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  MAKE BELIEVE MURDER

  a Merry Wrath Mystery

  by

  LESLIE LANGTRY

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  Smashwords Edition

  Copyright © 2019 by Leslie Langtry

  Cover design by Janet Holmes

  Gemma Halliday Publishing

  http://www.gemmahallidaypublishing.com

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

  Smashwords Edition License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author's work.

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  CHAPTER ONE

  "All rise!" a voice cried out. I couldn't tell if it was male or female, but it was definitely a teenager and I'd definitely heard it before.

  As for the request to rise, well that would be a bit tricky, considering that I was tied to a chair with a hood over my head. Rough rope cut into my wrists and ankles. Too bad it wasn't zip ties. I was good at getting out of those.

  A burst of cicadas screeched around me from every direction, telling me I was outside and it was most likely evening. The hood was open a bit at the bottom, and I could see weeds and dirt. That could be the backyard at my old house. I wasn't much of a gardener. In fact, I was a little embarrassed that whoever had taken me could see that.

  The last thing I remembered was taking a nap in my hammock at my house. And by house, I meant the one I shared with my husband, not the house across the street that I still owned, to the complete consternation of said husband.

  Where was I, and why was I tied up? Had I been captured by the Russians? Hmmm…no, not if this was rope that held me down. Like me, they preferred zip ties. The Russians went berserk when that particular form of bondage was invented. Like it was Christmas in Moscow and Russian Santa was actually sober. Spies over there used them on everything from Ukrainians to leftover salads.

  You might think, hey! The voices I heard spoke English! They must be Americans. And in most cases you'd be right. But once I'd been kidnapped by an Estonian arms dealer who was a bit obsessed with America and wanted to show off his newly acquired Bronx accent. He also only ate hot dogs and Velveeta cheese.

  So, you see, it wouldn't do to guess until I knew more.

  My name is Merry Wrath, and for several years, I was a spy with the CIA, until the vice president "accidentally" outed me to get back at my senator dad. Originally, my name was Fionnaghuala (pronounced "Finella") Merrygold Czrygy, but I changed it to Merry Wrath and moved back to my hometown of Who's There, Iowa to help run a Girl Scout troop.

  Makes perfect sense, right?

  There was a tapping sound, kind of like a baseball bat on a rock.

  "I command the Dark Forces to accept this old lady as our tribute," a male voice squeaked, "so that we may have superpowers!"

  Old lady? That's it. I put some effort into it, and in a split second the ropes binding my wrists fell off easily, and then I untied my legs and pulled off my hood.

  "Stewie!" I shouted sternly as I got to my feet.

  The short, fat kid with wiry red hair was dressed in a dark, wizardy robe with a cow skull perched on top of his head that only helped to give him three more inches, bringing him up to the robust height of 5'4". I'd met the kid only a month or so ago when I walked in on him and a kid named Robby engaging in some cosplay at the zoo.

  "You're not supposed to do that!" Stewie stamped his foot, and the cow skull fell to the ground, landing with a very un-wizardy thunk.

  I stalked toward him. "Why was I tied to that chair?"

  The other teen druids looked around anxiously, like they were about to get grounded from their video games.

  Stewie knew he was losing them. Raising his arms dramatically over his head, which wasn't easy since he was so rotund, he screamed, "We are the Cult of NicoDerm!" His fingers wiggled at me, reminding me of jazz hands. "Fear us!"

  "NicoDerm…like the nicotine patch?" I asked as I placed my hands on my hips.

  "What?" Stewie's face fell. "No!" he shouted. "We are Dread Incarnate!"

  I shook my head. "Not unless you mean to inspire fear in those who try to quit smoking."

  His arms came down, and he scooped up the cow skull. His hair had matted against his skull in a way that looked like he had horns on either side of his head. I had no idea if that was intentional.

  "Who is this chick?" A tall, skinny girl with stringy brown hair stepped forward. "I thought you were getting us a proper sacrifice."

  I narrowed my eyes. "You were going to sacrifice me?"

  "Not really," a tall boy on my left with a serious acne affliction said in an unnaturally low voice. "We weren't going to kill you or nothing. We were just going to draw a little blood with this knife." He held up a certified Boy Scout pocketknife with the Phillips-head screwdriver sticking out.

  "Oh, that makes me feel so much better." I shook my head.

  Stewie shrieked, "I am Odious, the Demigod!"

  I looked down at the chair. "Is this from my house?"

  "I knew you couldn't pull it off," the girl sneered. "You really are a Stewbutt."

  "You should've gotten us a virgin." Another girl in back pointed at me. "When they're old like that, they're not virgins anymore."

  "I've heard that." The boy with the low voice nodded. "It falls off them or something when they hit menopause at thirty."

  "First off"—I glared at the kids—"I'm not old. I'm not even thirty. And secondly, I don't think you understand how virginity works, but I'm not the one who's going to explain it to you."

  "Who is this woman?" the squeaky boy asked.

  Stewie seemed to shrink. "Some crazy lady who talks to birds."

  Every fake druid turned towards me, staring at me.

  "She can talk to birds!" The girl bowed down to me.

  "She's magical!" The squeaky boy did the same.

  * * *

  "And," I explained, "that's how I became the Bird Lady Protector of the Cult of NicoDerm."

  Rex's right eyebrow went up. To be honest, I'm surprised he let me go on this long. He didn't seem amused ten minutes ago when I walked through the front door with leaves in my hair, carrying one of our dining room chairs. I forgot to ask Stewie how he got it but had no intention of going back to ask because they were in the process of collecting bird feathers to make me a crown, most likely woven with a healthy dose of surly despair.

  "That's your excuse for being late for dinner?" The corner of his mouth twitched a bit. "How did they kidnap you, and how did they get a dining room chair?"

  "Remember when Bart house-sat for us last weekend so we could go to Chicago?"

  Rex nodded. "Yes. How does Bart figure into this?"

  Bart was Betty's older brother. Betty was one of my more precocious Scouts.

  "Bart found the chloroform wipes, took one, and sold it to Stewie for fifty bucks. Stewie and some kid with bad skin then used it on me while I was napping in the yard. They grabbed the chair at that time."

  "He confessed all of that?" My husband's right eyebrow went up.

  "Well," I admitted, "after I stood on his neck and threatened to do terrible things to his more sensitive body parts with a sharpened pinecone."

  "Damn," Rex mused as he looked at our pets (which included a Scottish deerhound, a narcoleptic cat who looked like Elvis, and an obese older cat who looked like Hitler). "I really liked Bart. Now we'll need another house sitter."

  Philby the Hitler cat meowed loudly as if to say we didn't need a house sitter since she could handle things on her own. Leonard, the dog, whimpered in dissent because one of Philby's favorite pastimes was tormenting him. Martini had no opinion because, yet again, she was asleep, this time facedown and spread-eagle on my foot.

  I pulled the pinecone, its scales sharpened into spikes, from my back pocket. "I can have a little talk with Bart too, if you'd like."

  He shook his head. "No time right now. You'd better get ready."

  My husband, the town's only detective, was dressed in a suit. We were supposed to have dinner with Dr. Soo Jin Body, the county medical examiner, and her new boyfriend and Iowa State Trooper, Eduardo Ruiz. I'd been looking forward all week to meeting and inte
rrogating him.

  "Give me ten minutes!" I shouted over my shoulder as I raced up the stairs.

  Seven minutes later, I was showered and dressed in a simple blue dress and black ballet flats. My short, curly hair was still a bit damp, but I thought that was okay because now I had a killer dinner story.

  * * *

  "You made it!" Soo Jin jumped up from her chair when we entered Trattoria Italiano, the nicest restaurant in town. The drop-dead gorgeous woman threw her arms around me and crushed me in a hug.

  I squeezed back. "Sorry! I had to disrupt a teenage druid sacrifice." I turned to her date, an equally gorgeous man with dark wavy hair and a warm, crooked grin that could melt pavement. "You must be Eduardo."

  The man smiled and planted a kiss on each cheek. "Eddie, please."

  We sat down, and Soo Jin poured us a glass of wine. "Now, what's this about some druid sacrifice?"

  "They weren't going to sacrifice a druid," I explained. "I was the sacrifice." I retold the story, adding a few new flourishes, like a newt and crystal ball. At one point I had a bald eagle swoop in and land on my shoulder.

  Rex wisely said nothing. And I loved him for that.

  Eddie looked at me curiously when I finished.

  Soo Jin put her hand on his arm. "This kind of thing happens to her all the time."

  She was right. It did. Well, not the sacrifice part. That was fairly new.

  "What are you going to do with those kids?" Eddie asked. All I knew about him was that he was a state trooper and Soo Jin really, really, really liked him. She'd actually said it three times.

  Rex sighed. "Not much. I'll just drag them in for questioning on how they managed to steal a chair from our house."

  Eddie looked at me. "But they kidnapped your wife…"

  I waved him off. "It happens more often than you'd think."

  "And trust me," Rex said as he took my hand in his, "Merry can take care of herself."

  The man looked positively confused. Soo Jin whispered in his ear, and he smiled. She probably told him she'd explain later.

  We ordered, and I decided to put the whole druid thing behind us. "Eddie, I'm so glad we're finally getting to meet you."

  Rex smiled warmly. "It's nice to have another man at the table. Usually I'm surrounded by Merry and a cloud of little girls."

  "Oh right." Eddie relaxed, leaning back in his chair. "The Girl Scout troop. I've heard a lot about them."

