Movie Night Murder

by Leslie Langtry

  I could hear someone in an office behind Ted. Did he notice?

  "So what's it going to be, Dooley?" I asked a little too loudly. I was trying to mask the noise.

  "I'm not going to prison for this." The blood had returned to his face, and now it was red with rage.

  He pulled the gun from Soo Jin's head and started to aim at me. I shoved his secretary, hard toward him, and her body blocked me from view. Ted stalled, unsure what to do, and I made good use of that time.

  I couldn't shoot him in the chest or head. I'd risk shooting Dr. Body. So I aimed at an area that would do the least damage if I hit her. I aimed for his right leg. The bullet connected, and he screamed. Dr. Body dashed to the left and into the arms of Rex, who had been trying to sneak up behind Dooley.

  Ted roared and brought his gun up toward me, and I dove for the floor. A gunshot rang out, and I looked up to see a very confused security director looking at a bloom of red in the middle of his chest, just before he fell over dead.

  Standing behind him, gun still aimed, was Kevin.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  I soon found out what had happened to Riley and Rex. After I'd found Ted, Riley was helping carry Evelyn's bomb to the bomb squad from Des Moines, who'd just arrived. And apparently, cutting the three red cords had been a bad idea, because that would've caused the bomb to explode immediately. Fortunately for us, Evelyn's…um…juices had corroded the bomb, effectively shutting it down. Oops.

  Rex had searched the second floor and then checked the parking lot. There was only one car that didn't belong to anyone we knew. Rex called for backup, and when they arrived, Kevin recognized his father's car.

  Apparently, Kevin wasn't very fond of his dad either. And he knew a way into the security office. He'd led Rex in and saved the day.

  My father had conferred with the police department and Riley and called Agent Savage to let him know he was now going to be working the guard shack at the White House. As I came out into the parking lot, he was giving a statement to the media. And by media, I mean the Who's There Observer—our weekly paper, and local anchorwoman, Lucinda Schwartz. And her hair looked amazing.

  "Mrs. Wrath?" Lauren was standing beside me. I didn't even see her walk up to me.

  "Where's Mrs. Albers?" I asked as I scanned the lot. At the far corner were Kelly and the girls. I breathed a small sigh of relief.

  "Can I keep the puzzle box?" Lauren asked. "As a memento? They wouldn't let me have the bomb."

  "It might have to be entered into evidence." I patted her on the head. "But I'll see what I can do." I winked.

  Lauren turned and joined the other girls, presumably to tell them she was getting a rather gruesome souvenir. I really should have thought that through, I realized, when several little heads turned to glare at me. I didn't have enough kittens to make this right.

  Rex had led Dr. Body to a waiting ambulance. I thought it was kind of ironic that we had to call an ambulance to see to people at the hospital. But I kept this to myself.

  "You did great," Rex said as he walked toward me. He stopped short of taking me into his arms. Probably because his officers were there.

  "Thanks," I said. I was exhausted. My adrenaline was long gone. "What happened with Red and Blue?"

  "They're in custody," Rex grinned. "SWAT shot them both. They're alive."

  I filled him in on what Ted Dooley had said.

  "The Feds are coming to take them away. I don't think we will really know what happened for a while."

  I motioned to Kevin. "Is he going to be alright?"

  Rex turned grim. "I don't know. He'll have to go through counseling just like any other officer who fires their gun in the line of duty. But with shooting his own father, I imagine it will take a little longer."

  Kevin was surrounded by officers who were patting him on the back. He didn't respond. He just stood there, eating chips and dip. Where he got the food, I have no idea.

  "Snails are fascinating creatures!" Bobbie, Lauren's mom, raved as we all sat on the floor in her basement.

  True to her word, Bobbie had agreed to host the next troop meeting, and unfortunately, she knew more about snails than anyone should. Ever. Did you know that snails can have up to 14,000 teeth—and they're on their tongue? I didn't either. I probably could've gone all my life without knowing that, but there you go.

