Merry Wrath Mysteries Boxed Set Volume III (Books 7-9)

by Leslie Langtry

  Besides, I knew why the heist didn't happen tonight. I was pretty sure it was supposed to. But seeing Rex and the police and if they knew about Stan and Riley, there was too much heat. If I was a betting woman, which I have been in fifteen different countries, I'd say the museum was going to get hit tomorrow.

  I thought about the parade. Something about it had stuck in my head as a red flag, but what was it? I pictured the Disco Mummy. The clown. Darlene's sneer. The float. The looks on the girls' faces…and something triggered a memory. Images flashed through my mind from the barn to the furniture store to the parade. It all came together. How had I not seen this before?

  I knew what was going on.

  And since everyone was in on this but me, I was going to take this on myself.

  That would show them, or it would kill me. At the moment, I wasn't sure which was worse.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  It was Halloween. Tonight my neighborhood would be flooded with kids, and my cat would probably be sitting in the window, dressed as a werewolf. If I wanted to, I could just lie around all day, waiting to hand out candy at night. Okay, I wanted to. And I wanted Rex and Mom here with me, as if nothing had happened.

  But this morning, I had other plans. I got up early, before Mom did, and managed to leave the house quietly. I'd only been in bed sleepless for a few hours. And soon, I was going to single-handedly take on a couple of thieves.

  So exciting!

  I was angry with almost everyone I knew. Rex for leaving out that Stan worked for the Iowa State Police, Riley for hitting on me, Mom for vanishing into thin air without so much as a phone call, and people I hadn't even thought of yet. The only way to purge this from my system was to handle things for myself.

  I drove back to Des Moines in the Mercedes, wearing jeans, a U of Iowa sweatshirt, and a baseball cap to hide my face. The robbery was happening today. I just didn't know when. If I had to guess, it would be before the museum opened.

  Pulling into a parking lot across the street, I aimed my car at the museum and pulled a map out of the glove box. If anyone asked, I was a tourist, lost in the big city. The fact that the map was of the whole state was just belittling the point. Besides, I was lucky the rental car had a map at all.

  Taking down a couple of gold thieves wouldn't be easy. But I wasn't going to do it here. I had an idea where the robbers might be going after the heist. Besides, I didn't want to get caught and end up in the Des Moines police station. Rex had no authority there, and my practicing vigilantism wasn't going to go over well.

  I needed to deal with this in Who's There. And if things went the way I thought they would, that's where we'd end up.

  A white sedan drove slowly down the street, turning left one block away. It reappeared a few moments later and did the same thing again. Ducking down in my seat, I waited. The sedan appeared once more and very slowly pulled into the alley leading to the back lot of the museum.

  Two men in ski masks got out, and the car turned around, facing the street, ready to go.

  I thought about the events of the past week, slowly putting every puzzle piece into place. I knew who killed Didi and Amber and who was committing the theft. I just needed to catch them red-handed.

  Waiting was agony. I'm a patient person. You need to be to have a successful career as a spy. But in this instance, my patience ran thin. I didn't want the police to show up and spoil the fun. It was possible they were staking the museum out too, but I didn't see any evidence of that.

  Was it wrong to think this way? Of course it was. I should be on the side of the police. But something inside me was behaving irrationally, and I felt I needed a victory.

  I was frustrated with Rex. Oh sure, I knew he was just doing his job, but I'd given him a lot to think about with this case, and I'd found Leonard's unfortunate clue. He'd kept Stan's info from me.

  What about Mom? She'd gone off to run a gala at the last minute. Okay, I kind of got that. She did lots of planning for things like that in her life as a senator's wife. And she thought Stan would let me know. It still seemed thin. I'd been worried about her! There'd never been tension between Mom and me before, but I needed to talk to her about this.

  Later…

  There was no sign of the police—local or state—or the FBI. They obviously thought there would be no heist. Maybe like I'd thought, they'd believed that their presence at the gala was enough to deter the criminals. They had a large city to deal with and moved on.

  What they didn't count on was me.

