CHAPTER TEN

 

"You what?"

My cell buzzed. I was about to turn it off, in light of the huge disagreement Riley and I were about to have, when I saw the text message: Leaving now to drop Finn off.

Oh crap. I forgot I was supposed to babysit Finn today. I couldn't back out. Kelly really needed a break.

"You have to go." I got up and pulled Riley off the sofa. Philby and Martini woke up and complained loudly. "We will resume this later. But I'm babysitting Finn in a few minutes, and I don't want our goddaughter to see us fighting."

"Fine." Riley sniffed. "I'll go to your house."

I was about to protest, but then realizing that he'd have to sleep on a mattress full of bullet holes seemed strangely satisfying, so I handed him a key.

"When I'm done"—I glowered at him—"you're coming back here and explaining this to me."

Riley said nothing. He just walked out the front door of Rex's house and into the front door of mine. I heard the door slam just as Kelly pulled up.

I ran outside, shoving all of my anger aside and pasting on a smile. Kelly got out and handed me my sleeping namesake, still in her carrier. All of my fury melted away, and my heart was filled with warm, fuzzy thoughts. Finn was so adorable! I'd show her and her mother that I could handle responsibility. Riley could stew across the street. He could wait. I needed a few hours with this baby.

"Hold on." Kelly walked around to the trunk. "I've got the rest of the stuff."

Rest of the stuff? Oh. She was talking about bottles and that kind of thing. That would be easy too. I'd googled formula and found out the ratio to mix is on the container. In fact I was feeling pretty proud of myself. Whatever else she had in the car, I could handle it.

I was wrong.

Kelly pulled out a pink bag that looked like something a soldier would take with him on a two-year international assignment. I wasn't even sure I could lift it. Okay, I could handle that. She was just being thorough. I probably wouldn't need it much.

"Here's her special chair." Kelly grunted as she lifted something that looked like fabric flung across two bent wires. "I usually feed her in this. Just don't set the vibration too high or she'll spit up."

Vibration?

A long, large basket came next. It was white wicker and had a little mattress inside.

"She sleeps in this." Kelly set it on the sidewalk next to the other stuff.

"She can't just sleep in her car seat thingy?" I asked.

"Is that a baby?" I hadn't noticed that Ethel, the old deaf lady next door, had joined us.

"She's sleeping!" I hissed.

"Ethel?" Elmer called from inside the house. "Someone stole my pants!" He stepped out on the stoop wearing boxers and a T-shirt.

In spite of the fact she was sleeping, I covered Finn's little eyes, thus demonstrating to Kelly that I was responsible.

"It's a baby!" Ethel clapped her hands together in glee.

"I'll come out…" Elmer started down the steps toward us.

I scooped up the giant pink bag in one hand and, with the baby in the other, fled into the house. I set the carrier down and did the fastest run ever to the sidewalk to get the chair and basket. Kelly had already driven away. Apparently, she didn't want to see Elmer and his missing pants.

By the time I got back inside, Philby and Martini were sitting next to the carrier staring at Finn, who was fortunately still asleep. These three had been acquainted for some time, but the cats looked confused that the baby was on their turf.

"Let her be, guys," I whispered as I gently lifted the carrier and put it on the dining room table.

Philby jumped up beside the baby while Martini found a sunny spot on the floor and passed out.

"Kelly won't be back for a few hours," I told the cat for some reason. "We need to take good care of Finn, okay?"

I wasn't sure why I was asking my cat to do this. But hey, she was a mom. Maybe she'd had some experience in this area. Not that I needed any help. The baby was snoozing peacefully and would probably stay that way until Kelly returned. Easy.

Philby walked over to the giant pink bag and sniffed gingerly. Which peaked my curiosity. What was in there that was so important that Finn couldn't be without it for even two hours?

After a glance at the baby to make sure she was still asleep, I sat down on the floor next to Philby and unzipped the bag. It was packed so tightly that it burst open. Dozens of tiny diapers, two huge boxes of wet wipes, one large canister of formula, a gallon of distilled nursery water, and ten baby bottles popped out of the opening.

Take a deep breath, Wrath. You'll be fine.

I picked up one of the diapers. At least these were disposable. I don't know what I'd do if they were cloth. I opened it up and saw that one side had little tape thingies and there was elastic around the leg holes. But how did it go on the baby? With the tape in front or back? I gave Philby a look.

She didn't go anywhere. In fact she just lay there on her back as I proceeded to put the diaper on her. Hmmm…the tail would be a problem. Jumping to my feet, I ran into the kitchen and returned with scissors. I cut a hole on both sides that I thought would be generous enough and reapplied the diaper to my cat.

