Mayhem Takes a Dare: The Second Marisa Adair Mystery Adventure (Marisa Adair Mysteries Book 2) (29 page)

In the darkness of the deserted lane, the electronic gate of the domestic violence shelter swung open in front of Marisa’s car. She had finished her regularly scheduled workshop, intended to help battered women find viable employment. Although she could feel the tug of fatigue due to the previous night’s excitement and subsequent lack of sleep, she enjoyed teaching the women job seeking skills.

Marisa patted her dash, happy to get back her Miata. She had the top down, and she loved the feeling of the night wind in her hair.

Marisa felt an intense sense of satisfaction.

Marina Poole Waters had been arrested. When Dreamus started digging, he’d found the link between her and Jake, Sarah’s boyfriend. The two of them had grown up together.

Dreamus theorized Marina Poole and Jake had worked together on the child pornography scheme. Marina Poole had used the cover of the online group to scope out registered sex offenders. Sarah must have found out what Jake was up to, and threatened to go to the authorities. He hadn’t yet placed either Marina Poole or Jake at the club the night Sarah had died, but he was persistently seeking the final piece of the puzzle.

Marisa frowned. When Marina Poole had been arrested, she’d insisted a third person had been involved in the scheme. She claimed she didn’t know who he was and she’d never seen him. Marina Poole wasn’t even sure if the person was male or female. She stated he’d been the one to supply her and Jake with the actual pictures. She insisted he must have murdered both Sarah and Jake.

Dreamus had been frankly disbelieving. He’d ordered Marina Poole hauled off to the police station.

Marisa swerved around the hairpin turn in the one-lane road leading from the shelter. She glanced in her mirror. The building was no longer visible and she was completely surrounded by trees.

She sighed. Poor Tara. Dreamus had taken drastic action with her. Marisa wondered if he’d gone too far. She remembered her own feelings of despair when she’d hit bottom. She shook her head. No. If it saved Tara and other lives, it hadn’t been going too far.

Taking another sharp turn, she was startled to see a car blocking the road. She slammed on her brakes, and fishtailed to a stop mere inches from the tan compact car.

A familiar figure was standing next to the car. He turned, his features shadowed and the fading light catching his thinning brown hair.

“Macon?” Marisa leaned out of her car. “What are you doing here? Are you visiting one of the clients? Did your car break down?”

Marisa walked over.

Although he smiled at her, his eyes were hard and cold.

She frowned. He’d never looked at her with anything other than kindness and sympathy on his face. She faltered.

He brought up his hand. It held a gun.

Marisa’s mouth fell open.

His smile widened, while his eyes remained expressionless. “You think you’re so smart, Marisa. Yet you never figured out what was happening right under your very nose. First, we’ll drive my car off into the woods. There’s a dirt road right there. Get in.”

Marisa’s mind was reeling with kaleidoscopic images. Sarah was a patient of Macon’s. Several times, Marisa had run into someone tall and thin, and familiar to her. “You killed Sarah, and then her boyfriend. You’re the silent partner Marina Poole talked about.”

Macon motioned with his gun. “Get in now, Marisa. We’re on a tight timetable.”

Marisa’s hands gripped the wheel of her car. Macon held the gun loosely on his lap, pointed at Marisa. “Macon, why? Why did you kill Sarah?”

He laughed. “Haven’t you figured it out? I thought you were the quintessential amateur detective.”

“You must be the head of the porn ring.” Marisa spoke slowly, rearranging the pieces of the puzzle. “You were treating Sarah, and through your sessions with her, you knew her boyfriend Jake would be the perfect partner for you. You would supply the pictures. He could take the risks of actually making the hard copies for the old school perverts, and emailing the electronic files and putting together flash drives for the more savvy lechers. Marina Poole took the risk of trolling the clubs, using the online group as a smoke screen as she sold the pornographic material. And you knew, if things got too hot for you, they’d both make perfect scapegoats for you. They were useful to you while it lasted, then expendable if you needed an out.”

