Merit Badge Murder (4 page)

Was that it? They'd come to kill me and somehow were killed themselves? No, that didn't make any sense. These guys were big players. They would've sent assassins. They wouldn't have done it on their own.

My brain was spinning. Probably from the wine and Oreos. Pulling back the Dora sheet, I saw it was dark outside. I'd been at this a while. I made my rounds, locking doors and getting ready for bed. Before I fell asleep, I wondered if Rex would still be interested in me if he knew the things I'd done. In my imagination—he loved it.

I was just having this dream where Riley and Rex had taken me surfing and both were rubbing lotion on my back when I was rudely interrupted by someone pounding at the door. I instinctively reached for the pistol that was not under my pillow. Old habits die hard. Instead, I got up, and after wrapping a robe around my Dora the Explorer pajamas (Seriously, I could relate to her.) I made my way to the front door.

I looked through the Dora curtains at the front stoop. I really need to get a security camera, I decided. All I could see was the back of a very hot woman shoe-horned into a dress that seemed to be painted onto her. A thick cascade of wavy, blonde hair tumbled down her back. I hated her, whoever she was.

Opening the door, I hated her even more.

"What the hell are you doing here, Svetlana?" I was pissed. Twice in twenty-four hours I'd been visited by people I didn't want to be visited by. And in this particular case, I'd rather have the dead terrorists.

Svetlana Babikova gave me a dazzling grin before pushing past me into the house. I sighed and shut the door behind her. The woman standing in front of me was a former Russian operative I'd turned to spying for the U.S. back in the early '00s. I hated her then, and I hated her now. Question was—what was she doing at my house? I'd have preferred her showing up respectfully dead, like the other two had.

The drop-dead gorgeous woman winked at me and then made her way to my kitchen where she pulled a bottle of vodka out of the freezer and poured herself a shot. Fucking Russians. Well, former Russian, technically. But it didn't matter.

"It's Lana, now, Finn." She drained the shot smoothly and poured another. Why did I even keep vodka in the freezer? In the house? It only encouraged them.

"You're American accent is getting better,
Lana
," I said as I pulled up a stool and sat at the breakfast bar. I really needed to get better furniture in my living room. If I didn't, the kitchen needed more comfortable stuff. I wondered if they made bar stools that reclined.

"Thank you!" Lana's bright blue eyes grew wide, and she pouted her full, sensuous, red lips.

"Stop flirting, Lana," I growled. "It never worked on me."

Lana nodded and drained another shot before coming around and sitting on the stool beside me. The skin-tight dress didn't have so much as a wrinkle and barely covered her crotch as she sat down. I won't even mention the high heels. They were ridiculous.

We sat there looking at each other, me in jammies without any makeup on, her made up as if she was doing a floor show for Mötley Crüe. Svetlana…er…Lana was one of the operatives I'd turned. Formerly a Russian spy, she went double agent for me for a couple of Beyoncé CDs and a pair of Louboutin pumps. The very ones she was wearing now.

Lana had been a decent agent. She'd scored lots of info for me over the two years we'd worked together. I think she'd always wanted to come to America and be a Playboy Bunny. I used that to my advantage. I might have hinted that I had Hugh Hefner on speed dial once or twice. Not really my bad—Eastern Europeans were convinced that every American had powerful Americans on their cells. They really misunderstood that whole Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon thing.

"What are you doing here, Lana?"
Alive
, I added mentally.

She giggled and looked around the kitchen. "You know, I could really get used to this place! You have running water?"

I picked up my cell and dialed. Riley answered on the first ring.

"Hey Merry," he started.

"Tell me this isn't what I think it is," I said with a growl in my voice.

"What
what
is?" Riley asked with a poor façade of innocence.

I held up the phone to Lana. She giggled and squealed. I took the phone back and waited.

"Oh," Riley said.

"You have three minutes to get over here or I'm shooting her," I said as I hung up.

"Oh Finny!" Lana touched my arm seductively. "You are so funny!"

"It's Merry, not Fin and NEVER Finny," I snarled at the blonde.

The doorbell rang right on time. I let Riley in and dragged him into the living room.

