"You couldn't fly between the two cities?"
It occurred to me I might be hallucinating. Riley in a mullet was just too ridiculous to be real. I pinched him for good measure. He flinched. He was real.
"And miss seeing you looking like a zombie? No way."
I ignored the crack. "So, it's true. You're a Fed now."
He nodded. "It took months to clean up the mess I'd made with the Agency. They decided to kick me out. The FBI practically recruited me on the spot."
"You've gone to the dark side," I warned. "I don't know if I can be seen in public with you anymore."
"Face it, Wrath." He leaned dangerously close. "You'll miss me too much."
I was going to tell him about the Fontanas and their dead body, but his comment changed my mind.
I shoved him back against the door. "You'd better get going. You've got about a five-hour drive ahead of you."
He shrugged. "There's no hurry. I could stick around for a couple of days if you want."
"I don't want," I mumbled, sounding like a toddler. "How did you know I was here?"
Riley smiled a smile I hadn't seen in a while. It was closed and suggestive and sneaky.
"I was driving around and saw your van."
My van was silver with generic plates. There had to be twenty or thirty silver minivans in town.
"You were spying on me," I said after a moment.
He gave me a measured look I couldn't interpret. What was he up to, and what did it have to do with me?
"I was not spying on you," he insisted at long last. "I was driving down Main Street and saw you walking out of this shop."
It was possible he was telling the truth about seeing me. I'd been so sleep deprived, I could've missed spotting him. On the other hand, he'd been a spy. You couldn't trust spies to stop spying. And yes, I know that applies to me too. And yes, I was completely guilty on that count.
"Go to Chicago, Riley." I sighed.
"Your loss, Wrath," Riley said as he got out of my car and climbed into his own.
The man was gorgeous. With his perennial tan, startling blue eyes, and thick, wavy blond hair, he could melt the panties off many women—and did. His charm was off the charts, and he had a body like Adonis.
And I needed him out of my life. Yet somehow, when I least expected it, Riley always knew how to show up and toss a wrench into the works. What was it about him that made me crazy?
As he drove off, I stifled a yawn. I needed to go home and go to bed. Lately, the insomnia pounded through my brain, flooding it with all kinds of thoughts, from my fear about the wedding, to my troop, to the great unanswered questions in life. Like, why isn't a group of squid called a squad? Why do people consider meatloaf a comfort food? If the plural of ox is oxen—why isn't the plural of fox, foxen?
The things that kept me up at night demonstrated that I might be certifiable.
Back at home, Philby and Martini were nowhere to be found. I guess they weren't taking their assignment of watching the Fontanas seriously. Oh well. I might as well get some sleep. I stripped out of my clothes and climbed into bed. A minute later I felt two cats jump onto the bed and snuggle up against me. Their purring was the perfect thing to lure me to sleep.
The strangest dream played out in my head. The Fontanas were carrying a body, in broad daylight, into the house. It was me. And I was in some sort of coma that meant I could see and hear but couldn't move or speak.
Once inside the house, they carried me to a large coffin where Philby waited with a nail and a hammer, making meaningful eye contact.
"Nooooooooo!" I sat up, covered in sweat. The cats didn't stir or even look at me. Did I do this a lot? The clock on my nightstand said it was two in the afternoon.
I'd slept! Yay! I actually got some sleep! Hey! How did I sleep from last night through to this afternoon? And why did I still feel so tired?
My cell buzzed from the pillow next to me. It was a text from Kelly. I was late for a troop meeting that started now. Uh-oh.
The school where we met regularly was at the other end of the block, so it only took me a few minutes to get there. I stopped in the doorway, panting heavily. Every pair of eyes in the room turned toward me.
"You're late, Mrs. Wrath!" Emily accused, pointing a finger at me as if she'd just discovered I was a pod clone. I half expected her to hiss.
For the eight billionth time in two years, I said, "It's Ms., Emily."
I don't know why I corrected them. The girl labored under the delusion that I was old, and therefore, like all old women, a Mrs. Nothing I could do or say ever changed this.
