Bonnie of Evidence - By Maddy Hunter Page 0,42
you coming with us?”
“And leave the camera hounds on shore by themselves?” He smiled. “Not on your life. Bring back a picture of Nessie if you run into her.”
The engine revved anemically before sputtering to a deafening roar. As the lines were cast off, Etienne blew me a kiss, then sauntered back to shore, turning to wave as we were enveloped in a smelly cloud of diesel exhaust.
“This reeks!” Dolly fussed as we motored beyond the dock. She regarded me accusingly. “Are we going to have to sit here and inhale toxic fumes the entire trip?”
“Maybe when we’re up to speed, you’d prefer to waterski,” Stella Gordon wisecracked.
Dolly narrowed her eyes, her stare growing frigid. “Don’t get smart with me.”
“Or you’ll what?” challenged Stella.
Oh, God. “You might try sitting in the wheelhouse,” I offered helpfully. “The fumes might not be so bad in there.”
Dolly pursed her perfectly painted lips and raised her perfectly plucked brows a quarter-inch. “I don’t want to sit inside.” She sidled closer to Cameron Dasher on the bench and smiled. “I’m perfectly happy right here. I just don’t want to smell these noxious fumes.”
“What’s the matter?” taunted Stella. “Do they clash with your perfume?”
“Quiet, Stella,” barked her husband. “She’s one of the brave MacDonalds. Leave her alone.”
Stella curled her lip into a sneer as she regarded her husband. “Bite me.”
We were sitting on opposite sides of the deck—the Gordons, Dolly, and Cameron occupying the starboard bench, while Erik, Alex, and I sat to port. Everyone else was in the wheelhouse, where they were probably enjoying a more audible version of the narration that was blaring over the loudspeaker like a soundtrack of angry bees.
“… bzzzzt … thirty-seven … bzz … kilometers long and … bzzzzt … bzzzzt … more fresh water than … bzzzzt … and Wales … bzzzzt … bzzzzt … except Loch Morar …”
Cameron Dasher threw up his hands and laughed. “The speaker system is apparently even older than the boat. Do you suppose we’re missing anything important?”
Bill Gordon swung his bulky torso around and peered over the side of the boat. “It’s probably telling us that Loch Ness has the murkiest water in the world. If the Titanic sank in the middle of this lake, a guy in a deep diving submersible with Hellfighter military spotlights blazing from two feet away wouldn’t be able to see it.”
I flinched. I wish he hadn’t said that.
“bzz … bzzt …”
“Is that true?” asked Dolly.
Bill folded his arms across his chest like an all-powerful genie. “I just told you, didn’t I?”
“He’s full of crap,” droned Stella.
“I don’t think he’s full of crap at all.” Dolly offered Bill an ego-boosting smile. “I think he’s quite intelligent to keep all those facts in his head.”
“Try being married to him,” snorted Stella. “You’d see firsthand how intelligent he is.”
“bzzzzt … low visibil … bzt …”
Dolly gasped. “What a terrible thing to say! Poor Bill, having to sit here and listen to your nastiness.” She hardened her gaze at Stella. “If you can’t treat your man any better than that, you don’t deserve to have one.”
“You hear that, Stella?” crowed Bill. “It’s what I’ve been telling you for years. You don’t deserve me.”
“Feel free to leave.” Stella flashed an acid smile. “I’d welcome the deprivation.”
“Always with the put-downs,” railed Bill. “I should have listened to my mother. She warned me what would happen if I married outside the clan. She knew. She begged me to find a real Scot, someone like Dolly here, a MacDonald. But noo, I had to be stupid and get myself hoodwinked by a gold-digging Hungarian.”
“… peat content … bzzzzt … bzzzzt …”
“She married you for your money?” bristled Dolly.
“Yah,” Stella droned. “The whole twenty-six dollar and fifteen cent fortune he kept in his cookie jar.”
“You were eying my weapons collection,” accused Bill. “You knew it was going to be worth millions even back then.”
“It could have been worth millions,” Stella shot back with no small amount of sarcasm, “if you’d been bright enough to keep the documentation. Duh.”
Dolly regarded Stella with a disapproving sniff. Leaning sideways, she patted Bill’s forearm in a sympathetic gesture. “You’re being such a gentleman about this. Honestly, Bill, if she were my wife, I’d wash her mouth out with a big bar of French-milled soap.”
“Now there’s an idea,” he agreed.
Stella Gordon said nothing. She didn’t have to. The muscle pulsating in her jaw said it all. Popping up from the bench on her five-inch heels, she spun away from Bill, and