Hilly's SUV wasn't in the driveway when we got back. Had she realized she'd been made and flown the coop? For a moment I thought about going over there, but I needed more time to think.
"If Hilly comes looking for me," I said to Rex, "tell her I'm not feeling well."
My husband nodded. "I will." He took me in his arms, and I collapsed against his chest. "I'm sorry, Merry. I know she was someone you trusted."
"Are you going to arrest her?" I asked.
He pulled away and tipped my chin up. "I have to bring her in. In fact, I'm heading to the station to get a couple more officers to help me."
"She's not at the house," I mumbled. "She's probably gone."
Rex agreed. "I have to try. That's my job. Just go to bed. I'll probably be home in a couple of hours empty-handed."
Leonard, Philby, and Martini followed me upstairs, where I collapsed on my bed without changing. Martini climbed up on my chest and passed out on her back, arms and belly splayed to the ceiling. Leonard dropped into his bed on the floor, but Philby didn't join me.
After calling for a few moments, I noticed where she was. The fat feline fuhrer was in the window staring at my old house, her tail switching madly. I got up and turned out the light, joining her at the dark window seconds later. What was she looking at?
Dusk had descended. I stared at my house, running my eyes over the front yard, the windows, and the side facing the street. Nothing was there. After a few minutes, my eyes adjusted, but I still didn't see anything.
Philby, on the other hand, was still agitated. It was probably another cat or a bird that caught her attention. I gave up and got back into the bed. My heart was racing, but that couldn't be helped.
What was I going to do if Hilly was still here? She, I hoped, had no idea that I was on to her. Should I confront her? Would that lead to a fight? And after these last few years, could I take her?
Hopefully she was long gone and we'd never hear from her again. I closed my eyes and wished it to be true. After about twenty minutes of this, I fell asleep.
* * *
I was up at the crack of dawn the next morning, and the first thing I did was look across the street to see if Hilly was at my old house. She wasn't. Well, her car wasn't.
"She's not there," Rex whispered in my ear, making me jump.
"How do you know?"
"I went over"—he held up my house key—"and looked for her."
"Okay," I reasoned. "Then we still don't know that she killed those twins."
Rex cleared his throat. "About that… We found something. It doesn't look good."
I stared at him. Did I want to hear this?
"There was a piece of paper under the pillow in the guest room. It had information on Anna Beth Trident and her sister, Annabelle Trident."
"Anna Beth and Annabelle? What's wrong with their parents?"
Rex ignored me. "It looks like she was here all along to take them out." He handed me the folder that I hadn't noticed him carrying.
I didn't want to read it. I really didn't. But I had to know what was going on. There was no other way.
The page had the CIA logo on it, which was really stupid since it implicated the Agency, and it appeared to be a fax. But I didn't care about that at the moment.
Mug shots of what appeared to be the same woman with two different names stared at me. At that point, they'd been alive. The most interesting thing in the file was the fact that for ten years, the Agency thought there was only one woman—Anna Beth. It wasn't until very recently that they realized there was a sister and that she'd been working with Anna Beth.
Some of the stuff I already knew, in that the women worked for the Chinese government, having been turned ten years ago. Before that, they'd both worked in IT at a major tech corporation.
The women started out in corporate espionage but soon leaned toward military espionage. There was no mention as to why the CIA didn't know ABT had a twin sister who worked with her. And at this point, I didn't care. They were both dead, most likely at the hand of the CIA itself, via my BFF, Hilly Vinton.
"It's kind of strange," Rex started. "Soo Jin called. She believes that Annabelle died before Anna Beth. I'm not sure what that means yet."
I handed the page back to Rex. "What are you going to do?"
"I have to call Ted Vandersloot at the CIA and let him know what we know. I'm sure, as usual, they'll send someone to retrieve Hilly and the bodies."
"You're not going after her?" I asked.
"We are still searching for her. She's considered armed and dangerous. We've alerted Sheriff Carnack and the Iowa State Police."
I shook my head. "I'm sure she's long gone to Bulgaria."
"Bulgaria?"
I waved him off. "Figure of speech."
And then I froze. Maybe she was going after Ahmed. Did she know he was here and that he'd told me about her assignment?
