21 Dares: A Florida Suspense Mystery (8 page)

Chapter 9

A
bbie studied Rocky as he sat across from her at
the table in SoHo Sushi. The candle in the center of the table reflected in his
glasses, and somehow that seemed fitting. She was positive he was lying. McKenzie
stood and moved behind him. She placed a hand on his shoulder as she spoke.

“Everyone
says he looks like the Doctor from that TV show.”
She gently brushed the back of her hand along his neck
and traced the line of his shoulders, but she never took her eyes off Abbie
.
“You know which one I’m talking about? The one where the blonde actress got
fired and they replaced her with that other actress, but she just didn’t have
the same chemistry.”

Abbie
ignored her and focused on Rocky, who seemed to be a little ticklish to
McKenzie’s touch.

“I
was thinking,” Abbie said, wondering if he just didn’t want to admit to seeing a
therapist. “I bet we’ve run into each other on campus?”

Rocky
narrowed his brows, looking at her with uncertainty. “No. I don’t think so.”

A
waiter came to the table and McKenzie returned to her chair. Oblivious, she put
her hand on Abbie’s as she rambled. “I’m telling you, it’s that doctor. You
know,
the actor who was in that movie where he was like a
senator or a governor or something and he was dating that hick girl from the
small town.”

“Sweet
Home Alabama,” the waiter said. He was a thin man with black, slick-backed hair
that was parted in the middle. McKenzie looked up at him with a shocked
expression on her face. He smiled at her. “The movie you were referring to.
It’s called Sweet Home Alabama.”

“Yeah,
I guess so,” McKenzie said. The waiter nodded and took everyone’s order. When
he left, Rocky put down his menu.
 

“I
hear it’s your birthday.” He grinned briefly with no trace of possible deception.

McKenzie
squealed. “It’s Abbie’s twenty-first birthday today and she’s going to blow off
her afternoon classes and we’re going to order a bottle of sake and get stoned
hammered, like in the old days.”

“Well
cool.
Happy birthday.”
Rocky reached across the table and took Abbie’s hand.
McKenzie slapped it away.
 

“To
be honest, we never drank in the old days,” Abbie said. “And my birthday isn’t
until tomorrow.”

Rocky’s
face brightened with amusement. “Well, cool anyway. My Happy Birthday still
stands, even if it’s a day early. So how do you and McKenzie know each other?”

“My
grandmother and her grandmother—” Abbie started, but McKenzie cut in.

“Abbie
lived with her grandparents in Pembroke Pines and when I was growing up, I
would visit my grandparents who lived down the street from them,” McKenzie
said. The
waiter brought out three plates with spicy tuna,
yellowtail
and prawn tempura
, and a large, winding dragon roll.
Next
to that he set down wasabi and shoyu. Rocky picked up a set of chopsticks as
the waiter filled the three wine glasses. McKenzie kept talking. “
I saw Abbie
every summer and it was my
job to drag her out of her room
and away from her books and get
her a little tan before school started
again.”

“My
grandmother made it McKenzie’s personal mission to get me out of my room,” Abbie
added. “So she would encourage me to hang-out and do stuff—”

“Like
roller skating!” McKenzie slammed her hands on the table.
 
“Remember how we would go to the Galaxy
Skateway with those boys?”

Abbie managed a nod. “
I remember you and some boys
laughing every time I—”

“Oh,
Abbie had the moves, let me tell you.” McKenzie turned to speak directly to Rocky.
“She could do this thing where her legs would come up from under her and she
would literally fly three feet in the air, do a backwards somersault and land
on her derriere. It was a sight, lemme tell you.” McKenzie laughed
, scooping up a dragon roll and
popping it into her mouth. She then looked at her wine glass as if noticing it
for the first time.
“
Oh, sake.”

Rocky brought a white linen napkin to his
mouth and wiped his lips. Then he stood, poured out the last of the
sake into his and McKenzie’s glasses.

 
“And remember that night we went to the
drive-in?” McKenzie
popped a California Roll in her mouth, chewed slowly
until it was gone. She wiped rice from her chin and continued. “
She’d
had her eye on this boy named Patrick who—”

“That
wasn’t funny. That wasn’t a good time for me.”
Abbie buried her face in her hand and sighed.

“Why,
Bookworm. Are you embarrassed?”
She
stabbed at the Dragon Roll again and took a sip of sake. “
Patrick was
too old for you. Anyway, he would’ve never considered going out with you in the
first place. That’s what makes it so funny.”

Abbie
looked up and glared. “It wasn’t funny for me. I was humiliated.”

McKenzie
leaned forward. “Because his girlfriend had no idea you where even there.” She
touched Abbie’s arm as she talked. “And when you got in the truck with him and
Melanie, I still laugh today when I think about it. You shoulda seen Melanie’s
face when Abbie climbed in the truck with Patrick. And then when she took
Patrick’s hand, I thought Melanie was going to explode!”
McKenzie fell back into her seat and
burst into laughter that drew the attention of people at nearby tables.

“Maybe we should leave the past exactly where
it is, in the past.” Rocky’s expression stilled and grew serious, possibly
sensing how uncomfortable Abbie had become.
 

Abbie
pushed McKenzie’s hand away. “That was a cruel joke. It wasn’t funny then and
it’s not funny today.”

“Oh,
I swear Abbie. You were the life of the party.”
McKenzie could barely speak through her laughter. Her
eyes teared and she dabbed at the corners with a cloth napkin. Finally, she
sighed as her breathing returned to normal.

 
Rocky let
out a half-hearted chuckle, but Abbie detected something more. Almost as if he
were
judging McKenzie. Perhaps everything wasn’t as
simpatico between them as McKenzie believed. Abbie wondered again if he was
actually the guy she saw in Dr. Wachowski’s waiting room. What if her
imagination was working overtime again?

