"Overdue for your meds," she said, her eyes bright and enthusiastic.
"What meds?" I asked.
"This one's for pain, and this one gets the opiate out of your system quicker," she explained. "You're lucky he didn't get a vein. That was some potent stuff."
I shrugged and gulped them down. After a few minutes the pain medication made me begin to feel woozy again, and I sunk quickly back into a deep slumber.
I don't know if it was an hour or five hours later, but I sensed movement in the room and the tiniest of noises. I was inclined to ignore it and retreat to my coma-like sleep, but for some reason I cracked an eyelid open.
Everything was hazy at first, but the sun was rushing in around the sides of the heavy curtain on the window. On the table I could see a vase of pink, orange, and yellow flowers. Next to the table a man in a baby-blue hospital gown was sitting. I pried my eyes open to get a better look, and then I gasped as the reality set in.
"I thought you were—" I shrieked.
Mike smiled a toothy, full-faced grin that made him look stupid and sexy at the same time. "Almost. He nicked my lung, and I bled a lot. But they got to me in time. How are you feeling?"
"Tell me what happened!"
"Well, your friend Bob Weber came through. I was only half-conscious, so I didn't see it. But I hear that Conn was lining up to finish me off when Weber came to life and attacked him. They both ended up shot, and Weber didn't make it. But he held Conn off until the cops got there."
I was stunned. Amazingly, wonderfully, happily stunned. "Are those from you?" I asked, nodding at the flowers. "They're beautiful."
Mike blushed.
An insistent knock came at the door, followed by an urgent, "Excuse me."
Before I could answer, an angry nurse with yellow dreadlocks stormed in. Her face was volcanic.
"I told you to stay put," she hissed at Mike, who was cowering in the chair beneath her. "Movement will just make your injury worse. Is that what you want?" She shook her head back and forth and then looked at me for support. "No respect," she sighed.
"I thought your shift was over," he said lamely.
"It was. But when I have a patient escape, I need to hunt his ass down. Get up, boy. You're coming with me now." The expression on her face left no room for argument.
Mike eased himself up and grimaced in pain, which produced a see, I told you so look from the nurse. Mike's eyes were pleading with me to save him, somehow, but we both knew his fate was sealed. After he left, my eyes drifted over to the flowers, and as I stared at them, I began sinking back into the same drug-induced sleep I had awoken from. Except this time, there was a big fat smile on my face.
EPILOGUE
My hospital stay lasted less than a full day. Once the doctors concluded that the drugs were out of my system and that I was fully hydrated (evidenced by the fact that I had been filling up my catheter bag like a racehorse), they kicked me out. I visited Mike once more the next day, and he had been discharged with no serious restrictions except to avoid rigorous physical activity. He didn't explain exactly what "rigorous" meant, but I had some ideas of my own.
I was kicking back, enjoying a glass of champagne, and watching the local news, hoping to catch some news about Ethan's case. It had been the lead story all day: the DA had dropped the charges against him and was bringing a new case against Jerry Conn. He was also considering charges against Ethan's mother for attempted murder for hire. It turned out that she had, in fact, hired James Devine to do the job, but Conn had taken care of it before he ever got the chance. Devine saw an opening to get his money without having to kill anyone, so he got it from Patty, who'd assumed he'd done the deed and wouldn't raise a stink about the missing money. Our basic theory was right: Mickey Mayfield had a lot of enemies.
I was ready to flip the news off when another story caught my attention. A midnight raid at two brothels in Pahrump had uncovered a massive underage sex ring. At least sixteen girls had been rescued, and the cops had uncovered a coded list of more than a hundred men, all of whom would be prosecuted. Detective Alvarez had come through big-time. Two men were dead—Mickey Mayfield and Andrew LaGarde—but my investigation had freed one man and more than a dozen girls. From what I could pick up, it seemed like the raid had been in the works for a while, which would explain why Detective Humes wasn't returning my calls. All in all, it was a good feeling.
My phone rang after dinner.
"Ethan," I gushed. "How are you?"
"Jail sucked. But I'm out now, thanks to you."
"I had some help. And a lot of luck." I began taking deep breaths to control my quickened heart rate.
"Anyway, they called me today and offered me the job at the Copa. The job."
"Wow, that's incredible."
"I just hope it's worth it. So, you want to celebrate with me? Drinks at my place?"
Hell yeah, I was thinking. Deep breaths. I felt like I was sixteen again and the captain of the football team had asked me to the prom. But somehow the rebellious, self-respecting smart-ass in me took over.
"I'll stop over for a drink, sure. But Ethan, just so you know—I'm not on the market."
* * * * *
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Stephanie Caffrey grew up in Wisconsin and has lived in Chicago, Washington, D.C., and London. Although she has traveled the world, her heart belongs to the thumping, degenerate pulse of a city that is Las Vegas. Having stayed at (or passed out in) nearly every casino-hotel on the Strip, she is recognized as an expert on all-things-Vegas, including where to find the best poker rooms, the most decadent foie gras-topped hamburger, and the most effective cure for a tequila-induced hangover. For a brief period in her early twenties, she may or may not have been a topless dancer. A constitutional lawyer by day, she is married with a young son, who will not be allowed to visit Las Vegas until he's forty.
* * * * *
BOOKS BY STEPHANIE CAFFREY
Raven McShane Mysteries:
Diva Las Vegas
Vegas Stripped
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SNEAK PEEK
If you enjoyed this Raven McShane Mystery, check out this sneak peek of another funny, romantic mystery from Gemma Halliday Publishing:
MERIT BADGE MURDER
by
LESLIE LANGTRY
CHAPTER ONE
It's not every day you find al-Qaeda's number four operative dead in a Girl Scout camp in Iowa.
The body was twisted unnaturally in the rope course's spiderweb element that consisted of a large wood frame crisscrossed with elastic bungee cords. Sadly, it was my troop's favorite thing to do at camp. Now I had to disappoint them. I hated disappointing them.
A man hung there. He had been in his twenties and of Middle Eastern descent. The neck was clearly broken before he was placed into the ropes at Camp Singing Bird. He looked surprised to find himself here. I'm sure the irony would be lost on him that in death, he really was surrounded by seventy-two virgins. Did it matter that they were grade-schoolers, I wondered? Maybe that was just splitting hairs.
I would've been surprised too, had I not been through this kind of thing before. But I'd seen this stuff in Syria and Uzbekistan—not in the placid, wooded hills of eastern Iowa.
And my second grade troop was due at any minute. I was pretty sure I couldn't pass this off as something adorable—like I had with the bats in Tinder Trails Cabin or the mice in the latrines. Troop Leader's Helpful Hint #1—if your Girl Scouts freak out upon meeting a bat/mouse/wolf spider for the first time—tell them it's just a baby bat/mouse/wolf spider. Little girls are suckers for that, and soon what was scary is adorbs!—whatever that means.
I bent to take his pulse, just to make sure. Yup. He was dead. His glassy eyes were opened wide, and his mouth hung open. Dammit. I n
eeded this like I needed wet work in the slums of Rio.
The sounds of giggles and singing came from the trees just around the corner. Any minute the fourteen seven- and eight-year-old girls who called me their leader would appear. I was pretty sure I couldn't convince them that this dead terrorist was a cute, dead baby terrorist. I pulled the parachute I was going to use for games later out of my backpack and threw it over the spiderweb.
"Mrs. Wrath!" The girls squealed in unison before tackling me in a sticky group hug. Kelly, my co-leader, smirked at me. She could get away with smirking at me because she's known me since we were six-year-old scouts.
"Girls!" I gently pushed them away. "How many times do I need to tell you—it's Ms. Wrath. I'm not married." Of course, I knew the answer to this question. Ad infinitum. Meaning, they'd always call me Mrs. Any woman over the age of twenty-one in Iowa was Mrs. Clearly it was me who didn't get it.
"Mrs. Wrath?" The third Katelynn asked. Or was it the Kaitlin the Fourth? They all looked the same to me. And each one of them spelled their name a completely different way. Spy work had not prepared me for that.
"It's Ms. Wrath, Katelynn," I said with a smile. Leader Helpful Hint #2—when talking to little girls, always smile. They cry if you don't. I'm not kidding. You don't know real terror until you've stared at the watery eyes and rubbery bottom lip of a cute kid.
The second-grader looked confused for a moment, which was to be expected. "Okay. Mrs. Wrath?" she asked again.
I sighed. "Yes, Katelynn?"
"Why is the parachute over the spiderweb? And why is it all lumpy?"
Kelly squinted at the parachute, eyebrows knit together. She'd probably figure it out, being a nurse and all.
"The spiderweb is out of commission, girls," I announced, stepping between them and the dead man.
A chorus of complaints came from the little girls, and I held up my right hand in the universal Girl Scout symbol for silence. They quieted down immediately. I once again really wished I'd known about this trick when I was surrounded by FARC rebels in Colombia.
"Head on over to the Peanut Butter Pass—I think you're old enough for that one now," I said in a nice save worthy of someone of my caliber.
"YAY!" The girls exploded in shrieks and raced off to that element, leaving me in the dust.
Kelly narrowed her eyes. "They aren't old enough for the Peanut Butter Pass."
"You'd better get after them before they start scaling the rope, then. I'll be there in a second." I shoved her in the direction of the squealing herd before she could respond. "We can't leave them alone for a minute, you know."
Kelly gave me a weird look but took off after the troop. I turned back to the dead man in the parachute. It kind of looked like he was cocooned in the web—as if a giant spider had caught him, poisoned and wrapped him to save for later. If only that was what had really happened. No way I could get that lucky.
With a heavy sigh, I took out my cell phone to call the ranger. This was going to suck. You think the CIA is bad with paperwork? Langley (CIA headquarters near DC) has NOTHING on the Girl Scouts of America when it comes to filling out forms and accident reports in triplicate. Nothing.
My name is Fionnaghuala Merrygold Wrath Czrygy. And I'm a Girl Scout leader. Well, I used to be a covert operative in the CIA—a career that has remarkably prepared me well to lead Troop 0348. (And yes, you have to have a zero at the beginning—it's very important for some reason that no one can explain.) I was a CIA agent, that is, until I was unceremoniously and allegedly mistakenly outted by the Vice President of the United States' Chief of Staff.
That's right. I was outted. My name and photo were leaked to The New York Times "inadvertently." This is a fancy way to say that the Vice President was pissed off at my father, who was the head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, because he didn't back the Veep's re-election campaign (a fact even more curious because the VP was a Republican, and my dad was a Democrat). So, my name got leaked, and the Chief of Staff took the fall, and was fired the next day just before going to prison (and of course, pardoned later by the President).
I, however, was not in a cozy corner office in the White House with a nice view like he was when my name and face were broadcast live worldwide. I happened to be in Chechnya where—to my surprise—the rebels in the bar I frequented had internet and were devoted followers of the New York Times' online edition. (They also read Cosmo but that's a story for another day.) It took me forty-two hours, two gunfights, a strange encounter with an armed chicken, calling in fifteen favors that I'd been saving, and a rather dicey drive to Estonia in the back of a jeep with no shocks to get out of that mess.
Back in DC I testified before Congress, got a nice fat check from my boss at the CIA, along with a short letter explaining why I couldn't work there anymore, and just like that, I was out of a job and internationally infamous.
It was Dad's idea for me to change my appearance, use my middle name, take on my mother's maiden name, and move to my hometown in Iowa. Dad's name was Czrygy. So brunette, brown-eyed Finella (the true pronunciation of my name) Czrygy became blonde, blue-eyed (You have to love what they do with contact lenses these days.) Merry Wrath.
The sheriff and a few deputies arrived at camp half an hour after I'd called. I'd managed to get my troop back to the cabins without them seeing the dead guy, staunching their protests with promises that Kelly would make them endless s'mores in the middle of the day—something that would probably bite me in the ass later. The ranger—Bob Williamson—sat with me as we waited. He wasn't very happy to find a dead man tangled in his newly refurbished ropes course. That meant a lot of paperwork for him too.
"Huh," The sheriff said as he poked the dead body with his finger. He stood up and tried to tug his belt up over his beer belly with little success.
"So, what happened here?" he asked Bob.
I tried not to roll my eyes. We'd already told the sheriff that I'd been the one to find the body. But this old, redneck sheriff was only interested in what a man had to say.
Bob pointed at me. "Ask her. She found it."
I once again told the sheriff about how I'd found the body. I once again suggested that they comb the camp for whoever did this, since they were probably still around. And once again, the sheriff looked to Bob for answers.
"Is that right?" he asked.
"Yes," I said. "And now, if you'll excuse me, I have my troop to get back to." I left before I could see their responses. If the sheriff was going to write me off, I was done with him. Besides, this wasn't my problem anymore. I couldn't care less what happened to the dead guy. I was off the clock permanently these days.
Back at our campsite, fourteen girls were bouncing off the walls after mainlining a LOT of sugar. Kelly gave me a glare that said I owed her big time.
With the possibility of a murderer running around camp, I decided our trip was over. Kelly and I packed up and called the other moms to help us carpool the thirty minute drive back home. The girls were too keyed up to even notice it was over until we arrived in my driveway. But by then, they had parents there ready to wrangle them into waiting cars.
Kelly and I watched and let out a very visible breath as the last girl was picked up.
"So, what the hell was that all about?" Kelly said as she led the way into my little house. Once inside, my friend and co-leader helped herself to a glass of wine and sat at my tiny breakfast bar.
"Dead guy," I muttered as I made a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. We had tons of the stuff left over since we'd cut the camping trip short. Little girls love peanut butter. I had to admit— they really had something there.
Kelly nodded, "Yeah, I got that part. But why was there a dead guy?"
I shrugged, my mouth glued shut. "Don't know." Only it came out like, "nnnt no" due to the aforementioned peanut butter. I really shouldn't talk with my mouth full.
"You don't think it's a little odd that you retire from the CIA and a dead Middle Easterner shows up at Girl Scout Camp the
same weekend you are there?" Kelly crossed her arms. I should never have told her, in that drunken haze, about my past. She waited. I'd have no chance to stall with another bite of sandwich.
I swallowed. "Yes. I think it's odd. But it might just be a coincidence." That was a lie. There was no way it was a coincidence. I mean seriously, al-Qaeda's Number Four? In Iowa? And me being former CIA? Not a chance.
Kelly studied me. "Are you going to be alright?"
I nodded. "I'll be fine. Don't worry about me." After all, I'd handled things like this before, on my own, and in a Third World country. No sweat. And this wasn't my problem anyway. Let the authorities take care of it. I didn't do that anymore.
Kelly drained her glass and walked to the door. She paused and looked around my little, beige living room.
"When are you going to get some drapes?" she asked, looking at the sheets I'd had hung in the windows. They had Dora the Explorer on them because I got them on sale. It had really seemed like a good idea at the time. I'd always thought Dora was undercover CIA, recruiting kids to be double agents.
I shrugged. "Soon? I just moved in, remember."
She laughed. "Yeah, one year ago. It's time you had drapes." And with that she was gone.
I leaned against the door and looked around my house. She was right. I didn't have any drapes. I had very little furniture. After being recruited by the CIA right out of college, I'd never really had a place with things like furniture and curtains. I kept a very sparse apartment in DC but spent most of my time in dingy hotel rooms and safe houses all over the world.
When I was "retired," I moved back to the small city my dad grew up in and bought the first house I looked at. This house. The realtor told me it was something called a "craftsman." It was small and quiet and had a nice little fenced in yard in back. I bought a little car to put in the little, attached garage. I bought groceries and paid the utilities. But furnishing it was completely out of my wheelhouse.
Vegas Stripped (Raven McShane Mysteries Book 2) Page 20