  Oddly, the girls were enraptured. I wondered how much of this was because they were interested and how much was because they were getting a real tour of the morgue for the next meeting. Okay, so I'd told them if they weren't good, we couldn't do the morgue. Sue me.

  "So," Kelly whispered in my ear, "snails."

  I nodded. "Snails."

  "How long before the girls want them as pets?" Kelly asked as she shifted Finn in her arms. Even the baby seemed transfixed.

  Some girls are boy crazy. Some are girlie girls. Our troop was animal crazy. Any animal was awesome. Any. And right now, that included snails.

  "I hear Soo Jin is picking up the kittens this weekend."

  I felt a pang of regret. But after what that poor woman went through, I couldn't refuse. Of course Riley insisted. Again. Damn him.

  "Yeah. It'll be quiet without Bond and Moneypenny," I mumbled.

  Kelly said, "Two cats are fine. You don't need more than that."

  I nodded. I'd made an appointment for Philby to get spayed. She didn't need any more diversions. And the pink was starting to wear off. Of course, it was wearing off on my bedspread. And my sofa. And the carpet. My bangs were even fading.

  "And Riley?" Kelly asked as innocently as she could pull off.

  "Riley's on a plane to DC."

  And good riddance. Why did I think that? Who even says that anymore? Anyway, he had to go to Langley to file his report. He'd made some mutterings about retiring early and moving here, again. I told him that the Hotel Wrath was no longer open. He said something about Soo Jin's guest room that I wished I hadn't heard.

  Red and Blue turned out to actually be from an Idaho militia. And they'd hired Evelyn to carry out an assignment. When she found out about the target—which really was the fertilizer plant in Willow Grove (I sent Agent Savage a box of donuts, and I might have rubbed his nose in it), she refused. Apparently, she'd voted for President Benson. And had no interest in blowing him up.

  So, she fled to the nearest town of Who's There, Iowa and managed to attach herself to my trip with my troop. Once in DC, she'd planned to disappear. But apparently, she liked us and decided to stay. I wouldn't have guessed that in a million years.

  When Red and Blue found out, they waited for her to resurface, which she did. It wasn't a smart move for her to stay in Who's There, but then I figured out by now that Evelyn wasn't very smart. She even tried to warn me when she found out my dad was going to be at the event. Weirdly, she liked him too. Red and Blue were outraged and decided to blow up my town instead. I still was iffy on how they recruited Ted Dooley, but an interview with Mavis indicated he'd been disgruntled for a while now because he'd never gotten into the police department as a young man. Kevin getting the job, with all of his worthlessness, drove him mad. So it was revenge. Sort of.

  How did I know all of this? Because when I got home from the insanity at the hospital, I found a letter in my mailbox confessing everything. Of course, Evelyn ended it saying she was going to head south and I'd never see her again. That didn't turn out quite the way she'd planned it.

  I was surprised that it took so long for a letter mailed from Who's There to Who's There to get to me. But oh well. Oh, and remember the fax Evelyn had sent to the CIA, implicating me should she turn up dead? Well, that was wrong too. Some jerk manning the fax machine wrote down the wrong thing. What she'd really said was to look for me if she turned up dead.

  The newspaper found out who I really was and asked to do an interview. I've put them off but promised them a scoop when I was ready. I didn't really want to go back to being Finn Czrygy. I liked Merry Wrath.

  I just needed a li
ttle more time to figure her out. I was looking forward to things getting quiet around here, spending time with my boyfriend, getting to know Soo Jin Body a little better, and spending some quality time with a faded pink cat who looked like Hitler, and her kitten, who looked like Elvis.

  * * * * *

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  * * * * *

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Leslie Langtry is the USA Today bestselling author of the Greatest Hits Mysteries series, Sex, Lies, & Family Vacations, The Hanging Tree Tales as Max Deimos, the Merry Wrath Mysteries, and several books she hasn't finished yet, because she's very lazy.