Philby made no complaint. Either she understood that with her help a major crisis would be narrowly avoided, or she was plotting my murder in the middle of the night. It only took a few tries to realize that the diaper worked best with the tabs in the back. Philby stood, and after arching her back, strutted around the house wearing the diaper—her tail flicking wildly back and forth.

The baby began to cry, striking terror into my heart, and I ran over to check on her. Finn saw me and smiled. Well, that was good. Maybe she just wanted to be held. I lifted her from the car seat and discovered that her diaper had tripled in weight and smelled like a dead animal. No problem! I knew just what to do!

I grabbed a towel from the bathroom and laid the baby on it. With a stack of diapers and both boxes of wipes, I carefully pulled the tapes off and slid the diaper out from under her.

Oh. My. God.

The contents of the diaper was enough to make me grab my cell to call for help. I hung up halfway through tapping out the number. Kelly was taking a nap. She did not need me interrupting to tell her I think her baby had expelled the equivalent of a New York City sewer. It could be that this was normal—and if it was, I was never ever having a baby.

I wrapped the diaper up and re-taped it, feeling pretty proud of myself that I'd managed to get none of that toxic sludge on anything else. Then I opened the box of wipes and pulled about forty out.

They were cold. How did I know that? From the look of shock that crossed Finn's face when I began cleaning her up. I tried to do it quickly, but the wipes were thin and not very absorbent. It took half the box before I felt like my goddaughter was clean enough to diaper. The pile of wipes was about three feet tall. I wanted to throw them out, but I couldn't leave Finn.

Philby walked past, still wearing her diaper, her tail still switching violently. She hadn't taken it off. That seemed a little weird, but then cats are strange.

Finn smiled at me and began kicking her legs furiously. It stopped me in my tracks. Was she having a seizure? She kicked her legs in a bicycle-like pattern, her fists opening and closing, and now her face was the picture of concentration. Was she trying to run? Where would she go? I know she's old enough to sit up on her own, but was she able to walk? At least she wasn't upright.

I slid the diaper beneath her little bottom and taped it together. The seizure stopped. Clearly I'd just saved the day from something. Now where should I put her? The basket thing was out of the question because she wasn't asleep. And it seemed cruel to put her back in the car seat. That left me with the weird chair Kelly had mentioned earlier.

I put the contraption on the table. It looked like a baby slingshot. That didn't seem right, catapulting babies. But what did I know? I noticed a strap in front that appeared to connect to the chair on each side, with holes for the legs, and I quickly strapped her in. After congratulating myself for figuring that out, I took the dirty diaper and wipes to the kitchen, where they filled the trash can.

Finn began running again, and the chair started to bounce up and down. That was cool. I'd kind of like a chair like that. No matter how hard she kicked her legs, the chair absorbed the movement, and she seemed to like that. Maybe I should feed her while she's trapped. Wouldn't Kelly be impressed that I'd changed her diaper and fed her? That would be a total win-win.

There were ten jars of baby food in the bag. Seriously, how long was Kelly planning to be gone? I unloaded them, placing the jars side by side on the table for closer inspection. There were carrots, peas, squash, and many more vegetables and fruits—all looking equally disgusting. Pears. I'd go with pears. Sure I wanted props for feeding Finn, but there was no way I was giving her something icky. I was going to be the fun godmother who only dished out the good stuff, so pears it would be.

The jar opened easily, which was nice. And Kelly had packed a long, tiny spoon coated with rubber. When Finn saw it, she started licking her lips and kicking harder. Oh yeah, I'm a natural. I can already read her and know what she needs. Kelly would be all Merry! You're my savior! And You are the best godmother in the universe!

I dipped the spoon into the goopy liquid, bringing up a very healthy portion. Finn opened her mouth and clamped down on the spoon. But as I pulled it away, she spit the food back out, and it ran in blobs down her chin.

I grabbed the wet wipes and used the other half of the box to clean her up, congratulating myself on not feeding her the obviously staining prunes or carrots. But how did I keep her from doing this again? A moment of inspiration hit, and I snatched a dish towel from the kitchen, gently tucking it under Finn's chin.

Philby jumped up onto the table and trotted over, the diaper crinkling as she sat down. She would hopefully sniff the spoon and pull away. What? Did she think I'd feed the baby tuna? Clearly Philby didn't know anything about babies.

Not like me. I was quickly turning into an expert on babies. And that was without training.

We tried a smaller spoonful, and Finn didn't spit it out. This was good because I was wondering if I could wrap her in a towel, shove the food down her throat, hold her mouth closed, and blow on her face like I had to when medicating my cat.

Halfway through the jar, Finn seemed less enthusiastic. She wanted to grab Philby who for some reason didn't have a problem with that. My cat just sat there while a baby tore out handfuls of fur. I was so impressed that I decided the cat would get a whole tin of tuna tonight.

