Mayhem Takes a Dare: The Second Marisa Adair Mystery Adventure (Marisa Adair Mysteries Book 2) (28 page)

Marisa winced when Anna prodded her in the back with the gun. She knew it was a real firearm, and not the tranquilizer gun.

“Get in the house, Marisa, before someone sees us.”

They were at Anna’s former home. It was now the home of Anna’s ex-husband, who was also Marisa’s former boyfriend.

Marisa used the key Anna handed to her, and unlocked the door. She looked around the familiar home, with its clutter and disorder.

Anna poked her again with the gun. “In the basement, Marisa.”

Marisa turned to face her. “If you’re going to kill me, do it here and now.”

Anna’s curly hair bounced as she shook her head. “I have no intention of killing you, Marisa. I want answers, that’s all. Now get in that basement. I have a friend of yours down there, just waiting to talk to you.”

Marisa walked down the stairs. If she could find an opportunity to overpower Anna, she’d get the gun away from her and escape.

The basement was a pool of thick darkness. Anna flicked a switch, and it flooded with light. Anna ordered Marisa to walk around the old furniture and boxes. Marisa wound her way through the clutter. The only clean object appeared to be the huge safe near the middle of the basement. The size of a refrigerator, it was shiny black and free of dust.

Marisa stopped in shock. A man was tied to a chair. Ropes snaked around his wrists and ankles and through the rungs of the chair, and up the round, iron pole behind him like a candy cane. A dirty rag was tied around his mouth. He squirmed and grunted.

“Bracken!”

“Yes. My ex-husband and your former lover. Marisa, you sit in the chair next to him. I’m going to ask questions and you’re going to answer them.” She waved her gun toward the vacant chair.

Afraid to make any sudden movements, Marisa eased herself into the chair. It was hard and cold beneath her.

“There were so many nights he was out late or didn’t come home at all. He claimed he was at his second job. Yet he was so distant to me and our daughters. When he asked me for a divorce, I was so sure there was someone else. But during mediation in family court, Bracken swore under oath he was not having an affair. Now, tell me the truth. Were you having an affair with my husband while we were married?” Anna’s chin wobbled and her eyes filled with tears.

“Anna. I’m sorry. I did have a relationship with your husband. But can’t you see he’s not worth all of this? He told me he began having affairs soon after you and he married. He continued to be unfaithful to you all along.” Marisa leaned forward in her chair. “He told me when I started seeing him that he didn’t think he could ever be faithful to any woman. I foolishly thought that if he loved me, he’d be faithful to me. I was wrong, Anna. I caught him with his supposedly platonic friend.”

“Do you mean Valerie? He went to school with her husband. I thought he was Bracken’s best friend. I never dreamed he and Valerie....I should have suspected.” Anna spoke as if she and Marisa were alone. “He transferred from the bank near our home to a branch in a town about forty-five minutes away. Soon after, Valerie was transferred to the same branch.” Anna shook her head. “I never even made the connection.”

“Whatever is wrong with Bracken, Anna, is nothing to do with us. We were both victimized by him, you definitely worse than I was. He’s a cheater and a liar, and we’re both better off without him.” Marisa glared at the bound man next to her.

“And to make it worse,” Anna sniffed, “he’s behind on the child support payments. I am facing foreclosure because of him.”

“Why don’t you get a lawyer to garnish his wages? Wait a minute, Anna, how can he be in arrears on his child support payments? When I was seeing him, he always had wads of cash on him.”

Anna’s mouth dropped open. “Wads of cash?” she repeated. “He’s a loan officer in a bank, for goodness sake. Where would he get wads of cash?”

As if they were both connected to an invisible string, they turned to the safe.

Bracken stopped grunting.

“He bought that safe years ago. He said he needed to keep his hunting rifles and his handgun locked up, safe from the children.”

“Before we went out, he always went into the basement first.” Marisa shrugged. “I thought he was just checking locks or windows.”

Both women turned to the man tied to the chair. Above the rag tied around his mouth and jaw, his dark eyes were wide.

“What if he’s been embezzling from the bank for years?” Marisa looked up at Anna. “He brings home cash, and stashes it in his safe. He holds out paying you what he owes in child support, not because he doesn’t have the money...”

“He doesn’t give me what he owes me because it gives him a thrill to hurt me.” Anna kicked the bound man’s shin.

He grunted in pain.

“Do you know the combination of the safe? If we can get it open, we can see if it’s truly holding firearms or if it’s stuffed with stolen money.” Marisa stood up and walked over to the safe.

Anna was regretful. “I never knew the combination.”

“Do you think he’ll tell us?” Marisa nodded toward Bracken.

He was straining against his bonds, and his face was furious.

“Looks like he really doesn’t want us to get into the safe. Maybe we can figure out the combination.”

“It would be impossible. The possible combinations of numbers would put our odds of guessing it at a million to one.” Anna joined her by the safe, the gun dangling at her side.

“What if he used numbers that were familiar to him? Like a birth date? Let’s try some combinations.”

The two women tried every combination they could think of. Bracken’s birth date. The children’s birth dates. The divorce date. Even Marisa’s birth date.

“I bet his mother knows the combination. He’s such a mama’s boy, he tells her everything.” Anna pushed at her short hair.

“You’re exactly right. He’s the youngest of six children, and she still coddles him.”

The two women’s eyes met. “That’s it! It must be his mother’s birth date!”

Bracken was rocking his chair so hard, it banged against the steel pole.

Anna’s face fell. “But I don’t know her birth date.”

