THE GIRL WHO KNEW TOO MUCH: A Suspenseful Action-Packed Thriller

by Nolan Thomas

Rocky made a low growling sound as he backed away from the door. Riley tried to listen over the sound of her heart beating in her ears. She heard keys rattle.

  Oh my God, Aunt Dixie’s here! Don’t panic. Think. Maybe the Judge lied to me. Truth or lie? Truth or lie?

  Riley remembered something her mother had told her. Trust your gut, Baby Girl. You’re a smart one.

  Riley held the locket between her fingers. She heard the key turn the lock.

  26

  DIXON WONDERED WHY RILEY WASN’T in the chair as specified. The Judge had never disregarded her orders before. She thought he most likely lost track of time.

  She walked to the bedroom door and slowly opened it. The Honorable Judge Jason Maxwell writhed in a pool of blood and vomit. Riley and her dog were gone.

  “What the hell happened here?”

  The Judge pushed himself up to a sitting position and faced Dixon.

  “That goddamned dog of hers latched onto my arm.”

  Dixon surveyed the scene, taking in all the details. Betraying none of the anger she felt, Dixon said, “What else happened? That little dog couldn’t have done all this damage to you?”

  “Once Rover latched onto me that little bitch kicked me in the balls.”

  As a trained agent, Dixon knew emotions were to be controlled at all times, but she allowed herself a momentary smile at the image of ten-year-old Riley and twenty-pounds-at-most Rocky beating the crap out of this prick.

  “Where are they?” Dixon demanded.

  “How the hell should I know?”

  “How long ago did this happen?”

  “I don’t know,” the Judge whined. “I’m hurt. I need to go to a hospital. I think that damned dog did some serious damage to my arm.”

  “You can’t go to a hospital. We need to find the girl.”

  “I’m hurt. I need medical attention. What if that damned rat-dog has rabies? I need help now!”

  “The dog most likely doesn’t have rabies. I picked him up from a nice neighborhood, far away from here.”

  “Most likely? You picked him up? You exposed me to a potentially rabid animal? Get out of my way.”

  The Judge got to his feet, still woozy and shaky.

  Without moving from the doorway, Dixon said, “Where do you think you’re going?”

  “Get the hell out of my way!” The Judge growled. He tried to elbow her out of his way with his good arm that cradled his injured arm.

  Dixon expertly placed her fingers at key pressure points on the side of his neck, and squeezed. The Judge dropped to his knees, screaming in pain.

  “You didn’t say please, asshole.”

  Glaring down at him, her maneuver left no room for doubt about who called the shots. She reached down and pulled him to his feet.

  “I have medical people. They’ll come over here and take care of you, but first we have to find the girl. I’ll ask you again. How long ago did this happen?”

  “Not too long ago. Maybe five or ten minutes.”

  She pulled him through the doorway. “I’ll take the rooms on the left, you take the rooms on the right.”

  “Riley, sweetheart, where are you? Aunt Dixie is here. I’ve come to take you and Rocky home,” Dixon singsonged as she opened closet doors and pulled back curtains.

  Dixon and the Judge both reached the entry to the kitchen. Dixon called out for Riley again.

  “You’re wasting your breath. She doesn’t trust you.”

  Dixon had begun opening the lower kitchen cabinets. Now she spun around to face the Judge.

  “What do you mean she doesn’t trust me?”

  “She just doesn’t. She’s a smart kid. She figured out that you set her up.”

  “What the hell did you tell her?”

  “Nothing. Nothing that she couldn’t figure out on her own.”

  They both felt a cool breeze drift across the kitchen. Riley hadn’t bothered to close the back door when she ran out of the house. Who knew where she went? She could have run to a neighbor’s house. The police could already be on their way.

  “I need to know everything you told her. Everything. The entire deal could be compromised if she talks to the police. She can identify both of us. Do you understand the gravity of this situation?”

  Blood drained from the Judge’s face. He turned cold as reality hit him.

  “I…I t-t-told her that you were going to k-kill her. I told her that there had been others.”

