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

by Leslie Langtry

  And that was when I heard the lyrics of the music playing on a cassette in a radio on the desk:

  It doesn't matter if you have millions of dollars or a single dime…

  Because all of us are living on borrowed time…

  I didn't recognize the song, but then, I didn't listen to the radio much. The song had to be a clue. It could wait. The cell was the most important clue here. Without asking, I reached over and pulled a pair of rubber gloves from Ted Weir's utility belt and put them on. Then I gingerly removed the tape from Rex's phone and looked it over.

  "Do you know the password?" Ted asked. He didn't seem upset. He obviously wanted Rex back also.

  I nodded. "Yes, but I have to take off my gloves to do it. I think you should brush it for fingerprints first."

  Because I was wearing his pair, Officer Weir took Kevin's gloves from his belt. Kevin just stood there like he expected Ted to do that. I handed the policeman the phone.

  He squinted at it. "The clue sent you here?"

  Linda stepped up and showed him the puzzle, but I was lost in thought. Why put the phone here in the school? Why not in my house or something like that? And what was up with the song about borrowed time?

  "Something's wrong," I said at last. "The kidnapper is telling us something different."

  "What do you mean?" Kelly asked.

  "He or she took Rex. Then took Juliette. They aren't beyond hurting people close to me."

  Kelly looked stricken. Linda and Ted frowned. The little girls were staring at me with hopeful, shining eyes. Kevin was going through the teacher's candy jar.

  "They sent us here because they know this is where the troop meets," I said slowly. "I think the girls might be the next target."

  Before we could stop them, Betty walked over to the chalkboard and grabbed the pointer stick and began spinning it like a martial arts fighting staff. Lauren started weaving a bullwhip with rope from the blinds, and Inez broke a small wooden stool and handed the broken legs to the Kaitlyns.

  Betty jumped up on the teacher's desk and shouted, "Let them come! There's still one dwarf in Moria who still draws breath!"

  "What did she say?" Ted asked.

  "Someone's been watching Lord of the Rings." I sighed and held my hands up. "Hold on, ladies! Stop arming yourselves! It's just a theory!"

  Officer Weir insisted we leave as he gently collected the makeshift weapons, and I left a note telling the teacher I'd replace the stool. Kelly gathered up the girls, and Linda helped get them into the two vans. I shut off the lights and followed the policemen out of the building.

  Ted pulled the door shut, and I heard a satisfying snick, indicating it had locked.

  "What do you think?" he asked me.

  "I have no idea," I answered. "Maybe Rex's cell has something on it?" Should I touch it? If there were fingerprints on it, that might be the quickest way to find this guy. On the other hand, the kidnapper might have wiped it clean.

  "It may not," the officer said. "That may be all the kidnapper intended. To prove he has Rex. Kind of like a proof of life." He looked back at the door. "I'll call the sheriff to come over with his team to check the place out. I'll come here before school starts and question the teacher and inform the principal."

  Ted was a good cop with a tough job. I felt a twinge in my stomach. It was time to come clean. "I have something else to tell you. And you're probably not going to like it."

  His eyebrows went up, and I told him about the conversation I recorded at Vy Todd's house.

  "All three of them were there, and they were up to something," I stressed.

  The policeman sighed a sigh I was well acquainted with after years of getting involved in cases that weren't mine. I wished that it was Rex sighing at me in frustration. We had to find him, and soon. Too much longer and bad things would happen. I just knew it. Time was not on our side when someone sinister was calling the shots.

  Ted looked puzzled. "If you're right, and Vy Todd is behind this, your troop may have tipped their hand. That's why they used the school."

  I really didn't want to hear that.

  "I don't like this." He frowned. "When it was just you, sure, you've had experience and can take care of yourself. But these little girls…"

  "Did you not see them making weapons just now?" I asked. "Lauren booby traps her bedroom, and Betty is lethal. I don't know how, but I just know she is."

  "Still." Ted wasn't giving up. "This is getting bad."

