I should explain. Cookie was a horse my troop met during their first trip to camp, where the equestrian director told them that Cookie was being sent away for not working out well. Somehow my troop thought was secret code for "glue factory," and for a whole year that horse was the inspiration for every single thing the girls did, made, or talked about. When we went back to camp the next year, we found that they hadn't gotten rid of Cookie after all.
Cookie is still at the camp to this day.
"Camp Deer Path was founded in the 30s and abandoned in 1966," I explained. "Mostly people just forgot it even existed. When the land surrounding it was bought up and turned into a nature preserve, access was cut off. Now the Council wants to find it, map it out, and see what's salvageable to bring back."
"You think it's still standing?" Riley asked. "After all these years?"
"We might find nothing," I admitted. "But there might be something. So, we volunteered to check it out. We had to get special permission from the Abbott's Trust—who owns the preserve—to camp here for a few days."
"This isn't open to the public?" Riley wondered.
"Nope. We are the only ones allowed in."
"There isn't much of a trail," he mumbled as he looked ahead to a narrow dirt pathway about twenty feet away. "We've basically been walking through the woods."
"These are deer paths," I said. "People don't hike here usually. Come on! Where's your sense of adventure? We're going into the great unknown to explore a place that hasn't been seen in decades!"
"Those days are over," he declared. "Now my sense of adventure is limited to staying at a four-star instead of a five-star hotel."
"Whatever. I think it's exciting."
"Is it safe out here? I should have brought a gun," he mused. "Maybe I can borrow the zip gun Ava mentioned."
"Oh sure. We're the only ones permitted. I understand that there are regular patrols around the perimeter. No one ever comes here."
"I feel better already." Riley's voice dripped with sarcasm. "Did Maria get permission?"
I rolled my eyes. "Of course not. This meeting won't actually exist."
"How is she going to get in if there's security?" Riley asked.
"You're joking, right? Maria had the same training we did. All she has to do is time the perimeter patrol and slip in when they aren't around. Easy."
He looked around before whispering, "What about wild animals? Bears? Mountain lions?"
I laughed. "There haven't been sightings of animals like that in these parts for decades. We're more likely to run across deer, snakes, and toads. Stop worrying."
We started hiking again. The girls began singing camp songs, which was a usual activity when we hiked. I joined in, and soon we were belting out songs about dirty camp socks, crazy elephants, and hungry sharks. Riley did not join in, the insufferable snob.
After an hour or so I announced a break for lunch. The sun was high in the sky, but with the dense trees we couldn't see or feel much of it. In spite of the heat of the summer, it was a bit chilly on the trail.
"When are we rendezvousing with Maria?" Riley pulled a map from his backpack.
I studied the map. "It isn't far now. We should be there in about an hour."
The girls pulled out their homemade sit-upons and started digging into jerky and trail mix. For those of you who don't know, a sit-upon is one of the first things a Scout makes, sewing together two tarp squares stuffed with newspapers. The purpose is to keep your clothes dry and your butt warmer than the temperature of the cold, clammy ground.
We'd all decorated our own, mine with Dora the Explorer doodles. Others' had images of Cookie the horse and unicorns, and Betty's with a heraldry shield she'd made herself, filled with Disney villains and an AK-47. I had to admit—her attention to detail was impressive.
Maria and I had agreed to meet at a spot that would be relatively easy to find—a tree-less hill with a panoramic view of the woods. She had planned on hiking in from another route the night before. She'd camp overnight and meet up with us. We'd spend the rest of the time talking about whatever she wanted from me while the girls checked out the camp. Sounds simple, right?
A pang of concern caused a small knot in my gut. This was pretty secretive. What was so important that we had to find a place like this? And was she still in trouble with the CIA after all this time?
