Motto for Murder (Merry Wrath Mysteries Book 6)

by Leslie Langtry

  "Hey," I asked Kelly, "where's Betty?"

  We found her at the table for Spain, handing out flyers in support of the Catalans and Basque people.

  "We need to end the oppression by the Spanish and French overlords!" Betty wailed.

  Most of the girls stared at her with mouths open. One little girl nodded in agreement. The leaders looked confused.

  "Catalans?" one of the women asked.

  After apologizing, I led Betty back to the girls and installed her with the Hannahs.

  "Oh no!" Kelly shrieked. "I left the safety pins for the SWAPS in the car!"

  I calmed her down. "I'll get them." I took her keys and set out.

  It would be wrong not to inspect the other tables as I walked by. It's always good to know your enemy…I mean…competition. To my delight, not one other table looked like ours—probably because we took up a whole corner with five tables.

  What the…? I stopped dead in my tracks. A group of Brownies were huddled around a table that had a huge sign that said Hamas! Were terrorists recruiting Girl Scouts? Diabolical! The girls were holding plastic bags that said Army of One. What was happening?

  I wove my way through the crowd to get closer. Who approved a table for a militant terrorist group? It had to be Juliette Dowd. She probably put a hit on my table. Unbelievable! I should…

  Wait…

  An adult near the display moved, and I saw that it was really Bahamas. That was a relief. I really was tired. Did I really think the Girl Scout Council would approve a table for a terrorist organization?

  Focus, Merry! Kelly needs those pins. As I walked out the door, swimming against the wave of little girls and their leaders, I realized I should've taken a picture when it said HAMAS. That would've made a great Christmas card.

  Kelly's car was parked next to mine—at the back of the lot. A sea of minivans made it a bit harder to remember exactly where I'd parked. When we'd arrived, there was no one else here. Now it was kind of like the Mall of America on Black Friday.

  When I'd narrowed it down to about thirty silver minivans, I hit the trunk release on Kelly's keys. One trunk flipped open. Awesome. What an amazing invention. If only I'd had that technology back in Cairo, when I had to find my camel out of three dozen.

  I spotted the large gallon baggies filled with pins and bent over to grab them, when someone came up behind me and shoved a washcloth in my mouth. Chloroform! I'd know it anywhere. I struggled to fight as the world slowly spun into black. My last thought was how was Kelly going to get the pins?

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  There was a slapping sound. It seemed to come from a mile away. My eyes felt like they'd been glued shut, and when I tried to move it felt like I was swimming in water.

  I wasn't. I'd have known if I was wet. Gradually sensation crept back into my sore limbs. There was some vague pain in my wrists and ankles. The weight of my body told me I was tied to a chair.

  I forced my eyes open. They wanted to stay shut. They might as well have been, because I still couldn't see. I was blind! Wait…nope. It was just a blindfold. Bound and blindfolded. Was I gagged too?

  It's kind of a misconception—being gagged. If you're a spy and you've been kidnapped, it's rare to be forced into silence. Bad guys kidnapped you because they wanted information from you. They wanted you to talk.

  Licking my lips, I realized there was no such restraint. My mouth was uncovered. Yup. Someone wanted me to answer some questions.

  Good luck with that I thought, as I strained to listen. I wasn't saying a word voluntarily. It wasn't totally quiet. Someone had a radio on in the distance. It sounded like that weird music they used to play in elevators. Easy listening with no annoying lyrics, which was still annoying. I thought I could hear strains from "The Girl From Ipanema," but I might have been imagining it.

  Someone was walking toward me. From the slap of rubber on cement and the heavy footfall, I figured it was a man. The sound stopped right in front of me. I figured whoever it was, was only a foot or so away.

  He was breathing quickly. Like he was nervous. Well, he should be. This bastard took me away from my troop on Thinking Day! Didn't he know how much work had gone into that?

  I tested my restraints. Rope. And rough rope at that. That sucked. Coarse fibers tore into my skin as I tensed and relaxed my arms. Why couldn't it have been zip ties? Or handcuffs? I could get free of those. Inch-thick rope, however, would be difficult.

