Merit Badge Murder (23 page)

The girls started fidgeting nervously. A couple of the Kaitlynns looked like they were going to faint. So far they weren't losing it. I'd be proud of them if I wasn't so scared about what Lana might do to them.

I waved my pistol at her man. "You think
I'm
an imbecile? You hired these idiots. I bested two of them on my own. Who's the idiot now?"

Lana's eyes grew wild. Whoa. Maybe I'd better reign it in with the insults. There's no point in pissing her off just to soothe my fragile ego. I had to keep her talking without exploding.

"How did you get them into the country?" I looked at Riley, and he nodded. Apparently, I'd asked the question he was thinking all along.

Lana snorted and rolled her eyes. "Too easy. Ahmed was a sex maniac."

"Hey! Keep it clean! There are kids here!" I protested. I thought I heard a couple of giggles from the girls when Lana said
sex
. That's fine—better than them screaming and forcing her to shut them up with bullets.

The Russian acted as if I hadn't said anything. "Ahmed had a thing for blondes. I told him that there was a secret harem of blondes in the States—who would do anything he wanted. Men are so ridiculous. I smuggled him in by declaring him my personal bodyguard. The documents were easy to forge. You Americans suck at that."

I wanted to keep her talking until I could think of a way to get the troop out of here. Well, that, and I wanted to know how it all went down.

"And Carlos?" I asked. She still had the damn gun. I was seriously worried she'd get bored with conversation and start shooting.

"I told him there was a problem with his supply route. Something he'd have to take care of personally. I might have promised him sex too." She stuck her tongue out at me. Clearly, she didn't care about what the girls thought. That worried me. If she didn't care, she'd have no problem killing them.

"How did you get him into the country?" I was getting nervous. At some point she was going to get tired of my questions.

"Ah," she said with a smile. She really was enjoying herself. "I brought him in using a yacht. He was hidden in a special compartment his organization used to smuggle drugs in. We landed on the island of Catalina and took the ferry to the mainland. No one tried to stop us."

She picked a long blonde hair off her gun and dropped it on the floor before continuing, "In fact, the only real problem was keeping them both here at the same time. But all I had to do was rent two different mansions in the area. I told them I owned the houses. They had no idea what was going on. Or maybe Carlos did when I shoved him from a hedge in front of your car."

Lana narrowed her eyes. I was running out of time.

"And Midori? How did you pull that off?" Of course! She dragged the dead Yakuza leader into the kitchen when I was looking out the window in the living room. She'd gotten to the body before me. Obviously she'd stashed it in the garage until it was time to dump her in my kitchen.

She shrugged. Man, this chick could go from full-blown rage to calm in seconds. Not good. It meant she was mentally unstable, which only made our situation worse.

"No idea. Midori wasn't mine. I was just as surprised to see her there as you were."

What? Was she lying to me? Trying to get me to say…say what? I looked at Riley who looked equally confused. And then I remembered that Rex was listening in the hallway. They didn't know about Midori. They would want to know where the body was. I couldn't deal with that now.

"So my big question is…" I took a deep breath, hoping that looked dramatic. "Why?"

Lana scowled. Even with the bruised eyes, she still looked gorgeous. I hated her a little more for that, and this time I didn't even feel guilty.

"Why? Why? For Mother Russia, of course! To strike a blow to the CIA! To America!"

I was a little flattered that she considered nailing me to be a blow to the CIA, but I wasn't going to tell her that.

"Really?" I asked.

"Yes! Of course, really!" Lana was back to fuming now. "Why?"

I shrugged. "Seems kind of simplistic—the whole Evil America thing."

Lana sneered. "You Americans and your need for elaborate plots and intricate intrigues! You all sicken me! I know it won't mean much, killing one CIA operative. But since you were found out, you became famous. And now you lived off the grid. Taking someone like you out would make me a big hero back home!"

"I'm really not that famous," I said. "And your whole plan was an elaborate plot with intricate intrigues, you hypocritical bimbo!"

Lana started sputtering in Russian. Clearly, she hadn't thought about it. I might be in a bad situation, but at least I nailed her on that. Ha!

