Marshmallow S'More Murder (Merry Wrath Mysteries Book 3) (15 page)

Wobbling, with only the wall for support, I finally stood all the way up. I allowed myself a few moments of leaning against the wall to regroup but only a few. Ito and her thugs could come through that door at any moment. Time was not a luxury I had.

I pressed my elbows together and brought my arms up over my head then slashed downward, separating my arms at my hips, breaking the lock and popping the zip ties off. Ignoring the pain in my wrists, I undid the bindings on my ankles. I was finally free.

I examined the door. No hinges or locks were visible on my side. There was a doorknob, and I very carefully tested it. It turned, and I was able to open it. Who did that? Who kidnapped someone and then left them in an unlocked room? Not that I was going to argue with them. Their stupidity would make my escape possible, so yay me!

The hallway was brightly lit and seemed to go on forever in both directions. I pulled my cell from my pocket. No service. I might've been underground. No access to Wi-Fi either. Ito must've figured I wouldn't be able to use it, so she ignored it. That was stupid. What was going on? Why were they making so many mistakes?

I froze for a moment. This could've been an elaborate trap. If they thought they wouldn't get any information out of me, if I developed a false sense of security, maybe I'd spill. Now you could see why paranoia is a good thing in a spy.

At this point, it didn't matter. I was going to have to get moving. Staying here wouldn't do me any good.
But which way should I go? Right. I'll go right. If I don't find anything soon, I'll double back and go left.

This was the kind of mind game I was used to. In my experience, it was best just to push through and take your chances. I broke into a light jog down the right hall. As I moved my muscles loosened up, and the pain started to drift away. It was extremely quiet. I'd heard voices earlier, back in my cell. And while that could be either good or bad, I decided to run away from them. Rescuers usually shouted instead of carrying on conversations in a normal volume.

The hallway ended in a T intersection, and I had another decision to make. Which way this time? Wasting time thinking about stuff like this could get me killed, so I decided once again to go right. At least then it would be easier to backtrack if I needed.

Funny…I hadn't passed a single door in all this time. What kind of place was this? It kind of felt like an underground bunker. But a bunker with only one door? My mind raced as I picked up speed. If I didn't find anything soon, I'd have to retrace my steps.

Was Riley being held here? It would make sense if he was. This place seemed pretty vast though. I wasn't sure I could find him. In fact, I wasn't sure he should be my mission here. Getting out alive would be nice. And if I did get out, maybe I could return with help.

I stopped running. It was a dead end. The hallway just ended. There was nowhere else to go. Now I felt a little like a rat in a maze. Like I was part of an experiment to get me to find the cheese. Only in this case, the cheese was Riley.

Turning around, I started running faster. When I got to the T, instead of turning left to go back to where my cell was, I decided to clear this hall first. I didn't panic much—it was a huge waste of time and caused you to make mistakes. Stupid mistakes. When I was fresh out of the academy and on my first assignment, I got trapped underwater in a cave. I freaked out and was promptly attacked by bats. And while I wasn't really afraid of bats, their swarming me only made things worse, not better. Since then, I'd always tried to keep my fears under control.

Besides, Maria probably had the CIA looking for me, and my dad probably was doing something similar with whatever resources he had. I wondered if Rex was on his way. Who would he have looking after Philby and the kittens? Hopefully someone nice who I wouldn't have to kill later.

Another dead end. Okay, I thought as I turned around, that narrowed things down a bit. I raced back to where I'd been held and this time took the hallway to the left. Good thing I had comfortable shoes on. I couldn't imagine running around in high heels.

Have you ever noticed how often that happens in movies? The heroine runs around forever in stiletto heels without complaining once. I'd complain. There was no reason to do that. One time, when I was at a formal party at an embassy, I just took off my high heels to search the building, putting them on when I had what I needed. And yet, moviegoers are subjected to the belief women are comfortable running long distances in four-inch high heels. What is the point?

Wow. The hallway was going on forever. Seriously, where was I? This building had to take up at least two city blocks underground. Even for Washington DC that seemed a bit excessive. Just walking around would take forever. Oooh! Maybe they had Segways! I'd always wanted to try one of those.