  And why wasn't he saying anything? That wasn't a good sign. He was probably going to smack me around first to loosen my tongue. I could handle that. What I didn't like, was knives. I really didn't like the idea of being tortured with knives.

  My captor turned and walked away. His footsteps echoed on the floor for a long time. When they stopped, I heard whispering. Someone else was here. I strained to listen, but all I heard was mumbling.

  This had to be related to the mysterious disappearance of Kate Becks. It had to be. Why take me otherwise? Of course, it could be someone from my past career. But there were so many enemies there, it would be hard to find out who.

  No, I was basically undercover here in Iowa. Only the CIA knew I was here.

  The whispering continued, but the noise was too soft. I dropped forward, slouching as if I'd passed out. Would they buy it?

  By the way, I wouldn't recommend doing that. My body weight strained my arms as they held me to the chair. If it worked, however, I could at least get a clue as to who my captors were. They'd better hurry up, though. My arms and wrists couldn't take much more.

  My efforts were rewarded as I heard two sets of footsteps heading my way. I couldn't tell if the other set belonged to a man or woman. But it really didn't matter at this point.

  "What happened?" A woman whose voice and bad accent I remembered from that stabby night at the sleep study spoke. She was trying to disguise it so I had no idea who she really was.

  "Maybe I gave her too much chloroform?" the man asked in a fake English accent, also attempting to disguise his voice.

  Neither of them was very good at it because I knew these weren't their natural voices. Still, it was enough to throw me off. And that was all they needed to do.

  "How much did you use?" the woman asked.

  "I followed the instructions on the package."

  It took everything I had not to laugh.

  The woman shrieked, "You must've used too much. How long do you think she'll be out?"

  "I don't know. I've never chloroformed anyone before. You know that," the man grumbled.

  So this was a couple who worked together regularly. It didn't sound like my neighbors, but I couldn't rule it out.

  "How do we wake her up?" she asked.

  "Let's check the package. It might say how long she'll be out."

  The two walked away. They had a package with instructions? How silly. My troop would be better spies than these idiots.

  From a distance the conversation continued.

  "We could throw water on her to bring her around. Or," the man said, "I've got the stun gun in the trunk of the car."

  I sat up. "I can hear you," I shouted. I could handle torture, but it was too cold in the building to be doused with water, and I wasn't terribly fond of stun guns.

  "Ms. Wrath…" The woman's voice gained confidence as she came closer. "Your timing is perfect."

  "Yours isn't." My voice sounded like gravel. "I've got somewhere I'm supposed to be right now."

  "If you answer the questions," she said, "we might let you go back there."

  "Somehow I doubt that," I snapped.

  "You're probably right," the woman sneered. "It's far more likely you'll end up in a dumpster somewhere when we're done here."

  "Well," I said through gritted teeth, "let's get this over with, then."

  A fist connected with my jawbone, and my head flew backward.

  "Hey!" I wanted to massage my throbbing jaw but couldn't. "I didn't say I wouldn't cooperate!"

  That was going to leave a mar
k.

  The fist struck me in the cheek this time, sending waves of pain through my head.

  "Stop that!" I said.

  A hand slapped me hard. This was getting ridiculous.

  I flexed my jaw. "What's the point of torturing me before you ask your questions?"

  The man laughed. "You watch too much TV. Spies aren't predictable."

  Spies. They get dumber every day.

  "Civilians," the woman said, "they get dumber every day."

  That's what they thought. Still, telling them that wouldn't help me right now. It was better for them to think they were superior. For the moment, they didn't need to know that I wasn't predictable either.

  "Okay," I said slowly, "what is it you want to know?"

  "Where's the laptop?" the man shouted.

  Ah. Definitely part of this case. Here was the dilemma. Did I tell them I gave it to the authorities or not? If I tell them I don't have it, they could let me go, thinking I'm just some rube. On the other hand, they could kill me and drop my body in a dumpster. I was pretty good at reading people, but these two hadn't given me enough to work with yet.

