“Says every stalker, ever,” Rarity joked. “Just remember, Marc Billings, I have your address, your Social Security number, and your shoe size. If Darby goes missing, it’s on you.”
“Why would you have my shoe size?” Marc asked, then waved the question away. “I promise, I belong to the good guys’ cartel. Not a dishonest bone in my body.”
“Dude,” Sam called out, her words slurring. “You’re male, so all your bones are dishonest.”
“She might be drunk, but she’s not wrong.” Rarity smiled at Marc. “Anyway, I’m going to stop grilling you so you and Darby can have a nice evening. It was nice to see you again.”
They went over and joined the table where Sam and Drew were sitting. Archer put his arm around her. “What’s going on in your head?”
“I’m just hoping that the fox hasn’t snuck into the chicken coop dressed like Big Bird.”
Archer broke out into laughter. “Now that’s an image. I can even see Marc’s face in the middle of the yellow feathers. He’s a good guy, Rarity. I took him out on a hike a few days ago and he’s solid. At least that’s my opinion.”
“Well, Darby must feel that way as well, so there are two people I trust who trust him.” Rarity sat back down and sipped her wine. “Sam’s right about one thing.”
“What’s that?”
“Drinking more of this dulls your senses.” She smiled at him. “Want to dance?”
* * *
At home, Archer made them coffee that he brought to Rarity as he came to sit next to her on the couch. A movie played in the background and Killer snored on her lap. “Unless you want something else?”
“No, this is good. It should cut the alcohol from tonight. I hope they will increase the quality of their wine for the closing ceremony next week. Otherwise, I’m going to have to figure out a way to sneak in quality liquor so I don’t have a headache the next morning.” She snuggled onto the couch. “What do you really think about Marc Billings?”
“He seems nice. He’s quite taken with Darby.” Archer frowned as he sat up and looked at her. “We already had this conversation. Is there something that’s bothering you about the man?”
Rarity shook her head. “No. And that worries me. This whole thing has been weird. Darby’s house gets broken into. She gets a threatening message. Mason dies, after being handsy with Darby. Then she gets flowers from a mystery sender. Except Darby only met Mason the night he died. She thought he was creepy. So why would someone focus on Darby if they were going to kill Mason?”
“Or why would someone kill Mason if they’re really focused on Darby? That’s why you’re still worried about Marc. You can’t rule him out for doing all of this.” Archer rubbed his face. “This is too heavy of a conversation for late on Saturday night. Can I come over Monday and make waffles?”
“You don’t have to.” Rarity sat up as well. “We could go get brunch.”
“I like making waffles.” He rubbed his face again. “You and Sam are going to the movies tomorrow. Hey, make sure you keep your eyes open to see if anyone freaks out when Mason’s name is mentioned. I’ve got an early morning hike. I’ll call if I get in early so I can come play too. I work, you play. I’m starting to sense a pattern here.”
“Shut up,” she said as she tossed a pillow at him.
He kissed her and then stood. “Until Monday, then. Stop worrying about Darby. Drew still has a police car watching the house, and Katie was staying with her tonight. She’s probably already in bed for the night.”
After Archer left, Rarity tried to focus on the house flipping show that Killer liked to watch. Instead, she went to get her laptop. She could multitask. She’d looked up Talia and Mason, but not Marc Billings. She’d thought he’d already been out of town, but seeing him tonight with Darby got her spider senses tingling.
She rolled her eyes at her own pun. “Okay, so making fun of spiders isn’t appropriate.”
Killer ignored her. The people in the show were driving through the countryside. Killer loved going for rides.
Marc Billings had a much more personable social media presence. More like him. Rarity would bet that he did his own posting, not a company or assistant.
He’d posted pictures from the signing last week. One he’d taken from the stage after asking the audience to smile. One photo that he must have asked Darby to take of him signing. And the last one of Darby, moving his books. The book was the star of the snap, but Darby was clearly in frame and grinning. A comment hung under that:“Wow, she’s a knockout.”
Marc had put a thumbs-up on all the comments.
Looking between the different social medias, Marc posted the same thing. He might have a service that did that. Darby had mentioned it to Rarity when she’d complained about having to repost on every social site the bookstore was on.
So she focused on the posts just before and just after Marc’s signing. He’d made several posts inviting people to come to the signing.Good author. Then he’d made more posts about the race, adding a short note that he’d be signing his book at the store and when. Somehow, he’d been social and fun on all the posts, yet still had reminded people about the book signing. It wasn’t a skill everyone had.
So Marc, if he did his own marketing, was skilled in making himself look good.
She was about to give up when she found a comment on an older post.“Stop stalking my sister, loser.”Marc hadn’t liked the comment. Maybe he hadn’t even seen it. The post was a few months old and the comment was from a couple of weeks ago. She wrote down the commenter’s name, then went back up to the post.
