1 Sunshine Hunter (13 page)

“Well, honey, she won’t be back until tomorrow. You should come back then. Did anyone ever tell you that you look just like a young Marlon Brando?” Darby tightened his grip on my mouth. “You have a face for the stage. You should do some acting. Have you ever done any theater work before?
”

“Maybe,” said Skinny Guy warily.

“Well, I’ll put in a good word for you with Jacqueline. Give me your name, and I’ll tell her you were here.” Good for Johnny for trying to get his name.

“No, that’s ok,” Skinny Guy said
taking another look around. “I’ll stop back tomorrow.” He turned and walked out the door.

We all stood still for a few minutes, listening, waiting to see if he
would come back. Johnny peeked out the door again.

Darby finally removed his hand, and I was practically spitting in his face trying to get the feather out of my mouth. Johnny opene
d the closet doors so fast, I lost my balance, stepped on jumbled shoes, and pitched out of the closet head first and onto the floor.

“Oh, sweetie,” Johnny said sounding shoc
ked. “What a terrible bruise you’ve got there on your leg. How did you get that?”

Darby help
ed me up. “Darby!” I screeched at him. “I had a feather in my mouth. Why did you put your hand over my mouth?” I was frustrated and my knees hurt. They would probably have rug burns on them from the fall.

“I was afraid you would cough or make a noise - or spit all over me trying to get the feather out!” he said with
his own raised voice. It was obvious he was frustrated, too.

Johnny looked at me
with a puzzled expression and asked, “Why in the world did you put a feather in your mouth?”

Darby and I stood
staring at each other. The absurdity of the moment washed over us, and we burst out laughing.

“Johnny, we’re going to have to leave,” Darby told him. “I’m sorry we’re going to miss your show, but neither of us has any idea why this guy is stalking me, and I since we know he’s here, we’d better not stick around.”

“I understand,” he said. “I’ll call you later tonight, and maybe we can make plans for tomorrow. I’ll show you the back way out of the building.” Johnny gave both of us air kisses and hugs, and we said our goodbyes.

We made our way around the back of the building to the valet stand and picked the car up there. Darby took the ramp onto I-275 south for the drive back to St. Petersburg.

“Did you at least have a little bit of fun tonight?” he asked me.

“I actually had a very good time,” I said and smiled at him. “An
d the girls were nice, too. Did you know they’re beauty school dropouts?”

“Yep,” he nodded. “I found out at the pool yesterday. Those are some smart women, and they’ve really marketed themselves well. They’re part of a big musical show up in Toronto next weekend. I can’t get over how much they get around.” He shook his head in wonderment. He glanced ov
er at me, paused, and asked the question that was uppermost on his mind, “What did you think of Johnny?”

“Oh my gosh! You’re right, he’s a real character,” I said. “But I can see there’s more to him than what he likes to show to the public. It’s obvious he’s a showman and loves a theatrical enviro
nment, but I’m guessing there’s a quieter, more sensitive side to him, too.”

“There is,” he said. “And I like him a lot, but there aren’t any real sparks there. At least not yet. Tomorrow is our last day here, so I’m going to see him again and maybe get a better feel for what we’re going to do.”

We were quiet for a few minutes.

“Darby?” I said breaking the silence. “We have to talk about this. What did you make of Skinny Guy being there tonight?”

“I don’t know, Susan,” he said. “It was unsettling. I’m sorry I yelled at you in the dressing room.”

“I know. I’m sorry I yelled at you, too. It was just too much. The duck walking, ripping my dress, the feather, my knees – my poor knees,” I whined. “And then seeing Skinny Guy. I was kind of over the edge.”

“You know,” Darby said looking over at me, “he does kind of look like a young Marlon Brando.”

I punched him
lightly on the arm, but couldn’t help smiling.

We were quiet for the rest of the drive back to the hotel, but it was a different quiet than on the way over. We were both more nervous now about Skinny Guy than we had been before. He had followed Darby a long way tonight, and we still weren’t any closer to finding out why.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

2:00 A.M.

