Marcia sat on the bus en route to Summit Avenue. She glanced down at her fingernails. Her nail polish was beginning to become worn out. The first thing she'd have to do when she got back to Pennsylvania was get a manicure.
She glanced out the window and thought about the situation. Her thoughts were interrupted when a mother, sitting in the seat in front of her, began to scold her child.
"Daniel!" the mother yelled. "Stop throwing that in the air!"
Marcia noticed the young boy throwing his Minnesota Twins baseball cap in the air and then catching it.
"Stop it right now!" the mother once again disciplined. "You are disturbing the other passengers!"
Daniel continued to disobey his mother and kept throwing it in the air, much to his mother's chagrin. He threw his cap so high that it bounced off the top of the bus and didn't fall straight back into Daniel's hands. It fell right at Marcia's feet.
"See what I told you!" the mother scolded.
Marcia subtly kicked the cap under the seat as Daniel got up and looked around.
"Excuse me?" Daniel asked Marcia. "Did you see my baseball cap?"
Marcia looked at Daniel and then looked down at the ground. "I'm sorry," she said, still looking down. "There's no baseball cap here."
"Okay," Daniel replied in a melancholy tone.
Marcia reached into her purse. "Here," she said, giving him a dollar bill. "Buy something for yourself."
Daniel looked down at the bill and nodded in gratitude before heading down the aisle, still looking for his hat.
At the next stop, Daniel and his mother got off the bus.
Marcia leaned down and picked the cap up from under the seat. When she got off at her stop, she carefully placed the Twins cap on her head and made sure her sunglasses were securely over her eyes. She smiled mischievously as she headed to her destination.
"Thanks for coming," Kevin told Adelyn, as he stepped to the side and let her enter the hotel room.
"Not a problem," she assured him. "Have you seen Marcia since the last time we talked?"
Kevin didn't answer and looked over at Georgia. "Why don't you handle this one?"
Georgia took a deep breath and stepped forward. "When I arrived here earlier, I saw Marcia getting on a bus wearing sunglasses."
Adelyn gulped. "Did you happen to see the-" but before she could finish, a cell phone rang. Everyone checked their phones wondering if they were getting a call. "It's me," Adelyn announced as she looked down at the text box on her phone. "It's my pesky boyfriend. This'll only be a second. I'm sorry!" She put the phone to her ear. "Justin, can you call back later? I'm kinda in the middle of- What? Now you're other brother is missing? Since when? Can I call you back later? I'm busy right now. Okay. Love you, too. Bye." She hung up the phone and apologized again. "Now as I was saying, did you catch the number on that bus?"
Georgia clicked her teeth a few times trying to remember the number on the bus. "I'm 99% certain that it was the #16 bus," Georgia replied to Adelyn with certainty.
Adelyn blinked, almost looking like the bus had plowed right over her. "Number 16?" she asked, hoping she had heard Georgia incorrectly.
"That's the one," Georgia confirmed as she put her finger in the air. "Why, where does that one go?"
"I've got to get down Hamline as soon as possible. Not to alarm anyone, but if this girl is as unstable as she seems, then we could have a crisis on our hands!" she told them as she moved toward the door. "My partner is waiting in the car, and we'll be down there ASAP. I'll call you the second I hear anything."
Before anyone had a chance to say anything, Adelyn was out the door and into her police car.
"Kevin!" Carole shrieked after Adelyn left. "I forgot to tell her about the architecture!"
"Carole, I promise you can tell her later about that!" Kevin told her as he sat down on the bed, in a very restless fashion. "Look, I just can't sit around here and wait for a call, I have to go!"
"Where are you going?" James demanded to know.
"I'm going to follow that police car!" Kevin yelled out as he grabbed his keys. "These mysterious outings that Marcia has and lying about that note are no coincidence!"
Kevin raced downstairs to his rental car and followed Adelyn's police car down the streets of the city.
When the Number 16 bus came into Adelyn's view, the lights on the police car lit up and began to swirl and the loud volume of the sirens seemed to interrupt the quietness of that afternoon.
Kevin parked his rental car to the side of the street and watched intently as Adelyn and her partner flew the doors of the police car open and darted up to the bus to question the driver.
When Adelyn and her partner stepped off the bus and headed back towards the car, Adelyn's eyes widened when she saw Kevin standing to the side.
"Kevin! What are you doing here? This is police business and I couldn't afford the risk if you got hurt! Please, go back to the hotel and wait for me there."
Adelyn's partner nudged her. "A hotel, huh?" he smirked. "Who is this guy? You cheating on Lover Boy?"
"Oh, my God, Pertel... would you give it up?"
Kevin gave Pertel a weird look as his eyes shifted back to Adelyn. "I'm sorry, Adelyn," he told her in a sincere tone. "I just wanted to see what was going on," he justified his actions. "So," he started as he watched the bus pull away and head back down the street. "Did that bus driver tell you anything?"
Adelyn took a step away from her partner and toward Kevin. "He actually remembers the woman in sunglasses vividly," she explained. "And where she got off. Right here, actually."
Kevin raised his head to look at the name of the street. "Summit Avenue," he read, as an _expression of realization came to his face. "The street that we were worried about," he said, as his voice became a whisper. "Fine," he agreed. "I'll go back to the hotel. Please stop by later and let me know what happens!"
"Can we please take a break now?" Tony desperately asked Lalie, having played what seemed like several hundred games of rummy.
"Fine," Lalie finally agreed.
Tony pushed the cards away from him and sat back against the wall.
Lalie put the cards in a neat pile and sat next to Tony by the wall. "It must be getting late."
Tony looked over to the left at Lalie. "Marcia has to come back."
"I just can't believe she viewed me as such an obstacle like that," Lalie admitted with anger. "If she wanted to pursue James, be my guest!"
"She can't now," Tony told her. "James and Georgia Caldwell got together."
"I have so much to catch up on if I ever make it out of here," Lalie said, still in shock about the James and Georgia pairing.
"You will make it out of here," Tony once again assured her.
"Well, as long as you remain hopeful, then I'll remain hopeful," Lalie said as she stretched. "I'm going to take a nap. If Marcia comes back, you had better wake me up!"
Tony nodded as Lalie rested her head against the wall.
About ten minutes had gone by before Lalie was fast asleep. Tony intently watched the door for Marcia to return. Lalie's head slowly slid down the wall as she was asleep and she fell right onto Tony's shoulder, not waking up.
"What the…" Tony said as he felt something hit his shoulder. He looked down and saw Lalie there.
Tony was going to wake her up but then something told him not to. He decided it was time for him to take a nap as well and rested his head against the wall and fell fast asleep.
A while later, a key went into the lock and the door swung open. Marcia stood there and looked at Tony and Lalie asleep by the wall, with Lalie's head snugly resting on Tony's shoulder.
"Cozy," Marcia angrily muttered as she softly shut the door and put the lock back on and left the mansion, carefully checking each and every corner before she headed to a nearby street to catch the bus back to the hotel.
Chapter 23
Non-Nsync {Fiction}
I'll Never Stop {Fiction}
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