The hallway banked sharply to the right, and I kept going. The throbbing in my head was receding, probably due to the influx of oxygen in my lungs. The muscles in my legs had finally stopped whining, but I started to slow down a bit. No point in running out of breath. What if I had a fight coming up? It would be better to save my strength.

A door was coming up on my right, and I slowed to a stop in front of it. It looked similar to the steel door of my cell, meaning it probably housed another prisoner. Pressing my ear to the steel, I listened for any noise that would indicate more than one person inside. When I heard nothing, I reached for the doorknob and turned.

Unlocked! Unbelievable! Okay, so I should've been grateful my captors weren't bright, but I was really starting to question their ability to be dangerous. The room was very dimly lit. I stepped in, taking off my shoe to prop the door open in case it tried to lock behind me. The room was the same one I'd been in. Except that in the corner there was a huge lump of rags.

The rags moved—something they didn't usually do. I froze. Then they groaned. These weren't rags. It was a living thing. I kept my distance and got into a defensive position. It could've been a person. But it could also have been a tiger. You shouldn't laugh. That happened to me once in India. Fortunately for me, it had been chained up, and I realized it was a killing machine just before I stepped into range. You couldn't take anything for granted in this business.

"Who are you?" I said in my sternest, most intimidating voice.

"Wrath?" a man's voice croaked weakly.

I ran to the lump of rags and carefully turned it over. In spite of the blood and bruises on his face, I knew who it was. I'd found Riley.

I scanned the room as I helped him sit up. No cameras. That was good.

"Yes, Riley, it's me!" I said quietly. "It's Merry."

Riley opened two swollen eyes and studied me for a moment. He didn't look like he was happy to see me. In fact, he looked alarmed. He must be in shock, I thought.

"Oh no!" His eyes were wide open now, and he grabbed my arms. "What are you doing in this place? You shouldn't be here!"

"What are you talking about?" I asked calmly as I checked him for traps. "You called and asked me to help you. Don't you remember?"

He froze, his eyes going up and to the right, indicating he was thinking. I removed the torn blanket I'd found him in. Underneath, he was wearing khakis and a black golf shirt—both of which had seen better days.

Riley shook his head. "I never called you. I didn't want them to know you were involved!"

My mind reeled back to the phone calls. If what he said was true, then I'd spent this whole time in DC walking into one huge booby trap. The confidence I'd felt up until this moment deflated.

"They must've used recordings or something." Riley was more alert now. "I would never have called you. Never!"

So that's what happened. Ito wanted to know if anyone else was involved in her mother's murder. Somehow she'd tricked him into saying my name and Maria's, recording them, and sending them to me to see if I'd take the bait. And like a big moron with half a brain—I had.

I started to pull him to his feet. "We'd better get out of here."

My mind was racing. It was possible they'd been watching me all along. They wanted me to find Riley and somehow admit that I'd been involved in Midori's death. As I helped him up, I noticed his left wrist. He was wearing a device I'd never seen before. It looked like a video watch.

Those bastards were watching and listening. That also meant they were probably on their way right now.

"Can you move?" I asked as he finally got to his feet.

Riley ran his fingers through his hair and noticed the thing on his wrist. Suddenly, he started clawing at it like a madman. I slapped his other hand away and took a closer look. It appeared to have a locking latch mechanism that held it in place.

I pulled the bobby pin from my pocket and began working the lock. If we were going to run, I saw no reason to take them with us. It felt like a giant stopwatch was clicking beside me as I struggled to unlock the mechanism. Riley could barely hold still. He was trembling violently. That wasn't good. Finally, the lock sprang, and we dropped the band to the floor where I immediately stomped it to pieces.

"Let's go!" I said, yanking his arm toward the door.

Riley and I made it out the door and turned left to run down the hallway. He kept up pretty well for a man who'd been nearly beaten to death. I didn't let go of his arm, dragging him with me as I ran.

The hallway ended in a door, which I flung open and ran through. We were in some sort of stairwell. I pushed Riley in front of me and told him to go. If he was weak, at least I could catch him from behind. We took the stairs two at a time. Riley seemed to get stronger with every step.

We ran up two flights before we saw another door. There was no sign, no markings to tell us if this was the ground floor. I didn't want to come out on another underground level, but I didn't want to overshoot the first floor either. That was our best option of finding our way outside and escaping.