I was tossing and turning and couldn’t sleep. It had been an eventful evening, and I was too amped up with too many thoughts rolling around in my head. I tried to push them aside and think of something more soothing and relaxing. I thought about Mick. I missed him so much. I hated being homesick, and I felt like a child again counting the days until I could go home. At least it was only one more day. Or
two more sleeps
was how I counted when I was little. Yeah, right. If only I could go to sleep.

I tried to think about Mick again, and
remembered a picnic we had taken in the city park. It started out quite romantically. We held hands and walked along the creek that snaked its way through the park. I love lilacs, and there was a huge bank of the bushes near a footbridge crossing the creek. As we walked across the bridge, the smell of the lilacs was intense. I love when my senses are heightened, and the strong, pleasant odor of the flowers gave me a surge of euphoria. I breathed in deeply and made a satisfying “uhm” sound. Mick was sharply aware of my delight. He led us off the path and turned me to face him with my back against a tree. He leaned in and kissed me, gently at first, but then harder and with longing. I was overwhelmed by my feelings for him and the heat that was surging through my body. I returned the passionate kiss. The moment was perfect, but I was grateful we were in a public park and couldn’t succumb to the emotions that were going to put us in jail if we gave in to them right there. He took me by the hand again, and we made our way back to our picnic spot. Everything about the day had been perfect. I settled onto our blanket while Mick unpacked our lunch. I had made fabulous chicken salad sandwiches with a hint of lemon, no bread crusts, and rolled the edges in crushed cashews. They were sooo good. Who knew bees would be attracted to chicken? So many bees!

Ok, that was a
good memory with a bad ending. This wasn’t helping me to sleep. I tried to think about our conversation yesterday. He missed me, and wanted to see me. That was good. He told me about his marriage. What did his wife look like? Ooh, what did his wife look like? I could find out if I really wanted to. He said she was involved in Community Theater over in Marshall. I bet there was a picture of her there. Did I really want to see what she looked like?

Yes, I did.

I hopped out of bed, turned on the lights, and quickly changed into a t-shirt and jeans. I left my room and took the elevator to the lobby.

I didn’t recognize the night clerk, and he didn’t say anything to me as I walked across the room to the small media center. I sat down at a computer and brought up Google.

The Marshall Community Center had a nice website. They were currently showing Suessical the Musical. I wondered if they would be singing about green eggs and ham, or feet, or Thing One and Thing Two. I smiled. I loved Dr. Seuss as a child, and thought this would be a fun production. I didn’t see any reference to Jenny Raines. I looked at past productions and found her name referenced in Driving Miss Daisy. I clicked on the cast picture and found her name right away. She was seated in the center of the first row. I was surprised. She was quite nondescript. There wasn’t anything that made her stand out. She wasn’t overly attractive, but she wasn’t unattractive either. She looked like a nice person. I didn’t know why I thought this was a good idea. It seemed like a terrible invasion of Mick’s privacy.

I moved the mouse up to click the browser closed, but my eye caught a familiar sight o
n the page. Two rows back from Jenny, in my line of sight as I moved the mouse up the page, sat Skinny Guy! My heart started to pound. The color drained from my face. I went cold. Dead, pale, cold. Skinny Guy. Marlon Brando. And he was from Ohio. He knew Jenny. My mind was screaming out of control. Was this the guy who she was tight with? He knew Jenny. He didn’t know Darby. What was his name? I was so shaken, I couldn’t match the captioned names with the faces in the picture. His name, his name, what was his name? There it was. Wicker Barnes. Wicker Barnes? Who names their kid Wicker? It had to be a stage name. I was cold. I felt like I couldn’t breathe. I had to get back to the room - fast.

I ran to the elevator,
jumped in, and repeatedly jammed the button for seven. I was shaking, my teeth were chattering. The doors closed behind me. Why didn’t I take the stairs? What if the elevator stopped on another floor and Wicker Barnes got on? I was in a full-blown panic.