  Why was I really doing this? Was it to get back at Rex, Mom, and Riley? If so, it was really immature. Who was I to think I could do this alone?

  All right. I'm immature and an idiot. Sometimes, you just have to go with it, don't you think?

  The men ran out into the alley and got into the car. I ducked all the way down under the dash until I heard the tires turn in front of me. After a second, I started up the Mercedes and began to tail them.

  There wasn't a lot of traffic out at this hour in the morning. Once they left the interstate and got onto rural roads, I took a detour that I knew paralleled them. I'd driven these roads since I was fourteen.

  When you get your license at sixteen and live in a small town in Iowa, you look for opportunities to drive. And when your mother is on to you about needing to go to the grocery store five times in one day, you tend to find other diversions. For me, that was getting lost in the countryside. I've driven every single gravel road in my county and could do it with my eyes closed.

  There were several points along the way where I could spot the other car across the dead and spindly cornfields. I doubt they even knew I was there. I just kept driving. And tried not to think of how angry Rex would be when he found out what I was up to.

  At last, I pulled over about fifty yards from where this all began. The barn where we had worked on our float.

  Criminals aren't so much stupid as they are creatures of habit. The barn had been abandoned by us. No one ever used it. It was the perfect place if you weren't very creative. Which these people weren't.

  Tucking my gun into my waistband and my cell into my back pocket, I started working my way along the edge of the road until I spotted the white sedan in front of the barn. I paused long enough to text Rex. He was an early riser. And I wasn't stupid. If things went south, I wanted backup. It's great to be right, but it's better to be alive to say I told you so.

  The whole mess was simple when I thought about it. There were a few red herrings, but for the most part, this was a simple tale of greed. I was just sorry it affected my Girl Scouts. They'd been real troopers with the whole thing.

  I spotted Booty Call's gravesite and smiled. I'd have to help the girls find a more appropriate place for the dead hamster.

  Shouts erupted from the barn, and I hugged the outer walls.

  "I'm done. I won't do this anymore," a man said.

  "You'll do what we say or else!" a deep-voiced woman barked.

  "Maybe we should quit while we're ahead?" another man asked. "Once we sell these, we'll all be rich."

  I smiled. I'd been right.

  "We end this when I say we end it!" the woman shrieked.

  "The authorities are getting too close!" the first man said. "The FBI sent someone here, for crying out loud! I'm out. I could lose everything!"

  The woman snapped, "Just do what I say, and you'll be rich."

  "What do you mean, 'what I say?'" the second man asked. "This is a team endeavor."

  "Oh, do shut up," the woman said. "I should just shoot both of you right here and be done with you."

  There was an ample silence. I didn't need another murder happening near me. Time to interrupt.

  I burst through the door, gun drawn and aimed at Victoria from Midland Furniture. Stan and Andy Andrews stood limply off to the side. She was aiming her gun at Stan. Good thing I'd intervened.

  "Drop it, Vicky," I leveled. "Hi Stan. Mr. Andrews."

  "Don't call me Vicky!" the severe woman screame
d.

  Ava's father's jaw dropped. "How did you know?"

  I kept my eyes on Victoria. Since she had the gun, she was the main threat. "Ava's reaction to Kaitlyn's kidnapping. She knew something. And Kaitlyn's super-secret pinky swear. She obviously knew you and was easy to manipulate."

  Stan pointed at the two others and shrieked, "Good thing you're here, Wrath! Arrest them! They tried to kill a State Trooper!"

  "Stuff it, Stan," I snapped. "You were in on it from the beginning. You killed Amber. I'm guessing you used her to get info and didn't want to leave a witness or she figured it out. You dumped her in my yard to frame me, hoping the thin connection of finding Didi on my parade float might implicate me. I just haven't worked out whether you killed Didi or whether Vicky here did it."

  "It's Victoria!" the woman hissed.

  Stan narrowed his eyes, his jaw clenched. He was trying to figure out who to side with here. And since he really had been in the State Police, he was dangerous. At any moment he could rush me for the gun. I'd have to be willing to use it. (Don't worry. I totally was.)

  I pointed at Andy. "How could you do that to your daughter?" I asked. "This will crush her."

