Mosquito Bite Murder Read online

  A cheer went up, made all the louder by Hilly's overabundant enthusiasm. Chad rolled his eyes.

  "You don't have to go with us," I told him. "Feel free to head out."

  Last night, as I'd spent the evening keeping the girls from sneaking out of the tent to create mischief and terror, I'd decided that whoever left him here wasn't coming back. I'd heard no gunshots or screams in the woods, which told me Hilly wasn't killing anyone, which told me the coast was clear.

  "I don't even know how I got here." He whined and scratched his belly. "I'm no good at this stuff. I'll just stick with you."

  The doughy man didn't even ask if that was okay. Oh well, I doubted he'd make it too far. Part of me wanted to know more about him. But the other half was losing interest fast. If he wasn't going to tell us anything and was going to be a downer the whole time, what was the point?

  I handed him a bottle of water. "Take this and try to keep up."

  We had hiked about a mile before I realized Hilly actually did have a backpack. It wasn't tactical. The pack was shaped like a cartoon turtle. Cute but hardly practical. The girls loved it.

  "Where did you stash the rifle?" I asked quietly as we walked along.

  "It's in my backpack," Hilly said.

  "It's one that breaks down?" I got excited. I'd missed those fabulous toys when I'd left the CIA. Sure, I took some with me, but in the years since I'd been out, they'd probably invented all kinds of neat stuff, like a sniper rifle that breaks down, or Pixy Stix that deployed truth serum, or a rubber duckie that sprayed chloroform as it entertained you in the bathtub.

  "Nope." Hilly shook her head. "Those kinds of weapons sacrifice accuracy for convenience."

  I studied her pack. It was way too small for a sniper rifle. "You're saying it's in there?"

  She cocked her head to one side. "I guess I did imply that, didn't I? Huh."

  Too many questions flooded my mind, so I gave up and consulted the map. Maria had missed the rendezvous. With her background and training I was sure she'd scored a map and was following it. At least, I hoped she was. Still, I couldn't shake the idea that something was wrong. She hadn't made her presence known if she was following us. And I was fairly certain that was because of Hilly.

  Who I'd just noticed was talking.

  "…and of course, you know how tough it is to find a good drycleaner in Belarus," she was saying. "Especially one who can get camel urine out of wool."

  My eyebrows went up. "What are you talking about?"

  "You weren't listening?" Hilly studied my face. "Something's up. You're acting weirder than you usually do when I show up unexpectedly for no apparent reason."

  I still felt like I couldn't tell her about Maria. Especially now that I was starting to wonder if she'd offed her.

  I shrugged. "It's this Chad thing. I just don't understand why he won't tell us what's really going on."

  "Oh that." Hilly looked bored. "I thought it was something else."

  "Something else?"

  Hilly nodded. "Yeah, like you were worried about someone or something else."

  "Well"—I cleared my throat—"helping the girls get the Bronze Award is a big responsibility, so that's on my mind too."

  Hilly brightened. "I'm excited to be on the trip!" I guess she forgot that she wasn't invited in the first place. "It's like we're real live explorers! Like Dora!"

  I laughed. Her childlike enthusiasm was so infectious I almost forgot she'd once killed five members of a Chinese Triad with a box of thumbtacks, escaping completely unscathed. And they'd been fully armed at the time.

  For the next couple of hours, Chad moaned and griped. He had on the wrong shoes, and I was pretty sure that balance wasn't his skill set, because his hair was covered in leaves and there was dried dirt all over his clothes. Riley hiked along quietly, occasionally breaking a branch or tearing out underbrush.

  He was leaving a trail for Maria. I kept Hilly's attention in hopes she wouldn't notice, and it didn't seem like she did. But I couldn't be sure. Was leaving a trail useless because Hilly had already dispatched her or taken Maria in to CIA HQ before she got here? She really should tell me if she did. It seemed a bit rude.

  You work with someone for a while and even vacation with them, but do you really know them? I'd thought I knew everything about Riley once I'd retired, only to find out that he was capable of doing stupid things he'd never have pulled in the field. Still, he had my back, and I knew it. I was pretty sure Hilly was the same, but would she feel that way toward Maria?

  Argh! What was it Maria wanted from me? I was starting to think I'd never find out. Did Chad know? Was his kidnapping because of Maria? It was too much of a coincidence to think he'd show up when we were hoping to meet with her.

  A thought occurred to me. Could Chad be undercover? Was this all an act? Was he also looking for Maria?

  The wheels in my brain started turning. What did I know about my old friend? She'd left the agency a while back because she was upset that the CIA was gaining a technology she felt they shouldn't have. What had she been doing all these years? Were others looking for her? Had she stirred up trouble in the private sector? Were spies from other countries on her trail?

  And had I brought my troop into the middle of it?

  "And those mushrooms"—Hilly stopped and pointed at some fungus on the ground—"are extremely toxic but look like the kind you can get in the store. You dump those in a bad guy's salad and whammo!" She slammed her fist into her other hand. "Dead in an hour."

  The girls whipped out little notebooks and wrote this down. At least having Hilly along was educational.

  The girls in front of us stopped.

  "Mrs. Wrath?" Lauren asked, holding up a map. "We should be there by now." The child frowned as she looked off in the distance. "If our compass is right, the camp is just over there." She pointed into the trees, but we saw nothing.

  A break was called as we considered this. Hilly and I looked over the girl's shoulder as she pointed it out.

  "Maybe the Council didn't really know where the camp was?" one of the Kaitlyns asked as the other nodded.

  "Or it's just rotted away," Inez added.

  I shook my head. "There should still be something remaining. It couldn't have disappeared entirely."

