Mayhem Takes a Dare: The Second Marisa Adair Mystery Adventure (Marisa Adair Mysteries Book 2) (2 page)

Tara was outrageously gorgeous, with a petite yet curvaceous body and a constant stream of panting males of all sizes and ages in her wake. Marisa couldn’t help contrasting her own medium-length brown hair, sprinkling of freckles, and tall, larger frame with its exercise trouble spots to her friend’s soft, feminine figure. She supposed the only thing stopping her from committing justifiable homicide was Tara’s sweet disposition, great sense of humor, and compassionate nature.

“Caleb was an asshole.” Tara gulped her 7-Up, and discreetly burped.

That’s my delicate little friend,
Marisa thought with a slight smile.

“Murderer!”

Marisa’s head snapped up. Brianna, obviously recharged from her visit to the ladies’ room, stalked across the dark room. In her wake, Carla flapped her arms like an emaciated crow. With a growl, the furious  Brianna pulled an object from under her jacket.

Marisa gasped. “She has a gun!” To Marisa’s terrified eyes, the gun appeared to be at least five feet long. She clutched Tara’s arm.

“Don’t anybody move,” Brianna snarled. She whirled, trying to point her weapon at everyone at once.

The absolute stillness of the room reminded Marisa of the miniature homes she had put together as a child. As the offspring of an out-of-control alcoholic father and passive, enabling mother, she’d rarely had enough to eat or clothes to wear, let alone toys. Instead, she had to use whatever was at hand and her imagination. With the plentiful, shallow boxes which had held the cases of beer her father brought into the house every night, and figures cut from discarded paper, Marisa had been able to construct happy, loving homes. She carefully copied images from outdated library books and the unspoken yearnings of her imagination. In a particularly fruitful trip to the local dump, Marisa had found a book of wallpaper samples. She had used the squares of bright colors and soft textures to transform her boxes into beautiful rooms.

The people in the bar were as motionless as the figures she’d created from paper.

Across the room, a woman screeched. The sound seemed to release everyone from their stasis.

His eyes wide with fear, the man across the room started to rise from his chair in front of the computer.

A bouncer, his bald head gleaming in the dim light and his arm muscles straining the seams of his shirt, started toward Brianna with a professional swagger.

The thin young man in the bandana who had earlier intercepted Brianna’s angry fist moved in the shadows. His pants drooping on his hips to reveal plaid boxers and his dark glasses catching the dim light, he eased his way along the wall.

Brianna jerked wildly, pinning them with her gun and her glare. “Stay back, unless you want me to spray your guts on the wall!”

Movement stopped. The bouncer halted, his palms up and non-threatening. Carla stopped waving her arms and backed away to stand next to Tara.

A cool hand touched Marisa’s arm, causing her to jerk. She didn’t want to take her eyes off Brianna. Even as she realized it was illogical, Marisa thought she could use the force of her gaze to keep Brianna from pulling the trigger.

The hand tightened on her arm and warm breath tickled her frozen cheek. “Marisa, why is it every time I run into you, you’re poking sticks at crazed killers?”

The tentacles of panic eased their hold on Marisa, retreating slightly to the darkest corners of her mind. As they slid away, Marisa found she could breathe and think and even move. She carefully turned toward the sound. “Alex Caldwell! I am not ‘poking the stick’! What are you doing here?”

The short hair, spiky on top, suited the lines and planes of Alex’s bony face. In spite of being in the center of a hostage situation, his strong lips were curved into a slight smile. With his deep blue eyes appearing black in the dimness and coolly trained on Brianna, he looked like a panther preparing to launch himself at his prey. Although his body was completely motionless, he seemed ready to spring at any moment. The pristine white dress shirt and black pleated pants contrasted with the stance of lithe, catlike danger.

“No talking!” Brianna screamed. She trained the gun on Marisa.

Behind the bar, his face wet with sweat and his eyes huge with fear, the bartender jerked his hands under the counter. Perpendicular to Marisa and Alex, Brianna would be able to see him in her peripheral vision, if the bartender’s movement caught her attention.

