G'Day to Die: A Passport to Peril Mystery - By Maddy Hunter Page 0,54

you’d be today if you hadn’t hired some high-priced lawyer to get you off the hook.”

Roger bristled like an angry porcupine. “Don’t take this personally, Toots, but you’re starting to piss me off. My past is none of your damn business.”

“I can make it my business if the details are splashed all over the internet for the whole world to see. Your hometown paper has wonderful archival material. I expect Heath will be thrilled to entrust his mother into the hands of a man who has such a stellar track record with the gentler sex, don’t you?”

“I didn’t push her!” he yelled in a desperate tone. “The hot tub was supposed to be a surprise! She came back from her mother’s early and fell into the hole in the dark.”

“Sure she did,” Diana taunted.

“Is that one of those picture phones?” Ellie asked as she scrutinized Roger’s GPS. “Would you mind if I have a look? Connie could use something like that.”

Roger shoved the unit at her while he continued to rail at Diana. “If you read the outcome of the trial, you’d know that I was acquitted of all charges!”

Diana spiraled her forefinger in the air in an unenthusiastic whoopie.

“How do you dial this thing?” Ellie asked me. “There’s no keypad.”

“You can’t talk to anyone on it,” I said, eyeing it with excitement. “It’s a Global Positioning System.”

“Is that like an iPod? The grandkids all have iPods…and hearing problems.”

“It doesn’t play music.”

“Where’s the shutter?”

“It’s not a camera.”

“It can’t take pictures; it doesn’t play music, and it won’t let you talk to someone? Shoot, what good is it?”

“It helps you find your way if you’re lost.”

“What’s wrong with using a compass?”

I shrugged. “Nothing, except it’s not as cool as something that’s ridiculously expensive, eats batteries, and labels you as a trendsetter.”

She handed the unit to me. “Would you mind giving this back to our friend when he stops yelling? I’m going to catch up with the group.”

Of course I’d give it back to him, after I checked out the waypoint he’d shown me at Sovereign Hill—if I could find it again. I pressed the click stick to change the screen, and when nothing happened, I pressed a button above the power switch. The main menu appeared, with the word “Waypoints” at the top. Now we were cooking.

“Stay out of my face, Diana,” Roger threatened, “or you’re going to be one sorry scientist.”

She laughed dismissively. “What are you going to do? Invite me to go on a boat ride with you?”

I found the up and down buttons, wiggled the click stick, and accessed another menu. Highlighting the appropriate waypoint, I glanced at a new screen that showed the digits zero-one-four within a little flag. Ta da! But there were a gazillion numbers marking longitude and latitude. How was I supposed to remember all of them? I didn’t even memorize phone numbers anymore. I used speed dial!

“I’d love to see what happens to you around water,” Roger mocked. “My best guess is that your face dissolves. Am I right?”

“You’re a dickhead, Roger. You’re not going to win Nora over. I’ll see to it personally—that’s a promise.”

“Don’t make promises you can’t keep, Toots. Hey, where’d the old broad go with my GPS?”

I powered off the unit and waved it at him. “Here you go. She wasn’t impressed. She said she’d rather have a compass.”

He regarded the blank screen. “Did you turn it off?”

“Yup. Didn’t want to drain your batteries.”

“How’d you know which button to press?”

“Lucky guess.”

He eyed me suspiciously. “You better not have screwed anything up. No one touches my GPS. If that witch hadn’t distracted me—” He threw an ugly look after Diana as she hiked back toward the main building.

“You two have become pretty fierce competitors, hunh?” I asked.

“She’ll never be in my league. She’s a rank amateur. What she doesn’t know is, when she least suspects it, I’m going to crush her.” He cracked his knuckles in seeming anticipation and smiled. “Metaphorically, of course.”

I hoped his metaphorical definition of the word “crush” didn’t include any activity that would impair Diana’s ability to walk, talk, or breathe. He might be short, but he was so bulked up with muscle, he might as well have OVERSIZE LOAD tattooed on his forehead. If he fell on top of her, we’d need a crane to lift him off.

I blanched at the image. I hope he hadn’t just confessed to meditating about premeditated murder. If Diana ended up dead, where would that leave me, other than