  Riley walked over, and the girl gave him the map. After a few moments he agreed. "She's right. We should be right in front of it. But all I see are just more trees."

  I shrugged. "Let's keep going. It's possible the map changed when the trust took this place over. The borders might be different."

  I urged everyone to keep moving. Everything seemed normal. The woods were still full of squirrels chattering, birds chirping, and other normal sounds. There were quite a few woodpeckers I noticed. Not by sight, but their tree tapping seemed to grow more intense as we progressed. It was as if a whole flock was busy beating their heads against the trees.

  That was odd. We never heard more than one when camping before. Or maybe it wasn't that unusual. We were in a forest preserve that was off limits to people. Perhaps the animals just weren't concerned about us.

  A loud caw exploded off to our right, followed by a cacophony of crowing. It seemed like there was more than usual crow activity.

  "Stop!" A woman's command brought us up short.

  We looked around but didn't see anything.

  "Did you hear that?" Betty asked.

  I nodded. "Someone else is out here. Hello?"

  "Stay where you are!" the woman's voice boomed. "Go no farther!"

  We paused as a group and looked around. It didn't seem like anyone was here. The voice had been booming and huge, but we couldn't see anything.

  I held up my hands. "It's okay! We have permission to be here!"

  The others began to raise their arms over their heads, following my lead.

  "Go back!" the voice cried out. "You don't belong here!"

  "Show yourself," I insisted. "We aren't here to do anything harmful." Was this some sort of rabid, a
nti–Girl Scout environmentalist?

  "You are not welcome…" The voice collapsed in a fit of coughing. "Get out!" it squeaked.

  "Show yourself and we can explain!" I shouted, albeit not knowing who or where I was shouting to.

  "Not another step or else!" another, weaker voice managed. It was also female. And older.

  Riley, Hilly, and I took up defensive stances to defend the troop. Betty pulled a pair of brass knuckles from her bag and put them on. Lauren and Inez each picked up large branches, while Ava just put her hands on her hips. Chad hid behind the two Kaitlyns.

  From behind six trees, directly in front of us, six ladies possibly in their 70s or 80s stepped out. They looked like they'd been war refugees, in faded clothes that had been repaired way beyond their expiration date. Two of them held hatchets, one had a piece of rope she was swinging, and two more had what looked like homemade baseball bats. The last woman stepped forward, holding a cardboard megaphone.

  "Don't come any farther without the password," the tallest woman said.

  She was wearing a very old green beret and a faded sash. Her silver hair was cut short, but awkwardly, as if she'd cut it off with a butter knife. The other women were dressed similarly but were of different heights. Two of them looked like they could be twins. They all seemed to be in fairly good physical shape, and they all looked old. Like, as old as my troop thought I was.

  "We don't know the password," I shouted.

  The leader frowned. "Then you can't come any closer."

  "I don't really remember the password either," one of the other older ladies spoke up. "My memory isn't what it used to be. We shouldn't change it every month." The others nodded in agreement.

  "Ladies!" The leader seemed exasperated. "You have to stop doing that! How are we going to appear dangerous if we admit to the enemy that we forget our own password?"

  The same woman who stepped forward shook her head. "It doesn't help that you come up with such bizarre passwords, like Viva Che Guevara, or Independence for Zimbabwe, or Free Guatemala! I can't even spell half that stuff, let alone remember it!"

  The leader stood her ground. "Those are important, historical moments!"

  Che Guevara? Guatemala? Zimbabwe? I stared at their clothing. In addition to the scouting accessories, their clothes were aged and faded but very nondescript. And there was something familiar in her mannerisms, but I couldn't quite put my finger on it.

  I snapped my fingers. "Are you ladies Girl Scouts?"

  My question changed their demeanor. All of the women, except for the leader, began to smile.

  "Maybe these people are nice?" the two who looked like twins said in perfect synchronicity.

  "We're Girl Scouts too!" Betty stepped forward.

  The older woman held up the quiet sign. She stepped closer to the little girl, and I moved up protectively. I wasn't sure, but I thought Betty could take her.

  "Prove it," the old lady said.

  Betty launched into the Girl Scout Pledge.

  The older woman narrowed her eyes when she finished. "Everyone knows that. Tell me the Girl Scout Law."

  I tensed up. We always said the pledge because it was short. Had we been better leaders, we probably would've made them learn the Law. But to the best of my knowledge, we never had.

  The other girls lined up on either side of Betty. They held up their hands in the Girl Scout sign and recited, "I will do my best to be honest and fair…friendly and helpful…"

  They spoke in perfect synchronicity. I was impressed. Although I was pretty sure they added stuff at the end, like "we will pet all the horses, fight for the oppressed in France and Spain, and learn to be princess ninjas." But they had the rest of it.

  The older woman pursed her lips. "Fine. You're Girl Scouts. Although I don't know about the stuff at the end. It's been a long time, and it's possible there's been war against France and Spain."

  What?

  She turned and began to walk. "You'd best come with us, then."

  We followed the women through some particularly dense foliage. It just looked like the woods went on and on into infinity. Where were they taking us?

  The leader reached into the air and grabbed something, pulling it back. It was a curtain painted as a perfect continuation of the woods. Pretty ingenious. There was yards of the stuff attached to branches overhead. It was excellent camouflage. We followed the ladies inside, with Riley closing it behind us.

  "It's Camp Deer Path!" Lauren gasped.

  Sure enough, we'd just walked into a camp through a secret curtain. Everything looked rundown but tidy. There were no weeds, and the pathways were clear.

  The leader stopped at the door to a large building and turned around to face us. "Girl Scouts only." She narrowed her eyes. She looked so familiar doing that. "No Boy Scouts."

  "Oh, I'm not a…" