Mint Cookie Murder (10 page)

"Yes. But I wasn't completely honest with Riley." She looked a little chagrined. "You see, today's the day we pick up the cookies. And I need your help to get them and store them."

"We pick up the cookies before turning in orders? That's insane."

"It is. I don't think the Council has figured that out yet. But we have to pick them up today. I already cleaned out your garage to store them."

"Wait…what?" I asked. "My garage? Why not yours?"

"You don't have anything but your car in yours. My husband and I have two cars in our garage."

I couldn't argue with that. I wanted to though. My biggest fear was that I'd wake up in the middle of the night and eat case after case of Girl Scout Cookies. Maybe I should just pay for the whole shipment outright to save trouble.

"Okay, so how do we get out of here?" I asked.

Kelly threw up her hands. "You're the big super spy with all the field experience."

I looked at the card Suzanne had given me. "Yes, I am. And I'll show you the oldest trick in the book right now."

*   *   *

"Bribery?" Kelly asked as we drove away. "That's the oldest trick in the book?"

I nodded. "And we got off cheaply too! Only a case of cookies." It had been too easy. Turns out Suzanne had a cookie lust that was easy to satisfy.

I wasn't grinning 10 minutes later at the Council offices.

"Ms. Wrath." Juliette Dowd narrowed her eyes at me. She clicked her pen on and off, like, a thousand times as she looked at her clipboard. Her hatred of me seethed out of every pore. Why did she hate me? Kelly gave me a sidelong glance. Apparently she noticed it too.

"Over there." She pointed to a stack of boxes in the corner. Juliette Dowd leaned toward me. "I'll be watching you."

As we walked over to the boxes, I could feel her eyes boring holes into my back.

"New friend?" Kelly asked.

"More like a fan of my work," I mumbled.

It took the two of us half an hour to review everything, sign off on the shipment, and load the cookies into Kelly's van. It took another hour to unload and organize the cookies in my garage. I grabbed two boxes of each kind, and Kelly and I found ourselves in the kitchen with glasses of milk and a Girl Scout Cookie buffet.

"Heaven…" Kelly sighed as her eyes rolled back in her head. She was on her second sleeve of the mints. I was working my way through the shortbread.

"You're not kidding." I was just opening another box when the doorbell rang.

Rex greeted me with a kiss on the cheek. "Hey! I saw you were home and thought I'd stop by."

It all flooded back to me.
Angela
. The hotel room key card. Everything.

"Oh, hey," I said casually as if I wasn't plotting murder. "Come back to the kitchen. Kelly and I just got done sorting Girl Scout Cookies."

I walked in ahead of Rex and made a face at Kelly. She arched her eyebrow but said nothing. Rex picked the chocolate caramel coconut cookies and started eating. I wondered what that said about him. Maybe that cookie was the number one choice of men who cheated on their girlfriends. I'd have to google that later.

"Where's the cat?" he asked.

"Basement," I said blithely. "Rodent issue." Kelly choked a little on her cookie but recovered nicely. "How was your dinner date with your friend?"

Rex smiled. "Good. You'd like Angela."

I bet.
"So what did you two end up doing?" And the answer had better not be
each other.

"Oh, just dinner. I took her back to her hotel after. We talked a little, but she had to get up early for a seminar."

Likely story.
I was trying to figure out how to ask if she'd slipped him her room key, but couldn't.

"So," Kelly said slowly. "Who's this friend?" I wanted to hug her but thought that might look a little weird.

"We were in college together. Kind of went our separate ways after. She wanted to work at a big corporation in a big city. I wanted to come back here and be a detective."

Did I call it or what? I wanted to shout it, but then Rex would know I was jealous. Which I totally was.

"So you were dating in college?" Kelly asked innocently. I really wanted to hug her.

Rex shook his head. "Kind of. After college we lost touch. In fact, I hadn't seen her in eight or nine years when she called up out of the blue a week ago and said she was coming to town."

Ah. That's it. The ice queen was lonely and decided that Rex was the one who got away. Well I wasn't going to make it easy for her.

"How long is she here?" I asked, trying to sound like I didn't care.

"Another few days." Rex said as he took another cookie. "We're going to get together tomorrow night."

