your heads and sit in the chairs.”

I keep close enough to push them a little as they sit down and wait for Audrey to secure their wrists with something she found in the hold. Duke eyes me in my Night Mission outfit, shaking his head like he can’t believe it, and I’m glad the hood has the lower mask to cover my face and the goggles to hide my eyes because mmm, I am just eating this lean strip steak up raw.

“Okay,” Audrey says with a nervous little laugh as she finishes, “you can put your clothes back on.”

Duke looks at her like he’d forgotten she was there, then glances down at the underwear and back to her. “I’m good, thanks.” But he does go over to the red bench and sits, sliding the gun back into its bracket. Then he leans forward and peers into the bucket, picks it up, and holds it out to me. The cards and cash are in it. “Danger pay,” he says firmly.

“Hey, some of that money’s mine!” Audrey protests.

“You get the arrest, she gets the money. That was above and beyond the call of duty. Take it,” he says as I shake my head and holster my guns, “and no arguing with me, wench!”

“I’m not arguing,” I protest, “I’ll take it. Just not right now.”

He relaxes a little. “Why not?”

I slug Tobias right in the face. “That’s for trying to get handsy with me last week,” I snarl. Then I turn to Ezra. “And you…”

“Aaaa don’t hit me,” he whimpers, flinching.

I think very violent thoughts at him while he whines and moans and begs me to make it stop. I don’t stop until he breaks down crying, and then I step back and stretch. Audrey looks vaguely uncomfortable, and Duke’s still sitting on the red bench with the bucket in his lap.

“I’ll take that now,” I tell him cheerfully, reaching for it.

His hands tighten around it. “No, you will not. You need to go change back into normal clothes before the Coast Guard gets here.”

“Good point.”

“And while you do that, I will see how bad the damage is and get…cleaned up.”

“Want me to help when I’m dressed, Boss?”

“No. I want you to come back out and keep an eye on these two. Sea’s getting rough,” he says blandly. “They might fall over. Audrey, when she gets back, I want you in the cockpit manning the radio.”

Audrey gives me another vaguely uncomfortable look. “What about Agent Howard?”

“I’ll brief him on my way by,” I offer. “Back in a jiffy.”

It’s easy enough to unblock the door and get back into the stateroom.

“Everything okay out there?” the not-FBI-agent asks me.

“Ship’s secure,” I tell him, pulling off gloves and hood.

He looks like he wants to say something, but he just presses his lips together and nods. I nod back and leave through the slip passage, closing it behind me. Then I close the one in the hold and climb back onto the roof so I can re-enter my cabin through the trap door. Night Mission outfit off and hung on the ladder. Regular clothes back on. Unlock the door. Back out to the deck where I take the gun from Audrey and put it in its hiding spot and then sit cheerfully on the red bench and smile at the two sleazeballs while she goes up to the cockpit.

“Give me a reason,” I say lightly.

They don’t.