Macon nodded. “Very good, Marisa. I’d applaud, but I need to keep this gun on you. From our sessions, I know you’re a very resourceful and resilient woman.”

Marisa turned to him briefly and then back to the road. “That’s why your wife vanished with your children. She must have somehow suspected you’re not the man you pretend to be.”

Macon growled. “That bitch! I have detectives on her trail. I’ll run her to ground, and when I do…”

Marisa shivered. “Where are we going?”

“We are going to your house.”

“My house?” Marisa was astonished.

“Yes. I’m going to plant the evidence which points to you as the killer. Then...I have a delightful surprise planned for you at my office.”

Marisa’s hands tightened on the wheel. “No one will believe I’d done such a horrible thing.”

Macon’s laugh crawled down Marisa’s spine. “Actually, I think the correct spin on the facts will make it believable. Ironically, your friend Althea Flaxton gave me a piece of information that makes it all so believable.”

The car swerved.

“Be careful! If you wreck this car or catch the attention of the police, I shall go ahead and shoot you. I’ll say you forced me to go with you, we struggled for the gun, and I had to shoot you. We’re almost at your house. If you try to signal to a neighbor or otherwise try to attract attention, I’ll be forced to kill both you and the neighbor.”

Shaking, Marisa pulled the little car into her driveway. Her leg trembled on the clutch.

“Very carefully now, we’ll casually go into the house.”

Marisa’s mind raced as she exited the car. She tried to think, but she was so frightened, she staggered against the car. As she leaned against the cool metal, her gaze fell on Verna’s house. Verna! If only she could catch the old lady’s attention without putting her in danger…

Macon leaned over her. “No tricks, Marisa. If you try to involve anyone else, I’ll be forced to kill him…or her. You’ve ranted enough in therapy about your busybody neighbor. Veronica? Vera? Ah, Verna, that’s it.” He took her arm, and pulled her upright. “I must say, I always looked forward to our sessions, at least before you stopped drinking. I always felt as if I lived through the fun and excitement of your adventures at the strip club and with your friends, almost as if I was there as well. Even after you stopped drinking, your antics with the murders associated with the nursing home and the trauma hospital provided me with entertainment. Now, Marisa, let’s get into the house.”

Trying to look for the tiny, birdlike body of her neighbor from the corners of her downcast eyes, Marisa deliberately took Macon to the kitchen door. It kept them outside longer than the trek to the front door, and the route would increase the chances of Verna spotting them. Marisa felt a surge of hopefulness. Perhaps Verna would see the gun…

As if he had read her mind, Macon slid the gun into his pocket and put his other arm around her shoulders. He squeezed her to him, and forced her along the walk to the kitchen door.

Inside, Laithe leaped into the kitchen to meet her. When his round green gaze fell on Macon, he skittered sideways and hissed. His orange brindle fur stood up and his orange tail fluffed out like a twirling feather duster.

Macon growled at the cat and drew back his foot.

“Don’t you dare kick him!”

The gun was in Macon’s hand. “Sit down and shut up, or I’ll kill you now.”

With a yowl, Laithe darted through the narrow opening of the kitchen door and out into the night.

Macon slammed the door and locked it. He eased his trim body into a seat at her table, holding the gun. In his running suit and with his scrubbed face, he looked like an average guy who liked to run as a hobby. The unreality of the scene caused her to feel dizzy.

She knew she had to focus if she was going to get out of this alive. “What did you mean earlier, when you said Althea gave you a piece of information?”

“She told me about your grandfather, Marisa.” He smiled at her, his teeth white and straight.

Tense in her chair, Marisa clenched her fists.

“Ah, I see you know what I’m talking about. Your friend found some photographs. Pictures of children, in various poses and degrees of nakedness. Pictures which included you, Marisa.”

Marisa swayed in her chair with a dizzying surge of nausea. “I don’t understand, Macon.”

“You and your friend had to visit Jake’s squalid little hovel while I was trying to stage his death as a suicide. I decided then I had to wrap up all the annoying loose ends, and you were the key loose end.

