21 Dares: A Florida Suspense Mystery (16 page)

“Are
you trying to sell me vitamins?” she asked.

“I’m
offering you an opportunity.” Rocky removed his glasses. A deeply serious
expression lined his face. “As a Vitamin Ritamin distributor, it’d be up to you
to decide how much you want to earn.”

On stage, McKenzie
tapped Abbie on the shoulder.
 
“Look at
him,” she yelled into Abbie’s ear.

Abbie
stopped singing and turned her head. She followed McKenzie’s finger, expecting
to see the man from the photo.
McKenzie
spotted him
, she thought.
She found
the man in the tan trench coat and brown hat. And they would rush off stage.
Call the police. Maybe a Rugby player sitting with his team would jump up and pin
the creepy stalker dude down. He could tackle that deranged maniac and put him
in a headlock. That dirty brown hat would fly off his head, revealing his
identity, and the Rugby player would keep this sick, perverted stranger from
disappearing into the night.
Abbie smiled just thinking about it.

She
followed McKenzie’s finger, pointed at Rocky sitting in the booth across from Dharma
Larson. He put a hand on her shoulder. McKenzie’s mouth fell open.

“That
does it!” McKenzie jumped-off the stage and pushed her way through the crowd.
Half watching McKenzie confront Rocky, and half looking at the lyric monitor, Abbie
tried to jump back into the song. Rocky slid out the booth, knocking over the
stool. McKenzie pushed him back against the edge of the table, pointing a
finger in his chest. Rocky pushed McKenzie’s hand away. As the song ended, Abbie
watched McKenzie storm out of the bar.

Abbie,
Susan and the twins jumped off the stage as the crowd gave a halfhearted clap.
Most everyone had turned their attention to McKenzie and Rocky rather than the
girls on stage. Abbie didn’t care. She approached Rocky at the back booth.

“What’s
going on?” she asked.

“The woman’s nuts.”
Rocky
looked toward the exit doors.
“She gets jealous all the time.”

“Well,
is she coming back?”

“I
don’t know.” He left the booth, winding through the crowd, and headed toward
the exit. Abbie looked at the other girls. As they sat back down in the booth, she
watched a guy in a white sleeveless t-shirt climb on stage.

“I’m
dedicating this song to the couple who was just fighting and stormed out of
here like a couple a bats outta hell,” he said into the mic. There was some
laughter and a few cheers. Then he launched into “You Give Love a Bad Name.”

Abbie
paid no attention. He wasn’t the man who was following her. She glanced around
the bar again,
then
looked down at her phone. She
stared at the photo of the man in the tan trench coat and brown hat.

He
obviously wasn’t here, in the crowd. That meant he was out there, somewhere.
Watching her.
Waiting for her.

* * * *

The
wall-to-wall bodies in Gaspar’s Grotto, the dim lighting,
the
loud music—it
all worked to his advantage. He folded the tan trench coat
beside his thigh on the bench, set his brown hat on top of it,
then
placed his hands on top the table. The booth was in the
back, near the bar. There, he just became another face in the crowd.

He
opened his notepad.

Abbie
Reed was on the karaoke stage, singing. He made a note of that. She was
surrounded by her tall roommate, Susan Nichols, and that other girl, the red
head in the red Japanese dress, McKenzie Thomas. The twins joined the girls on
stage. They sang a song by Sting, and Susan kicked a shoe into the crowd.

At
one point, Abbie looked directly at him. Their eyes connected. He held his
breath, expecting her to recognize him. If she did, she didn’t acknowledge it.
Perhaps from the stage, with the lights shining in her eyes and the ocean of
people around them, she couldn’t make out one face from another.

However,
her friend, the male wearing glasses and a loose fitting bowling shirt, had
crossed his path. Came right up to the booth, then passed by, headed to the
bar. The male returned to his booth and flirted with a random woman. McKenzie
Thomas must have caught him. She stomped off the stage and confronted the male.
They argued. She stormed out.

He
scribbled another note.

Abbie
Reed and the remaining girls finished the karaoke song and returned to their
booth. They spoke to the male for several minutes before he too got up and
left, presumably running after McKenzie Thomas.

