Motto for Murder (Merry Wrath Mysteries Book 6)

by Leslie Langtry

  "Good morning!"

  "Morning?" I blinked as she turned up the lights.

  "Yes. You slept a good eight hours without getting up once."

  I sat up. Philby was still in her spot from the night before. She refused to wake up when I poked her.

  "I can't believe it," I said. "How did that happen?"

  Dr. Tuttle smiled. "Sometimes all you need is complete sensory deprivation. Most people charge their phone next to the bed, have animals running around in the night, have cars or trains next to their house. Here, it was dark and silent."

  Hmmm…I'd have to change my room to make it dark and soundproof. Would I be able to ban the cats?

  "You said you think this is stress-related?" the doctor asked.

  "I thought so." I scratched under Philby's chin. The cat came alive. For such a smart, smug animal, she turned into putty if you scratched under her chin.

  She continued, "You might have been so tired you just needed a nice, safe place to crash."

  "Can I come back tonight?" I asked. Would they let me move in?

  "I do want you to come back tonight," Dr. Tuttle said. "We need a second test to make sure the first wasn't a fluke."

  I nodded eagerly. Yes! I was going to get two full nights of sleep in a row! I wondered if the doctor would let me high-five her. Deciding against that, I looked meaningfully at Philby. The glare on her face said it all. Not a chance.

  She hesitated. "One thing…"

  Uh-oh. Here it goes. I snore. Or I sleep walk. No wait, she said I never left the bed. What if I gave up classified intel by talking in my sleep? I hadn't worried about that until right then. Was it possible? I braced myself for her response.

  "Did you know your cat gets up the minute you fall asleep?"

  I shrugged again. "I assume she does. Does it matter?"

  The doctor shook her head. "No, it doesn't impact anything. It was just…strange."

  Philby was now pretending to be occupied cleaning her paw.

  "How so?"

  The woman shifted uneasily. "Well, she walked around the room a few times before climbing onto the table next to the two-way mirror. She stared at me for half an hour, tail twitching back and forth. I was sure she could see through the glass. I don't think she even blinked."

  Philby continued her charade of suddenly having to clean herself for being very, very dirty.

  "You're joking."

  "Then she tapped on the window, meowed at me, and went back to the bed. Just before curling up and closing her eyes, she looked directly at the camera overhead and meowed very loudly."

  My cat was so weird. And awesome!

  "That is bizarre." I nodded, wondering what to do with this information. "I don't have to bring her back tonight," I said.

  Dr. Tuttle's eyebrows went up. "Please bring her back. She makes the time pass much more quickly."

  I walked out of the hospital into daylight, still wearing my pajamas, still carrying an obese cat.

  "Good girl," I whispered. She had my back. Who needs a dog?

  Philby ignored me.

  Back at home, Martini charged us like a bull. She ran circles around both her mother and me before sitting in front of us, meowing loudly for five minutes. Since she looks like Elvis, it was a little strange to be chewed out by the fur ball. When she was done, she turned tail and headed back down the hallway to the bedroom.

  After a quick shower and some breakfast, I dialed the number I'd found in the vacuum cleaner. No one answered, and there was a recording that said the owner hadn't set up a voicemail account yet. I ran a search of the number online but came up empty. I'd just have to keep trying.

  I still had another avenue of investigation and sat down with Kate's laptop to try again. Maybe with a clear head and a full night's sleep, I could make sense of all those cat pictures.

  Who takes only cat pictures? I don't even have one on my cell phone. Wait…did that make me a bad cat mom?

  The pictures of the dead cat, featuring him very much alive, filled the screen. One by one, I went over them again, looking for clues in the background…a notepad with writing, a calendar…anything.

  Did this make me seem crazy? Studying photos I'd already examined. Was this part of my madness? A seed of doubt crept into my mind. Maybe there wasn't anything going on. Maybe Kate was just a weirdo with a safe room and a cat fetish. Maybe the Fontanas weren't spies—just socially awkward.