Rex smiled wearily. "At any rate, it'll be a lot of paperwork. I've got to go in early and make these calls." He looked like he remembered something and pulled a newspaper from his back pocket. "I thought you'd like to see this."
The headline on the front page of the Who's There Tribune read, Circus Freak Runs Away—Joins Girl Scouts.
"Medea Jones." I shook my head. "Honestly, you can't tell that girl anything!"
I kissed him. The newspaper was irritating, but I was more distracted by my concern for Ahmed. I mean, he was one of my best cookie customers! Then again, if he was killed, it would most likely null and void his agreements with the other staff over me sending them cases of cookies for favors done.
I changed into shorts, a T-shirt, and a pair of tennis shoes. As I raced out the door, I remembered Riley. This time I wasn't going into danger alone. I picked him up along the way.
* * *
"Who is it?" a falsetto voice asked through the door. "I've got a huge dog in here, and he likes to feed on human flesh!"
"Ahmed!" I shouted. "It's Merry! Let me in!"
The door squeaked open, and Ahmed, dressed completely in drag, stared at us. I didn't have time for pleasantries. I shoved the door open, and Riley and I entered. Riley closed the door behind us and shut the curtains.
Ahmed was wearing a long blonde wig, a tight red dress, fishnet nylons, and pointy flat shoes. The effect might've had a slight chance of being convincing were it not for the thin mustache and scraggly goatee.
"What's this?" I demanded.
"You told me to disguise myself as a woman and to pretend I had a dog."
Well, that was unexpected. "No I didn't! When did I say that?"
"This morning, when you called," Ahmed said.
Riley and I looked at each other.
"Time to go," I said as I shoved the man in a dress back toward the door we'd just come in from.
Ffffft! A bullet tore through the window and curtains, embedding itself in the wall right between us. As we dove toward the floor, three more shots rang out, making a nice, tight grouping where Ahmed, femme fatale, had been standing.
"I didn't call you!" I hissed.
"You didn't?" Ahmed scratched his beard. "You said it was you."
Riley, who was still standing next to the door, pulled out two .45 handguns from his waistband and tossed one to me. I hadn't thought to get guns, and even though I had no idea how he'd gotten his so quickly, I gave a silent thanks for his being prepared.
"Can you see anything?" I asked as I thumbed the safety off.
He got his cell out, held it up to the security eyehole, and took a picture. Riley studied it and shook his head.
"I can make out what looks like a rifle on the roof of the ice cream store across the street," he said. "But the shooter is wearing a black hoodie and sunglasses. It's too far away to even tell if it's a woman."
"Oh," I said. "It's a woman alright." But which one? Lana or Hilly?
Since the gunfire had stopped, I crawled around the bed. There was a door leading to the bathroom at the foot of the bed and a door with similar locks and fish-eye spy hole next to it.
"Two doors?" I asked Ahmed when I crawled back to him.
That was unusual. I hated shootouts in motels for just that reason: once you went in, there was only one way out. This was nice.
"I don't see whoever it is coming this way," Riley said. "But the rifle is gone."
Ahmed began to whimper. "I will never do another favor for you again!"
"Focus!" I snapped. "Where does the other door go?"
He looked confused for a moment but then got the idea. "There's an interior hallway. Goes to the lobby. They have a nice complimentary breakfast there. They even have a waffle maker."
That did sound good. I turned to Riley. "What do you think?"
"We could be surrounded," he said thoughtfully. "But if this is one of our two suspects, my guess is that she is working alone."
I nodded. "You can't see that there's an interior door from the outside. I say we take a chance and go out that way."
Riley nodded before jamming a desk chair up underneath the doorknob.
"I want to change," Ahmed demanded.
"No time!" Still on all fours, we crawled around the bed toward the other door. Riley brought up the rear.
I held my phone up to the peep hole, took a picture, and brought it down to see what was there. A dark, narrow hallway. I couldn't see the end. Why were they always dark hallways? Why not brightly lit hallways? I could've used that about a thousand times in my career.
I shook my head at Riley. He nodded, shoving Ahmed off to the side of the doorway as I reached up and opened the door, quickly dropping to the floor, gun drawn, as I aimed down the hall.