"And I have the distinct feeling that you plan to kill
two
agents today." I shot a look at Riley. He sat there in stony silence. Mainly because he couldn't do much else.

"Yes!" Lana's eyes grew wide, and she looked a little deranged. "Yes! I'll kill you and your handler! That was the plan!"

My Girl Scouts looked horrified. They looked from Lana, to me, and then to Riley tied up on the stage. We'd been throwing the word
kill
around a lot. And some of us had guns. I watched as it slowly started to sink in what was really happening here.

Then the screaming and crying started. Have you ever been in an elementary school gym? There's an echo you wouldn't believe. Screams bounced off all the walls and back into our ears in a deafening cacophony of horror.

Lana brought her hands up to her ears. Clearly this caused her some discomfort. Good! She was only about six feet away. I tackled her before she could lower the gun. We crashed to the floor, wrestling for dominance. Now would've been a really good time for Rex to step in and take out Aleksei.

Lana squeezed a shot off and the noise was unbearable. And the screaming got louder. She hadn't hit anyone, but the hissing and deflating red rubber ball in the corner probably wasn't going to make it.

I pounded her wrist against the gym floor until I heard a satisfying snap. I love going for the wrist. Such a fragile part of the human body. So many tiny little bones to break. The gun went skittering away as Lana howled in pain. With her working hand, she reached for the Colt in my holster. I slapped her hand away and punched her hard in the face. As my hand came away, I noticed something blue on it. Makeup. The black eyes were fake! I was going to give her two real ones as soon as I could.

Lana rolled on top, pushing me to the floor underneath her huge boobs. Well that wasn't great. Once again, she tried for my gun. She landed a punch on my chin with her good hand and it hurt. I reached up and grabbed her hair, pulling viciously. Weirdly, a hank of hair came off in my hands. Extensions. Was anything about this woman real?

It wasn't too hard to keep a one-handed woman from my gun, but it meant
I
had trouble accessing it. Lana was like a stark, raving berserker. I guessed the broken wrist didn't hurt her due to her off the charts adrenaline levels. I reached up and grabbed the dangling wrist, squeezing and twisting it. Lana screamed, her eyes filled with pain and rage.

I heard a scuffle nearby and risked a look in that direction. Rex had Aleksei in a choke hold that made him look
totally
cool and
really
hot all at the same time. Riley struggled against his bonds, looking a little less hot. I felt a little guilty about suspecting him.

Lana punched me hard in the face, and I heard my nose snap. Blood started gushing and the girls' screams turned into
EWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW
s. Which didn't make the echo situation any better.

I brought my knee up behind her and hit her in the ass, propelling her over my head and onto the floor. I got to my feet, not wanting to waste any time. I pulled the Colt and held it on her. Lana lay there unconscious, and I wondered if she'd broken her neck when she hit the floor. Honestly, I wouldn't feel too bad if she had.

Rex untied Riley and called the SWAT team in. Boots pounded down the hallway and a group of armed men in black surrounded the Girl Scouts and me. They had their guns trained on Lana as four of them jumped onto the stage to pin Aleksei down.

Riley came over to me and looked down. "Sorry about that. I was completely taken in by her."

"Boobs can blind a man…" I said, "but still, you should've caught that. Maybe it's time you retired."

Riley shook his head and wandered out to the hallway with his cell phone. He'd be calling this in to his people—who used to be my people. I watched as Rex ordered the team to take the girls out to the parking lot. My troop looked up in awe as these big men in tactical gear gently calmed them down.

"I wonder if I'll be able to cuff her with that broken wrist," Rex said.

Lana's hand was bent back in a very unnatural position. It looked like it hurt.

"I guess you won't be teaching knot-tying anytime soon, Lana," I said to her unconscious body. It really sucked that she didn't hear me. I thought it was a pretty good slam.

One of the Katelynns looked at me. "I never liked that lady, Mrs. Wrath."

There was some small satisfaction in that.

