Mayhem Takes a Dare: The Second Marisa Adair Mystery Adventure (Marisa Adair Mysteries Book 2) (5 page)

Brandon plunged between them, and grabbed Alex’s shoulder like a lifeline. “Alex! I want to ask Taylor to do something fun with me tomorrow, but she’s so shy, so delicate. I need to take her on a group date. With you and Marisa.”

Marisa’s mouth fell open.
Shy? The woman who strutted naked in front of hordes of men? Delicate? The woman who scampered up and down a pole painted like a candy cane?

Brandon frantically waved his hands. “You both have to help me!” His face cleared. “Racquetball! We’ll play racquetball at the gym tomorrow! I’ve seen Marisa and Tara there many evenings!”

Alex tilted his head and narrowed his eyes. “Hot, sweaty, panting…sounds like a perfect date to me.”

The Royal Bloodhound happily pranced through the clusters of people. “Come on, everyone! We’ve planted our flag on a huge booth! Let’s hit it!”

“I hope he didn’t mark his territory with anything other than a flag,” Marisa grumbled.

Brandon clapped his hands happily, like a first grader promised an ice cream treat. He took Marisa’s hand, and began to drag her over toward Sarah.

“Brandon! Stop it!” Marisa tried to pull her hand free.

Alex grabbed her other hand, and pulled in the same direction as Brandon.

“Alex! What the hell are you doing?” She tried to free her hands, but the two men refused to let go.

Beginning to get angry at their high-handed treatment of her, Marisa tried to plant her feet. Because of the slickness of the floor, they simply scooted her along behind them, as if they were determined motorboats towing a reluctant water skier.

Finally, panting in exertion, Brandon stopped at Sarah’s side. “Taylor! Marisa, Alex, and I have an excellent idea! We wanted to see if you would like to join us in a game of racquetball tomorrow morning! You and I could play with Marisa and her boyfriend! Wouldn’t that be fun?”

“I do not have a boyfriend,” Marisa fumed.

Sarah’s mouth was hanging open. “Well, I don’t know—”

“Brandon,” Marisa practically sputtered in his ear, “I don’t want to—”

“You don’t want to disappoint Taylor! How sweet of you!” Alex slipped an outwardly appearing friendly arm around her, and squeezed her with way too much force. “Taylor can meet us all at the gym tomorrow. It will be great fun!”

“Alex,” Marisa hissed in his ear, “I am going to kill you!”

Squashed into a booth meant for eight people with the twenty loud, drunken members of the online group, Marisa ground her teeth.

On one side of her, Steve the funeral director had his hand on her right thigh. For the third time, she pushed it away. On the other side of her, the DJ, who had somehow insinuated herself and her huge shoulder bag of CDs into the booth as everyone was crowding in, had her hand on Marisa’s other thigh. Also for the third time, she pushed the woman’s hand off her leg.

His round face alight with glee, the Royal Bloodhound howled at the waitress as she approached. When she stared at him in disbelief, he held his hands up like paws and panted, his tongue lolling.

With a graceful pitch, Tara lobbed an object toward Marisa’s end of the table. The small bag landed in front of the Royal Bloodhound.

He picked it up, and raised his eyebrows at Tara.

“It’s your treat for being a good dog, Bryce! M&Ms!” Tara laughed when he stood up and wagged his ass at her.

Rolling her eyes in exasperation, the waitress snagged empty glasses off the table. When she reached for the Royal Bloodhound’s empty beer bottle, he tried to nip her wrist with his bared teeth.

Marisa smacked at the hands closing in on her thighs. “I’d hate to see the Royal Bloodhound if he was being a bad dog!”

The laughter escalated from wild to maniacal.

Bryce smiled at Marisa’s comment. He seemed to have decided to forgive her for her earlier blunder with his moniker. She was surprised he didn’t leap across the table and lick her face.

“I didn’t get the chance to properly introduce myself. Bryce.”

Marisa extended her hand across the table and barely restrained herself from saying, “Shake.”

“We’re going on to the jazz club after this. Would you like to ride over with me? I promise not to hang my head out of the window!”

“Marisa loves jazz,” interjected Alex, sitting across the table at an angle from Marisa.

Marisa tried to kick him under the table.

Sarah/Taylor, squeezed between him and Brandon, squeaked in pain.

“She doesn’t have a boyfriend,” added Alex helpfully. “I heard it from her own lips, not twenty minutes ago.” He smiled hugely at Marisa.

Marisa instantly decided she’d not only kill Alex, but she’d make sure it was a lingering, painful death.

A movement near the door caught her eye. Animal control? No, it was Lieutenant Camden, in his teenage boy disguise. He was slipping out the door, and Marisa thought he didn’t want anyone to notice his exit.