“You will send emails to the police, Marisa. In them, you will detail your crimes. You killed Sarah because she figured out you were running the child pornography ring.”

“No one would believe I did such a thing. How could I do that to anyone else, after what happened to me when I was a child?”

“Marisa. You grew up in the deprivation of an alcoholic home. Yet, as an adult, you became an alcoholic yourself.”

“It’s a far cry between a child of alcoholic parents becoming an alcoholic and a child victimized by pornography growing up to sell it!”

Macon tisked sadly. “Haven’t you paid attention to your own sexual addiction group? How many women molested as children end up promiscuous? In the same twisted way, your motive for running the child pornography ring was your own childhood victimization.”

Marisa felt faint with revulsion. She leaned against the table.

“You saw Sarah that night at the club,” Macon continued smoothly. “You stole the knife from the bar, thinking you’d watch for your chance to use it. When she fell off the stage, you approached her under the guise of helping her. In the general chaos, you stabbed her.”

Marisa fought against the waves of blackness. She forced herself to think. “What about Jake? I obviously didn’t kill him. Alex and I found him right after you killed him.”

Macon shrugged. “A man like him had many unsavory associates. One of them killed him.”

A movement outside the kitchen window caught Marisa’s attention. She glanced out.

Verna’s thin body was angled across Marisa’s back fence, and she was peering in the kitchen window.

Marisa put her hands up. “Please don’t shoot me. I’ll do whatever you want.”

Annoyance crossed his face. Marisa also thought she saw a shade of disappointment. “I expected better of you, Marisa. I thought you’d be cool and calm in a crisis.”

Marisa looked out of the corner of her eye. Verna was still there, and the kitchen window was open in a narrow crack at the bottom.

Marisa forced herself to wail. “I still don’t get why you’re going to kill me. Jake is dead, and he’s a handy scapegoat.”

Macon cringed at the whiny tone. “You saw me too many times for my comfort, Marisa. The online group has been a good pipeline for my product. I went one night to see the gathering for myself. You ran into me. Even though I turned my face away, I thought you recognized me. You also saw me at the strip club. You saw me running across the field at the trailer park. You’re a smart woman, Marisa. Eventually you would have put two and two together, and realized what you’d seen. You are a danger to me…a danger which must be eliminated.”

Marisa risked a glance out the window. Verna was gone. She’d either gone for help, or she’d gotten her eyes full and gone about her business.

Macon motioned toward her laptop, open on her kitchen table. “Boot it up, Marisa. Now.”

Marisa had to buy time. “Why would I make your job easier by writing incriminating emails?”

Macon laughed. It was devoid of amusement and made Marisa shiver. “If you don’t write them, your friends will wonder. They will investigate. I can’t afford to have anyone poking around. If you don’t write what I tell you, I’ll be forced to eliminate your friends, one at a time. I think I’ll start with Mrs. Flaxton. I can go and see her, and offer her comfort in her sorrow. It will be easy to bump against her as I escort her down the stairs, and of course I will be inconsolable when I can’t prevent her tragic, fatal fall.”

Marisa had never felt so close to death, even when she’d looked down the barrel of a gun held by a murderer four months ago. She didn’t doubt at all that Macon would kill her and go after the fragile Althea if she didn’t cooperate.

She didn’t want to die. She’d never see Althea again. Her friend had done her best to rescue Marisa from the poverty and neglect of her childhood. She’d never see Tara, her best friend, ever again. Tara, with her addiction to shoes, and her continued denial of her feelings for Dreamus. And Alex. He was such a pain in the ass. She’d never get the chance now to see if…

“Now, Marisa, write what I tell you.”

Marisa slowly turned on the computer. She’d never see Miss Clara again. The portly lunch lady had made sure in elementary school that little Marisa was allowed to eat whatever she wanted. Miss Clara had taken up for her with the children who taunted her. She felt an overwhelming urge to hug the old woman and thank her for what she’d done for her all those years ago.