Now
Abbie Reed, Susan Nichols and the twins—they sat in a booth only a few feet
away. If Abbie Reed looked up, glanced in his direction, surely she would see
him—recognize him.

He
grabbed his hat and trench coat. The girls watched a new karaoke singer on the
stage. They were distracted. This was his chance to leave before they spotted
him. He reached for his phone. It wasn’t on the table. He glanced down at the
bench, looked under the table and on the floor. It was gone.

He
didn’t have time to look for it right now.

He
looked back at Abbie Reed and the girls. All he could see were the backs of
their heads. They were still focused on the karaoke singer. He got up from the
booth and rushed to the exit doors—right behind McKenzie Thomas and the male
with the glasses and the loose fitting bowling shirt.

Chapter 19

A
bbie typed “Mission Accepted and Completed” into
her phone and hit send. She then looked at the faces across the booth. Susan
sat next to the twins and clapped in rhythm to the guy on stage singing the Bon
Jovi song. Dharma sipped her non-alcoholic Lemon-Orange Fizz. Susan ordered another
beer and Abbie ordered what Dharma was drinking. By the time the drinks
arrived, they had mostly forgotten the drama and Dharma handed Abbie a glass.
“Happy Birthday.”

They
drank to that toast.

Four
karaoke songs and a couple of drinks later, Abbie cleared her throat. She held
McKenzie’s pink hair ribbon. “Do you think she’s coming back?”

Susan
shrugged. “Who cares?” she said. “Thank God I’m not in a relationship. The
ridiculous, childish squabbles I get into with men I’m not even sleeping with
are enough to keep me single until I’m in Depends.”

“I’m
worried about her,” Abbie said.

“It
looked like she and Rocky had a pretty big fight,” Lindsey said. Lindsay
corrected her.

“It
wasn’t a fight. It was a tiff.”

Lindsey
shrugged. “Well it looked like a fight to me.”

“We’re
lucky we didn’t all get kicked out,” Abbie said. She stared at the ribbon,
then
set it on the table.

“Maybe
we should go find her.” She tried to talk over the loud music. An older man in
a bandanna was singing a Beatles song now. She didn’t recognize it or really pay
attention, instead looking over at Dharma. “What’d he say to you?”

Dharma
made a face. “He invited me to be a distributor for some vitamin thing.”

Susan
shook her head. “And that was it?”

“What
else were you expecting?” Dharma yelled over the loud music. “Your red-headed
girlfriend up there on stage stopped singing, marched over here and took him by
the ear.”

“Maybe
we should go after them,” Abbie said again. Her phone chirped. She looked down
it.

Abbie
read the text message and typed a quick response. She hit send.

After
several moments, her phone dinged again. She read the text message.

Abbie
sighed, frustrated, and typed again as Susan asked her what she was doing.

“I
want to know who is sending these messages,” Abbie said. She typed a new
message.

After
several moments, she received a response.

She
looked at Susan. “For all I know, it’s a robot on the other end.”

Susan
planted her elbows on the table. “Well, did you really think it was going to be
Joss Whedon or Sarah Michelle Gellar?
There’s better odds
that it’s your father.”

“I
don’t think
it’s
Clinton Reed anymore. He doesn’t have
a PhD,” she said. “And I can’t even imagine what it would take to get him to
come back to Tampa.”

“I
don’t know what to tell you.” Susan looked up at the ceiling as if she was
giving it serious scrutiny. “Do you have any other siblings you haven’t seen in
a long time?”

Abbie
looked away. “Yeah, but if
she
is
waiting for me somewhere, it’s not going to be at some lame birthday party.”

“Lame
huh?” Dharma took a sip of her drink. After a second, she added, “Let’s do it.
I’ll go with you. Let’s run outside.”

Abbie
looked around the club. The man with the tan trench coat and brown hat wasn’t
in here, in the club, which meant he was obviously out there, waiting for her.
She sat back. Dharma grabbed her hand.

 
“I know you’re scared, but we’ll go together,”
Dharma said. “We’ll do the dare—you and me.”