Through aggressive wiggling and sliding, Marisa managed to free herself of her two suitors.

Tara, perched on the edge of the opposite bench seat, looked up in surprise.

“I just saw Dreamus leaving,” Marisa paused just long enough to whisper in her friend’s ear. She sprinted past a waitress with a loaded tray. When three Goth girls and a young man in a top hat and tails lurched into her path, she veered around them. Near the door, a man caught her arm, causing her to pivot.

He leered in her face.

She shook him off.

Too bad she couldn’t sic the Royal Bloodhound on his ass.

By the time she neared the front door of the bar, she was nearly running. As she started to pass the men’s room, a patron stepped directly in front of her. Unable to stop, Marisa slammed into him. “Excuse me!”

Without responding, the man angrily turned away from her.

“Sorry!” muttered Marisa. As she moved away, she frowned. There was something very familiar about him. She twisted back around as she hit the door, but the man was gone.

In the parking lot, Marisa looked around.

Tara, her chest heaving, caught up with her. “Where the heck did he go?” she wheezed.

In a dark corner of the parking lot, a vehicle started. From the canopied doorway, Tara stepped out onto the paved parking lot. The car’s tires squealed as it rounded the turn. Tara lunged out in the path of the car.

The car wasn’t slowing. “Tara! Are you crazy?”

“He won’t hit me. He’s the police!”

Marisa ran to push Tara out of the way.

The car stopped inches from them both.

Tara nonchalantly pulled the front passenger door open and leaned into the car.

Her heart pounding, Marisa jerked the back passenger door open.

Before she could ask him what the hell he was thinking, Lieutenant Camden growled, “Tara-byte, are you trying to get yourself killed? And Marisa,” he added belatedly. Brusquely, he ordered them into the car. “Quick, before anyone sees you!”

The car jerked to the entrance of the parking lot, the back passenger door still swinging open. A figure launched itself into the car, and landed on Marisa. She struggled.

“Wait, Marisa, let me get off!”

Alex. Who the hell else would it be?

Tires squealing, the car took off.

“Why do you insist upon calling me Tara-Bite?” Tara turned to Dreamus. “I can assure you, I don’t bite!”

“Not b-i-t-e! B-y-t-e! As in tera-byte, which is a unit of computer storage.” With one hand, Dreamus pulled off the red and white bandana and the gray-tinted glasses. With the other, he deftly steered the car through the Friday night crowd of cars and pedestrians jamming the streets.

He glanced in the mirror. “Marisa and Alex, please stop tussling in my back seat. I can’t talk to you, let alone hear myself think, with you two out of control.” His eyes flicked to Tara. “But couldn’t you have approached me in a more discreet way? Nearly letting me run you over in the parking lot will not help you get a merit badge for either lurking or slinking.”

“What do you want to talk to us about?” Marisa leaned over the seat.

Dreamus glanced in the mirror. “Which one of you ladies is being tailed?”

As the car took a corner too fast, Marisa involuntarily fell back into the seat. “What do you mean, tailed?”

Dreamus growled, “Fasten your seat belt. Don’t you know it’s the law? Tailed. As in being followed. Don’t you watch television?”

Chagrined, Tara turned to the lieutenant. “We were followed?”

“I was headed to the bar for tonight’s gathering when I saw Marisa’s little red traffic ticket collector, aka Mazda Miata. There was a white Camry right behind it. Marisa ran a yellow light, and the Camry ran the red to stay with her.”

“Kevin the Stalker!” In her agitation, Tara pushed Dreamus’ shoulder.

He swerved.

Marisa, arrested by Dreamus’ statement, had stopped in the midst of fastening her seatbelt. As the car lurched, she flew from the driver’s side to the passenger’s side. Alex grunted in pain and helped her back to her side of the car.

“Tara! Leave Dreamus alone while he’s driving! And it can’t have been Kevin. He drives an older model, tan four-door sedan his mother bought for him.”

“Who’s Kevin? And fasten those damn seatbelts, Marisa and Alex, or I swear I’ll give you both a ticket!”

“What about laying rubber in the parking lot, Mr. Enforcer? Isn’t there an ordinance against improper stops and starts? And Kevin is a guy I know who is also in Tara’s online group. The white car doesn’t belong to him.”

Tara said, “Dreamus, just because a car is behind us in traffic doesn’t mean it’s following us.”

“You’re right, Tara-byte.”

“That silly nickname again!” Tara twisted in her seat. “Is it because you think I’m going to bite you?”