"She is NOT living here!" I whispered angrily. Have you ever done that? It's far less menacing than you'd think.

Riley held his hands up in front of him defensively. He should do that. I might hit him. I had a mean right cross, and he'd had some experience with that.

"We don't have a choice. The agency thinks she's safer here, hiding out with you. At least until everything blows over in Kiev."

"Oh, they did, did they?" My eyes narrowed. It was a good look—a look that has gotten me way more confessions than I'd deserved. "Well I don't work for the agency anymore, remember? And I'm not
hiding out
here—I live here now!"

Riley nodded. He'd accurately assessed that I wasn't going to get violent with him just yet. "Hear me out."

I folded my arms over my chest in the universal sign for
you'd better make this quick and you'd better get this right.

He sighed. "Lana needs constant supervision. You don't work. And we'll pay you. Sort of like a consultant." He gave me that big, stupid surfer grin that I was beginning to hate.

"I don't work because I am between things at the moment. And consultancies are usually voluntary. And I didn't volunteer for this." I pointed to the wall separating us from the buxom blonde who was probably three more shots into the vodka at this point.

"Besides," Riley continued as if I hadn't just said anything. "I'd feel better having someone around you 24/7 with these new situations popping up. And Lana was a trained FSB agent—she could be helpful." FSB were just newer initials for the KGB. It wasn't a lot different than the old, Cold War secret police, but I guess they thought they felt they needed a shiny new name for the same old tactics. Go figure.

"Only if I need to seduce a Russian general—something there's a bit of a noticeable lack of here in the middle of nowhere," I grumbled.

"Rileeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeey!" Lana launched herself into the room and into Riley's arms. She buried her face in his neck and pressed her body so close to his I thought maybe they'd melted together. For some strange reason I felt a little prickle of jealousy. Now why did I feel that way?

Riley pried the blonde off of him and held her at arm's length. "You can't do that here, Lana," he admonished gently. "Americans like their personal space. Remember?"

She put her index finger on the corner of her mouth, and her eyes grew impossibly huge. I had to admit—the girl was good.

"I am so sorry, Riley! I am just so excited to be Finny's roommate!"

I was about to tear her throat out when Riley stepped between us.

"Use contractions, Lana. American's never say
I am
—they say
I'm.

"Well, I guess she won't blend in. You'll just have to take her back to Langley and put her in a cage…" I said as I tried to shove them both toward the front door. They didn't move, dammit.

Lana looked at me and pouted. Her eyes got all sad, and somehow she was able to dilate her pupils till they were huge. How did she do that?

"Finny doesn't want Lana?" Her lower lip quavered. Oh no. This was not happening. Not here. Not now.

I steeled myself. "That's right, Lana. Finny doesn't want Lana here. It's no good. It wouldn't work out."

Lana burst into tears. Giant teardrops poured from the corners of her eyes, somehow not dislodging the makeup there. She dropped to the couch, and since it was lower than her knees, her black lace panties made a rather disturbing appearance.

"First Putee throws Lana out. Then Russia throws Lana out. Now Finny, my only friend in the world does not want me!" She wailed in a voice that somehow made it seem like I was strangling kittens in front of school children.

Riley looked at me. "See what you did?" He motioned to the couch.

Not having the faintest clue what to do next, I sat down next to the wailing Russian and tried to calm her.

"Now, Lana. It's not that I don't want you. It's just a bad time right now. I can't look after you. I've got…
stuff
going on." What stuff I didn't know, but I did know it didn't include this knockout blonde bimbo.

She looked at me. How did she manage to cry and still look beautiful? Seriously, her eyes weren't red, and her makeup wasn't smeary.

"It is just…just that I miss Putee. He threw me out!" She went back to wailing.

"Putee" was a certain Russian president she was working over for me. She did a good job. But women like Lana always put a little too much of their hearts into their playacting. And it hurt when they got turned out. Which is why I'd never resorted to seduction as a tool in my tradecraft kit.

"I'm sorry," I said as I awkwardly patted her arm. Damn, her skin was firm and soft at the same time.

Lana looked at me. The tears stopped. Just like that. Then she threw her arms around me, strangling me with her firm/soft arms.

