Mayhem Takes a Dare: The Second Marisa Adair Mystery Adventure (Marisa Adair Mysteries Book 2) (11 page)

The plucked eyebrows climbed her forehead. “I’m sorry, ma’am, we only have nonalcoholic drinks.”

Once their virgin drinks were in front of them, an awkward silence fell. Brandon rushed to fill it. “So. Taylor. As a teacher, what do you think of KERA?”

“Cara?” Taylor had a deer in the headlights look. “It’s hard to keep up with all of the students. Is she a student at Grayhampton High School?”

Marisa forced a laugh. “Oh, the Kentucky Education Reform Act, affectionately known as KERA. That’s funny, Taylor, just pretend you’re in denial. My friend Althea is a retired elementary school teacher. She said reform was needed, but KERA was a pain in the...” Marisa realized she was prattling, and forced herself to stop talking.
Why on earth am I helping Sarah?

Brandon frowned, obviously puzzled.

Alex and Parvis exchanged lost shrugs.

Sarah giggled.

Brandon, Alex, and Parvis winced.

Outside the front door of the gym, Marisa forced a smile. “That was fun!”

The plate glass window shattered, showering them with glass. She found herself on her back, pinned to the ground. Curiously, as if from far away, she could hear screams. Marisa opened her mouth to ask what had happened, and found her mouth filled with grainy particles. Glass?

She pushed at the weight on her, and forced herself to open her eyes. Dark blue eyes the color of a twilight sky stared down at her. He was so close, she could see the black circles around the deep blue of his irises. “Alex! Get the hell off me!” Furious, she tried to shove him off her.

Glass tinkled. Marisa turned her head. The huge glass front of the gym was gone, except for jagged spires sticking out of the window frame.

“Stay down! The gunman could still be out there!”

Gunman? Marisa felt her bowels turn to water. She became aware of the stunted shrubs close to her head. Good, cover is good. Don’t think about bullets tearing through the puny branches and delicate leaves.

Alex turned his head.

Without thinking, Marisa followed his eyes. Brandon was lying on the pavement next to her and Alex. Nearby, Sarah was sprawled under Parvis, her pink dress fluttering around his torso. She was screaming. The high-pitched sound radiated through Marisa’s head and down her spine like a jackhammer.

Marisa had heard of slapping hysterical people, but Sarah was too far away. Regardless, Alex had her pinned in place, with no sign of budging.

“Sarah! If you don’t shut up, I am coming over there! I mean it!” Marisa had had enough.

Sarah’s scream became higher pitched.

Brandon’s measured tones were muffled. “Taylor, please stop it. I need to call 911 and they won’t be able to hear me over your caterwauling!”

Alex shifted slightly on top of her, peering around the parking lot and the buildings across the street. He shaded his eyes with one hand, and then used the other hand to brace himself up off Marisa.

“Hey! Watch that hand, buddy!” Marisa slapped at Alex. She wriggled, trying to throw him off her.

Sarah continued to scream, punctuated with sobs at the end of each screech. Parvis’ soothing tones were ineffective.

Alex fell back on Marisa, slamming her once again to the ground and cutting off her wind. “Be still, Marisa, I’m trying to see if I can spot the shooter! Do you really think I’m going to use this as an excuse to grope you?” He gestured toward the other two. “Do you hear Taylor accusing Parvis of feeling her up?”

Stung, Marisa retorted, “That’s because she’s too busy screaming her head off!”

Alex looked down at her and smiled in her eyes. “It’s better than that inane giggling!”

Sarah’s screams were cut off.

Marisa craned her neck and sighed in relief. “Oh, good, Parvis has his hand over her mouth.”

“I see the shooter on the roof of the building across the street.” Parvis’ voice was strained. “See the sunlight reflecting on metal?”

Alex reared up to get a better view of the building.

Seizing her opportunity, Marisa quickly scooted out from under him.

He grabbed her flailing leg. “Stay down, Marisa, if you get up, he’ll shoot you!”

“That’s right, Marisa,” echoed Parvis, “stay down and don’t try and be a hero!”

They could hear sirens in the distance.

“The police are on their way!” Marisa was relieved. She was confident the police would fix everything.

Brandon spoke into his cell phone. “We think the sniper is on the roof of the delicatessen across the street from the gym. Tell the officers to be careful.”

Marisa saw the police cars speeding toward them. At the last moment, one veered off and squealed around the delicatessen.

“I don’t see the light glinting any longer. I think he’s gone.”

* * * * *

“If we only had some potato salad with flies buzzing around, it’d be just like a family reunion!”