“But
what if he’s still out there?”
           
“So what if he is?” Susan
huffed and waved her arms. “Like Rocky said, he can’t do anything to us when
we’re all together.”

“But
what does he want? Why is he following me?”

“Are
you kidding?” Susan put her hands on her hips. “You’re a pretty college girl. The
kind of stalker bait they could bag and sell at Wal-Mart.” Susan took another
drink. Everyone was silent, staring at her. She looked across the table and put
down her drink. “Okay, so let’s say someone is actually following you and this
isn’t all in your pretty little head.
Here’s the facts
.
There’s
a lot of people out there and there are cops
and police dogs and even that cute campus security guy roaming the street,
protecting us, keeping the peace. So we’ll be safe. I promise.”

Abbie
shrugged. She looked at Dharma. Dharma nodded.

Draining
the last of the lemon-orange fizz, Dharma stood and walked away from the booth.
Abbie set down her half finished drink on top of a ten-dollar bill and followed
her to the front door, leaving McKenzie’s pink ribbon on the table. Racing
outside, the two scrambled onto the sidewalk as pedestrians swerved around
them. Together, they screamed,
“I’VE LOST
MY VOICE! PLEASE, SOMEONE, HELP ME FIND IT!”

Several
people stopped, shocked. Others ran away from the girls. A few boys laughed. Abbie
ran through the crowd, repeating the phrase. Just for fun, Dharma ran to a
Japanese couple, got up in their faces and yelled,
“I’ve lost my voice. Can you help me find it?”
The Japanese man
snapped a photo of her with his phone.

With
that, both girls headed for the empty lot across the street.
 
They fell down on the grass, laughing.

 
“I can’t believe we did that.” Dharma gasped
for breath. “My heart is pounding a million miles per second.”

Behind
her, a gaggle of drag queens—bouffant wigs, heavy caked makeup, shimmering animal
print gowns—came out of a nightclub. One dressed as Cher.
Another
as Dolly Parton.
The third was a black Marilyn. Her white pleated skirt
blew up in the wind. Susan and the twins came around them, and found Abbie and
Dharma on the ground.

“You
see. No creeps in the vicinity.” Susan stood over them and gestured toward the
crowd of people on the sidewalks and streets. There were adults and teenagers.
Drunk
college riding bikes. Boys on skate boards zipped
past. Scientologists handed out pamphlets. A horse and carriage trotted along
the brick-paved street. They were surrounded by activity. “See. Everything’s
fine. You’re just over-reacting.”

“I
guess.” Abbie picked up her phone. She tried to call McKenzie again, but the
call went straight to voicemail. She hung up.

“Did
you send the mission complete text?” Susan asked.

“Not
yet.” Abbie still stared at her phone, willing McKenzie to call her. “I want to
catch my breath.”

 
“I get it. You’re worried about her.” Susan
sat down beside Abbie and Dharma. The twins stood, hovering over them. Susan
looked over at them, then back at Abbie. “But I’m sure she’s fine. I doubt
they’re breaking-up over this.”

Abbie
gave her a sideways glance. Lindsey bent down and touched her shoulder. “I
doubt this is their first fight. Maybe he’s a dawg and hits on women all the
time.”

“Yeah,
she’s right,” Lindsay said. Lindsey looked at her sister with wide eyes, mouth
open. Lindsay nodded. “You have a point. I mean, what do we even know about him
anyway?”

“Obviously
McKenzie is hyper jealous and possessive,” Susan said. “What do you really know
about Satan’s bride when you come right down to it? You said you hadn’t seen
her in a couple of years.”

Abbie
sighed. “I’ve known her for over a decade and a half. We grew up together.”

“That
doesn’t mean anything.” Susan folded her legs to sit crossed-legged, and
stretched her arms behind her back to support her weight. “I mean
,
are you the same person you were in high school? We change
a lot in college. We transform, you know?”

“I’m
still the same person,” Abbie said quietly.
“Unfortunately.”

Susan
looked away and sighed. “Send the mission completed text and let’s get to the
next dare. McKenzie is probably waiting for us down the road at the next
location.”