  Dixon stared at him, marveling at the degree of his stupidity.

  “Is that everything? It’s important you don’t leave anything out. I can’t fix this for us unless you tell me everything. Do you understand?”

  “Yes. Yes. I understand. I’ve told you everything,” he sighed. “Thank God you can fix this, Dixon.”

  The Judge relaxed. “How?” he asked.

  “Initiate a clean-up operation.”

  The Judge only had a split-second—an eternity—before the bullet struck him between the eyes.

  27

  RILEY HUDDLED WITH ROCKY IN the cabinet above the refrigerator. Due to the grandeur of the kitchen, they were both able to fit. She had to bend her knees at about a forty-five-degree angle. Fortunately the deep cabinet accommodated that. Riley had her arms around Rocky. She instructed him to be quiet.

  Riley heard Aunt Dixie calling for her. “Riley, sweetheart, where are you? Aunt Dixie is here. I’ve come to take you and Rocky home.”

  Riley wanted to call out to her. She wanted Aunt Dixie to take her away from this terrible place. Riley heard Aunt Dixie and the Judge come into the kitchen, and heard the doors of the lower kitchen cabinets being hurriedly opened and closed.

  Jumbled thoughts raced through her head. Part of her wanted Aunt Dixie to find her because the Judge was a liar. The other part was terrified Aunt Dixie would find her.

  Riley, about to open the cabinet door, listened intently to the conversation—then froze. The rage in Aunt Dixie’s voice sent a shock wave down her spine. The rage was followed by talk about her being able to identify both of them. Aunt Dixie was going to kill her? There had been others? The thoughts spun through Riley’s brain.

  Riley heard a gunshot followed by a thud, and then everything went quiet. Living on the streets, she knew what gunshots sounded like. She held her breath, not knowing what to do. She waited and listened. Who fired the gun?

  She heard the clicking of a woman’s high heels on the ceramic tile. The sound moved away from the kitchen. Riley waited and waited. She hadn’t heard the front door, so she figured Aunt Dixie was still in the house. Where was the Judge? Was he still in the kitchen looking for her? She held Rocky tight and listened for some warning he was getting closer. She couldn’t punch him in the privates from here, but she just might be able to kick him in the head. That would give her enough time to get away. Earlier, when she ran into the kitchen, she had left the back door open. She’d thought about leaving, but in the movies sometimes it was better to hide close to where the bad guys were and make it look like you had gone somewhere else. Maybe the Judge went outside, thinking she had left the house.

  Maybe he got shot.

  Riley decided to slowly count to one thousand, because she didn’t want to take any chances. This was no game. If there were no more noises, and nothing happened by the time she got to one thousand, she and Rocky would hightail it out of the house as fast as they could.

  One one thousand . . . Two one thousand . . . Three one thousand . . .

  28

  DIXON CALLED HER CONTACT. “I have an important update.”

  “Identify yourself,” the Voice said.

  “Agent Nika Rolinska.”

  “Verification sequence?”

  “Red Tide 3359X.”

  “Verification accepted. Hold while the call is routed.”

  After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, and the formation of the Russian Federation, Russia planned and launched Operation Red Tide, a multi-pronged clandestine infiltration into US intelligence age
ncies, government, corporations, and news media. Although a highly complex and stealth operation, the ultimate goal was simple—undermine the United States of America.

  Agent Nika Rolinska, a highly skilled undercover operative using the name Kathryn Dixon, worked for Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service. As she continued waiting on hold, her impatience grew.

  Finally Major Alekandr Bortnikov came on the line. Rolinska briefed him on the unexpected turn of events. The Major instructed her to continue her assignment with the General. Rolinska was perfectly positioned. The General knew she was an assassin, but had no idea she worked undercover for Russia. The Major did not want to lose Rolinska’s ties, as Kathryn Dixon, with a corrupt general inside the Pentagon.