Marisa grabbed her arm and shook her. “I bet you do know it! You must have celebrated her birthday with Bracken many times! Think! What was the day?”

“It was in October. Let me see. The date was the thirteenth, because when it fell on a Friday, I made a joke about it.”

“Good, Anna! Now the year! How old was she?”

They tried 10 and 13 with various combinations for the year.

The safe clicked open.

From top to bottom, it was fitted with shelves. The shelves were stuffed with stacks of paper. Marisa drew out a stack and rifled it. She gasped. It was hundred dollar bills. Anna pulled out a stack of twenties.

Bracken was frantically fighting his bonds and trying to scream against his gag.

Marisa smiled at Anna. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

Anna smiled back. “We leave him down here like this, with the safe door open. We make anonymous calls to the police and to the bank corporation. They will find him with all of this cash, audit the bank’s books, and arrest him. And do you want to know the best part of all? Valerie is the accountant for the branch. I bet she was in on it with him all along.”

The door to the basement crashed open. The sounds of running feet and excited voices echoed.

“Police! Don’t move!”

Alex hurtled down the stairs and hit Anna with a flying leap. They landed in a heap at the feet of the bound man. Alex gazed at the bound man in surprise. He twisted his head. “Marisa! What is going on down here?”

Marisa thought furiously. “It’s a bit of a long story…”

Police officers filled the area, and milled around among the cluttered junk.

Lieutenant Camden surveyed the scene with interest. “I for one can’t wait to hear it.”

Alex pulled himself up off Anna, and rushed to Marisa. “Are you OK? I went to Dreamus. We tried your house and her house, but no luck. I thought it was possible she may have brought you here. Dreamus managed to track down the ex-husband’s name and address.”

One of the police officers removed Bracken’s gag. Furious, he screamed at the top of his lungs. “My crazy ex-wife broke in here and tied me up. She was going to kill me! And my even crazier ex-girlfriend showed up, and those two started plotting against me—”

Lieutenant Camden gently shook his head. “I’d probably get into trouble if I ordered the officer to put the gag back.” He turned courteously to Anna. “The psycho bitch ex-wife stalker, I presume. It would appear you tied up your ex-husband in his own home, brought Ms. Adair here, and you broke into the safe, perhaps to rob your former husband.”

Marisa bit her lip. “It’s not quite like that, Lieutenant.”

Lieutenant Camden smiled slightly. “I had a feeling you were going to say that.”

The lonely hoot of an owl caused Marisa to jump.

Alex patted her arm comfortingly.

The park was quiet except for the chirping of the crickets. Darkness reigned in the early hours between night and dawn. The inky branches of the trees loomed over them.

Marisa smiled slightly to herself. Bracken was under arrest for suspected embezzlement. She was sure Dreamus didn’t believe her account of events. She had stated when Anna approached her and Alex at the funeral, Alex had stumbled and hit his head. Marisa had thought he was fine, and left with Anna.

The blow to his head must have been worse than she thought, she told Dreamus, since Alex was convinced Anna had drugged him and kidnapped her. Marisa had explained she and Anna had gone to Bracken’s house to ask him to pay his child support. They had arrived to find the door open. When they investigated, they found him tied up downstairs, with the safe door hanging open.

Marisa had speculated his partner in the embezzlement had tied him up, intending to take his share of the money. Then, when his partner had heard Anna and Marisa in the house, the other embezzler had fled.

Marisa also explained Anna’s apparent stalking of her. She theorized Bracken’s partner had posed as Anna and stalked Marisa. If Bracken could have engineered Anna’s arrest, then he’d have full custody of the children and no more child support worries.

Marisa wondered idly if she’d go to hell for hoping Bracken’s partner in crime was indeed Valerie.

Alex fidgeted next to Marisa.

She whispered, “I never suspected the identity of the porn dealer.”

From their shelter under the trees, Alex scanned the open area. A single, lone security light softly illuminated the quiet fountain, turned off for the night, and the benches scattered around it.

“Can you see Dreamus?” Marisa looked for the lawman. She couldn’t see anything in the darkness of the park.

Alex turned to her and breathed in her ear, “He’s hiding on the other side of the fountain. He’s in the shadow cast by the security light.”

Marisa peered around the area. “It’s difficult to believe several policemen are stationed out there.”

Alex’s white teeth flashed in the weak light. “Given his resistance to our help, we are lucky Dreamus let us within miles of his operation.”

“He’s got us so far from the action it’s a wonder we can see anything at all,” Marisa grumped in a whisper.

“There’s William! He’s skulking across the park. Now he’s sitting on the bench nearest the fountain.”

“All he has to do is accept the pictures, and hand over the money.” In her nervousness, Marisa squeezed Alex’s arm.

Alex flinched. “I don’t understand why they didn’t just use email. Send the pictures through the internet. Set up the payment as completely anonymous. This in-person drop seems hopelessly old school.” He pried Marisa’s painfully clutching fingers off his arm.

“Think about all the well-publicized cases, Alex. The police force has caught so many buyers and sellers of child porn online that they’ve learned to be wary of the internet. We also hear of cases in which deleted files, such as pictures, are recovered from computers. They must believe this method is less risky.”

“Shhhh.” Alex shushed Marisa as another figure glided to the bench and settled next to William. In the dim light, Marisa saw the exchange of envelopes.

Harsh lights flashed on. Dreamus jumped up from his hiding place. “Police! You’re under arrest!”

Several uniformed officers joined him.

Dreamus took out his handcuffs. “Marina Poole Waters, aka Empress of the Endless Seas, you’re under arrest for selling and distributing child pornography.”