  Andrews hung his head. "Midland Furniture hasn't been doing well."

  "Shut up, Andy!" Victoria hissed as she turned her gun on me. "I'll shoot her, and we can go on with our plan."

  Andy looked up. His eyes went from me to Vicky, and then he did something unexpected. He stepped in front of the gun that was trained on me.

  "No. No more murders. And certainly not Mrs. Wrath."

  "Ms. Wrath," I corrected.

  He didn't hear me. "She's a good person. Not like Didi. And Ava loves her."

  That was nice. I never got compliments from parents, which was a bummer since I worked hard for their girls. However, I would've preferred to get it under different circumstances…

  "Shut up, Andy!" Victoria screamed.

  She was thinking of what to do next. So was Stan. Andy wasn't a problem, but the other two were. And right now this was one hell of a dilemma. Stan didn't want to be shot, but he didn't want to go to prison either. Victoria was a loose cannon. She wasn't going to lose, no matter what it took.

  "Shoot them, Wrath!" Stan shouted. "I'll back you up when they're dead if you leave the part about me being involved out."

  "Not a chance," I said. My gun was aimed at Vicky, but now I was watching Stan too.

  Victoria sighed. "Enough talk." She pulled the trigger.

  Andy jumped in front of me and took the full hit in the chest.

  "No!" I shouted.

  I'd thought Vicky would shoot Stan or me. It hadn't occurred to me she'd shoot Andrews to get to me.

  Another shot rang out as I dove for the floor. I fired twice, hitting Victoria in the thigh. She dropped, and Stan scooped up the gun and shot Victoria in the heart.

  "Come on, Stan!" I complained. He'd shot the woman who was going to tell my fiancé how smart I was.

  I wasn't in the best position, lying on the floor, gun aimed up at him.

  "I've taken care of everything now," he said.

  Sirens finally wailed in the distance.

  He spoke quickly. "No one has to know. You can tell them I helped you. That I saved your life."

  I stayed put on the floor. I had a better shot in this position, and moving would give Stan an opening. "Seriously? If anything, I saved you."

  Stan smiled. "That works for me."

  He lowered Victoria's gun and helped me to my feet. I checked on Andy Andrews, but it was too late. Would he be dead if I hadn't intruded? I looked over at Victoria's body. Yeah. He probably would be. That woman would've killed both men eventually. Like she had Didi. And Amber. And now, Andy Andrews.

  That's right. It was so easy for her to kill Andrews, I figured she'd killed Amber when she realized how cuddly the woman was getting with Stan. Victoria wasn't the type of person who liked loose ends.

  It made more sense that Stan was in it for the money, not the murder. I thought about his expensive appetites—the McMansion, the sports car. Stan just wanted to live beyond the means of an Iowa State Trooper. Stan was a lady-killer…but not a lady killer.

  The sirens drew up outside.

  Stan set the gun on the floor and held his hands up. "Just remember, I'm the good guy. Back me up, and I'll back you up."

  "Back me up?" Why did I need to be backed up?

  "You could be implicated in this. Why do you think we dropped the bodies where you were?" His oily salesman grin emerged. "You're just a little fool who got in way over your head and was easy to frame."

  As Rex and his officers poured into the room, I said, "Well, that's where you're wrong. Why do you think Riley knew who I was?"

  He frowned as Rex gave me a look.

  "I worked with Riley once. I'm not just a little fool." I pointed at the furniture salesman with the gun. "Arrest him. He was in on it."

  My fiancé did not look happy, but he clapped the cuffs on Stan and led him away. One of the officers called for Dr. Body while the other one escorted me outside. Kevin, his hands covered in powdered sugar from the bag of donuts he was holding, shoved Stan into the back of his cruiser

  I gave my statement down at the station. Riley came in and told Rex what he knew. To my surprise, Riley fessed up that he didn't realize Stan was playing him. That was a bit of a shock.

  Rex turned to me. "You didn't let Leonard out last night. According to Stan and Riley, you were at the gala."

  I sighed. "I'm sorry about that. I couldn't leave things alone. It's just so hard to give that life up."