  Together they formulated a clean-up plan. Firemen would find the Judge’s body. Police would learn a holding company owned the house, and the Judge owned the holding company. With a few well-placed leaks to the press, it would be determined the Judge purchased this house without his wife’s knowledge, as a secret rendezvous point for his numerous illicit trysts. It would be assumed an irate lover shot him and destroyed his den of iniquity, which masqueraded as a quiet, suburban Washington home. The community would be appropriately shocked, then lose interest because their neighbor brought this retribution upon himself. Police would be pressured not to look too closely. The Powers That Be didn’t want their mistresses scrutinized. The Judge’s killer wasn’t going to hurt anyone else. With so many crimes to solve, the police would welcome the opportunity to go light on this one.

  WHILE HER AGENCY hacked the necessary databases to create a holding company and ownership documents, Rolinska implemented the plan. She entered the golden-glowing bedroom of the late Judge Jason Maxwell, walked over to the bedside, picked up a candle and knocked the remaining candles to the floor. The hungry fire reached out to the bedspread and started crawling along the bed.

  Rolinska moved around the room feeding the inferno by touching the candle to the curtains. Newspapers and magazines, friends of the fire, helped it grow strong so it could more easily devour. The orderly society of burning candles turned into a war zone with flames shooting everywhere, jumping from one victim to the next until the entire room blazed.

  Like a serene monk in a cathedral procession, Rolinska carried the candle across the living room and down the hall. She entered the first bedroom, and released the flame from its perch onto the curtains. Fire greedily took hold of its new home, single-minded in its intent to consume everything in its path.

  She moved the processional to the next bedroom. A thin snake of smoke trailed behind her as the fate of the curtains permeated the air. Rolinska crossed the hall to the bathroom where she presented her fire offering to the shower curtain. It immediately sizzled, and its plastic liner contributed a deeper shade of charcoal to the smoke snake.

  The processional ended in the kitchen where Rolinska dropped the burning candle into the garbage can. The fire immediately consumed the debris, and jumped up to grab hold of the lowered custom window shades. Walking across the room, Rolinska stepped over the Judge’s body, and exited the house.

  RILEY WANTED TO keep counting until she reached one thousand, but around eight hundred and fifty-seven she started coughing from the smoke. Riley slowly opened the cabinet door to see what was going on. Horror seized her as smoke and flames engulfed the room. She had to get out! Riley held Rocky in one arm, and braced her feet against the wall of the cabinet. She pushed herself out of the cabinet and onto the top of the refrigerator.

  “Ow! Ow! It’s hot,” Riley yelped, as she slid to the counter below and then continued her butt-slide to the floor.

  “Help us! Please, please, please help us,” Riley cry-screamed over and over again as she ran through the dense smoke in what she thought was the direction of the kitchen door. Still holding Rocky tightly, Riley tripped over something and landed on top of it. The impact ejected Rocky from her arms. As she raised herself up from the lumpy thing, she saw the Judge’s face with a bloody hole between his eyes.

  Riley screamed and crab-crawled off the body. She felt a gust of air and knew the kitchen door was close by, but she didn’t know where Rocky had landed when she fell. Where was he? She had to find Rocky.

  Although visibility was nearly zero, Riley turned away from the door and headed back in the direction she had come from. The ravenous fire nearly filled the kitchen.

  “Rocky,” she managed to wheeze before she collapsed.

  29

  THE GENERAL SAT SILENTLY, RIVETED to his seat as he listened to Dixon’s briefing.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me. That crazy bastard told the girl all that shit? You absolutely did the right thing. What was he thinking?”

  “He wasn’t.”

  “Are you sure they won’t be able to trace the fire back to you?”

  “They won’t. I set up everything to be easily traceable to the Judge if it ever became necessary to implicate him. A few well-placed rumors by your people, like the ones we discussed, and this should be an open-and-shut case for the cops.”

  “What about the girl?” the General asked. “She knows you. She could identify you.”

  “I agree. That’s our biggest problem right now.”

  “Our” biggest problem? the General thought. The girl can’t tie me to you. You’re the only one who can do that.