  Leslie loves puppies and cake (but she will not share her cake with puppies) and thinks praying mantids make everything better. She lives with her family and assorted animals in the Midwest, where she is currently working on her next book and trying to learn to play the ukulele.

  To learn more about Leslie, visit her online at: http://www.leslielangtry.com

  * * * * *

  BOOKS BY LESLIE LANGTRY

  Merry Wrath Mysteries

  Merit Badge Murder

  Mint Cookie Murder

  Scout Camp Murder (short story in the Killer Beach Reads collection)

  Marshmallow S'More Murder

  Movie Night Murder

  Greatest Hits Mysteries:

  'Scuse Me While I Kill This Guy

  Guns Will Keep Us Together

  Stand By Your Hitman

  I Shot You Babe

  Paradise By The Rifle Sights

  Snuff the Magic Dragon

  My Heroes Have Always Been Hitmen

  Four Killing Birds (a holiday short story)

  Have Yourself a Deadly Little Christmas (a holiday short story)

  Other Works:

  Sex, Lies, & Family Vacations

  Hanging Tree Tales YA horror novels:

  Hell House

  Tyler's Fate

  Witch Hill

  The Teacher

  * * * * *

  SNEAK PEEK

  of the first Greatest Hits Mystery by Leslie Langtry:

  'SCUSE ME WHILE I KILL THIS GUY

  CHAPTER ONE

  "On a large enough time line, the survival rate for everyone will drop to zero."

  ~Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club

  No one really liked family reunions. I got that. But when I listened to people complain about it 'round the water cooler, I couldn't help rolling my eyes. I mean really, try it when you come from a family of assassins. Kind of gives "avoiding Aunt Jean's potato salad" a whole new meaning.

  That's right. Family of assassins. I came from a line of murderers dating back to ancient Greece. Mafia? Puhleeeese. Ninjas? Amateurs. Illuminati? How pedestrian. My ancestors had invented the garrote, ice pick, and arsenic. And Grandma Mary insisted that the wheel had actually been devised as a portable skull crusher. I'd tell you the names of some of our famous victims throughout history, but I'd had to sign a confidentiality clause in my own blood when I was five. So you'll just have to take my word for it.

  I turned the engraved invitation over in my hands and sighed. I hate these things. We only held them once every five years, but for some reason, this time, the reunion was only a year after the last one. That meant someone in the family had been naughty. That meant one of my relatives was going to die.

  As I stroked the creamy vellum paper, for a brief moment I thought about sending my regrets. But only for a moment. After all, it wasn't an option on the R.S.V.P. card. Unlike most family reunions with sack races, bad weather and crappy T-shirts, where to refuse to go only meant you weren't in the ridiculous all-family photo, to turn down this invitation was death. That's right. Death. Any blooded member of the family who didn't show was terminated.

  Now, where had I put that goddamned pen? I rattled through the "everything" drawer, looking for the onyx pen with the family crest engraved in gold on the side. It may sound pretty calloused to throw a centuries-old family heirloom in with tampons, fishing hooks, batteries, and ten-year-old packs of gum, but I didn't exactly have the usual family sense o' pride.

  I found it behind some broken cassette tapes and dusted it off. The coat-of-arms practically glowed on the cold, ebony surface. Crossed sabers entwined with an asp and topped off with a vial of poison. Lovely. Really sent that warm, homemade chicken-soup kind of feeling. And don't forget the family motto, carved in Greek on the side which translates as, Kill with no mercy, love with suspicion. Not exactly embroider-on-the-pillow material.

  The phone rang, causing me to jump. That's right. I was a jumpy assassin.

  "Ginny?" My mom's voice betrayed her urgency.

  "Hey, Mom. I got it," I responded wearily. Carolina Bombay was always convinced I would someday skip the reunion.

  "Don't use that tone with me, Virginia." Her voice was dead serious. "I just wanted to make sure."

  "Right. Like I'd miss this and run the risk of having my own mother hunt me down." For some reason, this would be a joke in other families. But in mine, when you strayed, your own family literally hunted you down.