"No shots," I said. "Let's go."
"You know," Riley said, "Rex is going to be pissed that you got yourself into trouble so quickly after the quarry and Lana's torture hideout."
"Lana?" Ahmed squeaked. "Lana Babikova?"
I didn't answer because I was already halfway down the hall. There were four other doors that lined the hallway. We'd have to be quiet. It was possible that Hilly or Lana could've run around to this side and was waiting to ambush us behind any of them.
"Should I keep crawling?" Ahmed whimpered.
I smothered a temptation to answer that sarcastically. Instead I held a finger to my lips as Riley lifted him to his feet.
"Do exactly what we say," he told the quivering CIA analyst who was dressed like a woman.
Ahmed nodded. He'd never really been a field agent. He probably never in a million years thought he'd be in this sort of situation. I couldn't blame him for being upset.
Riley closed the door behind them and shoved Ahmed against the wall, indicating that he shouldn't move or speak. Then he joined me.
"I'll take the end of the hall," he said with a grin. "Isn't this fun?"
"Can't say I missed the opportunity to get shot in a roach motel," I replied. "Go."
Riley took off down the hallway, and I backtracked to Ahmed, keeping my eye on the four doors between us and the way out. My mind reverted to its training, but in the back of my head, I kept going between Lana and Hilly. Which one was it?
They were both about the same size, although Hilly had a more athletic frame. Lana was blonde while Hilly was a brunette, but that could be obscured by an oversize hoodie and sunglasses.
Dammit. Why couldn't this be simpler? I was getting tired of wondering who was going to kill whom. If Hilly really was my friend, it seemed like she should've warned me somehow with: Oh, by the way, I'm off to kill Ahmed. You don't mind, do you?
Someone was running toward us, and I shoved Ahmed to a crouching position as I got in front of him. My gun was trained on the darkness, prepared to shoot if a woman in a hoodie showed up.
Riley emerged, jogging toward us, so I trained my gun on anything that might be behind him. He joined us without even panting. I really needed to ask about that trunkful of junk food. I already felt like I'd gained five pounds at the quarry.
"We have a problem," he whispered as he pointed toward the hall's end. "That's the lobby. And right now, there's a dead hippie slumped over the counter with a bullet hole in the middle of his forehead."
"Milton!" Ahmed squeaked. "He was nice. Let me have extra yogurt."
I ignored him. "She's already there. That was fast."
Riley nodded. "Looks like a trap."
I looked around. "We could go back the way we came. Or through one of these doors."
Riley scowled. "I hate getting civilians involved needlessly. Look at poor Milton."
Ahmed groaned. "He loaned me this outfit. I think it was his."
"Right," I said. "Back the way we came."
I opened the door and swept the room. Nothing had changed, but I still checked under the bed, in the closet, and the shower. Then I motioned for Ahmed and Riley to come in.
Riley closed and locked the door behind him, shoving a cheap nightstand against it.
We were officially barricaded in.
Riley called 9-1-1 and requested a SWAT team while I broke the bathroom mirror and used a shard to check the window. I knew where the sniper would've been but couldn't see her.
Riley finished his call and, after shoving Ahmed into the bathtub, joined me.
"They're on their way."
"You know what?" I said. "It's kind of nice to work in a First World country where we can just call for backup."
I wasn't kidding. Most of the time Riley and I had worked in places where we were the only cavalry. Knowing that Des Moines' best was on its way was a small consolation. They'd pull up and surround the hotel, following the standard playbook.
The only problem was they didn't know how a spy sniper would operate. That came down to Riley and me.
"What do you think?" I asked as we stood against the wall between the bathroom and the door to the outside.
Riley shrugged. "I thought I'd miss all this, quite frankly. But right now I wish I was back in my little office in Who's There."
I agreed. "Yeah. I know how you feel. I've been kidnapped twice, tied to a bed and threatened with torture, fell off a cliff, and swam through a reservoir to find a dead body—all in a few days. It's exhausting."
There were no gunshots, no sirens in the distance. It was quiet. From experience, I knew this was misleading. Even if the sirens were closing in, you weren't safe until you were out of the line of fire. And we weren't.