I wasn't convinced I could even do anything to help her. After all, I'd been out of the agency for a while now. I didn't have a security clearance anymore, although I did have someone on the inside who was obsessed with Girl Scout cookies. Ahmed had given me small bits of intel over the years. But he was always terrified to do so. I wasn't sure if that was because of me or the scary S and M dominatrices who ran HR at Langley.
Which brought us to Riley. If one ex-CIA agent is good, two had to be better. Between the three of us, we could do just about anything. Well, not anything. Some things were beyond a normal person's skill set.
For example, I could impersonate Bolivian royalty at the Pentagon, a Russian ob-gyn at a sexually transmitted disease convention in Mongolia, or a Spanish astrophysicist playing golf in Scotland, but when it came to acting onstage, I was hopeless. You'd think those things went together, right? So did I until I did an unfortunate version of Chava in a Honduran performance of Fiddler on the Roof that totally blew my cover and sent me running for my life from a surprisingly pitchfork-armed audience.
"Mrs. Wrath?" Inez stood in front of me. Technically, I was Mrs. Ferguson. When my name was Wrath, I was a Ms. But little girls believe that everything over the age of sixteen is 1) impossibly old and 2) most likely married and on the brink of old age and death, which the girls set at age forty.
"What is it?" I asked before shoving a handful of trail mix that was unnaturally heavy on M&M's into my mouth.
The little girl cocked her head to one side. "We were talking about killing a guy with three fingers, but Betty said it could be done with one."
Such were the dilemmas I faced with this troop.
Riley bit his lip to hide a smile. He'd had enough experience with the girls to know they were stone-cold serious. He was also smart enough to know that this was one of those situations where he shouldn't say anything.
I looked around before realizing that Kelly wasn't here to tell me this was a bad idea and you should tell them not to ever try to kill a guy with any fingers. "It obviously depends on which fingers you use."
"Can you explain?" The girl leaned forward eagerly.
I got to my feet and brushed off my pants. "Not until you're at least twelve. Come on now, it's time to get going." Kelly couldn't argue with twelve. I was twenty-two when I learned, and it was something I wished I'd known sooner.
We hit the trail again and continued along as I tried to think of a way to avoid telling them that Betty was right. You only needed one finger. The trick was where you put it.
"Remember Cairo?" Riley caught up and walked alongside me. I toyed with explaining that his walking in the greenery would leave him with poison ivy oil on his pants but changed my mind.
"That"—I pushed a branch out of the way—"took two fingers."
"Two and a half," he corrected.
"Oh, right," I agreed. "Two and a half. I forgot about using the index finger knuckle."
Unfortunately, I can't tell you about the events that took place in Cairo. But I can say that it involved a particularly nasty Russian spy and that he did not know the finger trick or where to put them. Which was a benefit for us and very, very unfortunate for him.
"I can't decide if your troop is delightfully quirky or terrifyingly dangerous," Riley mused.
I agreed. "A bit of both. By the way, I should warn you not to give them any more matches, aerosols, or nine-volt batteries."
"And I have to wonder," he continued, "if little girls are really like that or if you've been a bad influence."
"Well, according to Kelly, it's the latter," I explained. "But I just think my troop is exceptional."
"Is that it up ahead?" Riley squinted at a hill in the distance.
"I think so." I started to jog. "Come on! Race you!"
All six girls beat us to the base of the hill.
We'd been hiking for hours now, and I'd decided it would be a good idea to camp at the top of the hill, where we were supposed to meet Maria. I'd just crested the hill, about two hundred yards from where the girls were, when I spotted what looked like some sort of tarp or piece of cloth in the distance.
As I closed in, I began to run. Riley was hot on my heels. For some miraculous reason, the girls stayed back.
It was a piece of cloth. Actually, it was clothing. Worn by a person lying in what appeared to be a shallow grave.
CHAPTER THREE
"Seriously…" Riley gave me a look. "What is it with you and dead bodies?"
"Girls!" I stood up with my back to the grave. "I'd like you to scout out a good spot to set up camp for the night."