  I threw my hands up in frustration. "It already was bad when Rex was kidnapped!"

  We stared at each other for a minute or two.

  "Send me the recording," he said finally. "Immediately. And get those girls home. Tomorrow, I'd like to meet with you, Mrs. Albers, Linda, and Mr. Andrews. We're going to have to hammer out some rules."

  I agreed.

  As Kelly and I drove to the end of the block to my house, several cars filled with parents staring at cell phones waited for us. My co-leader unloaded the girls and left to take Linda home.

  "Keep this to yourselves," I said quietly to the girls before letting them go. "And keep an eye out for anything dangerous. If you see something, call me immediately."

  "Should we kill them first?" Caterina asked.

  "Hog-tie them," Lauren insisted. "That way we can interrogate them." She slammed her fist into her open palm.

  "Don't do anything! Just call me!"

  Once they pinky swore to agree (there are very few things that can break a pinky-swear promise), I released them. Kelly texted that she was heading home to check on Robert and Finn. When the last car pulled away, I walked across the street to Rex's house.

  "Mrs. Wrath?" Bart answered the door. "How much longer do you need me?"

  I sighed. "Have your mom bring a bunch of clothes. This might take a while."

  The kid went back to the couch, where I noticed the two cats and dog were waiting to turn him into a pillow. If my pets were upset about me being gone so long, they didn't show it.

  Was Bart in trouble? Juliette had broken in here. Granted, she was on an errand from the evil twin future sister-in-law, but would the killer come here too? Bart was sitting in front of the TV, playing a video game.

  "Um, Bart?" I sat down next to him.

  Philby and Martini came over and sniffed me before moving to the other side of the boy. They were shaming me for leaving them. I'd been through this before. And I had no time to worry about their feelings.

  "Yeah?" the kid asked without looking up from the TV.

  "I don't know what you've heard," I said slowly, "but you might be in danger here. I'm investigating Detective Ferguson's kidnapping and…"

  "Yup," he said. "I know all about that."

  "Are you okay with staying here alone?" I had to ask. Even though he was a teenager, he was still a kid. And I was responsible for him too.

  "No problem." Again, his eyes were glued to the game. "Betty made me a zip gun and some booby traps. I'll put them out after you leave."

  Of course she did.

  Back at my house, I sent Ted the audio, texted the others to meet at the police station in the morning, and headed to bed. One more night without Rex. It was the sixth day since my fiancé had gone missing, and I was only a bit closer to solving this. At least it looked more like Rex's old enemies were involved since I hadn't seen hide nor hair of Lana and Leiko.

  If they knew about Rex, it made sense, I guess, that they knew about Juliette. But how did they know about my troop? These guys must've been watching me for some time. Enough to know about the wedding and my meetings, among other things.

  I needed to take this into my own hands. Oh, I'd meet with everyone tomorrow. But after that, I was going after Vy Todd and the others. If it was the last thing I did.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Riley was standing on my doorstep first thing in the morning as I opened the front door to leave.

  "Do you have a minute?" he asked as he pushed past me into my house.

  As much as
this was an intrusion, it wasn't a surprise. Riley always just walked into my house. It drove me nuts, but short of killing him, there wasn't much I could do about it. I followed him to the breakfast bar and sat down.

  He seemed nervous, agitated. That was unusual. Riley was usually confident and in control. What was going on?

  "Talk," I said. I wasn't wasting any more time.

  "Leiko has turned up in Tokyo," he said, "But no one has seen Lana…really seen Lana for several days." He held up a map of the world, covered in sharpie Xs. "Her tracker is going crazy. She'll be in two cities in separate hemispheres in a matter of a couple of hours."

  I stared at the map. Lana appeared to have been in every city in the world, except…

  "The only country not marked up is the US," I said.

  He nodded. "And that's why I think she's here."

  I took this in and let it roll around in my head like a loose marble. "No sightings here at all?"

  He shook his head in a way that told me he really didn't want to shake his head.

