Kelly rolled her eyes. "You don't know much about church, do you?"
"I find it interesting that you have to ask."
Kelly sighed the sigh of a thousand martyrs. "If it had crosses on it, that would be one thing. But this…this is totally different. Lutherans don't have much use for primitive symbols like these."
"What's so pagan about that?" I pointed to what looked like a bird.
"Trust me on this," Kelly said as she turned out the lights to the room. "I've got to get home and assess the damage."
"You don't think Robert can handle his own baby?" I asked.
Kelly grimaced. "I caught him throwing the diapers in the kitchen garbage instead of the Diaper Genie. And more than once he's mistaken the Cream of Wheat for the formula mix."
"What's a Diaper Genie?" I liked the sound of that. Was it a magic genie who made poopy diapers disappear? Did they do cat boxes too?
Kelly ignored me and walked to her car. She got in and closed the door. I could tell she was done for the day. My old friend didn't seem to have as much patience as she used to.
"Let me know what you find out on that card," she said, before starting the car and driving away.
"You aren't in the least bit curious?" I shouted after her, but she didn't respond.
Kelly's priorities had changed since becoming a mother. And I wasn't one of them. I'd have to figure out the deal on this puzzle box on my own. Sigh.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
I walked home and through the front door, only to find myself seduced by the smell of something wonderful in the kitchen.
"You're cooking?" I asked Riley as I tossed my bag on the counter.
He nodded. "I figured this was the only way we were going to eat something healthy."
At his feet, three kittens and one pink cat were staring up at the stove. I looked in the pot warily. How could it smell so good and be healthy at the same time? This had to be a trap.
"What is it?" I asked, afraid of what the answer would be.
"Relax, Wrath. It's just spaghetti."
"It'd better be as good as it smells," I warned.
He ignored me. So, I went and put my Scout stuff away while Riley continued boiling the spaghetti and baking the garlic bread. For a moment, I worried that the pasta was somehow made of vegetables and the bread was really tofu—but it smelled way too good to be what I called "fake food." There were two plates at the breakfast bar when I returned.
"How was the meeting?" Riley asked. It wasn't sarcastic. To my surprise, I realized he actually liked my girls.
This baby-loving, kid-liking Riley was something I was having trouble getting used to. The man used to avoid anything under the age of nineteen with a passion usually reserved for…well, me and vegetables.
"It was interesting as usual." I closed the puzzle box before taking it out of my purse and handing it to him. "Ever seen one of these?"
Riley took it from me. "I saw something like this in Norway once. I was seeing this stewardess named Hilda and she could do this thing with her tongue and right elbow that was…"
I held up my hand to silence him. "Yeah. I don't want to hear about that. Back to the box, please."
He pressed a few of the symbols and the box popped open. "Once, Hilda and her roommate, who was also named Hilda, had me over for a three-way. They liked to use mayonnaise…"
I snatched the box from his hands. "Like I said, I don't want to know."
Okay, so maybe I was a little pissed that everyone could open this stupid box but me. Or maybe I was a little jealous and didn't want the details of his Hilda squared sandwich. But it's my house, and I don't have to explain anything to him.
I reached into my purse and pulled out the bag with the SD card in it and handed it over. "This was inside."
Riley squinted at the small, plastic square. "Where's your laptop?"
I fetched the computer and watched as he popped it into one of the slots. Pictures flooded the screen. There were people I didn't recognize—kids making faces, a few selfies of some middle-aged woman, a couple looking over a table in a barn (antiquing probably—I hated antiquing)—stuff like that. Nothing unusual. But then, what had I expected?
I guess I expected suspicious activity. That's what a spy usually thinks when presented with such information. One time, in Tashkent, I retrieved a piece of microfiche (which was weird because who the hell used microfiche in this day and age?)—and instead of Russian plans for the latest stealth submarine, it had llama porn. That's right. Llama porn. I couldn't eat for a week without gagging involuntarily. Do not google it. Ever.
"It's nothing." Riley went back to the stove. "You should drop it off at the church."