"We'll go this way," I decided as I opened the door and shoved Riley through it.

This level had carpeting and multiple doors. Very slowly, too slowly, it dawned on me that we were in the Japanese Embassy.

"Keep moving," I whispered. I told Riley where I thought we were. He nodded and kept going.

The PA system came to life. "Ms. Wrath, Mr. Andrews, please turn right and join us in the conference room."

"Like that's going to happen," I hissed, pushing Riley further down the hall. We were getting out of here.

The two suits who brought me here appeared at the end of the hall. Both had guns trained on us. A door on the right popped open, and Leiko Ito stood to one side, waiting for us to enter. We had very little choice. I could rush one of the guys, but I didn't think Riley had it in him to take out the other.

We entered the room to find the table laid out with food and drinks. That was unexpected. The two goons joined us and took up positions on either side of the only door, guns still drawn. Riley and I sat down. We would have to do what they wanted until we came up with something better.

Ms. Ito sat across from us, pouring herself a glass of tea and picking up a donut. Looking at her svelte frame, I wondered if her body would reject the donut and throw it across the room. Sadly, that didn't happen. Once she took a bite and had a sip of tea, I reached for the pitcher and poured glasses for Riley and myself.
Always fuel up if offered the opportunity.
James Bond never turned down martinis from the bad guy, even if he knew they were poisoned—which, now that I thought about it, probably wasn't the best idea.

We ate and drank in silence for a while. Clearly Ito was expecting me to say something. Probably a full confession on how I kidnapped her mom, brought her to the US (violating her being on the No Fly list), and murdered her in my kitchen. Well, I wasn't going to because I didn't do it.

"Mr. Andrews has been our guest for a while now," Baby Ito said. "We're so happy to have you join him."

"Yeah," I said, "about that…neither of us wanted to be your guest. So I guess now that that misunderstanding is cleared up, we will be on our way." I got to my feet.

"Sit down!" Ito barked. "I was just being polite. If you want blunt, I'll admit that you two are our prisoners. That is, until we get what we want out of you or we kill you."

"What is it you want out of us, exactly?" I asked.

Ito laughed. "I think you know what we want."

I shrugged. "Not really, so why don't you tell us?"

Riley said nothing. He just sat there, eating and watching. He was building his strength back up and sizing up the situation. The man had been here for a long time, but I'd bet he wasn't as damaged as he'd led them to believe. That meant he could spring into action if the time came to do so.

Riley knew what they wanted to know. The question was, had he told them already?

Leiko Ito sighed heavily before getting to her feet. "What I want is for you to tell me how and why you killed my mother."

It was kind of refreshing, really, to hear that question finally spoken aloud. Oh, I suspected that was the thing. But it was still nice to hear it outright.

"We didn't kill your mother," was all I said. Important spy tip—never give more information than they asked for. People tended to blather on when they thought their life was at risk. She didn't need to know that Riley and I had found her mother's lifeless body and dumped it two and a half hours away in Chicago.

"You are lying," Ito said. "We know you disposed of her body. Therefore, you must have killed her."

I shook my head. "Nope. We didn't kill her. Sorry for your loss, by the way."

"Yes." Ito's face was turning an alarming shade of purple. "You did. And I want to know why before I kill you."

Riley looked at me for a moment. He was trying to tell me something with his expression, but I had no idea what it was.

"Then we are at an impasse," I said. "Because we can't tell you something we don't know. And you won't listen to anything other than what you want to hear."

It might sound like I was calm and collected. I wasn't. I was very concerned. We were technically on Japanese soil. These people didn't look like they were going to let us leave alive, even if we told them what they assumed was the truth. I needed a plan.

Ito Jr. snapped. She started pounding on the table and swearing in Japanese. The two men covering the door looked startled. I knew Leiko was extremely dangerous and more sadistic than her mother had been. At some point, she'd just torture us until we gave her something. And then she'd probably still kill us. The odds weren't stacked in our favor.

She looked at the men with guns. "Shoot her. Then maybe he'll talk."

One of the men raised his pistol and aimed it at me. This wasn't good. I nudged Riley's foot under the table, and he gave me a brief nod. Together we dropped down to the floor, flipping the conference table over, and started shoving it toward Ito and her men.