  Rex narrowed his eyes. "You were in danger. Riley said someone roofied you."

  My mouth dropped open. "That's right! Who did that?"

  My fiancé shook his head and sighed. "I'm never going to convince you to stay out of trouble, am I?"

  Riley chose that time to say good-bye. It was probably for the best. I was about to get yelled at. And I can't say I didn't deserve it.

  "Merry," Rex said softly. "I don't know what to do with you."

  I reached across the desk and took his hand. "I know. Sorry about that. I'll try to do better."

  We sat there in silence for a moment until Officer Kevin Dooley barged in. I drew my hand back quickly. Kevin knew we were engaged and had the brain capacity of a gnat, but I knew Rex was serious about no PDA at work.

  Kevin stood there for a moment, breathing through his open mouth as if trying to remember what he'd come in here for. Then his eyes went wide as he remembered.

  "We got a tip about a woman who was roofie-ing people at some shindig last night." He looked at us each for a moment. "Just thought you'd want to know." And with that, he left.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Kelly brought Finn over later that night to help me hand out candy with Mom. Mom and I talked most of the day. She felt bad, and I felt bad. I could never be mad at her because she would never hurt me.

  "Thanks for bringing the candy," I said as I got up to hand out more sugary goodness. It was a busy neighborhood. "Where's Robert?"

  "He's working." Kelly grabbed a piece of taffy that Finn was attempting to eat, wrapper and all.

  "Well, thank him for me for the other day."

  "It's not your fault, Merry," Kelly said.

  The doorbell rang again, and this time Mom answered it. Philby was sitting in the window in the mask as if she was a decoration. Every time a kid saw her and screamed, she puffed her chest out. She had a brilliant career ahead of her as a werewolf.

  I shook my head. "I feel terrible for Ava. If only I could've gotten to Andrews and done something…"

  "Done what? The man was involved in a double homicide and two thefts." Kelly pulled the vampire mask out of Finn's mouth and set it aside.

  "Yeah, but for Ava, I'd hide all that."

  Kelly's right eyebrow went up. "You'd break the law for the girls?" I'm not sure why she asked. Surely she knew I would.

  I nodded. The funeral would be com
ing soon. I'd have to go, but how would I handle it? Her dad died to save me.

  "We will figure something out," Kelly said.

  But what could we do, really? I couldn't bring the kid's dad back.

  "Merry, could you bring over the candy?" Mom said.

  She was surrounded by kids. I took the bag over and refilled the bowl. I looked out the window and thought I saw a Disco Mummy.

  "You didn't finish your story about being drugged at the gala," Kelly said.

  "Oh, right! Well it turned out that Darlene snapped. She was running around dropping Rohypnol tablets in champagne glasses. She told Rex that she thought there was a conspiracy of women out to get her."

  "That's so sad!" Kelly said as she took the rubber werewolf mask off her daughter, who'd seconds before removed it from the cat, and put it back on Philby. He trotted away like a stud horse in spring.

  I shrugged. "I didn't even see her there. She must've had a good costume. But yeah, the woman completely lost it. Turns out her husband remarried the day of the parade, a blonde who looked a little like Didi. That probably sent her over the edge."

  Poor Darlene. She'd been Didi's first victim, in a way. And now she was going off to a mental hospital to get her act together. It probably didn't help that I'd suspected her. Maybe I could send her some flowers.

  "Was Victoria the person in the hoodie who ran away from us?"

  I nodded. "I think so. She's dead, so we won't know for sure. But I'd be willing to bet she was looking for the coins and we interrupted her." I felt a small stab of shame that the older woman could outrun me like that. Shame, but not surprise. I really sucked at running.

  "What I really don't get," Kelly pressed, "is why Stan seemed so shaken when we discovered he'd replaced Kaitlyn on the float. I really believed he'd been kidnapped."

  "I suspect," I said, "that Stan was terrified of what I'd do to him."

  Stan had confessed to Rex that the kidnapping had been his idea and that he really thought Robert would do what I asked and rip his arms off. That made me smile.