Still on the ground, Marisa contemplated the beat-up gym shoes next to her face. Her eyes travelled up the bare legs, covered in light blonde kinky hair, the torn shorts and t-shirt, and stopped at the set face.

“Hi, Dreamus.”

Dreamus grabbed her hand and hauled her to her feet, as uniformed officers assisted Sarah, Alex, Brandon, and Parvis. With his informal attire, his short blonde hair glistening in the sun, and his smooth, handsome face, Dreamus looked like a teenager in search of a game of hoops.

Marisa knew better than to underestimate him. She tried a smile. “Here we are again!”

“Yes, Marisa, here we are again. Wherever I find you and Alex and Parvis, I find trouble...trouble with a capital T and gaily wrapped in yellow police tape.”

Marisa cocked her head. “I don’t think we’re allowed to use the word ‘gay’ as a casual adjective. It’s not PC.”

He held out his open hand. In his palm were copper cylinders in a clear plastic bag. “Spent ammunition is all my officers found on the roof of the delicatessen. Looks like we have a sniper on the loose. Why is it every time I see you three together, someone is trying to kill you?”

“What do you think was behind the sniper attack, Parvis? Was it a random shooting, or do you think it was a personal attack on Sarah?” Leaning with her back against her kitchen counter, Marisa looked up at Parvis.

His muscular body nearly touching hers, Parvis used a gauze pad soaked in peroxide to clean the small glass cuts on her face. “I don’t know. What if her boyfriend...”

“Jake the Snake,” Marisa supplied.

“Jake the Snake? Is that his real name?”

Marisa’s lips quirked. “Maybe the ‘Snake’ part doesn’t appear on his social security card.”

“Anyway, what if the herpetological Jake found out about Brandon and Sarah, and discovered she was meeting him at the gym today? Then he took up his stance on the roof of the delicatessen with a high-powered rifle, with the intention of taking them both out.”

Parvis picked up a clean square of gauze, and dipped it in the solution. “You have some cuts on your neck and chest.” Gently and slowly, he swiped the damp pad across her collar bones. Holding her eyes, he slid it along the neckline of her top. He held her gaze, and very slowly, he caressed the heated skin just inside her top.

He leaned in, closing the hair’s breadth of space between their bodies.

Marisa could feel his chest against hers, and his legs, bared by his shorts, brushing against hers.

His lips touched hers. His mouth was gentle and heated as he kissed her. When his tongue touched hers, she opened her mouth for him.

With a yelp, Parvis tore himself away from her.

Jumping on one leg, he held the other one. “Jesus Christ, that damn cat attacked me again! He waits for the last slash wounds to heal, and then he gives me another incredibly painful set!” Blood welled between his fingers.

“Laithe!” Marisa scolded her cat.

His extra-long ears perked, the Abyssinian cat blinked his wide, green eyes once. Then, he sauntered out of the kitchen with a satisfied twist of his orange tail.

Marisa grabbed another square of clean gauze and wet it in the peroxide.

Parvis’ smile was tilted on one end. “Would you like to have dinner with me? Then, maybe we can use an animal tranquilizer on Laithe, and...”

Marisa snickered. “You and Laithe need some couples counseling.” Her smile faded. “Dinner sounds awesome, I am starving. But after dinner...”

Parvis groaned. “I have a feeling I am not going to like this...”

“I think we need to question Sarah tonight.”

“I knew I was not going to like it! Your face got that scrunched up look it gets right before you say something that’s going to lead to bad things, like someone trying to kill us...you know, when you told me you’d agreed to racquetball with Sarah, Brandon, and Alex, it was definitely scrunched up.”

Marisa decided to take the high road and ignore his comment about her face. “Who was the sniper trying to kill? Although Alex is a pain in the ass, he leads a life so blameless it’s positively vanilla clean. At least those bullets weren’t meant for us.” She thought about the mysterious white car, which had followed her and Tara to the club.
And don’t forget,
she reminded herself,
Kevin the Stalker.

Parvis frowned. “Sarah, on the other hand, is a member of the online group under a fictitious identity, goes to the group meetings in disguise, and is cheating on her abusive and violent boyfriend.”

“Exactly,” Marisa agreed. “If he found out what she’s up to, not only would he be outraged because he thinks Sarah is his property, but he’d also be livid because she’s his meal ticket. We’ll have to go to the strip club tonight and see her. I don’t know where she lives, only that it’s with Jake the Snake and it’s not a model of happy home life. She usually gets on stage around nine.”

“Are you sure she’s working tonight? What if she’s off?”