Dreamus smiled so slightly it was a mere twitch of his lips. “No. I just told you, a terabyte is a unit of storage for information technology. A terabyte is made up of a trillion bytes of information. Since you find at least a trillion ways to push my buttons, including organizing an online group meeting which probably included a murderer, Tara-byte is the perfect nickname for you. Back to your stalker…When I saw Marisa stop at the gas station, I stopped too, just to see what the white Camry would do. When Marisa stopped, her escort stopped at the Walgreens right next door to the gas station. When Marisa pulled out, the white car was right behind her. It followed her into the bar’s parking lot. I stayed in my car after you two went in. The white car just sat there, no one got in, no one got out. I ran the plate on the white Camry. It’s registered to someone by the name of Anna Pikestaff. Ring any bells for you two?”

Tara twisted around to look at Marisa. They shrugged at one another.

“I take that as a no,” Dreamus answered for them.

“Why did you come to my group outing in disguise, Dreamus?”

The lawman glanced over at her, even though the car was dark. “How did you know it was me, Tara? I went to the police station like this. My own staff, most of whom have known me for years, didn’t recognize me. How were you able to penetrate my disguise when trained law enforcement professionals could not?”

Crossing her arms across her chest, Tara stared out the window.

“I certainly didn’t recognize you, Dreamus.” Securely buckled in, Marisa tried to lean forward. “You looked like a teenager, out on the town with a forged ID.”

“That’s exactly the look I wanted.” Dreamus pulled into a Wal-Mart parking lot, and shut off the car. The car’s interior was dimly illuminated by the dome light.

“Dreamus, stop being mysterious, and tell us what’s going on.” Marisa was beginning to feel grumpy. Grumpy and bruised.

“We received an anonymous letter at the police station. We don’t ignore them, but we don’t have the resources to investigate every theory that lands in the police station.

“The letter writer stated her young son had become involved with someone on the internet. It’s a story that’s becoming increasingly common. A teen boy or girl starts corresponding with someone they think is another teen. The predator escalates the online communications and convinces the teen to meet in person, sometimes with tragic results.

“The letter said the boy had been corresponding with someone who wanted the boy to take nude pictures of himself, and email them. The mother wrote that she’d taken away her son’s computer, and she wanted me to track down the pervert. She included a user name and a website.”

Dreamus lowered his car window. “As a police lieutenant, I do my job at my desk.”

When Marisa snorted, Dreamus laughed. “For the most part, I schedule the officers, review and analyze crime trends and patterns, and provide administrative supervision. From time to time, I do get involved in cases. It keeps my crime solving skills honed and I meet interesting people. Especially amateur detectives.” He glanced at Tara.

“And you decided to get personally involved in this issue, which coincidentally brought you to the club and my online group tonight.” Tara glared at him.

Dreamus raised a hand. “When I went online and keyed in the web address, I found the Came-A-Lot live group. Imagine my surprise when I recognized you as the moderator, Tara.”

He crossed his arms and stared steadily at Tara. The cooling car engine ticked.

“Dreamus, don’t get upset with Tara. I started the online group.”

“I know, Marisa. You started the Came-A-Lot group several years ago as Women Who Love Excitement. Your online persona of Miss Behavin’ is famous. Your snappy, intelligent comments on the real time, online forum are legendary. Why did you leave the group?”

Marisa turned to look out of her window at the dark parking lot, punctuated by security lights and scattered cars. “That group took over my entire life. The more I gave it, the more it took. I spent nearly all of my time, at work and at home, on that forum. I knew members of the group who got fired for being on it during work time.”

“Like Brianna, our wielder of the paintball gun.” When Marisa and Tara squeaked, Dreamus laughed. “You keep forgetting I am a detective. I detect! In checking out the online group, I discovered Brianna got fired. Brianna was working for her uncle, and he terminated his niece. He preferred facing the wrath of his sister rather than keep an employee who spent all of her work time on the internet.”

Tara cleared her throat. “Poor Brianna. I’m afraid, though, she’s hit double digits on jobs found and lost.”

“I got free of the online quicksand.” In her lap, Marisa’s hands clenched. “I was a little afraid of going tonight, in case checking out the group would be like sticking my foot back into the quagmire. I was afraid I would be sucked back in up to my neck. I should have known Tara had a secret agenda.” Marisa leaned over the seat and touched Tara’s shoulder. “You would never encourage me to engage in risky behavior. You love me too much.”

Alex snapped his fingers. “Tara dragged you here tonight so you could help her investigate Caleb’s murder!” He glanced at Tara. “And that’s not risky behavior?”

Marisa bounced in the seat. “Is there a link between the online predator and Caleb’s murderer?”

Tara shook her head and squirmed in her seat. “I had no idea there was a predator on the site. I have disclaimers posted, which state no one under eighteen is allowed to join the website. One reason we have the in person gatherings is so we can put real life faces with the online personas. People can and do lie about a lot of things online. They lie not only about their age, but also about their occupation, age, weight, marital status, and even gender. By getting people together on a regular basis, we tend to weed out the imposters.”