Was he dense? Did he really think this wasn't bothering me? Maybe he thought I was too mature to get jealous. Okay. I liked that if it was true. But I was jealous. I'd seen Angela. I couldn't compete with that. My wardrobe consisted of T-shirts, sweatshirts, and jeans—not form-fitting power suits. And my short, curly blonde hair was nothing compared to her long, shiny brunette waves. I didn't own a single pair of stilettos, and I wasn't mesmerizing or seductive in any way.

"You okay?" Rex was staring at me.

From the look Kelly was giving me, I guessed that my thoughts were playing out a little too transparently on my face. Damn. I responded by throwing myself into his arms and kissing him passionately. Not my smoothest move…and it probably tipped him off to my jealousy, but it was nice.

Rex froze for a second then gave in to me totally (which, by the way, is my favorite). Wow, that man could kiss! His lips were firm on mine, and his arms pulled me tight against him. Now he was rethinking our relationship! Time to take it to the next level. I wondered if I'd made my bed. Did I have clean sheets?

"Ahem…" Kelly cleared her throat, and we disengaged immediately.

"Oh! Um, sorry." Rex blushed adorably. "I really should go." He grabbed another cookie. "I'll call you later…okay?" He looked at me hopefully.

"Absolutely," I answered, still in a daze. I watched as the door closed behind him.

"Still worried about Angela?" Kelly asked.

It was like she'd dumped cold water on my libido. Like she crawled into my brain and found the little wrinkly part neatly labeled
libido here
and poured a bucket of ice water on it. I started wondering what kind of signs my brain used. Did it use glitter markers? I hoped not. I'd like to think I was so tough that my brain carved letters in itself. That would be awesome.

"I apologize for interrupting," Kelly said. "But I believe that answers your question about whether or not Rex likes you."

I went to the fridge and broke out a bottle of wine. "Okay. You called it."

My cell rang. Dammit.

"I'm at home, Riley," I said before hanging up. I didn't even give him time to answer.

I didn't have to. He barged in the door and joined us in the kitchen so fast I wondered if he'd called from the driveway.

"What the hell?" he asked, his face red.

"We had to pick up the Girl Scout Cookies." I said calmly, waving at the display in front of him.

Riley's eyes grew wide as he took it in. I poured him a glass of wine and he picked up a chocolate covered mint cookie. For a moment he looked like he was arguing internally about eating it.

"You bribed a government official," he said, but the fight had gone out of his voice. Riley sniffed the cookie.

"No," I countered. "I bribed a yarn shop sales girl who was keeping me, a private citizen, locked up in her back room. Bribing is the least thing I could've done to her. I could've broken her neck, leaving another mess for you." I popped another cookie into my mouth.

Riley took a bite. A small one. He knew what these cookies were made of. But he took the bite nevertheless. I was kind of proud of him.

His eyes rolled back in his head. "This is so good!" He finished the cookie and picked up another one, looking dubiously at the wine.

"Needs milk," Riley said through a mouthful of cookie. I poured him a glass. It was a fattening two percent, but he didn't need to know that.

"While your mouth is full, I should tell you that Kelly can prove it isn't me in the prison video."

Riley swallowed. "I know that."

Well that took the wind out of my sails. I loved proving Riley wrong. It was like a hobby with very few successes. "You do?"

He nodded. "It's obvious."

"You could've mentioned that earlier." I was mad now. He made me think he thought it was me. I snatched a cookie out of his hands.

Riley polished off the glass of milk and wiped his face and hands on a napkin. "You just assumed I thought you were guilty. I thought—quite wrongly it turns out—that it would keep you at the safe house."

"Are you going to tell me how you knew?" I asked.

He shook his head. "Like I said, it's obvious. And no, it's not just the earrings."

My mouth dropped open like a gasping haddock—or at least what I thought a gasping haddock looked like. Did he have me bugged? That's the only way he'd have known about the earrings. Men never noticed stuff like that.

"I'm going to let you mull that one over," Riley said. "Look, you don't have to stay at the safe house permanently. As long as I'm armed and with you, you can stay here. But I'm keeping the option open. All right?"

Kelly and I looked at each other. "Deal." I said. Clearly I'd worn him down. That was nice.

"So who is it in the prison video?" Kelly asked.