The bartender’s movement also caught Carla’s eyes. Her face shiny with perspiration, the red-haired woman glanced at him. Her body tense with effort, Carla tried to focus Brianna on herself. “Come on, Brianna, calm down. Trust me. You know I’m like the surrogate mom for everyone on the website. Now listen to me and think. Why are you blaming Tara for Caleb’s murder? She didn’t kill him.”

Surrogate mother.
In spite of the tension and her fear, Marisa winced. The woman appeared to be near Marisa’s own age of thirty-nine.

Brianna growled. “Carla! He met his killer on that website! It’s Tara’s website. Because of Tara, Caleb is dead!”

Marisa meaningfully caught Alex’s gaze and nodded her head toward the bartender. Alex followed her eyes. The young bartender had a cell phone in his hand. He held it up, pointing it toward Brianna.

Alex squeezed Marisa’s arm, and then he released his tight grip. “Idiot!” he breathed. “He’s not calling 911! He’s recording this on his cell phone!” He ground his teeth in frustration.

Marisa sucked in her breath. “If we live through this, I’m personally going to kill him! When I’m finished with him, he won’t be able to post it on his Phiz Phase page or sell it to a tabloid!”

Brianna’s voice rose in a screechy wail. “Carla, you know if that bleached blonde hadn’t lured him to her deviant website, Caleb would still be alive! Tara set up that site for sick women on the prowl for innocent men—”

Tara thrust her jaw and clenched her tiny fists. “Excuse me! I enhance the natural lightness of my hair,” she snarled.

Marisa squeaked, “Tara, for God’s sake, this is not the time to split hairs!”

Carla clamped her long, thin fingers on Marisa’s shoulder. “This is not the time to make lame puns!” she hissed.

Effectively pinned in place like a butterfly impaled on a sharp pin, Marisa squirmed against the painfully tightening claws on her shoulder. “You’re the one who’s arguing with a crazy woman with a gun!” Marisa hissed back, stung by the injustice.

“Not a good idea to call the woman with a gun crazy—” Carla’s tube top slid down her chest toward indecent exposure as she tried to unobtrusively point at Brianna. Her sprayed bangs and stiff red rays of hair shook with her head as she nodded with significant emphasis.

Without warning, the big screens mounted on the walls powered up. Text and pictures appeared on the screens. As the screens scrolled, headlines proclaimed singles in search of soulmates, while the accompanying pictures depicted groups in casual poses, glamour shots of women, and men proudly leaning against their shiny cars.

Marisa jumped. Carla let go of her shoulder. Tara whirled. Brianna snarled and swung her gun toward the screens. The bartender stumbled backward, hit a bottle with a wildly waving arm, and fell on his ass.

Alex lunged toward the distracted Brianna. At the last moment, she pointed the gun directly at his heart. He stopped, his arms outstretched in a grim parody of the children’s game of statues.

“Alex! Are you insane?” Marisa put one hand to her racing heart. She wasn’t sure if it was surprise, fear, or a heart attack. At the oak bar, spilled brown liquid flowed along the surface and dribbled to the floor in a thin waterfall. “For God’s sake! You’re an accountant, not a one-man SWAT team!”

A trill of familiar laughter filled the air like a spritzing of knock-off designer perfume. As she swung her head in the direction of the sound, Marisa narrowed her eyes. The sound had originated with the woman in the nearby booth who had caught Marisa’s eyes earlier. She playfully swatted at the man across from her, sending the trailing tendrils of hair curling around her face dancing with her movements.

Marisa snapped her fingers.
Linda Borders!
The last time Marisa had seen the case management director, she’d been an overweight, pear-shaped brunette dressed in stretch pants, a smock, and a hair band. In spite of the extreme makeover, Marisa would know that fake flirtatious laugh anywhere. “Linda! What are you doing here! New do, new clothes…new…you.”

The target of Linda’s coy wiles turned his head. Shocked, Marisa sucked in a breath. “Bernard Morningside!”

The flirty, trailing curls framing Linda’s attractively bronzed face jerked in the blue glow from the huge screen. “Ms. Adair.”

“Linda! What are you doing here with that convicted felon?”

Linda’s brightly painted red mouth fell open. She faced the man across the table. “Convicted felon?” she choked.