The table jammed the three up against the wall hard. One of the goons dropped his pistol, and it landed on my shoulder. I snatched it up. Before the other guy could aim, I trained the gun on his chest. To my surprise, he handed his weapon to me. I passed it to Riley.

Ito stood there fuming as the two of us walked around the table. I kept my gun pointed at them while Riley—who was now on an adrenaline surge—yanked the table back from the door.

Just as we were about to walk out, I saw Riley give Leiko a hard uppercut to her chin that made her head snap back. She fell to the floor, unconscious. We ran out the door.

We encountered no more resistance as we fled the embassy and ran toward the street. Maria pulled up in the van, and we got in before she squealed away.

"Thanks," I said. "Nice timing."

Maria nodded. "I knew you were in there. But we have no jurisdiction in the embassy, so I waited outside, hoping you'd make it out." She looked back at Riley.

"He's alright," I said. "But we can't go back to the hotel. And the girls aren't safe there."

"They're at the Irish Embassy," Maria said with a grin. "I figured the Japanese weren't likely to invade Irish territory, so that was the safest bet. Liam's giving them a tour."

"You have the girls here?" Riley roared from the backseat. "What were you thinking? You could get them killed!"

Riley had a small soft spot for my troop. He'd been mobbed by them last time he visited. While he wasn't the settling-down type or even the type who liked kids, he seemed to make an exception where they were concerned.

"You knew I was bringing them for a trip. You had to know I was here when you first called," I said.

"I already told you, I didn't call you. They must've made a mash-up recording of my voice. I would never have called you."

"But that means you said my name to them. You implicated me somehow."

He shook his head. "I didn't implicate you in any way."

"I want to hear the whole story," I said. "But first, we have to get somewhere safe."

Maria smiled. "I'm already on it. I've got just the place. I'll park you two there and go back for the girls."

I nodded and leaned back in the seat. My body gave up the ghost. I was too tired to move. The adrenaline rush was over. Maria was in charge now. I closed my eyes and tried to rest until the van came to a stop.

"You've got to be kidding," I said as I opened my eyes. "We're staying here?"

We were parked in front of The USS Enterprise. Not the spaceship. A fantasy suite hotel for Trekkies. I remembered reading about this. There'd been some controversy when it was built. The rooms were all designed to look like they were part of a spaceship but with Jacuzzis and swimming pools. Trekkies flocked from all over the world to stay here, and I'd heard rumors of a
Star Trek
swingers group that rented the whole place a couple of times a year.

I got out of the van and opened the door for Riley. "How did you get us in here? I heard it's booked two years out."

Trekkies were nothing if not the first to mob the newest thing.

"I had a little pull." Maria smiled as she handed me a set of keys. "My sister-in-law works here. You go ahead and get Riley inside and cleaned up. You're in the Federation Starfleet Suite."

We walked into the lobby, and immediately the concierge gave us the split-V Vulcan greeting. People moved around dressed in the original series garb. Most of the staff wore blue or yellow costumes, but occasionally we spotted a red shirt. I wondered if they had a high turnover.

The suite was on the second floor, and as we entered, I realized this must have been their version of the presidential suite. The furniture was all chrome and futuristic. The walls were curved upward with weird ductwork crisscrossing overhead. In front of the giant flat-screen TV were two recliners that looked like Captain Kirk's command chair. The remote control was a phaser gun. That was kind of cool.

"You'd better get in the shower," I said as I shoved Riley into a bathroom designed to look like Dr. McCoy's sickbay. "The kids will freak out if they see all that blood." Okay, so they'd probably be more fascinated than freaked out. But he didn't need to know that.

Riley closed the door behind him, and moments later I heard the shower running. I explored the rest of the suite. I didn't see any of the fabled swimming pools they supposedly had, but there was a Jacuzzi big enough to hold an Andorian star cruiser. Yes, I was a bit of a Trekkie.

I gave silent thanks to Maria for dropping off my suitcase so I could change into a swimsuit and ease my creaking bones into the warm, oscillating water. Grateful for the opportunity to relieve my sore muscles, I wiggled out of my clothes.