  I went with rube.

  "If I tell you, will you let me go? I couldn't even get into it. The password was protected," I whined, hoping I sounded helpless.

  The fist connected once again with my jaw in an uppercut that made my teeth hurt.

  "Stop doing that!" the woman hissed. "How's she going to answer if you break her jaw?"

  The man mumbled something unintelligible but desisted.

  "Tell us where it is, and we will let you go," the woman purred.

  She was lying. The minute I coughed up the location of the laptop, I was a dead woman. Ironic, right? So many people had died around me that I guess it was just a matter of time.

  I didn't answer. My mind was working through my options as quickly as it could.

  "I really will let you go," the woman said sweetly. "I'd hate for your sweet, adorable kitty to starve to death because you never came home."

  She knew about my cats. It had to be Mark and Pam Fontana. Then again, these two could just be following me. That's how they knew I was in a sleep study. I took Philby, so they knew I had a cat.

  A cat… A cat!

  "Okay, okay! I'll tell you!" I lied. "Please don't kill me!"

  As a stalling technique, I resorted to sobbing. Loudly.

  "I just want to go home!" I cried. "Please don't hurt me or my cat."

  "You mean cats, don't you?" the man corrected.

  Gotcha.

  I was very good at crying at will. My graduating class at the Farm voted me "Best Crier." My tears leaked out from under my blindfold, and I took big gulps of air so I'd look like I was hyperventilating.

  "Calm down," the woman I now knew was Pam said. "Look what you've done!" she shrieked at her partner.

  "What I've done? How did I do this?" Mark argued. "You're the one who had to bring up death and dumpsters and threatening her cats." He muttered under his breath, "Stupid cats. I hate cats."

  "You take that back!" Pam Fontana screamed.

  "No!" Mark returned the scream. "You like cats more than you like me!"

  Ping! An alarm went off in my brain as it all came together. It all made sense now. The missing woman, the dead cat on a vacuum cleaner, the laptop filled with cat pictures. My neighbors.

  I needed to get them to untie me. I needed a distraction.

  With a final, loud wail, I flung the chair sideways until it and I landed on the floor. I froze, feigning unconsciousness for the second time. Something wet and warm trickled down the side of my face. Awesome! I'd managed to injure myself. That was just what I needed!

  "You killed her!" Pam was so distracted, she didn't even try to disguise her voice.

  "I didn't kill her!" Mark dropped the strange voice too.

  "Yes you did! It's because you hate cats!" Pam shrieked.

  I just lay there in a small puddle of blood, listening.

  "I think she's breathing." Mark felt close.

  He must've been kneeling. I felt his hands working on the ropes around my wrists and ankles. I remained very still. Even when he lifted me off the floor and carried me to something soft, like a sofa or a bed.

  I remained totally limp. My timing had to be perfect. I was still blindfolded, and I needed to be able to see.

  "She's bleeding from the head," Pam whined. "And just when we were getting somewhere!"

  Who were these two? I'd worked around spies my entire career, and I'd never heard such ridiculous statements.

  "Maybe she's just stunned." Mark did not sound hopeful.

  "Go get the chloroform," Pam barked. "Just in case she comes to."

  "But if we knock her out again, it'll take longer to find out what we need to know."

  "Go get it!" she screamed.

  I heard Mark running away and felt a weight on the couch. Pam was sitting near my feet.

  I kicked her, hard, in the kidneys as I got up and removed my blindfold. I was right. It was my neighbor. She was sitting there rubbing her back and staring at me. I took a look around. I was in a warehouse. The only furniture in the room was this sofa and a table maybe forty feet away. A table that held a gun.

  Why. On Earth. Did they put it all the way over there?

  I ran for it. I needed that gun before Pam realized I was going for it and before Mark returned. Halfway there, something hit the side of my knee, and I went down. Pain was accompanied by little white spots as I scrambled to get back on my feet. Pam was ahead of me by a foot. That gave me an idea.