Marisa’s mouth twisted. “I went to the strip club every weekend and many weeknights for the past several years, up until my rehab for my addictions to alcohol and painkillers, among other things. Sarah worked every Saturday night. She always said it’s the big money night.”

In her peripheral vision, Marisa saw Laithe glide into the kitchen.

Laithe howled.

Marisa grabbed Parvis, thinking her cat was back for another attack.

His orange brindle fur electric with tension and his orange tail fluffed out in stiff spikes, his back arched and he hissed.

He wasn’t looking at Parvis; he was focused on the door.

Marisa turned her head.

Her neighbor was standing in the doorway, holding the door open a few inches. Her face was avidly pressed to the opening. “Verna!”

“Hello, Marisa.” Her bright neon pink shorts and sleeveless top streaked with dirt, the little octogenarian hopped through the opening. With her short gray hair slicked straight back from her forehead, her elongated head, and her large, hooked nose, she looked like a tiny bird. As her head bobbed in excitement, Verna reminded Marisa of a toy bird, perpetually swinging up and down to drink.

“I didn’t see you standing there.” Marisa’s tone was pointed.

Verna was supremely impervious to tones, pointed or otherwise. “I was waiting for a break in the conversation.”

Marisa drew an outraged breath.

“I had to come over and tell you about that white car today.” Her nut brown eyes were large in the wrinkled, freckled face. “I noticed it parked in the street across from your house. I was positive you’d want to know.” Verna smiled at them both, exposing her stained, bucked front teeth.

Marisa had the random thought of using those teeth to open a beer bottle. She clenched her jaw. “It’s a public street, Verna, people park their cars on it all of the time.”

“It doesn’t belong to anybody in this neighborhood.” Her wrinkled little face glowed with fanaticism. “Believe me, I know all of the cars around here. Anyway, it sat there for the longest time, never moving while I weeded the front yard. I looked over there from time to time, but nobody got out of it.”

When Marisa didn’t respond, Verna snapped her fingers. “Oh, by the way, I saw your friend at the assisted living center yesterday. I was there to visit my sister Clara. I knew Althea Flaxton left the nursing home after that bit of trouble several months ago, but I didn’t realize she was at the center. You know your friend and I taught in the same school, and my sister Clara worked in the cafeteria? I think I may have mentioned that?”

“Yes, you did.”
About fifty million times.
Marisa thanked God that Verna had taught at Althea’s elementary school after Marisa had started high school. Consequently, Verna didn’t know Althea had virtually taken Marisa into her house and heart to help her deal with her abusive home life.

“I can’t believe Mrs. Flaxton was allowed to teach math and science. It was very inappropriate for a woman to teach those subjects. Why, we had men teachers on staff to teach them. Women teachers taking over math and science subjects...what are the men supposed to teach, home economics?” Verna’s voice rose in outrage.

Laithe growled deep in his throat, and approached the old lady with a sideways, stealthy slink.

Verna’s face lit up. “Oh, there’s the kitty! I’ve seen the dear little thing in the window.” Her little white tennis shoes squeaked on the granite floor as approached the angry cat. “Nice kitty.”

He hissed and opened his mouth so wide it nearly swallowed his triangular face.

Verna stuck out her hand.

Marisa moved between them. “Laithe really doesn’t care for strangers.”

Verna’s eyes rose in surprise. “Well, he certainly liked that skinny young man who was here this morning.” Shamelessly, she met Marisa’s outraged eyes.

She waved her stick-thin arm toward the window over Marisa’s sink, which looked out over her backyard. “I was working in the backyard this morning, trimming those low-lying branches of yours that are close to my fence. I couldn’t help but see the young man holding the cat in his arms. They were rubbing all over each other.”

Marisa moved to the window and peered out.

Parvis moved behind her and looked over her shoulder. His breath warm on her cheek, he whispered, “If she draped her body over the fence and stretched her torso into your yard, and her clippers were at least five feet long, she could reach those branches. If she twisted her head just right, then she could see into the window. She’s way more agile and limber than she looks.”

“About that white car, Verna. Did you notice what type of car it was?” Silly question, Marisa chided herself.

“It was a late model white Toyota Camry. When you and the skinny guy and this fella here—” Verna peered up at Parvis. “—took off in his Jeep, the car started and left right behind you.”

Verna looked Parvis up and down. “I must say, Marisa, I liked the young man in the glasses and baggy clothes better than this one or the skinny one that was here earlier. He was a polite, well-mannered man, and never made any snotty comments about my agility.” With that parting shot, she huffed out the door.

Parvis had to grab Marisa’s arm to keep her from going after the old lady.