Mystery Man

“Well, from now on, lie on the deck,” he replied curtly. “No more adventures.”

“Okay,” she said easily, and ate another chunk of cake.

“It’s coconut cake,” Kurt volunteered. “That little grocery store has them. Janie gets them all the time for us. They’re great.”

“I’d offer you a slice of cake, Mr. Rourke, but I’m sure you’re in a terrible hurry.”

“I suppose I must be. Come on, Karie.”

His daughter took a big swallow of milk and got up from the table. “Thanks, Janie!”

“You’re very welcome.” She glanced at Canton. “Housekeepers don’t make very good bodyguards.”

“I never meant her to be a watchdog, only a cook and housecleaner. Apparently I’d better look elsewhere.”

“It might be wise.”

His eyes slid down her long legs in worn jeans, down to her bare, pretty feet. He smiled in spite of himself. “Don’t like shoes, hmmm?”

“Shoes wear out. Skin doesn’t.”

He chuckled. “You sound like Einstein. I recall reading that he never wore socks, for the same reason.”

Her eyes lifted to his face and slid over it with that same sense of stomach-rapping excitement that she experienced the first time she saw it. He did so closely resemble her favorite series TV character. It was uncanny, really.

“Are you sure you don’t act?” she asked without meaning to.

He gave her a wry look. “I’m sure. And I’m not about to start, at my age.”

“There go your hopes, dashed for good,” Kurt murmured dryly. “He’s not an illegal alien trying to fit in with humans, Janie. Tough luck.”

She flushed. “Will you shut up!”

“What did you do with that autographed photo?” he asked as he passed the desk.

“Oh, she never has it out when she’s working,” Kurt volunteered. “If she can see it, she just sits and sighs over it and never gets a word on the screen.”

He scowled, interested. “What sort of work do you do?”

“She’s a secretary,” Kurt said for her, gleefully improvising. “Her boss is a real slave driver, so even on vacation, she has to take the computer with her so that she can use the computer’s fax modem to send her work to the office.”

He made an irritated sound. “Some boss.”

“He pays well,” she said, warming to Kurt’s improvisation. She sighed. “You know how it is, living in a commune, you get so out of touch with reality.” She contrived to look dreamy-eyed. “But eventually, one has to return to the real world and earn a living. It really is so hard to get used to material things again.”

His face closed up. He gave her a glare that could have stopped traffic and motioned to Karie to follow him. He stuck his hands into his pockets and walked out the door. He never looked back. It seemed to be a deep-seated characteristic.

Karie grinned and waved, following obediently.

When they were out of sight along the beach, Kurt joined her on the patio deck.

“What if that man wasn’t watching Karie at all?” she wondered aloud, having had time to formulate a different theory. “What if he’s a lookout for the pothunters?”

Kurt scowled. “You mean those people who steal artifacts from archaeological sites and sell them on the black market?”

“The very same.” She folded her arms over her T-shirt. “This is a brand-new site, unexplored and uncharted until now. Mom and Dad even noted that it seemed to be totally undisturbed. The Maya did some exquisite work with gold and precious jewels. What if there’s a king’s ransom located at the dig and someone knows about it?”

Kurt leaned against the railing. “They know it can happen. It did last time they found a site deep in the jungle, over near Chichñaen Itzñaa. But they had militia guarding them and the pothunters were caught.”

“Yes, but Mexico is hurting for money, and it’s hard to keep militia on a site all the time to guard a few archaeologists.”

“Dad has a gun.”

“And he can shoot it. Sure he can. But they can’t stay awake twenty-four hours a day, and even militia can be bribed.”

“You’re a whale of a comfort,” Kurt groaned.

“I’m sorry. I just think we should be on our guard. It could have been someone trying to kidnap Karie, but they’ve just as much incentive to kidnap us or at least keep a careful eye on us.”

“In other words, we’d better watch our backs.”

Janine smiled. “Exactly.”

“Suits me.” He sighed. “What a shame your alien hero can’t beam down here and help us out. I’ll bet he’d have the bad guys for breakfast.”

“Oh, they don’t eat humans,” she assured him.

“They might make an exception for pothunters.”

“You do have a point there. Come on. You can help me do the dishes.”

“Tell you what,” he said irrepressibly. “You do the dishes, and I’ll write your next chapter for you!”

“Be my guest.”

He gave her a wary look. “You’re kidding, right?”

“Wrong. Go for it.”

He was excited, elated. He took her at her word and went straight to the computer. He loaded her word processing program, pulled up the file where she’d left off, scanned the plot.

He sat and he sat and he sat. By the time she finished cleaning up the kitchen, he was still sitting.

“Nothing yet?” she asked.

He gave her a plaintive stare. “How do you do this?” he groaned. “I can’t even think of a single word to put on paper!”

“Thinking is the one thing I don’t do,” she told him. “Move.”