That's when I noticed the buttons on the side of the chair. On and Off they said, daring me to touch them. What did they do? Kelly said something about it…but I couldn't remember. So should I turn it on? It couldn't be that bad if it was on a baby chair, right?

I switched the on button, and the chair began to vibrate. Nice. Now I really wanted a chair like that. Maybe one big enough for me and Rex. Finn's chubby cheeks were jiggling, and we both smiled. This was a good thing! Finn liked it! So, of course, I decided to turn it up to the next level. I mean, if she liked this, she'd love the next level, right?

I hit the button again, and this time the chair vibrated so hard that it started to move across the table. Well, that was not good. I had just pulled the chair from rocketing off the edge of the table when I noticed that Finn's eyes were open wide like she wanted to tell me something. That was when it happened.

She barfed. Not just on herself and the towel…but on the chair. On me. On the table. Somehow Philby escaped the mess, but I was covered in regurgitated pears. I switched the chair off and remembered what Kelly had said. Oh. Right.

I mopped the baby up using half of the other box of wipes (it now made sense that my best friend had packed so much) and stripped off my T-shirt. My bra was a little wet, but it wasn't vomit stained, so I didn't worry about it. I lowered the chair to the floor, and Martini bounced over, wondering what she'd missed. Upon seeing Philby's diaper she dragged one out of the open bag and brought it to me.

I should've put on another shirt, but Martini was pretty insistent. So once again I got out the scissors, only making a hole on one side this time, and diapered the kitten. Martini strutted around like she was the living end while I threw another huge stack of wipes into an overflowing kitchen garbage can.

When I came back into the living room, something seemed off, but I couldn't put my finger on it. Finn was cooing at the cats. The cats were sitting there…wait…what's that in Philby's mouth?

A long, skinny piece of gray yarn dangled from her mouth. Which was weird because as far as I knew, Rex hadn't taken up macramé. Was the piece of yarn…moving?

Philby lowered her head to the floor and spit out a mouse that was running before his four feet hit the floor. The two cats started chasing the mouse, which was dodging his feline Stormtroopers by running in circles around the baby chair. I ran over and tried to swat at the mouse, but he'd decided it was safer being around me than the cats.

"Go! Get! Scat!" I shouted as I waved my arms at the rodent.

Philby and Martini split up, each stalking their prey from a different direction. They no longer resembled the snuggly cats I knew and looked more like the hunting velociraptors from Jurassic Park…if those velociraptors had diapers on, that is.

Finn, determined to get in on the fun, began to squeal loudly, kicking her legs and waving her arms. She knew something was up and decided she wanted in on this action. The mouse was on its back legs, trying to decide which way to go as Philby and Martini closed in.

This was not good. I needed to get the mouse out of here before Kelly came back. If she knew I'd allowed a mouse around the baby, it wouldn't matter how many diapers I'd changed or vegetables I'd fed her—I'd never be forgiven.

Unfortunately, the mouse wasn't interested in scoring brownie points for me. He'd figured out an escape route by jumping up onto the baby's chair and racing toward her head. Philby and Martini decided this was a great idea and also jumped onto the chair and the baby. Finn giggled and squirmed as the mouse stopped right above her head. It looked like she was being swarmed.

Without thinking, I shoved the cats off the chair and, reaching behind the baby, pulled the head of the chair back as far as I could before releasing it. The mouse soared through the air, where Philby jumped up and caught it. It was pretty epic. At least no one was there to see it.

"What am I looking at?" Riley's voice came from behind me.

Okay, so this looked bad. He'd walked in to see me shirtless, launching a mouse from Finn's head while my cat snatched it out of the air.

"Why are the cats wearing diapers?" Riley asked as he walked over and unsnapped Finn from her seat, lifting her into his arms. "Why are you letting them put mice on my goddaughter? And why aren't you wearing a shirt?"

The open leer on his face told me that he didn't mind that last part at all.

A million explanations went through my mind, from the truth to a story where the cats put on the diapers and Finn picked up the mouse.

"Why are you here?" I asked.

"I saw you running around like a maniac in a bra," Riley said as he snuggled Finn. "I could see it all from your picture window. I thought something was wrong, and I knew the baby was here."

That seemed legit. I made a mental note to close the front drapes next time. If there'd even be a next time.

"Hold Finn. I'm going to find a shirt." I ran for the stairs.

"You can stay like that…if you want to." Riley grinned.

There was no way I was going to want Rex walking in to find me in a state of undress with Riley, so I ignored his comment and ran upstairs. Reappearing in minutes, wearing a new, vomit-free T-shirt, I walked over to Philby, who once again had a mouse tail dangling from her lips.

"Give me the mouse." I held out my hand.