Riley shook his head. "I have no idea. And I don't care. Our problem isn't in Colorado. It's here."

"You mean we aren't going to find out how Lenny escaped a supermax?" I was dying to know. Hopefully not literally. I looked at my index finger again and shuddered.

"No. That's their problem. We have to keep Merry away from Bobb." He froze and we looked around. Oh, right. Philby was at the safe house.

"Have you canvassed the neighborhood?" I asked. "He said he lived here. Maybe he's renting or squatting somewhere."

"No. I haven't. But I did bring in a few guys who are going to poke around."

"Who?" I asked. Now I was going to be followed by our spies too?

"Nobody you know. In fact," Riley said as he plucked the cookie from my hands, "it's better if you don't know. Then you won't draw attention to them."

Great. Now we were going to play Spot the Spy. Well I was good at that game. I'd show Riley and the CIA what they were up against.

"So where does that leave us?" Kelly snapped angrily. "We have to sell cookies. I'm not doing everything."

I shot her a look. There was that flash of anger again. And when did I ever make her do everything?

"I'd rather stay here, if you don't mind," I said to Riley. "Can we bring Philby back?"

To my surprise, I missed the cat. Besides, he'd be happier here than in that little room. There were windows here, and he could watch, um, whatever cats watch outside.

Kelly gathered up a couple boxes of cookies. "I'll head home then. Dinner's going to be easy tonight." She left us standing there surrounded by cookies.

Riley and I made a quick run back to the shop to collect Philby, and we were home for another round of cookie buffet for dinner. All three of us were fat and happy when we turned in.

Tomorrow, I thought as I lay in bed, I'm going to finish this thing once and for all. Bobb was dead meat. I fell asleep counting all the ways I could kill him with Girl Scout Cookies.

Something was wrong. I couldn't breathe out of my left nostril. Oh no! Bobb got me! He's killed me and cut off my index finger and stuffed it into my nose! I'm dead! How did that happen? No one has ever gotten the drop on me. Never.

Wait…if I'm dead, how come I'm worried about breathing? And why is my finger furry? I open my eyes. Yup. Definitely dead. And apparently in hell because Hitler is staring at me. Why am I in hell? Sure, I'd done some questionable things as a spy, but come on, it was in service of my country so that doesn't count.

Meeeeeeeeeeeeeerrrrrrrrrrroooooooooooow!

Oh. I wasn't in hell. And I wasn't dead. And my index finger was still attached. Philby, not Hitler, was standing over me, his paw planted on my nose.

Meeeeeeeeeeeeeerrrrrrrrrrroooooooooooow!
he howled in my face. Well that was just rude. He must be hungry.

It was still dark outside. This cat and I were going to have a serious conversation on what constituted an appropriate breakfast time. I jumped out of bed and threw on a robe and some slippers and opened the bedroom door.

It was dark in the hallway too. Something was wrong. I just couldn't put my finger on it. I heard the scrape of a shoe from what sounded like the kitchen. Someone was in the house. Was it Bobb? I looked at Philby in horror, but he didn't hiss because I hadn't said the name out loud (although I wouldn't rule out the cat reading my mind in the future).

I looked at the door across the hall. Riley was in there. Knocking would get the attention of whoever was in the house. Very carefully, I eased the door to his room open, and Philby and I slipped silently inside.

A moonbeam penetrated the darkness and lit a spotlight on a sleeping and very naked Riley. He was lying face down, so I couldn't see
everything
. But that man had a body that looked like it was chiseled out of tan marble. I admired him for, like, a second before Philby head-butted my shin.

Very carefully, I slid the blankets up over his waist and then woke him. Riley sat straight up, pulling his gun from beneath his pillow. That was really a dangerous place to put it. Many a spy had shot themselves stupid doing that. But I'd lecture him later.

"What is it?" Riley whispered.

"Philby woke me. There's someone in the kitchen." I pointed at the door as if that made sense. Then I turned around so he could get dressed.

"Okay." Riley tapped me on the shoulder. He'd put on a T-shirt and pajama pants, and slowly opened the door. I reached behind the door for the large wrench I'd left behind months ago. He gave me a strange look then nodded, and with him in the lead, we stepped into the hallway.