"As I was saying, ladies…" Kelly, my best friend and co-leader, narrowed her eyes at me before turning back to the girls. "World Thinking Day is only a few weeks away, and we still haven't picked a country."
Oh. Right. The Thinking Day thing. We did a booth every year. Normally the event was in February, but the arena where these things were held had mysteriously caught fire last month and the whole thing was put off until late March. This was good because we'd originally had a scheduling conflict with the event, as I'd booked a winter campout. Because of the fire, we were able to go camping and participate in Thinking Day.
The campout had been fun, but Kelly thought my presentation on winter camouflage for snipers was a tad too much. The girls had loved it, and for our craft project, we'd made white ghillie suits using toilet paper. By the way—toilet paper disintegrates in snow—but sometimes you just had to work with what's at hand at the moment.
The girls shouted out various countries from France to Fiji, with a brief debate when Inez brought up North Korea.
"It's been in the news a lot," the girl said.
Betty, not usually the moral compass of the group, shrieked, "We can't do North Korea! It's run by a megalomaniac despot! Besides, we know nothing of their real culture because all information is pure propaganda."
My mouth dropped open, and she shrugged.
"What? I read it in Foreign Affairs magazine."
Betty was well on her way to a bright career in the CIA. I wondered if I could put in a recommendation now. Maybe since she was in my troop, they'd consider her a legacy.
Inez stared menacingly as she folded her arms over her chest—a move that meant either she was very angry or we were very stupid. Many times they meant the same thing.
"Somebody has to have been there because it is a place with people," the girl snapped.
I'd been to North Korea. Briefly. Very briefly on assignment. Riley and I had barely made it out alive. I can't give you the details because it's classified…but it involved an avocado, a feral penguin, and three feet of rope.
"What about Spain?" Lauren asked.
Betty shook her head. "We shouldn't do Spain until they allow Catalonia its own government."
I was pretty certain Spain wouldn't see our boycott in Who's There, Iowa and think, Hey! Maybe those little girls in the middle of nowhere are right! We should totally grant Catalonia their independence! Why didn't we think of that? Thanks, little girls in the middle of nowhere!
"Merry! Focus," Kelly whispered, and I realized I'd been absentmindedly flamenco dancing.
I cleared my throat. "How about France? Didn't someone say France?"
Four little girls stepped forward and nodded. The Kaitlyns. I had four Kaitlyns. All with the letter M as the initial for their last names. And all with mothers named Ashley. Sometimes I wondered if I was living in an alternate universe.
"Okay! France, it is," I agreed.
"But what about the Basque people?" Betty complained.
"And the treachery of the Vichy French?" Caterina, normally the quietest kid in the troop, nodded. "I can't be the only one here who hasn't forgiven them for that."
Every pair of eyes turned to her.
She shrugged. "What? I watch a lot of the History Channel."
The girls broke into a hot political debate about the flaws and defects of European countries of the Iberian Peninsula.
&n
bsp; "This is all your fault." My co-leader sighed.
Of course she blamed me. "Me? How is this my fault?"
She threw up her arms. "You had to give them all a copy of the CIA's World Factbook for Christmas."
"Hey! I got a great deal from the Government Printing Office."
This guy I know there had owed me a favor because I scored him a case of Girl Scout cookies out of season. Since when is it a bad idea to give the gift of education? And, do you know how hard it is to get hold of a case of Thin Mints in November? That's three whole months before orders even start. I had to call in a couple of favors from two Uzbeks (former moles I helped with US Visas) in Chicago who knew a guy, who knew a lady who ran one of the bakeries. You may not realize it, but that action was trickier than wet work in Ecuador. Unless it's monsoon season, that is.
Kelly held up the signal for the quiet sign—one of my favorite things in scouting. The girls went back to their seats and looked at her expectantly. I was convinced that someday this could be used for world peace. Well, at least peace between Iceland and Greenland. It's a little known fact that those two do not like each other.
"We'll do France," my co-leader said.
Caterina and Betty started to protest, but she held up the quiet sign again and the girls stopped speaking.