Not that I actually expected her to do that. And she didn't. Philby kept the mouse and trotted into the bathroom. I followed to find her toss the animal into the tub and climb in with it. The mouse was trapped. Closing the door behind me, I joined Finn and Riley in the living room.

"How did you get in?" I asked.

"The door was unlocked."

"I'm sure I locked it." At least that was what I'd tell Kelly. Strike one against me, except for the mouse-on-the-baby thing.

Riley sat down on the couch with the baby. "Tell you what—I won't tell Kelly about the mouse and the unlocked door if you'll hear me out."

I narrowed my eyes. "I don't want to fight in front of the baby."

I wasn't sure if there was a way for Finn to tell Kelly what happened here. My guess was that, unless she was beyond her years when it came to pantomime, Kelly would never know.

"Fine. I'm going to hold you to that."

Riley nodded. "It's important that you understand what happened."

"You said you wrote about things that happened in the field." I snatched Finn from his arms and sat on a chair.

Riley had the good grace to look embarrassed. "I know it was stupid. But you have to admit—we've had some pretty crazy stuff happen in the field. I figured someday it would make a great book."

"We? The movie didn't have you in it. It only had some nitwit playing me! And why the hell was I a guy anyway?"

"You can't blame me for that! I had you as a woman in my manuscript."

I stared at him. "So in the last five minutes it went from being a few notes to a full manuscript. If you keep lying to me, I'm going out to the garage to get Rex's blowtorch."

Riley rolled his eyes. "Now you're just overreacting."

I covered Finn's ears before I blew up. "Overreacting?? Are you joking? I just saw my whole career played out on the big screen. The CIA is coming to get me…whatever that means…and we have two dead bodies because of your stupid little book!"

"Hey!" he said a bit defensively. "It's not stupid! It's a good book! I've put a lot of time into that, and it was totally ready for pitching."

"When? In thirty years when all of those cases become declassified?" Wait…did he just say it was polished and done?

I looked down and saw that Finn had fallen asleep. Very quietly I carried her into the dining room and put her into the basket thing, moving it to the doorway so that I could see her, but hopefully she wouldn't be able to hear us.

"I figured I might be able to approach the deputy director to get a pass…" Riley scowled. "Did you say two dead bodies?"

I threw my hands into the air. There was no reasoning with him. At this point I resorted to chewing him out.

"Most of the book would have to be redacted! You know this! You've seen what's happened to agents who've written books before!"

My first year out of the Farm (the training location for agents), a guy I didn't know had tried to sell his book about his experiences in the UK. The UK! And his stuff was boring! I guess he'd rescued one of the queen's corgis once or something. And he wasn't just shut down—he was transferred to Greenland for twenty years. And, as we all know, nothing ever happens in Greenland. As far as I knew, he was still there.

Another time, two secretaries wrote a novel together about a fictional field operative in Chile. They made up the whole book. Not one word was true. And they got sent to the mail room. Permanently. Greenland was a better alternative to the mail room at Langley. It was dingy, and they had bats.

"Two dead bodies, Wrath." Riley was no longer struggling. His calm, composed manner was back. "Explain."

I could've argued with him, but what was the point? The only way to get any real answers was to tell him what had happened. So I told him about Dewey the Pizza Guy and Tim Pinter. Riley listened quietly, patiently taking it all in.

"So you didn't have anything to do with those murders?" I asked.

He shook his head. "No. Why?"

"I had kind of hoped it was you who killed Pinter."

"You just said you fired your weapon through the guest room bed and closet! You thought you were shooting me?"

"No. Not at the time. But later I thought you might have been behind it."

His eyes narrowed. "I don't kill in cold blood, Wrath. And not just for a movie."

"Maybe you were worried Pinter was booby-trapping my house. He was ex-CIA."

The two of us considered this quietly.

"You didn't know him, did you?" I asked.

"Never heard of him. But that doesn't mean anything. I don't know everyone."

That was true. The CIA didn't exactly have an annual yearbook or interoffice newsletter. There were a lot of spies I didn't know even existed.

"I can ask Maria…" I started.

Riley cut me off. "I don't think you should do that. We don't know how far up this goes."

My jaw dropped. "You're joking. I totally trust Maria. It's you I'm not so sure of."

This seemed to anger Riley, and he said nothing in reply. Had it hurt when I'd said that? Trust was so important out in the field. You had to trust the people you worked with because there was no one else.

"You should trust me, Merry," he said quietly.

"Why should I trust someone who's been in town, shadowing me for days, without letting me know?"

"I couldn't tell you anything until I knew what was going on."

"Really? Or were you hoping you could figure out who stole your damn book and leave town before I even knew you'd been here?"

"That's not fair," he said.