"You think it belongs to someone there?"
Riley shrugged. "That's where it popped up, right?"
"Kelly says these are pagan symbols and it wouldn't be from the church."
"It doesn't have to be from the church to belong to one of the parishioners." Riley turned off the burners and drained the spaghetti. "You wouldn't believe the kinky stuff people take pictures of."
Images of the llama orgy popped into my head, and I shut it out while swallowing my bile. I'm serious. Do not google it.
"Why would someone store their SD card in a puzzle box?"
"Who knows why people do weird stuff?" Riley pointed toward the living room. "Why would someone use Dora the Explorer bedsheets as curtains for a whole year?"
Well that was a low blow. I'd liked those sheets as curtains. I always thought of Dora as an intrepid spy and Boots the monkey as her handler.
"Time to eat," Riley said.
Philby jumped up onto the breakfast bar, sniffing the air gently for meatballs. I lifted her back down to the floor, and she sat there, glaring at me. It's very strange to have a pink cat angry with you. Pink is such a happy color.
I prodded the puzzle box in between bites. There wasn't any made in label. In fact, there was nothing at all to indicate that this wasn't hand made. Maybe Riley was right—someone made this ugly little box just to store their SD cards. If so, they were probably looking for it.
Lauren didn't know how the box got into her bag, but that didn't mean anything. You could actually hand these girls something, remark on it, have them nod to acknowledge that you gave it to them, and they'd still insist they'd never seen it before. I call this "troop amnesia." And it happens whether it's a cookie order form or a permission slip.
I set the box back on the table. I'd give it to Kelly tomorrow and she could return it to whatever weirdo hid boring images inside a Scandinavian puzzle box. To be honest, I didn't care if I never saw the inside of that church…or any church…ever again. I would always associate them with pink dye and dead bodies.
"So what else happened at the meeting?" Riley asked.
"The usual. My girls never fail to surprise me." I told him all about it—especially Betty's future as a spy, and he laughed.
"I like Betty. Maybe we should start a program for kids—kind of like Junior G-Man."
I nodded. "My girls would make excellent spies. They're fearless and disturbingly creative. Maybe if agents are recruited and trained young, they'd be better at it than we were."
Riley frowned at me. "You weren't bad. I'm still good."
I rolled my eyes. "I was great. You're somewhat okay."
"Well," he said as he rolled an insane length of spaghetti around a fork, "I can certainly relate to the kids thinking people die at age forty-two. Some days it feels like I'm ninety."
I tossed a piece of garlic bread at him, and it bounced off his forehead. "You're only thirty-two. You're not that old."
"I don't know…I've been thinking of retiring in a few years." Riley looked off in the distance, eyes glazed over.
This was the first time I'd ever heard him express an interest in retiring. Riley was a lifer. One time he told me he was convinced he'd die in the field in his eighties. He probably thought he'd live that long because he ate so well.
"And do what, e
xactly?"
He shrugged. "Maybe private investigation. I could move here and set up shop."
My jaw dropped open and a little piece of spaghetti dangled from my lips. "Are you serious? You can't be serious!"
Riley as a private eye? In Who's There, Iowa? If we have this much trouble with one ex-spy working here, what would happen when we had two?
He looked a little wounded. "Why not? It seems like you alone bring in enough work to keep me busy for years."
I waved him off. "Not because I want to. Seriously—you wouldn't have enough to do here. And at the rate you go through women, you'd be bored in a month."
Riley ignored that. "What about Des Moines? It's only thirty minutes away."
"Why do you want to even be in the Midwest? If you were going to be a PI, you could go anywhere…New York City…Los Angeles…Dallas…anywhere."
The closest I was going to let him get would be Omaha. It was probably a hotbed of seething terrorist activity, right? In Iowa, we called it "Sin City."
"I like it here. I know people here. And I'm Finn's godfather."
"I don't think one of the requirements of being a godparent is to live here full-time." I was pretty sure I could find that in some churchy book, right? I couldn't ask Kelly though. She'd probably love to have him here. The traitor.