Wrinkling his expensive gray suit, Morningside squirmed. “Well, about that…I thought since you’d been mixed up in a murder, Linda, and had pled guilty to some lesser charges as part of your plea deal, you’d understand my record. My insignificant little conviction on trafficking charges would be minor in comparison to what you’ve done—”

Shocked eyes glared at Marisa. “Marisa! You told him!”

Marisa rolled her eyes in exasperation. “Jeez, Linda, you are not the sun with the earth and everything on it revolving around you!”

Brianna growled.

Tara slid off her barstool. She urgently tugged at Marisa’s arm. “This is not the time to reminisce,” she hissed.

“Leave her alone, Tara,” Alex whispered. “Marisa, keep trying to distract you-know-who.”

“What, so you can run away and leave us to face her?” Tara put her hands on her hips.

Keeping his body in the defensive pose, Alex turned his head to glare at Tara. “I am not a coward!”

“I know who you are talking about distracting. I am not an idiot.” Brianna sniffed, and then wiped her nose on her shoulder. 

Linda popped up from her seat, her delicate features contorted with rage. “Excuse me. I was talking. Marisa, you obviously know Bernie. He knows about my little spot of trouble. Therefore, you told him!”

Marisa nearly growled in frustration. “Tara, Alex would never run away from danger. Brianna, of course you’re not an idiot. Linda, I didn’t tell him anything! I recognized Mr. Morningside because he recently applied for a job at the hospital. The routine background check showed a previous conviction for trafficking controlled substances, and the five years he spent in prison.”

Morningside flashed a brilliant smile up at his enraged date. “I recognized your face from the online accounts of the murder, Linda, and I thought our similar brushes with the criminal justice system indicated a match made in heaven—”

The light from her computer screen caught the sheen of tears in Linda’s heavily made up eyes. “You creep!” She swung her huge purse over her shoulder. “I am so out of here!”

“Stop or I’ll shoot you, bitch!” Brianna turned the gun on Linda.

Like a sailboat stopped by calm winds, Linda collapsed in her seat.

Brianna was fierce. “Everyone just stop talking! I am in charge! I have the gun! You have to listen to me!” The business end of the gun swung around the room, causing alarmed people in its pivoting path to crash to the floor as it circled the room.

“Linda. Marisa. Be quiet.” Tara bared her teeth, unnaturally white in the neon light. “Brianna, for God’s sake, you were a member yourself when you met Caleb on the so-called sick website.”

“I was there to find my soulmate. You were there to grind unsuspecting men under your slutty stiletto heels,” Brianna howled. Like a swirling pointer in a board game, the gun moved to Tara’s chest.

Marisa refused to allow it to be Tara’s turn in Brianna’s bizarre game. She pushed her shorter friend behind her so hard Tara staggered against the bar.

With the snarl of a crazed animal, Alex sprang between Marisa and Brianna.

Brianna pulled the trigger with an odd popping noise.

Dark in the eerie light, a stain blossomed on Alex’s white shirt.

“Alex! You idiot! You’ve been shot!” Marisa hauled Alex to the floor and ripped at his shirt, popping the white buttons.

Pushing at Marisa, Alex struggled to sit up. “Get off me! You’re heavier than you look!”

From his other side, Tara pulled at the stained shirt. “Stop insulting Marisa’s weight! You’re a busybody pain in our asses, always pushing your pointy nose in our business, but I don’t want you to die!”

Alex stopped struggling against the two women. “I am not a busybody and my nose is not pointy!”

“He’s stopped moving! I think he’s dead!” Tara leaped to her feet. “Is anyone a doctor? A nurse?” Faced with regretfully shaking heads, Tara stamped her foot. “Anybody sit in on a first aid course?”

Morningside bustled to Tara’s side with an ingratiating smile. “I gave mouth-to-mouth to a fellow inmate after he stopped breathing.” He knelt by Alex. “He was stabbed in the chest with a homemade shiv. If it hadn’t been for me, he would have died.” With a giggle of anticipation, Morningside slid one hand under Alex’s head.

Alex finally pushed himself up from Marisa’s frantic hands and Morningside’s firmly descending, pursed lips. “You touch me, buddy, and I’ll punch you in the nose!”