"What's not fair"—I picked up the conversation—"is you not answering my calls. Is you writing a secret book about my exploits that you hoped to make money on—and we're going to get back to that, by the way. You've been hiding from me."

Riley took a deep breath. "I didn't kill your pizza man or the ex-agent in your guest room. I swear it. I have no idea who they are."

I tried a different track. "Does the CIA know you're here?"

"Not exactly…"

"Not exactly? Could you be more specific?"

"They think I'm on vacation in the French Riviera."

"Should I make french fries tonight so that you can feel you're really there?" I sniped.

Riley didn't answer.

"So you've gone rogue."

Going rogue wasn't like you see in the movies or on TV. Going rogue was a career-ending decision with the possibility of jail time. Significant jail time.

"I honestly thought I could take care of this without you knowing."

"It's kind of hard to do that when the CIA thinks I'm the leak. They're swarming Hollywood as we speak. Zeke says fourteen agents at least."

He frowned. "Zeke? You talked to Zeke?"

I stared at him as if he'd grown a unicorn horn out the middle of his forehead.

"Well, duh. He's my only contact there. I was hoping he'd know who was behind this." I thought about what he'd said minutes ago.

"Hey! You were hoping to leave town before I knew you were here! Did you think I'd just get blamed for your screw-up and you could head back to the Riviera and let me take the fall?"

"I wasn't hoping for that. I was hoping they'd see that you weren't involved and leave you alone."

"After a full investigation!" It didn't matter that I'd left the Agency a couple of years ago. I'd still be under suspicion on a possible actionable offence.

"I hoped it wouldn't go that far," he responded.

I sighed. "You were pinning your getaway on a lot of iffy hopes."

"So what now?" he asked.

"What do you mean?" I said darkly. "You are going to explain to Langley that you screwed up. That your book fell into the wrong hands. That I had nothing to do with all of this."

"I'm not sure that's a good idea." Riley steepled his fingers.

"For you, maybe. But for me, totally. You do realize that someone invaded my home to do who knows what. Your actions could've gotten me killed."

How could I make him see that this was a huge mess? Riley had never done anything like this before. Who was this idiot in Rex's living room? Not my once loyal partner. This Riley was dangerous. This Riley wanted me to take the fall for his own stupidity.

"Okay. Fine," he said.

"What do you mean by that?" I asked.

"I'll stay here and help you find out what's going on."

My sarcasm went into overdrive. "Oh, thank you. That would be such a big help. What would I ever do without you…besides being blamed for something I didn't do, I mean?"

"What's going on?" Rex asked from the doorway to the kitchen.

"Why is your cat wearing a diaper?" Kelly asked from the front door. She checked out the bassinet and seemed relieved to find the baby in it.

I really had to do something about my best friend thinking I was a bad babysitter.

"Riley has finally decided to come out of hiding and join us," I said. "He's going to use all of his resources to find out what's going on. Isn't that right?" I turned to Riley.

He grimaced. "Do I have a choice?"

I shook my head. "No. You do not."

Rex cleared his throat. "Well, I brought dinner from the new Italian place. I'm sure there's enough for four. I think we should sit down and have a little chat."

Kelly waved us off. "I should get home. Thanks for watching her, Merry. I didn't realize you'd have Riley helping you."

Through clenched teeth I said, "He just got here. He didn't help me. I did it all by myself." I explained the changing of the diaper and the feeding of the pears.

Kelly looked unimpressed. Rex and Riley helped her pile everything into the car, and we watched as she drove away.

Oh well, at least we didn't have to split dinner four ways now. I could fill Kelly in later on what an amazing babysitter I was. We walked back into the house and heard a fierce flurry of cat paws coming from the bathroom. Rex opened the door, and a proud, diapered cat strutted out.

"Oh, yeah, and there's a mouse in your tub," I said.

Rex took the now dead mouse out back while Riley and I got the food out, and I made my former boss swear not to tell Rex what had happened here either.

As we ate, Rex filled Riley in on the stuff I'd just told him. He just went into more detail than I had. At least Riley listened. I would've spoken up a few times, but the garlic bread and ravioli were so good that my mouth was full the whole time. I needed to know more about this new Italian restaurant. I wonder if they'd set up a regular delivery.

"The screenplay? You found a copy of the screenplay?" Riley asked. "I need to see that."

Rex looked at me questioningly.

"He wrote the book the script was based on," I muttered as I snatched up another piece of bread.

Rex turned slowly to Riley. "You wrote the book? What is she talking about?"

Riley stalled. My guess was that he didn't want Rex to think the same things I'd thought—that Riley had written a book about my life and was hoping to exploit it for his own financial gain. I waited to see what he'd say.

"I wrote a book. About our time together in the field. It was all work stuff. And it was somehow stolen and made into this movie."