  Of course he had. It was probably the first thing Soo Jin told him. My troop was legendary. My girls could solve murders, take down bad guys with a lollipop stick, and come up with diabolical plans that would make the mafia weep. I told him a couple of stories of the troop's exploits in Washington DC during a mud run fundraiser at camp and recently at a murder mystery night gone wrong.

  "Wow," Eddie gasped when I finished. "It's nice to see such strong, independent girls."

  I liked him already. But now, the nicey-nice was over because it was time to interrogate him to find out if he was good enough for my friend. So far he had a very high rating, but that could change. And Soo Jin, crushing on him with her three reallys, might not be a good judge of character. After all, the woman worked almost exclusively with dead people.

  "Eddie, tell me about yourself," I demanded.

  He actually blushed. The man actually blushed. "I grew up in Chicago," he started. "Went to Northwestern and got into law enforcement. It's a boring story."

  "I'm sure it isn't." I smiled. "Tell me everything about your life."

  "Merry," Rex warned, squeezing my hand hard. "We're not here to interrogate the man."

  I ignored him. "Eddie, your comment about the girls means you obviously have feminist leanings, which is good. But how do you feel about women in the CIA?"

  Rex rolled his eyes. "Eddie, you don't have to answer that."

  Soo Jin giggled adorably.

  "It's okay." Eddie waved my husband off. "Soo Jin told me about your past. I think it's amazing, all the things you've been able to do. I hope if I have a little girl someday that she's in your troop."

  I blushed in spite of myself. It was an impulse I could usually control, mainly because nobody flattered me like this.

  "Merry's solved a few murders around here, too," Soo Jin said. "She's very smart."

  This time my already red face caught fire.

  Eddie took a drink from his glass of wine. "Sheriff Carnack has told me a little about that. My only concern is in hoping others don't try to do the same and step on the toes of local law enforcement."

  What?

  Rex laughed. "Eddie, you've passed my test with flying colors. Dinner's on me."

  "Well, sure," I stumbled. "I don't think people should take the law into their own hands. I just happen to have experiences in my past that give me an edge."

  Eddie held his hands up. "I'm so sorry, Merry. I didn't mean to imply that you were acting above the law."

  "No, please, by all means," Rex said. "Imply it. She won't listen anyway."

  Soo Jin protested, "She's actually been very helpful on a number of cases."

  Now that someone had come to my rescue, I decided to let up on Eddie. Rex, on the other hand, would hear about this later.

  "It's okay. I shouldn't have come here planning to interrogate you. If Soo Jin likes you, then that's good enough for me."

  That didn't mean I was done questioning him.

  By the time the food came, I'd learned most of what I needed to know. The important things, like how he treated my friend and what his opinion was on cats that looked like Hitler. By the way, Eddie said he'd never hold a cat's appearance against her.

  By dessert we were all laughing like old friends. Eddie was nice and a calm, quiet man. He seemed the perfect complement to the bubbly Soo Jin. Kind of like how Rex was a grownup who ate healthy, balanced meals, while I still ate Pizza Rolls and believed sugar was at the top of the food pyramid. That kind of thing.

  Eddie passed my test, and I officially liked him. As we breezed through dinner and dessert, I relaxed. A little. There'd have to be a few more conversations and a late-night background check I'd get from hacking into the CIA's database, but for now, Eddie Ruiz was alright by me.

  As the night wrapped up and we walked to our cars, I spotted someone lurking by the dumpster. It was tough to tell, but it looked like a woman. I couldn't see her face, but her stance was unusual, and I'd seen it before. And she was staring at me.

  No way. It can't be!

  I grabbed an old fast food bag from the floor of my minivan. "I'm gonna toss this real quick," I said to Rex.

  "Good idea," my very neat and tidy husband agreed. "But why not take more stuff…" His voice trailed off because I was already halfway there.

  The woman slipped out of sight as I reached the dumpster. I tossed the bag and looked around. A giggle came from the shadows of the building on my left. A very unusual giggle.

  It couldn't possibly be who I thought it was.

  "Hilly?" I hissed into the darkness. "Is that you?"

  A woman with long brown hair in a braid down her back and a very athletic build stepped out to meet me.

  "You remember me!" She threw her arms around my neck and jumped up and down, her shoulder repeatedly smashing into my chin.

  I pulled away and stared. "Hilly! What are you doing here?"

  This wasn't just any blast from the past. Hilly was an assassin with the CIA (an agency that doesn't have assassins—I'm required to say that). Her appearance anywhere wasn't necessarily good. It usually meant that someone was about to die.

  Hopefully, it wasn't me.

  CHAPTER TWO

  "Are you working, Hilly?" I asked my old colleague.

  And is it me you're here for? I didn't ask out loud.

  She rolled her eyes. "No, duh! I'm on vacation. I came here to see you!"