The table fell silent.
 

“
Well, I’ve got classes coming up at one.” Abbie
got up from her seat. “I’d better get back. It was really good catching up.”

“Don’t
be mad, Bookworm. It’s your birthday.” McKenzie picked up the bottle of sake
and reached over the table toward Abbie’s glass. “Here, have some more wine.”

“Yeah, Abbie.
We’ve got a surprise
for you.”
Rocky patted his mouth
and leaned back in his chair.

Abbie
grabbed her purse. “McKenzie already showed me the surprise. The ring is
beautiful. Congratulations.”

“No, not the ring.”
McKenzie finished
filling Abbie’s glass and leaned forward across the table. She looked up, smiled,
and handed Abbie a red envelope. “I got you something for your birthday.”

“You
got me a card?”

McKenzie
waved the envelope until Abbie finally took it. Then McKenzie tilted her head
and said, “Of course, it’s your birthday. It’s your twenty-first birthday,
nonetheless.”

My twenty-first
birthday, nonetheless?
Abbie thought and opened
the card. It read,
“A girl turns 21 only
once in her life time… but 29 again and again.
Happy
Birthday!”
She pulled out a sheet of paper.
“One
free ticket to a market seminar for Vitamin Ritamin in your area.”

“It’s
not just a present, it’s an opportunity,” Rocky said then
drained the final drop from his glass.

“It’s
an opportunity, Abbie. And I want you to come as my guest.” McKenzie
made
gentle strokes across her empty plate, flicking up the last of the shoyu with
her index finger. She popped her finger in her mouth, sucking on it while
staring at Rocky. He didn’t seem to pick-up on her gesture.
He
turned to Abbie, moving his hand as he spoke.

“You
see, Abbie.” Rocky removed his glasses and set them on the table beside his
plate. He
squinted
his eyes. “Do you mind if I call
you Abbie?”

Abbie
nodded skeptically. “Sure. That’s fine.”

“I’m
sure you pay your electric bill, your phone bill and your cable bill every
single month.” The tone in Rocky’s voice changed and it reminded her of the announcer
on the infomercial she saw the other night. As Rocky continued talking, t
he waiter returned and set the bill on
the table.

McKenzie took her wallet from her purse and withdrew
two twenties. Glancing at the total, she dropped the money on the waiter’s
change tray and nodded him away.

Rocky waited until the waiter was out of
earshot,
then
leaned forward to continue. “
Those bills are nothing
but an ongoing stream of residual income for these companies. Now, the
advantage of Vitamin Ritamin is that it gives you an opportunity to enjoy
residual income just like your cable company.”

Abbie
looked puzzled. “You’re introducing me to a multi-level marketing company for
my birthday?”

“Not
a multi-level marketing company.” McKenzie held up her hand and wagged her
index finger. “It’s an opportunity.”

The waiter returned with a cash receipt,
which McKenzie took, and five dollars in change, which she handed back as gratuity.
Bowing slightly, the efficient young man thanked her and departed. Rocky
grabbed the receipt from McKenzie’s hands, which seemed to surprise her. Casually
he folded the thin paper,
brought it to the candle’s flame,
then
dropped the burning receipt in her glass. It flared,
briefly illuminating their faces, before going out.

“Hey,” McKenzie said, staring at the wad of
burnt paper in her glass. “I coulda used that for my taxes.”

Ignoring her, Rocky sucked down a last gulp
of sake in his glass,
then
leaned forward once more. “
We like to call it
Network Marketing. It provides a more accurate description of what we do.”

“Oh.”
Abbie noticed the light blue ribbon holding back McKenzie’s flaming red hair
actually matched her eyes. It seemed almost comical in a way. “Thank you, but I
really don’t think I’d be interested in—”

Rocky
didn’t let her finish. “There’s no commitment to just check it out. You’ll hear
testimonies from other successful Vitamin Ritamin Warriors and how this program
changed their lives.”

Again,
Abbie shook her head. “I don’t know…”

McKenzie
turned away from her ruined glass of sake. “Come on, Bookworm. It’s a great
place to meet men.”

“Don’t
call me that again,” Abbie said.
“I put-up with that for
fifteen summers.
I don’t want to hear that nickname ever again.”

“I’m
teasing you. It’s all in good fun.” McKenzie jolted back in her seat, looking
as if her hand had just been slapped. “But okay, I won’t call you that again if
you’ll promise to go tomorrow night. Like I said, you might meet someone
special who’ll make you as deliriously happy as Rocky makes me.”

Abbie
looked over at Rocky. She surmised that’s where McKenzie met him—at a Vitamin
Ritamin meeting. Watching him a moment, she was certain he was the guy she’d
seen in the waiting room. But why would he lie about it?

Their
eyes met,
then
he looked away.

McKenzie
grabbed her hand again, demanding her attention.
“Now, about
Facebook.
I don’t care what your father
thinks,
we’ve got to get you signed-up. It’s your best resource for prospecting…”

* * * *

As night
fell, the man closed the flaps of his tan trench coat tight against the wind
and approached the abandoned house. Weeds grew high in the front lawn. Boards
covered the windows. Despite the deterioration, it still looked the same as it did
sixteen years ago. It’d been sitting empty all that time and was now just a
rotting shell of wood and stucco.

Abbie Reed would return
soon
,
he knew. It was inevitable. He wondered what she would find.

Coming
to the front porch, he stepped up. Boards squeaked. They were gray and warped
beneath his feet. Jimmying the lock, he made his way inside.

The
front living room stood empty, dark. A brownish discoloration stained the wood
floors, especially the corner near the boarded-up window.