I gave Rex a sort of I-don't-know-what-to-think-about-that look that hopefully told him I wasn't involved.

"Can I see the screenplay?" Riley asked with the confidence of a man who didn't have a care in the world. It was a dangerous game, considering that Rex might just take offense to the idea that my former boyfriend was using me to become a best-selling author.

"I suppose…" Rex answered. "They confiscated it but just shoved it into a desk drawer. I'll snag it and bring it home tonight. But you'll look at it here. It won't leave my house. And I'm taking it back tomorrow morning."

What? Rex was going to help Riley? Riley didn't deserve that.

Riley nodded. "Thanks."

Rex said, "No problem."

What was happening here? Was I the only one who thought I'd been screwed? And not in the good way?

"But after dinner I want you to head over to Merry's house. She's going to walk you through what happened. I'm sure she's already ignored the caution tape." He gave me a look.

I was going to deny it, but he was right.

"She's in danger, and I want you to keep her safe."

Okay, that was nice.

"But my station is crawling with agents that I'd like out of my hair. I'm giving you three days. If you can't find out what's going on, I'm turning you in to your superiors."

Ooh! Way to drop the hammer! I liked it!

Riley thought about this for a moment while Rex and I continued to eat. It was taking a little too long. I was about to brain Riley with a chair when he finally spoke up.

"Of course. It's the least I can do."

The men shook hands, and Rex headed back to work. It was late, but he'd explained that with the CIA in town there was a considerable amount of paperwork that had to be done.

Riley put the leftovers away and washed the dishes. I just stood and watched. I was still pretty angry with him. None of this selfishness was like Riley. He'd never sold me out before. Or maybe he'd just never had the opportunity or need to do so in the past.

Had he always been like this? How could I have missed it? Up until an hour ago, I'd trusted my former handler with my life. Now I wasn't so sure. It made me wonder if I was a bad spy. That I'd missed all the telltale signs over the years. I couldn't remember him following me around with a notebook and pen or using a digital recorder when I reported in. From what I'd seen so far, he must've been taking notes because my memory wasn't that thorough.

It could be that Riley was behaving like this for the first time. That he'd come up with the idea of writing the book, completely overlooking the fact that it was a terrible idea. Forgetting the fact that I'd be the first person the CIA looked at.

Part of me wanted to grab the cats and run away until this was sorted. I figured I could take a vacation myself. Let Riley handle it all while my kitties and I sunned ourselves on an obscure, hidden-away beach somewhere. I wondered if cats could get sunburned.

The other part of me though, the one that was far more logical, wanted to keep an eye on Riley. Stick to him like glue. Make sure he followed through with Rex's directive. Give him a chance to prove he wasn't a world-class jerk. And if he didn't shoulder the weight, I'd turn him in.

I'd have to decide soon. The dishes were done, and Riley was standing there, staring at me. I guess I'd been in la-la land a little too long.

I pulled my keys out of my back pocket. "Let's get this over with," I said as I pushed him out the back door.

 

*   *   *

 

"You shot my bed?" Riley stared at the guest room mattress, stunned.

"Your bed? This was never your bed." Granted, Riley had the bad habit of dropping in and staying with me whether I'd wanted him to or not. But this wasn't his bed.

Riley ignored me as he touched the splintered wood of the closet door. "And my closet?"

"I shot up my bed and my closet," I insisted. Seriously, my Girl Scouts weren't this obtuse. "Wait, you've been here for a couple of hours already. How did you miss this?"

He shrugged. "I stayed in the living room and watched you."

"Gee, that's not at all creepy." I rolled my eyes.

So I walked through the room, explaining everything to Riley—especially the part that I didn't understand about how the killer had gotten out. He wandered around, touching everything as he listened.

"And you thought I'd killed him?" he asked.

I nodded. "I'd seen you around and knew you were in town." Okay, so that's a lie. I suspected he was here, but I'd also suspected I was hallucinating. No point in telling him that though.

Riley stuck his finger in one of the bullet holes on the bed. "You really thought I was under this bed and then fired?"

"Why are you here, Riley?" I asked again.

"You could've killed me!"

"But I didn't. Quit stalling, and tell me why you thought showing up here would help you find who took your damn book!"

Riley turned his gorgeous blue eyes on me, and his charm level shot up to fifty. But it wasn't going to work this time.

"Alright." He held up his hands. "I thought maybe you'd taken it."

"You thought what?"

"I thought you'd taken the book. That somehow you'd found out that I'd written it and had decided to steal it."

I closed my eyes and shook my head. "If I'd known you'd written a book about my exploits, I wouldn't steal it first. I'd kick your ass first. And then I'd destroy it, and then I'd kick your ass again. How could you possibly think I'd sold it to whoever?"