The sound of someone in the hallway running toward us made Riley run to that door and get to the side of it. We couldn't automatically assume it was the sniper. It could've been the maid or the occupants of the other rooms who'd just discovered Milton and were diving for cover.
"Why hasn't she moved in for the kill?" I asked.
"Maybe she decided against it, knowing we are here and armed."
"Ugh." I made a face. "Then we have to explain it all to the local law enforcement. We'll be here hours until they confirm our side of the story."
Riley nodded. "Hilly could now be on her way back to Who's There."
I narrowed my eyes. "Or Lana is halfway into the countryside by now."
Sirens wailed in the far distance. I estimated we had about five minutes.
"You just can't give up the idea that Lana is responsible for this, can you?" Riley shook his head.
"What about you?" I demanded. "I was right. Lana is here, trying to kill me."
We seethed in silence.
"Maybe she's after you right now," Ahmed shouted from the bathtub hopefully.
I ignored him. "Well, at least we know it's one of two women."
Riley laughed. "And we aren't any closer to finding out who killed Anna Beth and Annabelle."
"Or who stole Erskine Zimmer's experimental crop," I added. "Although my money's on the twins."
Riley stared off into space wistfully. "I really wanted to solve that one."
The sirens were coming closer.
"Well," I suggested, "whoever comes through that door, we can ask them about it before the shootout." I looked toward the bathroom. "I'm pretty sure you and I will make it, but Ahmed's survival is dicey."
"I heard that!" Ahmed squeaked.
Riley nodded. "I give him 50/50."
I agreed. "Yes, but we're here, which gives him an advantage."
"What if he's right and it's Lana here to kill you?"
I thought about that. "Well then, Ahmed's in the clear. You and I, not so much."
A door slammed in the hallway, followed by screaming and another door slamming.
"She didn't kill whoever that was," I suggested. "But it means she's likely in a room on either side of us."
Riley sighed as the sirens at last hit the parking lot. "So, let's say for the sake of argument that it's Lana. She's probably here to kill you. On the other hand, if it's Hilly, she could be here to kill Ahmed or all of us."
"Hilly Vinton?" Ahmed squeaked, grabbing the shower curtain for support. "You have to get me out of here!"
We ignored him.
"Come out with your hands up!" a man on a megaphone shouted from the parking lot.
"Does he mean us?" Riley asked.
I looked at Ahmed. "We could send him out and see if they shoot him."
"Hey!" Ahmed began to tremble.
Riley shook his head. "He's too unpredictable." He called the police station and was connected to one of the guys in charge outside. "Hey, I'm Riley Andrews," he said. "I'm the one who called you."
Riley explained our situation, and I heard some mumbling on the other end. Then he hung up.
"They want us to wait while they clear the lobby."
"Not a chance," I said. "She'll barrel right through that door."
Ahmed fainted. Which was good because he was safer prone in the bathtub.
An idea occurred to me, and I smiled. "Unless we get to her first."
We left Ahmed in the tub, and after closing the door to the bathroom, we flung open the door to the hall. I took the room on the right, while Riley took the one on the left. We kicked down the doors simultaneously and went in, guns blazing.
I'd always liked that phrase…guns blazing. I had no idea what it means. Who sets a gun on fire? And if you did, it certainly wouldn't operate properly.
The room was empty. I moved quickly to check under the bed and in the closet. The bathroom door was open, and I jumped into the room, but there was no one there. Then I heard it. The back door to the room banged open. She was on the move!
Riley popped in and shook his head, but I was already after the sniper. To my surprise, there was no police presence here, which was bad because they didn't shoot the sniper and good because they didn't shoot me.
The sniper was nowhere to be found.
"Are you sure it was her?" Riley asked as he joined me in the doorway. "It could've been a resident."
I started to move, but something went crunch beneath my feet. Kneeling down, I saw something I didn't expect to see. After pocketing it, I turned to Riley.
"What was that?" he asked.
"An ID card, of sorts," I said grimly.
He narrowed his gaze. "You know who the killer is."
I nodded. "I know who the killer is. I have to get out of here to cut her off at the pass, if she's going where I think she's going."
Riley nodded. "I'll buy you some time. Go."
And so I left.