Marshmallow S'More Murder (Merry Wrath Mysteries Book 3) (14 page)

"Two guys," I said softly to Maria. "Waiting for us in the gift shop."

"What do you want to do?" she asked, scanning the room. Her eyes stopped when they landed on Ito Jr., and she quickly looked away before being detected.

"You and Evelyn stay with the girls. Try to slow them down. I'm going straight to the end. If they want me, they can have me. Then they should leave you and the girls alone."

"That sounds a bit suicidal to me," Maria said.

I nodded. "Who has more fun than me?" I pretended to take out my cell to check for messages and activated the
Find Your Phone
app, tuning it in to Maria in the contacts list. She watched me and nodded. I knew she'd take good care of the girls. I was just about to return the phone to my pocket when it rang. Perfect. That would be my excuse to leave.

"I've got to take this," I said a little loudly. "I'll double back later."

Maria nodded as I put the phone to my ear and exited the hall.

"Merry?" Rex's voice made me feel a little better.

"Hey," I said as I kept walking steadily toward the exit.

"Is everything alright?" he asked.

Uh-oh. Did he know?

"Why do you ask?" I said, never breaking my stride. I couldn't risk looking behind me to see if Ito was following me. That would be too obvious.

"Robert called. Kelly's in labor, and in between cursing, she called you a few names for putting the girls in danger."

On the one hand, I was flattered that my best friend even mentioned me during what had to be the most painful moment of her life. On the other hand, now my boyfriend knew something was wrong.

I passed through another room, this one displaying the art of disguise. I could use that right now. What should I tell Rex? He was halfway across the country. He'd feel helpless. However, if I was kidnapped and never saw him again, I didn't want my last words to be a lie. Oh sure, I was really good at it, and it would certainly be useful in this situation, but I still didn't want to lie to him.

The beginning of our relationship had been based on a lie when he was investigating me and didn't know I was a former spy. I'd been trying to make that up to him ever since. If I lied now, it could be the end of our relationship. I really didn't want that to happen.

"Merry," Rex said again. "Are you in trouble?"

"Right now, actually," I said in a normal voice. "It's a problem, but the company is working on it."

Okay—that was a lie. I'd intended to call the CIA this morning, and if I had, maybe I wouldn't be in this situation, but I was pretty sure Maria was on the phone to them now. So they would soon be involved. Hopefully that wasn't a big lie.

"I can be there in three hours," Rex's voice hardened. Awww! He wanted to ride to my rescue!

"It's okay." It wasn't. "Don't worry about me." He totally should've.

The main exit was coming up. A couple of tourists ahead of me opened the door to the gift shop, and I spotted the two suits standing there, waiting. Okay, so I kind of got the idea of rectal knives now.

"I'm not going to stay here and wait to hear that something horrible has happened to you!" Rex sounded angry.

"Just sit tight. I'm heading to the gift shop in the International Spy Museum. I'll meet them there. Call my Dad." I hung up but kept the phone to my ear. Rex was smart. He'd figure out what I was trying to tell him and call my father. I'd left their number in case of emergencies. Hopefully, between Maria tracking me and calling in the CIA and Rex letting Dad know that I was about to be kidnapped, someone would come to my rescue.

The cell vibrated against my face, but I ignored it as I opened the door to the gift shop.

"Thanks for checking. I owe you one. Bye." I pretended to hang up and marched straight up to the first suit.

"So what happens now?" I asked him in Japanese as he struggled to keep a blank expression.

I felt something hard pressing into the small of my back.

"Now," the clipped voice of Leiko Ito said behind me, "you go for a little ride with us."

It felt like a gun in my back, but I wasn't sure. No point in taking unnecessary chances. For now, I'd pretend it was.

"Okay," I said, turning to face her. She was, after all, the boss. If I was going to talk to anyone, it would be her. I looked down. Yup. A gun. I hated being right.

"On one condition or you'll have to kill me here," I said, folding my arms over my chest.

Her face hardened. "You are not in a position to negotiate anything."

"Yes, I am. I will go with you three quietly as long as you leave my troop alone. They know nothing about any of this. Only me. Deal?" I wore my best all-business face. This had better work.

Ito considered it for a moment. "What about your friend in there? The Latina? She works for your Agency."

I shook my head. "Just a desk jockey. She's just a friend who took vacation time to help me with the kids. She knows nothing and has never been in the field."

The door opened behind Leiko, and two tourists came into the shop. I heard my girls talking in the distance. I had to get this deal done before they showed up.

"You are sure she knows nothing?" Ito looked skeptical, but I could see her weighing the merits of me leaving quietly with her and her goons.

"Nothing. Do we have a deal? Or do you gun me down in public without getting the information you want?" My heart was pounding in spite of my cool demeanor.

I looked down at the gun again. It was a small .22 caliber pistol. At this extremely close range it would rip into my stomach and intestines. It wouldn't make sense for Ito to shoot me here. It would cause too much of a scene, and they'd have to run off before the ambulance showed up.

But I was sick of all this cat and mouse crap. It needed to end, and it needed to end now. Hopefully, they'd take me to Riley, and somehow we could convince them that we knew nothing about Midori's murder. They'd probably still kill us. The Japanese syndicate wasn't exactly subtle in racking up a body count.

"Fine." Ito nodded to the two men and indicated that I was to follow them to the door. I noticed she shoved her gun into her purse before I turned around. "Let's go. Quietly."

I scanned the shop as I turned around and saw what I needed. Moving slowly, I timed my path to cross with another tourist and crashed into him. The two of us went down, and I reached out to steady my fall as I crashed into a display and palmed a small package of bobby pins that had big, plastic
I (heart) Spies
buttons on them. I tore off one bobby pin and the plastic piece before anyone could spot me. At least I could pick handcuffs now.

Quickly, I jumped up and helped the man I'd knocked over up. A clerk came over to see what happened.

"Sorry!" I apologized. "I tripped." I looked at the startled tourist. "Are you alright?"

The man nodded. "Sorry. I wasn't watching where I walked." The clerk glared at me as I left with my captors, probably pissed off about the mess I'd made. That made me memorable. That was good.

Once outside, one man held the door to a black SUV while the other shoved me into the backseat. Ito sat in the back with me, and the two men were up front. Ito's gun made an appearance again, and she trained it on me.

"What did you think of the museum?" I asked Ito, trying to sound casual.

She rolled her eyes. "Typical Americans—always bragging about yourselves."

"Well, when you're good at what you do…" I shrugged. I wondered if they would blindfold me or knock me out.

Ito said nothing but kept the gun trained on me.

"So, where are we going?" I asked as the car snaked through the streets.

No one spoke, but the man in front of me turned around, armed with a hypodermic needle. Great. I hated being knocked out chemically. It was worse than coming to after a punch. Depending on the chemical used, I'd have one hell of a headache when I came to.

I didn't move as they injected me. There wasn't any point. Ito would have no qualms about shooting me inside of a speeding car, and I didn't want her doubling back to grab a couple of girls.

Within seconds, everything went blurry. Another few and I was out cold.

Something was off. I'd missed something important. What was it? My memory swirled like a violent storm. I'd never heard anything more about Chlotilde. Wait. That wasn't quite right. In fact, that was completely wrong. I knew exactly what happened to her. For some reason, I'd suppressed that information. But why? It didn't make any sense—but a nagging inner voice told me I needed to remember…

I read in the paper a few days later that a female employee of the German Embassy had accidentally fallen on the train tracks exactly when a train was zinging through. Chlotilde was dead. I shrugged it off. I couldn't do anything about it, and I didn't push her.

Riley acted strangely after he heard the news. Maybe he was worried she'd committed suicide because he dumped her. That would be just like him. Arrogant bastard. Jealousy reared up inside me.
Forget about it. It doesn't matter anymore.

I went back to work on my assignment, but it was going nowhere. Japanese officials were difficult to turn. Honor was a big deal here. My time in Tokyo was nearing an end anyway. They were going to ship me to Okinawa for a few days to follow a lead there.

The night before I was to leave, I was having dinner in my favorite restaurant downtown. I had this great booth way in the back, facing the door. The backs of the seats were high, so I could duck down and hide if I needed to. But more importantly, they had the best Kobe steaks on the island. I loved a good, juicy steak and was feeling a little homesick for Iowa, so I thought I'd have one more before leaving.

I was just polishing off some sake when I saw Midori Ito walk in with a huge entourage. Ducking down in my seat, I crawled under the table and sat in the seat with my back to them. I waited a few moments before chancing a glance. Great, they were sitting just one table over. I'd be here a while. As a
gaijin
, I'd stand out like a sore thumb if I tried to leave now.

"…took care of the German bitch…" Midori said. I didn't catch all of it.

My radar went into overdrive. Were they talking about Chlotilde? I shifted a little lower into the booth and strained to listen without looking like I was listening. Not an easy thing to do.

"Interpol trying to involve themselves in our business." One of the men at the table snorted. "Tried to get the CIA to do their work for them."

Were they talking about Chlotilde trying to get me to work for her? How could they know about that? Did that mean they knew about me? I wasn't even involved in investigating the yakuza. At that moment, I was very happy I hadn't taken the German Interpol agent up on it.

"…not even German…American…" Midori snapped.

What? Chlotilde wasn't even German? Damn. She had the accent down. I was impressed and horrified for her at the same time. Could she have been one of ours? It was always possible that I wouldn't know her. My handler, Riley, owed me no explanation. He didn't have to make any of his field agents aware of the others who worked for him.

"…CIA a problem?" someone asked.

"Not anymore," Midori said with a laugh. "You took care of the Limey…keep an eye on Americans…anyway…"

I guess they killed the British mole too. And they were going to watch us for a little while. Maybe I should tell Riley about this.

After that, they lapsed into a discussion of the drug trade. I stopped listening. Not my assignment. Curiosity about cases they weren't involved in got many spies killed over the years. I wasn't going to be one of them.