"Let's keep it simple, shall we?" Kelly said. "We can make chocolate éclairs"—this got the girls' attention—"play French music, and wear berets…"
Betty grumbled, "Berets are from the Basque Country."
"Well," Kelly said quickly, "most people think they are French, so we will just go with that."
"Good call," I leaned in and whispered.
Kelly nodded at me and turned to the kids. "Let's get on the computers in here and see what all we can find out about French culture."
We spent the next hour and a half printing off pictures and gluing them onto a huge piece of poster board. Kelly was really into collaging. By the end of the meeting, we had a mushy, wet mess of pictures of everything from croissants to the Eiffel Tower. At some point Betty slapped on a sign that said Freedom for Basque Country, but Kelly removed it.
I really admired the woman, even if she could be a wet blanket. My best friend since we were in elementary school ourselves, Kelly was everything a leader should be—organized, good at paperwork, and smart. I was the one who got dirty, hid dead terrorists in the low-ropes course, and binged on the dozens of s'mores the girls made for us.
I was lucky to have her. She even named Riley and me as her daughter's godparents. I didn't quite know what that meant or what my job description was. I do know it doesn't mean the baby is supposed to treat us like gods (an idea that led Kelly to sigh and roll her eyes).
One of the moms stuck her head inside the door, and I realized the meeting had ended ten minutes ago. This was unusual because our parents were so inactive they were almost invisible. Most of the time they sat in their cars, staring at their cells until their daughters jumped into the car, reminding them that they had a kid.
"…and I was thinking we could all do pink T-shirts, black leggings, and ballet flats." Kelly was speaking to me because there wasn't anyone else in the room. The girls had all gone.
I snapped back to the present. "Great idea! I'll order the berets."
"There's something else." Kelly handed me a newspaper article.
It was about a king vulture on loan to the local zoo from the Smithsonian in Washington DC. After a trip there, my girls had met and named him Mr. Fancy Pants.
"He's here?" I gasped. "Already?"
The picture in the black and white paper didn't do him justice. With a brilliant purple and black head covered in stubble, the bird had a brightly colored wattle over his beak and two eyes that seemed to move independently from each other. They looked like googly eyes, giving the bird a slightly deranged, muppety kind of look.
Kelly nodded and took the article back. "I talked to the zoo. They know about our history with the bird and are going to let us visit in a few days. I'm waiting for confirmation but wanted to give you a heads-up before I told the girls."
"What are we going to do on this visit?" I thought about the bird and how he'd once helped me catch a member of the Yakuza. Also, he was heavily addicted to Girl Scout cookies. Shortbread was his favorite, if I remembered correctly.
"Nothing. We'll just have a simple visit." From her expression, I could see she hadn't thought that far.
"Okay. I'll pull some cookies from the freezer." Be prepared was the Girl Scout motto, after all.
My co-leader looked doubtful. "Didn't you say he attacks for cookies? That might not be a good idea."
I shrugged. "It seems rude not to take them. Kind of like how you told me I should take wine to that party last month."
Kelly and I had been invited to a party hosted by a nurse she worked with. Originally, I was going to give the host lanyards made by the girls. Who doesn't love handcrafts made from plastic laces? (According to Kelly, everybody). I should've known because each country is different. In Morocco, you bring milk or yogurt. In China they like fruit, and you have to bring two pieces—but never pears, for reasons I don't understand. And chocolate works as a gift in almost every country, but I couldn't figure out how to keep s'mores hot on the way there.
Like my friend suggested, I'd taken wine, and everything seemed okay. That is, until we discovered that the host was allergic to the tannins in red wine (something she didn't know about herself). Fortunately, there'd been lots of nurses and doctors on hand to deal with it. I'd gotten the impression that my co-leader thought I was to blame somehow. She didn't say so, but my instinct had told that was the case. After all, I'd done what she'd suggested. How could she be mad at that?
Kelly thought for a moment. "I'm looking forward to meeting Fancy Pants."
"Mr. Fancy Pants," I corrected.