"What about where you are now?" one of the Kaitlyns asked.
I shook my head. "No, this is a terrible spot."
"Why?" asked the other Kaitlyn.
"Because…" My mind raced to find something that would work. These kids won't fall for just anything. "Vampire ticks. A whole nest of them." Okay, so I made that up. Maybe they wouldn't notice.
"Vampire ticks…" Lauren's eyebrows went up. Here's where I could get into trouble. Lauren knew a lot about animals. "What if they come over to the other side of the hill?"
"Because I just put vampire tick repellent down. We should be good."
To my surprise, it worked. The girls nodded knowingly and began to check out the other side of the clearing. Technically, I wasn't lying to them since pretty much all ticks were blood suckers, which made them legitimately vampires.
"I wonder who it is." Riley crouched beside the body.
"I hope it's not Maria." It was hard to tell, as there was a piece of material covering the body.
"Do we get ahold of the sheriff and wait until he arrives?" Riley asked.
"Nope." I reached for the covering. "In case whoever it is might be alive, we need to give first aid." I grabbed the edges of the material and pulled it off.
I'd never seen the man before. He wore a polo shirt with khakis and tennis shoes. He had longish, brown curly hair and looked like he was around thirty. There was no backpack, and he was absurdly underdressed for a lengthy hike to be unconscious in the middle of nowhere. Fortunately, I was wrong about this being a shallow grave. It was more like a natural depression in the ground. So that seemed like good news.
"He's breathing," Riley said.
"Oh good." I was relieved. For the first time since we'd started, I wished Kelly were here. A former emergency room nurse, she could've brought this man around. She was our first aider. I was responsible for…other stuff.
"Is he dead?" a voice asked.
I looked around and realized I was surrounded by the girls.
There were no questions about vampire ticks as the two Kaitlyns dropped their packs and started rummaging around. Oh. Right. They'd also had first aid training.
"I don't see any extraneous injuries," Riley said. "It doesn't look like he was stabbed, strangled, or bludgeoned."
I agreed. "Maybe he was poisoned?"
"We'll fix him up," Lauren assured us.
"But if things are bad and he isn't gonna make it," Betty suggested. "Maybe we can practice the one-finger kill?"
"Not a chance," I said. "Using it on a dying guy would be silly—how would you know if it worked or he died from something else?"
Riley pulled me aside, and we turned our backs on the girls in an attempt at discretion. "I really don't like this."
"I wish I'd brought my gun," I said. "Nobody good brings someone way out here and dumps them. Whoever it is may still be nearby."
"Or worse," he added, "it could be more than one person."
I considered this. Obviously, whoever dumped the guy didn't care that this was a private preserve and that trespassing was forbidden. They probably thought that he'd never be found in this remote location—and certainly not by a troop of little girls.
Which meant we were in danger. "We need to find out exactly what happened and who we are up against."
Riley nodded. "We'd better see if we can rouse him."
"All done!" one of the Kaitlyns announced.
"All done?" I turned around. The man had been bandaged from head to toe, as if he'd suffered two broken arms, dislocated shoulders, a head wound, and a gut shot. A strip of thick, white zinc sunscreen coated his nose, and a bottle of smelling salts had been duct taped under his nostrils. And yet, the victim remained unconscious.
"We weren't sure what hurt him," Inez reasoned. "So we just went for every option."
"We're out of bandages now," one of the Kaitlyns added.
Riley again knelt beside the man and gently shook him by the shoulders. "Wake up," he said as he jostled the guy a little harder.
The man didn't so much as flinch.
"Maybe the smelling salts are old?" I wondered. "They always work on me."
That was the truth. I was almost hyper-sensitive to the stuff. I could smell it a yard away at least, which came in handy once when I was embedded undercover with Carlos the Armadillo—a Colombian drug lord. I had inadvertently fallen into a coma caused by an accidental misuse of what was supposed to be dummy cocaine.