I had a bigger problem in that I was basically trapped. If they knew Chlotilde had tried to recruit CIA agents, then they probably knew about me. Why did I have to call that number? Now I was screwed by appearing to be involved in something I wasn't involved in. I shouldn't have been surprised. This stuff happened all the time. Of course people were killed for this reason.

The only way out of the restaurant was on the other side of Midori's table. I had to stay. They were there for four hours. By the time I made it out of there, it was very late.

Riley met me back at my apartment. He was pacing in the sparse living room, clearly agitated. I told him what I'd overheard in case it was involved with something else he was pursuing. When I mentioned the assassination of Chlotilde, he turned deathly white. It was unnerving. I'd never seen Riley upset before. Not even when I'd dumped him.

But this was beyond my pay grade, so I didn't pursue it. If he'd lost an agent, he'd need some time to deal with it. Instead I packed my duffel and the next morning, flew to Okinawa. We never spoke of it again.

I was right. My head felt like it was being hit over and over with a sledgehammer. Imagine having being hit so hard you saw stars. It was like that, only my brain was pulsing instead of getting punched.

There was no point in giving away that I was coming to, so I kept my eyes closed and tried to remain still. The silence was broken by the booming pain in my head. I couldn't identify any movement or voices. My hands were bound in front of me and so were my feet. Pain washed over my extremities as I very gently tried to flex them. My arms and legs responded by screaming at my brain for daring to attempt such a thing. I ignored it, and my fingers gently probed my front pocket. Yes! The bobby pin was still there! I had one advantage my captors didn't know about.

Very slowly, I opened my eyes to slits. When nothing happened, I opened them all the way. Bright white light flooded into my swimming vision and also complained to my brain about instigating pain.

The first thing I saw was my wrists. Damn. Not handcuffs. Zip ties. Well, that screwed the idea of picking the lock. I knew how to get out of zip ties, but it took a lot of movement and strength to pull it off. Right now my body hated me, so I was pretty sure I wasn't going to get much of that.

Zip ties were excellent restraints for normal, everyday people. There was a psychological terror associated with them because you immediately assume you won't be able to undo them. That wasn't true, but most people didn't know that and usually gave up just at the sight of the thick, plastic straps.

Right now, my mind was begging me to stop thinking. It assumed I was torturing it with pain just for fun. I took deep gulps of air. An influx of oxygen could help diminish headaches, although in this case it just made me feel like vomiting. To distract me from that, I turned my attention to my environment. I was in a plain, cement room. No windows, one steel door, and no video cameras. It was a pretty good lockup. I appeared to be all alone in the room with no one watching, which was fine with me.

Very slowly, I tested my strength only to find out my arms and legs had decided suddenly to take on a rubbery quality. I brought my wrists to my mouth and was rewarded with searing waves of pain. Working through the pain without puking was a challenge, but I forced the ties to my mouth and worked the little plastic buckle to the front, right between my wrists.

I slumped against the bare wall and closed my eyes, exhausted from the effort. This would all have to be done in bits and pieces until I recovered. What in the hell had they dosed me with? Whatever it was, they obviously used too much. If I got out of here, I would use it on them.

I listened carefully, my head throbbing against the cool, cement wall. There were vague murmurs on the other side of the wall, but there was no way I could make them out. How long had I been out? I wiggled a little in an attempt to see if my phone was in my back pocket. It was. What terrible spy-craft! Leaving me with a phone? But then they probably thought with my hands bound in front of me, I'd never be able to use it.

What were my options? I'd need to stand to break my wrist restraints, which would be difficult to do considering my ankles were bound as well. That and my body had made it pretty clear it wasn't going to be cooperating anytime soon.

So, I was all alone with just my thoughts for company. The vague remnants of a dream swirled around my brain, and I reached for it. I'd had several dreams since Riley had called and asked for help. All relating to that time in Tokyo. Until now, I'd assumed it was because Riley and Midori were kind of foremost in my mind.

But maybe it was more than that. Maybe my memory was trying to tell me something. But what? It didn't make any sense. The closest I'd ever gotten to Midori was that one time in that restaurant. And why did Baby Ito think I'd had anything to do with her mother's murder?

Okay, I did…a bit. Ito Senior turning up dead in my kitchen kind of connected me. But the murder part happened before she got there. Kelly knew that.

Kelly! Rex said she'd been in labor! She must've had her baby by now! And I had no idea if it was a girl or boy! This sucked now for one more reason. I had to get out of here. No way I was going to die before congratulating my best friend.

Sitting straight up, I brought my ankles close to me. The pain was excruciating, and every nerve ending shrieked. Very slowly, I pressed against the wall and tried to stand up. My legs burned in protest, but I ignored it, concentrating all of my efforts on getting my body to do what I wanted it to.

I inched up the wall about a foot before I crashed back down to the floor. Sweat streamed down my forehead in spite of the cool temperature of the room. This wasn't going to be easy. Once again, I brought my knees to my chest and started the climb. About halfway up my knees started buckling, but I pushed on. All of my attention was focused on getting upright. Then I could go on to the next step.