  Like a house of cards that falls after one mistake, my whole theory crashed to the floor. The eight hours of sleep must've allowed me to regain control of my brain, using real reasoning. It was possible I'd been a paranoid nutcase. The insomnia had made me crazy. I really should make another appointment with Susan before I started killing my cats and having them stuffed and attached to appliances.

  I thought about what Susan had said. Sometimes things look one way, but underneath is something very different. While this might not be the main reason for your insomnia, it might be one piece of the puzzle.

  She was so smart. The only thing that bothered me was how she found out about Rex. I could be making too much out of it. Or things had layers, which she'd said. She…

  But underneath is something very different…

  I pulled the laptop closer and opened one of the cat pictures. What was I saying? They're all cat pictures. In this particular photo, an angry Mr. Pickles was sitting in an Easter basket wearing giant bunny ears. That would do.

  Next, I searched the programs installed in the software. How did I not see this before? I was an idiot! Okay, maybe not an idiot, but rusty. This was steganography. A method of hiding information underneath layers of color in a picture. And there it was—a special program used to layer photographs. I'd seen this before. These programs were unique, usually coded by the user. But they all ran on the same principle of a complicated photoshopping program.

  I began to strip away colors embedded in the cat photo. It took a long time. You had to know which components of which colors to remove. Whoever Kate Becks was messaging knew which layers to strip. Kate knew it. I did not.

  The work was painfully slow, and I'd be lying if I said I didn't curse once or thirty-five times. Minutes turned into hours. I took a break for lunch to clear my head, hoping for some inspiration from the Pizza Rolls and ranch dressing. No such luck.

  As I worked through the afternoon, I started figuring it out. The curves and angles of letters began to appear. At least it was English. I could speak Russian and Spanish, but it would be easier not to have to translate.

  If only Riley was here. He was great at cryptography and a master of this particular brand of steganography. Then again, I was still mad at him. Besides, figuring this out on my own would be good for me.

  By dinnertime, I'd gotten it down to where I could at least read through the last layer.

  I'm being followed. They know.

  I leaned back in my chair, exhausted. This was only one message out of dozens. And while it got easier as I went along, did I really want to spend the next week decoding each and every photo?

  At least I had some wine in the house. I poured a glass of red and stared at the message. It proved, to me at least, that Kate was a spy. She was talking about being made and someone following her. She must have been collecting information for someone…but what? For whom?

  I leaned back in my chair, suddenly weary as I looked at the other dozens of photos. And while it got easier as I went along, did I really want to spend the next week decoding each and every photo? Did I want to stare at Mr. Pickles' sour face over and over?

  I should give the laptop to Rex. They had a whole computer forensics team in Des Moines who could uncover all these messages in no time.

  It would prove to my fiancé that I was capable of making the right decisions. That I understood the importance of his job. That I was putting my past behind me.

  Pulling my cell out of my pocket, I called across the street.

  There was no answer. Huh. It was almost eight o'clock. W
hat was he up to? I tried again, every twenty minutes, until I had to get ready to go back to the sleep study. Rex texted back, asking me to quit calling and saying all was well, that he was just at work. Feeling better, I changed into my pj's, grabbed my rotund cat, and headed out.

  Dr. Tuttle greeted me again, and I was shown to the same bed. Philby curled up in the middle of it and zonked out. As I drifted off, I tried to remember what else Susan had said. She'd made it sound like I needed to find myself. Kind of. I guess. With my last conscious thought, I decided she was right.

  Something was wrong, my brain told me. Opening my eyes, I saw it was completely dark. Philby wasn't on the bed. This could've been a dream.

  Bang!

  Something slammed against the two-way mirror, and I sprang out of bed. Philby! As I waited for my eyes to adjust to the gloom, I carefully worked my way over in the direction of the sound.

  Something furry rubbed up against my legs, and I sighed with relief. Philby was okay. Picking up the cat, I deposited her onto the bed and climbed back in. I was so drowsy. That was good because I wanted to sleep. If I did it right, they wouldn't need me to come back. I'd just keep seeing my therapist, and eventually I could end that too.