Instead, it was not only the real thing, but an experimental hybrid formula loaded with melatonin because insomniac Carlos thought it might help him sleep better. He never really understood that cocaine was a stimulant.
Anyway, they brought in some smelling salts made at a coffee plantation in Honduras, and before they even walked two feet to give it to me, I went from unconscious to standing up. No one knows how I did that. Apparently I looked like a vampire rising from a coffin. It gave me some interesting street cred with the gang.
"That bottle is brand new," Lauren insisted. "I made it myself."
I reached down and ripped the bottle away, hoping the shock of having duct tape ripped off his nostrils might wake him up. It didn't. I brought the bottle to my nose and sniffed carefully.
"Is that potpourri?" I asked. "I smell roses and cinnamon."
Lauren nodded. "The usual salts smell nasty. I thought it would be way better to wake up smelling something nice."
I hesitated. Telling the well-meaning little girl that it was the nastiness that woke you up wouldn't make any difference if this was the only bottle we had.
"Here." Betty slapped a bottle into my hand. "This will work."
Before I even brought it to my nose, I felt woozy. After shaking my head to clear it, I asked, "Have you gotten into my chloroform stash again?"
The girl narrowed her eyes. "I was going to use skunk essence, but I didn't know where to get it, so I thought that was the strongest stuff you had in your basement."
Too bad she didn't find the Chechen hot sauce I kept down there. The main ingredients were turpentine and goat intestines. That would've worked like a charm.
"I've told you not to go down to my basement," I chastised.
Even though I was married, I still owned my first house, which was across the street from my house with Rex. It was useful for troop meetings and for storing my old CIA toys. I mean, you never knew when you'd need a straightening iron, box of tampons, or binoculars.
The tampon box was a cleverly disguised explosive, and because of what it was, no man would ever check it out. The binoculars could double as night vision goggles and could shoot metal-melting lasers, which proved unfortunately dangerous when I was watching squirrels once in my backyard. No, the squirrels weren't injured, but I felt bad about the huge branch that was lasered off the tree. The straightening iron was good for…well,
straightening hair.
Betty got up and wandered to the other side of the hill. "Did you hear that?"
"Betty," I chastised. "You can't change the subject. I really need you to stay out of my basement."
"Yeah, yeah, okay, fine," she said quickly. "But I really do hear something."
"What is it?" I joined her. She was right. It sounded like a man or big deer crashing through the underbrush on the forest floor below us.
"Someone's coming," she said. "We should set up a defensive perimeter with booby traps."
"There's no time. Get back with the others," I said, shoving her in that direction.
Someone was coming. I spotted them emerging out of the woods at the base of the hill. It was just one person, in a camouflage military boonie hat, which they kept down to hide their face. Actually, I could only see them from the top of the head down, so I had no idea who it was.
Maybe it was Maria? I didn't think so. From the shadow on the ground, the guy was tall. Maria was of average height. Besides, I'd see her gorgeous, wavy dark hair flowing beneath the cap. Unless she'd shaved her head—in which case she'd have me totally fooled.
I gave Riley a silent signal to protect the girls. Either that or I'd told him that a fat chihuahua was eating a marshmallow. My skills were a bit rusty.
He nodded and stood between the girls and me, at a distance where hopefully he could protect them should this guy get past me. Why wasn't it the other way around, with Riley as the first line of defense? Because I was a better fighter than he was—something that was a bit of a sore spot with him that we never talked about.
I looked down at the top of the cap and wondered if it was the person who'd put the almost dead guy here. If so, was he coming back to make sure his victim was really dead?
As the person started to crest the hill, I lunged forward, head down, and tackled them, my arms around the waist. We rolled around in the dirt for a few seconds before a female voice said, "Merry! Get off of me!"
I pushed myself to my knees. "Hilly?"
CHAPTER FOUR
Mosquito Bite Murder Page 2