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We may want to catch a killer, but we sure as heck aren’t doing it on an empty stomach.
As Phineas can attest, life is far too short for that.
CHAPTER 18
“I’m melting,” a horrid screech emits from that dummy glued to Nettie’s arm. “I’m going to die! We’re all going to die!”
A handful of tourists crane their necks our way. Although judging by the copious amounts of sweat running down their temples and their red faces, I don’t doubt they share the same sentiment.
Lord knows I certainly do.
Who knew the back of my legs could excrete just as much as my underarms? And whose bright idea was it to wear flip-flops out on fiery terrain? Both mine and Nettie’s, apparently. Bess was wise enough to wear sneakers.
“Would you tell that dummy of yours to keep it down?” Bess nudges her gray-headed bestie. “Someone is going to call an ambulance if you keep this up or the police. And so help me if I end up in jail again because of you.”
Again?
“That wasn’t Sparky,” Nettie huffs as we struggle to keep up with the tour group as we’re led through a black lava landscape that has taken this eighty-plus degree weather and magnified it ten times hotter than the surface of the sun. “That was me,” she pants. “And as long as that ambulance is air-conditioned, I won’t mind one bit.”
“I’m with you on that,” I say as we pause for a moment and thereby disjoint ourselves farther from the sweaty crowd we arrived with.
Layla was kind enough to comp our tickets, seeing that cruise ship has a handful of freebies they pass out to guests now and again for a good cause. And seeing that we’re here to track down a killer, Layla thought it qualified as a good cause.
Travis Weatherly may not be the killer, but he is the exact reason we’re here, and the exact reason we had to endure a forty-five-minute drive from the harbor to Volcano National Park.
Layla had mentioned there would still be plenty of room open for the tour because a daytime hike of the lava fields is not a popular excursion.
Shocking, I know.
But alas, there’s still more than a handful of people who didn’t know better, and you can count me in that number.
I shake my head. “If I knew it would be so unforgivably hot, I would have eschewed the opportunity to dance on a frying pan and waited to catch him tonight when he got back to the ship,” I say, taking off my baseball cap for a moment to wipe the sweat from my forehead. “I’m just thrilled I didn’t end up here with Ransom. One look at the walking ball of grease I’ve become and he’d want to eschew me for the rest of his days.”
“Please,” Nettie pants as Sparky flops over, flaccid by her side. “Ransom is a man. If a naked woman is in his presence, I’m pretty sure the grease would only add to his interest.”
Bess nods. “I don’t say this often, but she’s right.”
“I’m always right,” Nettie growls. “Now let’s get crackin’ before my noggin gets cookin’. I still need a few brain cells to function properly, and as it stands I left a few back on the ship with the lobster tail I didn’t have time to finish.”
“You left a few back in Vermont, too,” Bess says, mentioning their shared home state. She looks my way. “On top of all of the other funny things Nettie has done, she once ran a funny farm.”
“A funny farm?” I ask, my interest piqued.
Nettie nods. “I harvested the greens for funny cigarettes. And like any good farmer, I had to sample the goods to make sure I was doling out quality products.”
Bess forces a smile. “And that is the story of how she left her brain cells in Vermont. The one she’s got left, she’s given to the walnut strapped to her side.”
Sparky sits up abruptly, thus evoking a scream from Bess, me, and surprisingly Nettie.
“Who you calling a walnut?” he barks loud and clear, and I’d swear on everything that is good that I didn’t see Nettie’s lips move once. “You’re one to talk,” he growls her way and both Bess and Nettie cower away from him. “You look like an eggplant with hair.”
“An eggplant? Really?” Bess scoffs at the idea. “Not only does the eggplant come from the nightshade family, it happens to be one of my favorite hues. And with the right marinara sauce, it doesn’t taste half bad either. I’m not entirely sure I take that as an insult.”
“Just you wait, Red,” he snarls. “You should see what happened to the last person who insulted me. I’ll find a way to make you pay yet.”
“Good grief.” Bess fans herself with the pamphlet we were given when we stepped off the bus. “If I knew I was going to be harassed by a bump on a log, I would have opted to stay back on the ship and read by the pool.” She cranes her neck at the tour company wandering farther away. “How much longer do we have to spend in Hades, anyway?”
“It’s a three-hour tour,” I say. “And don’t either of you dare start singing a familiar tune. The last thing I want is to get stranded out here. And with our luck, despite the mass of humanity swarming around us, I think it’s a distinct possibility.”