It felt like I'd spent a month at the police station. There were so many questions to be answered. Riley tried to shield me as best as he could, but this was the police's jurisdiction. A couple of older dudes I didn't recognize showed up. They were wearing black suits and blue ties. I was pretty sure they were from the CIA. They didn't acknowledge me but spent a lot of time with Riley.

I felt terrible. And stupid. Yes, I blamed Riley for leading Lana to me, but I should've figured it out before now. Worst of all, I'd endangered the lives of my Girl Scouts. Their parents would never let me lead them now. Maybe Kelly would let me watch meetings from a distance. That would be nice, and probably creepy when the girls spotted me lurking behind trees and rocks.

I'd watched as a doctor set and bandaged Lana's wrist and my nose. Rex had called the doctor to the station. He didn't want an international terrorist in the local hospital. Rex avoided cuffing her on her broken wrist, instead cuffing her to him. I suppressed a flare of jealousy.

Lana glared at me the whole time. She was pretty pissed. Every time she looked at me, I gave her a thumbs up. Some Feds showed up to escort her away. I have no idea where they were taking her, but I do know that even she won't look good in prison orange.

My troop surprised me. The police questioned them, and the kids did an amazing job. They'd stopped crying back at the school, and now each and every one of them was calmly giving their statement. Of course, no two girls told the same story. More than once I heard a girl mention rescue by a magical unicorn/Barbie/Princess Aurora. And a couple of the girls asked if they could get a puppy when this was over. To their credit, the police didn't even bat an eye at these requests. Sadly, no one brought them puppies.

"Mrs. Wrath?" I looked down to see one of the Kaytlins patting me on the arm.

I slipped out of my thoughts. "What is it, honey?" I said as gently as I could. These girls would need some serious counseling after all was said and done. I felt even worse. They'd been in a gun fight because of me. This was my fault, and no amount of s'mores was going to make it right. Better, maybe, but not right.

"Thanks for the BEST DAY EVER!" Kaytlin shouted. I looked around at the other girls. They were all smiling and nodding. Well how about that? Maybe some of them would grow up to be spies. I'd have to check later to see if there's a merit badge for espionage.

With all this testimony, it wasn't hard to piece together what happened. Turned out that Lana came up with using the girls at the last minute. When she couldn't find my Girl Scout call list, she went over to Kelly's to get it. Kelly was suspicious, so Lana pulled a gun on her and her husband and had Aleksei tie them up. That was this morning. Sigh. Once again, Kelly knows something before I do. I'd never hear the end of that. I was pretty sure that also meant no Tater Tot casseroles for a while. That was tragic.

So, Lana had called all the parents and said they were going to do a service project to clean out the school before demolition. Because parents love nothing more than to have a babysitter offer to take their kids off their hands, and because they all had weird little crushes on Lana, they had no problem dropping them off. Lana had them meet in another parking lot under the guise of the school parking lot was a construction site and insurance wouldn't cover the girls if they got hurt running around.

And why didn't the police intervene? That was Rex's first question. (Mine was
Can I shoot Lana?
But no one answered me.) They didn't react because by the time SWAT realized what was happening, Lana had marched right past their hiding spots. They saw the gun in her hand, and since she was surrounded by girls, they didn't take the shot. Rex wasn't too happy about that. Neither was I.

I was exhausted. Beyond exhausted. But I stayed and answered questions and did my part. I had to do some serious explaining to a bunch of angry parents. And a couple of the dads were really upset that Lana was no longer part of the troop, in spite of the fact she'd almost killed their daughters. But they'd all get over it. At least I hoped they would.

While I was waiting to be released, I called Kelly.

"Your roommate pulled a gun on me," she said as soon as she answered.

"Yeah. Sorry about that," I apologized.

"You owe me big time, Merry," Kelly said.

"Well, it's actually worse than that," I said. Then I explained how the troop got roped into our showdown.

"But no one got hurt, and they're all okay," I added quickly.

There was a long, martyrish sigh on the other end. I didn't really have any friends in town besides Kelly. I'd thought Lana was a friend, but look how
that
turned out. If I lost Kelly, I'd have to get a whole herd of cats just to stave off loneliness.

"Just promise me no more roommates," Kelly finally said.

"I was thinking about getting a cat…"