I ran to my room and slammed the door behind me. I ran to the door between our rooms, banged a couple of times, and threw the door open. I jumped onto Darby’s bed and started shaking him to wake him up. I didn’t realize it at first, but I was crying.

“Susan. Susan, honey, calm down,” he said gathering me into his arms. I was practically rolled into a ball and shaking hard. “Susan, what is it? Tell me.”

“Darby,” I sobbed.
“I know who Skinny Guy is. And he’s not after you, he’s after me!”

Darby wrapped a blanket around me and held me close until I finally stopped shaking and my crying was under control. He got up and handed a box of tissues to me. I blew my nose – loudly. “Can you talk about it now?” he asked.

I nodded my head.

“Well, let’s start at the beginning. Why are you up at 2:30 in the morning?” he asked.

“I couldn’t sleep,” I told him. “I was t
hinking about everything that’s happened this week, and I’m homesick, and I miss Mick, and . . .” I hesitated and looked at him sheepishly, “. . . and I thought I would run down to the lobby and get on a computer to see what Jenny looks like.”

“You’
re kidding, right?” he asked incredulously.

“Noooo
,” I replied, embarrassed. “But Darby, she looked nice, and it didn’t bother me to see her picture, and I realized I was being snoopy, so I went to close the page, and I saw Skinny Guy, Wicker Barnes,” I rolled my eyes at the name, “in the same picture with her.”

“Wicker Barnes?” he asked. “What kind of a name is Wicker? Are you sure it was the same guy?”

“I’m positive,” I said emphatically. “I’ve seen him enough times now, I’d know him anywhere. The curly hair, the Brando face, the build - it was him!” I was getting worked up. “Darby, he doesn’t know you; he knows Jenny. That means he probably knows who Mick is, and for some reason he’s after me. But I don’t know why, or what this could possibly mean.”

“You know, Susan, we could just fin
d him and ask him what he wants,” he said. That was typical Darby, always logical.

“No, we can’t.” I pleaded my case. “He ran us off the road on Tuesday. He wanted to hurt us. He’s been following us. He gave me four flat tires. Talking to him isn’t going to resolve this.”

“Then we need to go to the police,” he said.

“Oh my gosh, no!” I
shrieked. “Darby, we’re leaving Saturday morning, and I’m not getting involved with the police here. I don’t want to risk being delayed for any reason. I’ll call Mick in the morning and tell him about Wicker. Maybe he can find out what he’s doing in Florida.”

“I talked with Johnny this eve
ning,” Darby said. “He said the girls didn’t see anyone acting strangely or looking around during the show, and he never saw Skinny Guy, well, Wicker Barnes, again either.” He thought for a moment. “Johnny invited me to go out into the gulf tomorrow to do some fishing. Come with us. I don’t want you to be here alone.”

“No,” I shook my head. “You go. I’ll be fine in my room. I’ll watch television, pack my bags, and get ready to leave.”

“Are you sure?” he asked. “You’re welcome to come with us.”

“Positive,” I assured him. “I’ll probably sleep anyway. I’ll be ok.”

Darby looked at the clock. It was 3:00 A.M. “Susan, just stay here with me. You’ll be able to rest better. Try to get some sleep.”

I nodded. I was still
wrapped in Darby’s blanket. I settled myself on a pillow, rolled over, and closed my eyes. He turned off the light.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The bed was rocking. Why was the bed rocking? I opened one eye and realized Darby was lightly shaking me. “Susan … Susan … wake up,” he was saying.

“What? What’s wrong? What time is it?”
I asked. I was tired and groggy.

“It’s 8:00. I was going to let you sleep longer, but your phone is in your room, and it’
s been ringing a lot the last hour. I thought you might want to know.”

“I’m tired,” I told him, “and I don’t want to move.” My head hurt from crying so hard in the middle of the night.

“I’ll get it for you,” he said. He walked into my room and retrieved the phone from the nightstand where I’d left it the day before.