Riley grinned wickedly. "Maybe I'll do it just to keep an eye on you."
Something that felt like electric shock shot through me. It caught me by surprise. I might have mentioned earlier that Riley and I had once been a couple. When he came back into my life a year ago, there'd been some sparks. And recently, I'd discovered that our break up had been a complete misunderstanding on my part and that Riley still had feelings for me.
I didn't need that with Rex around. I didn't want that with Rex around. Did I? And yet, when Kelly told me that she'd asked Riley to be Finn's godfather, I'd felt a little flutter in my stomach. And just now, that little spark ran through me as I thought of him being here permanently.
"You're just saying that to get a rise out of me," I said at last. "You won't retire from the Agency until you're too old to dodge a bullet." I pictured a geriatric Riley (still with a full mane of golden hair, dammit) playing "bullets and bracelets" with an adamantium walker.
"I'm not so sure about that." Riley turned his full charm on me. The blue eyes and surfer good looks were hard to resist. Damn. Was he coming back here to be with me?
"Besides, I got some pretty serious vibes off Dr. Body the other day…" He grinned, and I considered stabbing him with my fork. This was exactly why I didn't want him here. Or in my life at all. I didn't like these mind games. Mind games should be reserved for Russians or Scandinavian, mayo-hoarding stewardesses—all improbably named Hilda.
On the other hand, maybe he could distract Miss Perfect Coroner and turn her attentions away from Rex.
"She's out of your league," I said, knowing full well that she wasn't. They'd be a gorgeous couple, and looking at them together would be like staring into the sun while mainlining Xanax.
Riley chuckled as he dumped another helping of spaghetti and meatballs on my plate. I didn't refuse it.
"And you'd have to find your own place to live because you can't live here." I tore off another piece of garlic bread.
"The house next door is for sale." He winked at me.
Oh crap. The house next door was for sale. It had been for a long time. That meant the owners would be eager to sell and take whatever Riley offered. With Rex across the street, it would be a bizarre love triangle. Literally.
He took his napkin from his lap and tossed it on the table. "But then again, I don't know if small-town life appeals to me. I mean, you don't have a decent restaurant, and there aren't any exotic places to eat outside of that one Thai place."
That's right…just keep thinking that. "And it's dull here. You'd be bored stupid."
Riley looked me right in the eyes. "I think you're wrong there. It's been nothing but exciting here for a while."
"I'm hoping that all this international intrigue will go away at some point soon," I said, even though I didn't believe it. Oh sure, I wanted it, but didn't believe it. Riley living here would just make matters worse. I didn't know how…but I knew it would.
"Well, I'm in no hurry." Riley started gathering up the plates. "As I said, in a few years…maybe."
I followed him to the sink with the glasses. That's when I looked down at Philby and the three kittens. Each one of them had little red goatees. My cats resembled little, furry vampires.
"You gave them meatballs?" I asked in horror.
Philby gave me a look, and then started grooming herself to get rid of the evidence. Great. Now in the future, he'd still give them food, but they knew to hide it.
"Better than having Philby sit in the spaghetti bowl," Riley said as he bent over to pet the cats. They purred and rubbed against his shins, plying their affection for marinara like pasta junkie prostitutes.
We washed and dried the dishes without saying anything. I was deep inside my own thoughts. I wasn't worried about Riley moving here…not really. Was I? My mind turned back to Evelyn. Was Riley right in thinking there'd always be lots of trouble in my vicinity?
I hadn't really considered it before, but trouble had found its way to me more than I'd ever imagined it would. When I was forcibly retired, I figured that coming back to this small town would be the answer to my problems. Things here would be quiet and as uneventful as a red-eye layover in Greenland. But I'd seriously misjudged. Somehow, international terrorists were dropping dead here like crazy.
What were the odds that Who's There, Iowa would become a hotbed of espionage activity, second only to Moscow during the Cold War?