  My eyes closed, and I had the sensation of floating into the darkness. It was nice.

  Thump.

  My eyes flew open. For a soundproof environment, this place was failing. Perhaps this was part of the test—to see how I'd do with distractions? That made sense, and I closed my eyes again.

  Philby shifted on the bed, and I heard her jump down to the floor. She was investigating. That would give Dr. Tuttle another great story.

  Scrape…

  That sounded like a shoe. Someone was in here with me. That seemed unprofessional. I opened my eyes. The sound of metal on leather sent my heart pounding. I knew that sound. It was the sound of a knife being taken from a leather sheaf. It was on my right.

  I rolled over to the left just as something made contact with the pillow next to me. I landed on my feet and waited to hear footfalls, or someone bumping into the bed.

  It was completely silent. I ran my hands over the sheets and came away with a handful of feathers. Someone had stabbed my pillow. And they'd thought they'd connect with my head.

  Why stab someone in the head? It's not like it was easy. The skull made it harder. There were lots of squishier places where you could do a lot more damage quickly. As these thoughts rambled around my head, I continued to listen for any sound at all. Nothing.

  My eyes adjusted a little, and I could make out the dark shape of a person still standing on the other side of the bed. Whoever it was, my attacker hadn't moved. Thoughts would be racing through his mind. Had he missed by inches? Had I shifted in the bed and he just had to find me? If I were him, I'd realize I only had one more shot at this.

  Someone had tried to kill me.

  Where was Philby? If I had to guess, I'd say she wasn't in immediate danger. Cats knew their way around in the dark. I'd like to think she'd lay low, realizing what kind of situation this was.

  "Ms. Wrath?" A vaguely familiar female voice—with an outrageous Southern accent added in an attempt to disguise it—came from the other side of the bed. "You can get up now. We're having some trouble with the lights. Tell me where you are."

  I said nothing. The shoe scraped against the floor again. My assailant was walking around the head of the bed. Fortunately, I was barefoot and able to move silently. As I made my way slowly around the foot of the bed, the two of us changed sides.

  Crouching low on the floor so she wouldn't see me but I could see her feet, I held my breath.

  "I know you're here," the woman said. "You couldn't have gone out. Not without me noticing. Please let me know you're all right."

  So you can stab me? No way.

  I needed a plan. The attacker would run out of patience and probably find the light switch. I needed a weapon. But unless I was going to garrote her with my Dora the Explorer pajamas, I was out of ideas.

  The theory was, rush a gun, run from a knife. A gun makes noise, and if it does shoot you, others will come to see what happened—which was great news since I was already in a hospital.

  But a knife… A knife could do irreparable damage. And silently.

  I did a mental assessment of the room, but there wasn't anything in it I could use. Not that I could see, anyway.

  "Ms. Wrath!" the voice snapped. "You are wasting our time! I know you're not in this bed. Speak up so we can take the next step!"

  Oh sure, considering the next step was her knife going into my soft body, I decided to keep quiet. She was still standing on the other side of the bed. An idea popped into my head.

  With all my might, I shoved the bed as hard as I could and just kept pushing. A grunt came from the other side, but I didn't stop. With luck, I could smash her between the bed and wall, which would give me enough time to hit the lights, grab Philby, and get out of there.

  The bed groaned as I pushed it across the tile floor. It was still heavy, so I knew she was still there. I couldn't stop and give her time to get around the bed because now Knifey McKnife Face knew exactly where I was.

  I heard a loud yowl, followed by a hiss, and it stopped me in my tracks. My assailant was running toward the door. It opened, and all I could see was the backlit shadow of the woman as she closed the door and ran down the hallway.

  It took me a moment to reach the light switch. Blinded for a moment, I blinked to see Philby nursing her front right paw. The woman had stepped on her. I found my phone on the dresser and was about to dial 9-1-1, when a thought occurred to me. I hit the number I'd dialed from the slip of paper. In the distance, a phone went off. My attacker had that number—the number Kate had hidden in the Roomba.