  Instead he asked, “What do you plan to do about it?”

  “There are only two possible actions the child could have taken. She could have hidden in the house or she could have run. If she took the first action, there’s a high probability she died in the fire.”

  “Yes, but you told me the police were looking for the girl already. How will that square with finding her body in the Judge’s place?”

  “That won’t be a problem. By now the police know the girl is tied to the dead social worker. Riley’s body will just tie up a few loose ends with that investigation. If we hear from our sources the girl’s body is found, we just change the rumors we plant from mistresses to pedophilia.”

  “Okay. That works, but what do you intend to do if no child’s body is found, and she ran?”

  “We know the police are already looking for her. There will be no reason for the police to connect the fire and the Judge’s death with the missing girl. This kid is used to living on the street. My guess is that she’s not the type who’d run to a neighbor or an adult for help, especially after her trust in ‘Aunt Dixie’ was blown out of the water. If the cops get a lead on her, our sources will let me know and I’ll intercept and eliminate her.”

  Dixon’s phone rang. She turned away from the General and listened. Dixon ended the call and turned back to the General. “We have a problem.”

  “What sort of problem?”

  “The type where a young witness could talk to the wrong people. A girl was rescued from a fire and taken to Our Lady of Mercy Hospital. There’s no word on her condition yet, but I’m sure that by now the police know the Judge was murdered. Soon they’ll connect Riley and Regina with Judge Maxwell. We’ll have to go with the pedophile story and eliminate Riley.”

  “How will you explain the death of the girl?”

  “She’s in the hospital, so I’ll have plenty of options.”

  “It’s getting messy. This isn’t like you, Dixon.”

  She looked at him for a long moment, challenging him to go further, but annoyed that he was right. None of her frustration showed on her face. No telltale signs to tip off the observer. In her line of work that could be fatal.

  “I agree. It has become too messy. I followed your orders to provide children to that pervert in return for what was supposed to be stellar lobbying results.”

  The General nodded his head. “In the past, the Judge had always successfully bribed, or should I say persuaded, even the most difficult of Congressional members.”

  “We both should have seen this coming,” she said. “Clearly the Judge was drunk on power. Combined with his uncontrollable urge
s, he’s exactly the type to cave under the slightest bit of pressure.”

  “You’re right, Dixon. We both know what needs to be done to contain this situation. We absolutely cannot have that girl talking to the police and connecting you to any of this.”

  Of course you want it contained, she thought. The next link leads to you. I know exactly who you’re trying to protect.

  “We’re wasting time,” Dixon said.

  “I agree.” The General looked down at his desk for a document. “Time is crit --”

  A chill ran up his spine as he looked up and realized Dixon had vanished without a sound.

  30

  BILLY AND CASEY BURST THROUGH Our Lady of Mercy Hospital’s emergency entrance.

  “Where’s the girl who was just rescued from a fire?” Billy asked the woman behind the desk.

  “Are you family?”

  “No. A friend of the family. Is she okay? Where is she? I need to see her.”

  “I’m sorry, but I can’t give out information if you’re not family.”

  “Seriously? She doesn’t have any family,” a clearly worried Billy said.

  Casey put her hand on his arm.

  Billy took a calming breath and continued, “Look, I don’t mean to cause any trouble. It’s just that we’ve been looking for a missing girl. Detective Amato called to tell me firemen had rescued a girl matching her description. I’ve got to see her.”

  Just as the woman picked up the phone, Vince walked over to the desk and flashed his badge.

  “That’s okay. I’m Detective Amato. The MPD asked this gentleman to come down to aid in the identification of the victim. I’ll escort these two to her room.”

  “Vince. Thank God you’re here,” Billy said. “How is she?”

  “She’s hanging in there,” Vince said. “They’ve admitted her. Follow me.”

  As they rode the elevator to the third floor, Vince briefed them on the suspected arson and murder of Judge Jason Maxwell.

  “This is crazy,” Billy said. “What the hell is going on?”