He shook his head. "I didn't know what to think. I was starting to panic. You just seemed like the most logical first step."

"I didn't know anything about it! How could I know you'd do something like that?"

"I'm sure I told you that I'd always wanted to write a book," he said casually.

My jaw dropped. "I didn't know anything about that! You never told me that. And even if you had, I'd never guess that you'd betray the Agency this way. Or me!"

"I didn't betray you!" He got to his feet so that he could look me in the eye.

"It never occurred to you that you'd get into trouble with this book?"

Who was this guy? It was like I was seeing a whole new side of my former partner. He'd never told me he'd wanted to be a novelist. I'd have remembered that. And writing down classified information to publish just seemed like a rookie mistake. Not something Riley would do.

But I was tired of arguing with him. The sooner we figured this out the sooner he'd go home and I could get ready for the mud run.

"Uh-oh."

"What is it?" Riley asked.

"I have a Scout meeting in five minutes!"

He frowned. "This is a weird time to have a meeting."

I agreed. "We've got a mud run coming up the day after tomorrow, and we have a strategy session planned for tonight."

I raced to the back door, followed by Riley. I ignored him as I came around to the front of the house and started heading up the street toward the school. How had I forgotten this? It was very important to the girls.

"Mrs. Wrath!" The girls cheered as I came into the classroom where we held our meetings. We didn't usually have meetings in the evenings, but this was the night that the local Boy Scouts met here, so we had piggybacked onto that.

"Mr. Riley!" they shouted.

Kelly came forward to hug him. She'd change her tune when I told her what he'd done. Or maybe she wouldn't. She adored Riley. She probably thought Riley had done all the work in babysitting Finn earlier.

"What's going on, ladies?" Riley turned his full charm on the girls. I had to admit—he was pretty good with them. He seemed more relaxed. He'd come a long way since the first time he'd met the girls—although part of that was my fault for planting candy in his jacket pockets.

"We're gonna win the mud run!" Ava announced.

"We murdered the Boy Scouts." Inez grinned.

"Boy Scouts?" Riley asked.

"I'll explain later. Okay, girls! Let's sit in a circle. We've got a lot to do and only one hour to do it."

"Am I late?" Soo Jin Body stuck her perfect and flawless head through the door.

I glared at Kelly, who shrugged. Great.

I couldn't help but notice Riley's face light up as he saw her. I watched as the two greeted each other. I felt a little twang of…what was that…rage? Jealousy? That was ridiculous. Riley wasn't mine. In fact if he dated her, she'd be less interested in Rex. So why was I upset?

Once everyone was seated, Kelly went over the rules for the race.

"You have to be good sports," she said. "We can't let competition get the best of us."

The girls nodded solemnly as if they were taking an oath to defend America. Maybe in their little brains they were.

"I know I won't be there, but I expect a clean race and no cheating."

Riley raised his hand, which I had to admit was kind of adorable. "What's a mud run?"

The four Kaitlyns started talking at once. No, that's not right. They were making sense, but they were filling in each other's sentences like a freaky, four-headed Girl Scout.

Soo Jin stood up and unrolled a large map that she clipped to the blackboard. She waited patiently for the girls to finish then stepped up.

"I did a little surveillance yesterday." She turned to the map. "Here's the layout of the course."

It was our local camp. The girls and I knew it well. She pointed at the entrance and moved her finger up the drive to the first lodge.

"It starts here. They have a huge muddy field that we have to cross. It looks like the mud is at least a couple of inches deep. There's about fifty yards of the stuff before the first element."

I stared in amazement. It never would've occurred to me that Dr. Body would sneak into camp and scope out the course. I couldn't help but admire her gumption.

Kelly fidgeted uneasily. "Isn't this cheating?"

Twelve little heads turned to glare at my co-leader, but Soo Jin smiled.

"They had a huge campout this weekend. Two teenagers got hurt. The on-call doctor at the hospital came down with pneumonia, so I volunteered to go." She smiled. "And the course parallels the drive throughout camp, so I couldn't help but see the course."

"Are the kids okay?" Kelly asked in her nurse voice.

The coroner nodded. "They fell out of a tree. Only one broken arm. They're fine."

"Go on!" Betty shouted.

Our perpetually impatient kid, Betty was also our go-to for dirty work. She'd make a great spy someday. If they took junior agents at the CIA, I'd have recommended her already.

Soo Jin made sure Kelly was satisfied before continuing. "The first obstacle is a set of ropes hanging from a wooden frame. You have to swing across—over more mud—to get to the other side. Then you run for about one hundred yards and hit the archery course."

Ugh. Archery. The last thing I wanted was my girls near any sort of pointy missile.

Kelly frowned. "The girls aren't old enough to do archery. They have to be in fourth grade for that."