  I ripped off my shoe and hurled it at her head, scoring a bull's-eye. She went down, and I raced past her. The revolver was in my hands, and I turned to see Pam on the floor, rubbing her head, as Mark stood in the doorway staring at us. In his hands were a bottle and a washcloth.

  He walked toward us and helped his wife to her feet. They stood there, trying to figure out what to do.

  "Who are you, really?" Pam asked finally.

  "Merry Wrath, Girl Scout Leader," I answered calmly. "But more importantly, I know who you are."

  Mark's eyes grew wide, and Pam seethed.

  "Isn't that right, Kate Becks?"

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Rex was there in ten minutes, accompanied by Officer Dooley, who was working his way through a handful of deviled eggs. My eyebrows went up.

  "He's on a diet," Rex said quietly. His eyes grew wide at the sight of my face. "You're bleeding! Are those bruises?"

  "They'll be gone before the wedding," I said as I waved him off.

  Riley showed up a second later with two guys in suits and expressionless faces.

  "We'll take it from here," he said to Rex.

  My fiancé stepped back and waved the FBI toward the two writhing, screaming spies as I explained what I knew.

  "She's Kate Becks?" Rex asked.

  I nodded. "I don't know how I didn't see it before. Maybe it was the double-agent thing that blinded me. That might've thrown me off."

  "Kate isn't missing because Kate is really Pam, who's a foreign secret agent with her husband…" Rex frowned as he sorted it out.

  "That's right." I glared at Riley, who was sending me a silent message to stop talking.

  "But," Rex asked, "why did she have two personas in a small town?"

  I thought about it. "Mark probably was the one who worked directly with clients. I think the Kate persona was a plant to feed false intel to the FBI."

  I stopped the Fontanas as they walked by. "Why did you set fire to the house, knowing you'd left your computer in the secret room?"

  Pam glowered at me.

  Mark, to my surprise, opened up. "We knew you were in there. We'd been watching the house. When the police left and you didn't, we thought we had a chance to take you out."

  "Mark!" Pam screamed. "What are you doing?"

  Her husband shrugged. "I'm tired of all this. I don't want to do it anymore." He leaned close to Pam and, in a loud whisper, added, "A
nd if we cooperate, maybe we'll get a light sentence."

  These guys really were nuts. That was not how it worked. Sure, in some cases a spy would be deported or exchanged. But these guys were going to an American prison.

  "What about the body you saw that night?" Rex asked.

  "I think it was a dummy. I saw something like it at Kate Becks' house before the fire." I nodded at Mark and Pam. "It's possible the dummy was a placeholder—someone to make it look like Kate Becks was home. Although, why they chose a naked male mannequin is beyond me."

  Mark shook his head. "I knew we should've gotten a female."

  "Shut up!" Pam screeched.

  "We'd just gotten him." Mark ignored her. "The night you were spying on us. We didn't think anyone noticed."

  I turned to Pam. "What was with the phone number in the Roomba that Mr. Pickles was attached to?"

  This time, Mark glared at his wife. Her shoulders dropped in resignation.

  "It's to a burner phone. I hoped the taxidermists would find it and call. Then I'd give instructions for where to send it." She looked at me sheepishly. "I loved that cat."

  There was a bathroom in the warehouse, and I used about a dozen paper towels cleaning up my face. The dried blood was a little harder to get off, but I managed. I'd need a shower when I got home.

  I returned just as Riley walked over to Rex.

  Riley cleared his throat. "Thanks for solving Kate's disappearance."

  "You had no idea Pam was Kate?"

  He shook his head. He seemed uncomfortable. The always suave, perpetually calm Riley Andrews was a bit shaken.

  Rex excused himself to meet the paramedics who'd just pulled up outside.

  "Merry," Riley said, "I'm so sorry. I had no idea they'd hurt you."

  He reached out and touched my chin, which, according to the mirror a few moments before, was already turning colors.

  I pulled back. "This isn't totally your fault. But you are somewhat responsible."

  "How's that?"

  "If you'd been honest with me about what you were really doing in town, this might not have happened."