  "You know it makes me nervous when you don't call the day you get the invitation," Mom said, whispering the words the invitation. It was a sacred thing, and to be honest, we were all more than a little terrified every time we received one. (Did you ever notice that the words sacred and scared differ only by switching two letters?)

  "I'm sorry," I continued lying to my mother. "I just popped the R.S.V.P. into the mailbox on the corner." And I would, too. No point taking any chances with my mail carrier losing it. That would be a stupid way to die.

  "Well, I'm calling your brother next. I swear, you kids do this just to torment me!" She hung up before I could say good bye.

  So, here I was, thirty-nine years old, single mother of a five-year-old daughter (widowed—by cancer, not by family) and still being treated like a child. Not that my childhood had been normal, by any means. You grew up pretty quick with the ritualistic blood-oath at five and your first professional kill by fifteen.

  To be fair, Mom had a right to be nervous. She watched her older sister, also named Virginia, get hunted down by Uncle Lou when she had failed to appear at the 1975 reunion. That really had to suck. I'd been named after her, which kind of jinxed me, I think.

  In case you hadn't noticed, my immediate family members were all named after U.S. states or cities (Lou was short for Louisiana, much to his dismay, and Grandma Mary was short for Maryland). It was a tradition that went back to our first ancestors, who thought it would be a cute idea to name their kids after locations, rather than actual names. My name was Virginia, but as a kid I went by Ginny. Of course, that had changed in college when everyone thought it was a real hoot to shorten my name to Gin. That's right. Gin Bombay. Yuck it up. I dare you.

  Bombay had been the last name of my family since the beginning. Women born into the family weren't allowed to change their names when they got married. In fact, the husband had to agree to change his name to Bombay. You could guess what happens if they refuse.

  Non-blooded Bombays were allowed to miss the reunion, as were children under the age of five. Bombays had to let their spouses in on the "family secret" by the time the first reunion in their marriage rolled around. It wasn't exactly pillow talk. And of course, you weren't allowed to leave the family once you know, or well, you knew what happened.

  Most of us didn't even tell our spouses until the first five-year reunion. I guess I'd been lucky, if you could actually call it that. My husband, Eddie, had died of brain cancer four years into our marriage. And even though I'd seen the lab results, I still eyed my cousins suspiciously. And while I'm fairly certain we haven't figured out a way to cause cancer, with my family, you never know.

  Roma, my daughter, had been born one month after Eddie died. I'd given her the traditiona
l place name, but rebelled against the state thing. I called her Romi. I smiled, thinking about picking her up from kindergarten in a few hours. She was my whole life. All arms and legs, skinny as a stick, with straight, brown hair and big blue eyes, Romi had given me back my laughter when Ed passed.

  My heart sank with a cartoon boing when it hit my stomach. Romi was five. This would be her first reunion. She would have to be drawn into that nest of vipers that is the Bombay Family. Her training would begin immediately after. And in a couple of weeks, she'd go from playing with Bratz dolls, to "icing" them. Shit.

  CHAPTER TWO

  "We are all dead men on leave."

  ~Eugene Levine, comedian

  The doorbell rang and I automatically checked the monitor in the kitchen. Yes, I had surveillance monitors. Hello? Family hunts us down! Remember?

  "Hey, little brother." Despite my weary voice I gave Dakota a vigorous hug.

  "You alright?" he asked more with mischief than concern.

  "You're joking, right?" And I knew he was. Dak loved Romi almost as much as I did. He just found the whole family of assassins thing amusing most of the time.

  "Well, we went through it and survived. Besides, the training is pretty harmless for the first few years."

  "Harmless? That's an interesting way to describe turning your kindergartner into a cold-blooded killer."

  "Maybe you could write the guidebook! The Complete Idiot's Guide to Turning Your Kindergartner into an Assassin." Dak laughed in that easy way he had about him. Single and thirty-seven, he was handsome and funny. And I should mention that he was single by choice. Dak, like most of the people in my family, had "commitment issues." Personally, I thought they took the family motto a little too seriously.