  "Dr. Tuttle?" I shouted. No answer.

  Philby was hot on my heels as I flung open the door and ran to the observation area. The door was open, and I saw Dr. Tuttle slumped over a table in front of the two-way mirror. On the wall was a button—a panic button for the security team. I hit it and turned my attention to the fallen woman.

  The doctor was breathing and still had a pulse. I waited with her until help arrived in the form of the hospital's security team and a couple of nurses.

  "How does this keep happening?" Rex said from behind me. Wow. He got there fast.

  I turned and fell into his arms, remaining there until my heartbeat slowed to normal.

  "You were just in a sleep study, right?" Rex's voice rumbled through his chest.

  I pulled back and looked at him. "I had nothing to do with this."

  I explained the whole scenario—how I'd been attacked, how the attacker got away (leaving out the part about the phone number). He listened carefully and took notes.

  Hey! I was an actual victim! This was what it was like to be legitimately interviewed by the police! It was kind of nice, actually. Usually I'm apologizing for getting involved in something or lying about getting involved in something.

  But I hadn't done anything wrong.

  Awesome!

  Dr. Tuttle came to, unable to describe who smashed her forehead into the two-way glass. She was far more concerned with me than herself. Which was nice. The forensics team came in and started working on both rooms.

  Rex pulled me aside. "You're not quite out of the woods, you know."

  "What do you mean?"

  "No one randomly attacks a sleep study patient. You've been digging into all of this. Haven't you?" His eyebrows went up.

  Busted.

  "Yeah." I slumped. "You're right. Can you stop by my house when you're done here? I'll explain." I was tired of all of this. Philby gave me a look that said she agreed.

  Rex shook his head. "No. You are staying right here until I'm done. Then, I'm driving you home and you can explain."

  I looked through the mirror at the bed on the other side. I kind of wanted to go back to it until Rex was ready to leave. But since I'd used that bed as a weapon, they were likely checking it fo
r evidence.

  Philby and I sat off to the side while the police swarmed the rooms. I examined the cat. Her paw was sore but not broken. I'd have to keep my eye on that. I could take her to see Dr. Alvarez.

  With Philby's injury, the last thing I wanted to do was continue investigating. A weariness draped over me like a lead cape. This mystery was wearing me out. With the wedding, my troop, my mother's visit, and meeting Rex's sisters, I no longer cared about the stupid spies who really might not be spies next door.

  Once Rex sat down with me, I'd tell him everything and turn over the laptop. From this moment on, I was through with being an amateur detective. I was done with therapists and sleep studies. From here on out I was just going to focus on my girls, my cats, and the wedding.

  Philby purred from my lap. It was so soothing. I leaned my head back against the wall and closed my eyes.

  "Merry?" Rex was standing over me, gently shaking my shoulders.

  I blinked. I was still in the hospital. Philby was still on my lap. What time was it? How long had I been out?

  Rex helped me to my feet, taking Philby and tucking her under his arm. "I'd better get you home."

  "No," I said groggily. "We need to talk. I need to tell you stuff."

  "That can wait a couple of hours. I've got to get back and wrap things up here. I'm swamped."

  He guided me to his car and put my cat and me inside.

  "Okay. But come over as soon as that's over and I can fill you in on things." I yawned.

  "You got it."

  Rex left as soon as he'd tucked me into my bed. To my surprise, I passed out instantly.

  A noise woke me up. How much time had gone by? I checked my cell. I'd been out for five hours.

  In the distance, a door closed. It sounded like the front door. I got out of bed and stumbled toward the hallway. Rex must be back. He'd let himself in and was letting me get a few zzz's.

  The sound of kitchen drawers being opened and shut made me pause just shy of my bedroom door. What if it wasn't Rex? What if it was the woman who'd attacked me and she was here to finish the job? She was certainly in the right room, considering her interest in knives.