I thought about the bird's impending visit as I walked home. My stomach rumbled, making me realize I'd missed lunch. I didn't like missing meals. And all that talk about cookies had made me hungry. We'd just finished selling Girl Scout cookies, and I had three cases of them in my basement. All I needed was a huge glass of milk, and I'd have a well-balanced lunch.
As I neared my house, the hairs went up on the back of my neck. Someone was watching me. I kept moving as if nothing was off and noticed that the man my fiancé called Mark Fontana was standing in his driveway, staring at me. There was no car present. He was just standing there with nothing in his hands, blatantly watching me.
"Hi!" I called out cheerfully, and walked over with my hand out. "I'm Merry Wrath. I don't think we've met."
Fontana looked like every other generic thirty-something male whose face would be forgotten moments after meeting him. He was my height, slightly plump, with a receding hairline and a hair color I'd call browneige. He was sporting a white polo shirt and jeans that seemed to make him bland and invisible as he stared at me strangely.
Probably because he knew I'd called the cops on him for carrying a dead body the other night. And while Rex insisted there was no evidence of this, I knew what I'd seen. Philby'd seen it too, so I know I hadn't been hallucinating.
The man shook my hand and said at last, "I'm glad we're finally meeting. Rex is your fiancé, right?" He nodded to the house across the street.
"That's right. He's only lived here a couple of years, but I grew up here. You and your wife?"
"We're from Minneapolis." He smiled at last. "Before that we were from Canada. Met at the University of Iowa."
That seemed like an odd bit of information to volunteer. Something about this guy seemed off and completely normal, all at the same time. I just couldn't figure out if I was smart or paranoid. There's a fine line there, believe it or not.
"Are those your cats?" Mark pointed at my front window where the two felines were sitting, staring at us.
"Yeah. Philby's on the left, and that's Martini on the right. You wouldn't have met them. They aren't outside cats."
He squinted
. "Am I seeing things, or does Philby look like Hitler?"
I nodded. "She does. It's kind of hard to miss, isn't it?" Hopefully this guy wasn't a Nazi as well as a conveyor of dead bodies.
Mark looked uneasy. "Sorry for just blurting that out. You don't see that every day."
"Do you and your wife have any pets?" Small talk 101—bring up pets and kids to disarm people.
Mark shook his head. "Good God, no! I'm not much of a pet person."
Who wasn't a pet person? I wasn't sure I wanted a neighbor who wasn't a pet person.
"So, Mark, what do you do?" Small talk 102—move on to occupations. It only works in America—where for some reason the citizens judge each other by their jobs. In other countries, ask about anything else, like the weather or the fetishes of the current dictator.
"My wife and I…Pam, we have an insurance company. We're not affiliated with any one provider. We're more like middlemen."
"Here in Who's There?" I thought about this for a moment. "Insurance United? In the strip mall on the outskirts of town?" It was the only insurance company I knew.
My neighbor nodded. "That's right. We bought it from the Turners when they retired."
"That's interesting." Now, why does someone move to a tiny town in the middle of nowhere for no real reason? I added this to my mental list of suspicious activities.
"What do you do, Merry?" Mark asked.
I couldn't very well tell him I'd been a spy. It had been a closely held secret, one I was sure would get out by the time of my wedding, when Senator and Mrs. Czrygy arrived in town for the ceremony.
"I'm between jobs right now." Not a lie! "I mostly volunteer up at the school with a Girl Scout troop."
"That's good to know," he said cryptically. "Well, I should get inside. Pam's making Yankee pot roast and apple pie for dinner. We love American food!" He stuck out his hand and shook mine again. "It was nice to meet you. Maybe we can go out to dinner, Pam and me and you and Rex?"
"Sure," I answered. "Nice meeting you too."
Once I got inside the house, I pulled some pizza rolls and ranch dressing out of the fridge and thought about my neighbors. Like Rex thought, Mark seemed normal and nice. Not like a killer at all. Of course, you can't count on a first meeting to sum up a person's character. I learned that lesson the hard way with a Tibetan prince and priest in the Galapagos. Turned out the "man of the cloth" was an iguana smuggler. And, an actual prince.
Motto for Murder (Merry Wrath Mysteries Book 6) Page 3