  "It can't be her. I heard Vy Todd, Harvey Oak, and Prescott Winters III talking yesterday. It has to be them." I told him the whole story of the troop outing. He smiled at Betty's ingenuity. He listened carefully when I played the recording.

  "To me," Riley said, "it sounds like they are just starting to plan something. It doesn't sound like they've already done it."

  I nodded. "Unless Vy started it and realized she needed help, so she brought these two in. Otherwise, they have no connection except for being arrested by Rex."

  "There could be another connection we don't know about," Riley said.

  "You mean like Vy's connection to you?" I snapped. It was unfair, I supposed, but I was so over this. I just wanted Rex home, safe. Oh yeah, and Juliette too, I guess.

  "Right," Riley said. "I get that. I'd probably feel the same way. It would explain how she knew where I was living. But what's the connection to Bobby Ray? How would Vy know that he was your replacement? You're connected to the Agency, and you didn't know that."

  He made sense. "That's a good point. Every time it looks like this is about me, it changes to look like it's about Rex."

  "Let me ask you something that you may not have thought of," Riley said. "Is it possible that you and Rex were connected before you moved back here?"

  My jaw dropped. "Of course not! How could we have known each other before? I only met him when he moved in across the street and had to investigate me in the death of Carlos the Armadillo!" That was a case of the drug cartel leader flying into the road and hitting my car, which means it wasn't my fault. And I got a hottie boyfriend out of it, so it was a win-win.

  "You didn't know Rex had been in Davenport before he moved here. You didn't know he'd been involved in a couple of very high-profile investigations."

  "Exactly! I didn't know him then. You're proving my point."

  He shook his head, "What I'm establishing is that you really don't know much about your fiancé before you met him. Doesn't that also mean you two could've crossed paths before? Or that you were connected in your past?"

  "Let me get this straight—you think this is someone who knows both of us? Who blames us for something that happened a long time ago, something we were both involved in? That's crazy."

  "It's the only thing that makes sense."

  I shook my head. "It doesn't make sense at all. I worked in places like Chechnya, Japan, Colombia, Russia. CIA doesn't work stateside. Rex has only worked here. There's no way we crossed paths somewhere. I'd remember!"

  "Alright." Riley held his hands up. "It's just an idea. That's all. Don't get angry."

  I glared at him. "Let's go. The police are waiting for us."

  * * *

  "I wanted to talk to everyone," Officer Ted Weir said as he stood and the rest of us sat.

  We were all sitting around a conference room table, waiting to be chastised. At least, I was. I wasn't sure about everyone else. The only unexpected addition was Sheriff Carnack, who didn't sit at the table but instead filled up a seat in the corner.

  "I know we all agreed to work together on this," Weir continued. "And I know that's unusual from the way Detective Ferguson handled things."

  It was unusual. This would be about the time Rex asked me not to interfere in an investigation for the fortieth time. I missed that.

  "But things are getting a little out of hand." As much as he tried not to look at me, I knew he meant me. "We have to keep each other informed. I need to be made aware of everything going on"—now he did look at me—"before we involve little girls in spying on murderers. Before we find a body at someone else's residence."

  He had a point. But I was in a hurry. I had very little time to waste. We were now on day seven of Rex's disappearance. I was anxious that we were running out of time. Borrowed time. And there'd been no additional crossword at the site of the last clue. We had one more left. Blue. I was worried now that we'd be too late.

  "What about Rex's cell?"

  Ted shook his head. "No prints. One of the deputies hacked into it. There's nothing on there after he was kidnapped. It was just a proof of life. This guy wants to spook you."

  I didn't respond, because I agreed.

  "I've filled Sheriff Carnack in." He nodded to the large man, who nodded back. "And he wants me to keep working on this."

  The meth ring in Bladdersly must be giving him fits. Carnack was doing us a favor by not taking over the case—that allowed me to investigate. I owed the big man one. Maybe when this was over and I got Rex back, I could do a little undercover work for him. Or give him Girl Scout Cookies. Or both.