We finished putting the last dish away, and together walked into the living room. I dropped onto the couch and rubbed my eyes. Riley sat down like a gentleman (the bastard) and was soon rewarded with a lapful of slutty, narcoleptic cats.
"So…" I said, a little uncomfortable with the silence. "Now that someone has taken Evelyn away, you'll be leaving now, right?"
He frowned. "Why do you say that?"
"Seriously? The reason you came here is long gone. There's no reason for you to stay."
Riley shook his head as he scratched behind Philby's ears. Martini, Moneypenny, and Bond were sound asleep, and their mother was cleaning up the last of the marinara sauce on their tiny chins.
"Until I know why she was here in the first place, and then who took her and why, I'm staying."
"Great," I said a little grouchily.
I reached for the remote and turned on the TV. I didn't watch it much, but it was the perfect distraction for moments like these. Oooh! Maybe the Royal Navy's field gun competition would be on! I stumbled on that in the middle of the night once. Men compete at carrying a huge, eighteenth century field gun over a series of obstacles. It was pretty awesome. What were the odds it would be on right now?
No such luck. The local news had just started. Oh well, that would do, I guessed. I stared at the two anchors. One of them looked familiar—the woman, not the man. She had glossy brown hair that hung in waves over her shoulders. We must've been in school together or something.
First Kevin, then Seamus, now this chick. My world was getting smaller as I recognized people from my past. Something spinning in my brain said we'd known each other as kids. It wasn't until her name was mentioned that I realized where.
"Lucinda Schwartz," I said, snapping my fingers.
Riley gave me a curious look. The cats were now draped, completely covering his body. I snagged Martini and she didn't even wake up. In fact, she was so limp I was afraid she was dead. How did cats do that? Why did cats do that? It didn't seem like a very good defense mechanism, since every feline I'd ever known (which was really just these four) had serious trust issues.
"We were partners in chemistry in the tenth grade," I explained. "See all that gorgeous hair?"
Riley looked at the anchor. "Yeah?"
&nb
sp; "Well, I kind of accidentally set it on fire once. They had to shave her head. She wore hats for a year."
Riley laughed. "How did that happen?"
I felt a little guilty. "I moved that little flame thingy too close. Lucinda wore tons of hairspray then." I studied the screen. "And still does, apparently. Anyway—her whole head went up like a flash paper bonfire. Fortunately, the teacher grabbed the extinguisher in time. She didn't have any scarring or burns on her skin. Just singed hair." And the classroom smelled like a dozen witches had been burned at the stake in a room with poor ventilation.
"You were a menace even back then," Riley whistled.
I'd forgotten all about that incident. Lucinda never talked to me again—which wasn't much different from any other time. Kelly thought it was funny because Lucinda had been one of those mean girls who'd tormented her since elementary school. For some reason, after I'd set her on fire, Lucinda didn't go after Kelly anymore. I guess she was too afraid I'd light her up again. That was an unexpected benefit.
"She doesn't look much worse for wear," I mumbled.
Martini had begun purring violently while asleep. It felt like I had a running blow dryer on my chest.
"Our top story tonight," Lucinda intoned. Oh yes. I remember that rich, honeyed voice. Well… I remember it screaming. "President Benson will be visiting Willow Grove on a campaign stop. The president will be touring the fertilizer plant there—the largest in the country…"
Riley frowned. "President Benson is coming here?"
I nodded. "It's an election year. I heard his goal is to hit all ninety-nine counties in Iowa."
Ninety-nine counties. I always thought that was strange. Why not just divide one of the big ones into two for an even hundred? I'm sure it drove those with OCD nuts.
Lucinda droned on, and I studied the guy next to her. He didn't look right. Something was off. His hips seemed too high and he towered over Lucinda. Oh wow. He's sitting on a booster seat! The man's torso couldn't possibly be that long. The dude was short and using a booster seat to compensate. What was that about? I thought about mentioning it to Riley, but he was pretty vain himself. He'd probably just sympathize with the guy.
Movie Night Murder Page 10