"Oh yes! Finny says I can stay! Thank you, Finny! You really are my best friend!"

I was trapped. And Riley knew it as he grinned smugly above us.
The day you retire, buddy, I'll be in the shadows with a baseball bat.

"So," I said to Lana once Riley had gone, "where's your luggage?" Not that the luggage mattered really. I was still reeling from the news that I now had a roommate.

Lana shook her head sadly. "This is it. They extracted me before I could pack anything."

I had to admit—she looked uncomfortable. "Okay, well, we'll go shopping then, because you can't run around here dressed like that."

"Did you know you have a large dent in the front of your car?" Lana said as she squeezed herself into my tiny vehicle. While I scrubbed off the blood.

I nodded. "Yes. I ran over Carlos the Armadillo earlier. Now behave yourself, or that's what will happen to you."

Lana nodded solemnly as she put on her seatbelt. I tossed the bloody towel and got in, starting the car and heading for the mall. We'd have to get her clothes and toiletries. It looked like I'd have to pay for everything, but since I was now a
consultant
, I could put it on the bill I'd send the agency. The very large, impossibly padded, possibly outright bullshit bill. This was going to cost Riley.

Have you ever taken a knockout blonde shopping? Me neither. It was a fiasco. Apparently malls are the domain of teenagers. And teenage boys are gawkers. I had a pack of them following us around. There's nothing like being followed by a group of pimply adolescent boys who didn't speak and for some reason always had their hands in their pockets. It was disturbing to say the least.

Lana didn't seem to notice them. She was gleefully skipping from one store to the next, grabbing tube tops and tiny shorts. At one point, she held up what looked like a sock but turned out to be a dress. Three of the boys behind us fainted.

"No," I said firmly. "You have to blend in. I'm not buying you clothes that would usually be seen circling a stripper pole in Vegas." Behind me, a couple of the boys growled as menacingly as they could with squeaky voices that hadn't changed yet.

I turned around and glared at them. "Really?" I asked.

The boys turned as one unit and were suddenly fascinated by the pink and glittery princess display outside the Disney Store.

Lana pouted as I dragged her to The Gap and made her try on khakis, capri pants, and shorts befitting a Midwestern woman. I threw in some light sweaters, T-shirts, and button down shirts. Lana didn't argue, and she even came out to show me what she was trying on. Unfortunately, with her huge boobs and slim frame, everything looked like it was molded to her body.

We hit the shoe store and got her a pair of ballet flats, some tennis shoes, and something called wedges. At the department store I had her fitted for bras, picked up panties and socks, and finally we were out the door. As we walked out, I thought I heard the boys behind us weeping.

After spending a fortune at the drug store and even more at the grocery store, Lana and I managed to make it home without killing anybody or each other. I'd picked up an inflatable mattress and a pump along with some cheap sheets and a pillow. I set her up in what was supposed to be my office. There was no dresser or closet in there. I'd have to pick something up so she could organize stuff.

Lana spent the rest of the day in her room. I heard the air compressor for a little while as she blew up the bed. I took the time to put the groceries away.

It was hard to believe that a woman with a figure like that could eat only junk food. But that's what she'd wanted. Maybe they didn't have Twinkies in Russia. At any rate, my kitchen was, for the first time, fully stocked with what could technically be called food. There was a little satisfaction in that.

I was walking down the hallway to check on Lana when a blast of music made me jump. It sounded like pop music, and it was screaming from Lana's room. I wasn't a fan. I liked peace and quiet. Spend one month stationed in Germany undercover in a techno pop bar, and you'll agree with me.

"Lana!" I shouted while banging on the door. "Lana! Turn that down!"

Nothing happened. I put my hand on the doorknob but changed my mind. I didn't want to see her naked. Nothing would scar me more than seeing the perfection I could never achieve.

Instead, I stepped into the bathroom to find a cyclone had gone through it. Five wet towels covered the floor, and the steam was enough to make me choke. Who needed five towels after a shower? Wait…I owned five towels? I bent to pick them up when I saw that the counter was covered to the point you couldn't see granite. I'd never seen so many beauty products, and I didn't remember buying most of them. I picked up a jar of face cream and stared at it. There were three more—all different brands and sizes.