  "Here's what we know." Ted went to a dry erase board and started writing down the list of our potential suspects. He included Lana and Leiko. I gave Riley a sideways glance, but he appeared to be engrossed in the proceedings. My former handler had told the police about his suspicions. I didn't like it. Especially since I now didn't think Lana or Leiko were involved.

  As Ted rehashed the murders of Spitz and Pratt, his voice trailed off in my head.

  On the other hand, what if Riley was right? What if Vy knew about a connection between Rex and me before? Lana knew both of us because she'd stayed with me about the time I'd met Rex. She also knew about my troop. She might even know who replaced me at Langley. But had she been around long enough to surveil me without me noticing?

  I'm a pretty observant person. Part of my spy training was to notice everything around me, from the eye color of the guy who was staring at me to where all the exits were. It made me good at my job.

  Had I lost my touch? Was it possible that I'd missed seeing Lana around town? I didn't think so. No, if she'd been in Who's There, I'd have known it. The woman was ridiculously gorgeous. I'd just need to follow the trail of stunned men in her wake. I'd seen men faint around her. Someone like that stood out, a huge no-no in espionage.

  Over the years, I was sure my success was due to the fact that I was so ordinary. Average height, build, with forgettable features. Anonymity was the best tool in my kit. Well, and knife throwing. I was very good at knife throwing.

  But, now that I knew what Vy Todd, Harvey Oak, and Prescott Winters III looked like, had I seen them around town before Rex was kidnapped? It seemed impossible that he wouldn't notice them right away since he'd arrested them.

  Who was I kidding? This whole case was impossible.

  Kelly elbowed me hard in the ribs. "Pay attention!"

  That was when I realized that there was one more name on the board under the list of suspects.

  Mine.

  I raised my hand. "Um, why am I up there?"

  Ted realized I hadn't heard whatever explanation he'd just given.

  Ahem. He cleared his throat. "In 99 percent of these kinds of cases, it's usually the spouse who commits the crime."

  "I'm a suspect?" I roared as I got to my feet.

  "He's just looking at it from all possible angles," Kelly said. "You weren't listening."

  We
ir nodded vigorously. "I've put everything on the board that is a possibility."

  That was when I realized there was a lot on the board that wasn't there before. Next to my name was an idea for Rex running away, driving his car off a cliff in an extremely rural area, and the last one just said Twister.

  "We don't get many tornados in December," I grumbled as I sat back down.

  "I don't think you are responsible for Detective Ferguson's disappearance," Ted said with a sigh. "I just have to include everything so I can rule things out."

  I asked, "What about Juliette Dowd? What did you find at her house?"

  He shook his head. "Nothing. Not so much as a fingerprint. Her car was found at the Girl Scout Council office, but she wasn't there. In fact, she hadn't been there in days."

  "You should put her name up there," I said. "She could've taken Rex and run off when things got too hot." It would be really nice if Juliette was the killer/kidnapper. I knew I could take her.

  Ted actually wrote her name under suspects. Huh. He really was doing what he said.

  "What about the postmortems on the two victims?" Linda asked.

  I hadn't thought of that. It was a good thing I had her. I gave her a thumbs-up, and she gave me that smile I'd loved so much as a kid in her class. It made me feel a little better.

  "Mr. Spitz was stabbed through the heart. Bobby Ray Pratt was strangled. Nothing more. Both cases were pretty cut and dried as far as how they died."

  Officer Kevin Dooley walked into the room. He looked at me before handing Ted Weir a file. There was a weird look in his eye as he walked out. Maybe because for the first time since I'd known him, he wasn't eating. I had a bad feeling about this.

  Ted looked through the file then turned his eyes on me.

  "Can I talk to you," he said to me, "in my office?"

  I looked around. Every head swiveled toward me.

  "Sure," I said as breezily as possible. I didn't feel that way inside. I had that feeling you get when you're busted for something you don't remember doing, which is the worst.

  I followed Officer Weir to Rex's office, a little put out that he called it his. He sat at Rex's desk, and I sat in the chair across from him.