Dr. Body grinned. "They aren't doing archery there. They're putting on snowshoes."

Snowshoes? Unless I'm wrong, snowshoes work best in snow. It was September—still warm, sunny days with no hope for snow anytime soon.

"Once you have the snowshoes on, you have to walk across a balance beam—over more mud."

I had to admit, I liked where this was going. And we had an advantage because we'd done a weekend at camp last winter, and the girls had done a little snowshoeing of their own. We knew how to put the shoes on. I was willing to bet that this was an advantage we would have over the other teams.

 "After the balance beam," Soo Jin continued, "we take off the snowshoes and run straight up the berm at the archery area and down the other side."

Kelly interrupted. "You seem to have more information than someone who just drove through camp."

That's my best friend—always worried we'll get busted for cheating. Once, in high school, we had "accidentally" found a copy of an algebra midterm. Turned out later that it wasn't much of an advantage—Mr. Beenk had been using the same test every year for twenty years. Parents had handed the test down to their kids for two decades. (He wasn't a very popular teacher). It still bothered Kelly though. She was going to turn herself in, but I'd stopped her by telling her that she'd be screwing over generations to come if she did that, and Mr. B would probably be angry because he'd be forced to rewrite the test. Seeing how the man was sixty-five, she decided not to say anything.

"Oh," Soo Jin said, "well, once I got home, I found one of the brochures for the contestants in my purse. Accidentally."

I was impressed. And now I was glad the medical examiner was on our team.

"Then we run another fifty yards to another mud pit with beams crisscrossed over it. We have to crawl beneath the beams, through the mud, to get to the other side."

The camp was definitely going all out on this mud thing. Throw in some leeches and a few caimans, and I'd feel like that time I was in Nicaragua.

"Next we run to the canoes, where three people get into each canoe and two people push and pull it over the grass."

"That's not going to be easy," I muttered. "These girls can't pull a canoe filled with people."

Soo Jin nodded. "This is one area where we're really going to need a strategy. The way I see it, there are ten girls and two adults." She pointed at me and herself. "With five people to a canoe, we're going to need everyone."

"Could we disguise a pony as a girl? A pony could pull the canoe," Caterina suggested

"What if we motorized them somehow?" Hannah Number One asked.

"I think we should be taking steroids to pump up," Emily said softly.

"Or," I interjected before they started plotting murder to tip the balance, "we could just make sure one adult is on each canoe. Then both canoes could have one adult pushing or pulling."

"That's a great idea!" Lauren shouted. "Mr. Riley can come too!"

The girls started shrieking, and if I didn't know any better, I'd say Riley looked touched to be included.

"Mr. Riley," I said as I held my hand up in the quiet sign, "probably won't be there."

"I'll be there," he said simply.

The girls squealed, and it took a few minutes to quiet them down.

"Well, we can talk about that later," I said quickly. The last thing I needed was Riley there when he was supposed to be solving our problem. "Please continue, Dr. Body."

"After we've dragged the canoes, we'll come to a huge wall. The goal is to get everyone up and over the wall."

"That's easy!" one of the Kaitlyns said. "We've done that a million times at camp."

Okay, it was more like we had done it once, but I admired her enthusiasm.

"It's another area we need to strategize over," Kelly said.

"After that," Soo Jin added, "we just run all the way down to the lake for the paddleboard race. Then we're done!"

She looked like she'd just explained how to play Candy Land.

"The girls are too young for paddleboards." Kelly made another lame attempt to be a responsible adult.

"They've waived that requirement, and they'll have lifeguards on the water," Soo Jin responded.

"At least if we fall into the lake," I added, "that'll clean the mud off."

"I like it!" Riley clapped his hands together. "How do we get ready for this?"

I gave him a you-aren't-going glare, but he avoided my eyes.

"I still think that knowing this all in advance is a little unfair…" Kelly made her last pitch, but we all ignored her.

"And," the doctor continued, "I know who the other teams are."

"Aren't they other Girl Scout troops?" Hannah Number Two asked. Which was good, because I was wondering if she'd fallen asleep.

"Are they otters?" Lauren asked.

No one commented because it seemed like a reasonable question.

"It's mostly girls. But—" Soo Jin held up one finger. "There's one team that will be out for our blood."

"Why?" I asked. "We don't know any other troops. Who'd want to get us?"

The lovely doctor's eyes settled on one of the Kaitlyns.

"You don't mean…" the girl said and gasped.

"Yup. Brian Miller's troop is competing. Your brother."

Great. They really would be out for our blood. And I was pretty sure Brian would cheat and find ways to injure the girls. He couldn't lose twice to a bunch of little kids. And then I'd have to kill him and dispose of the body. Brian Miller was a pain in the butt.

"Who's Brian Miller?" Riley asked.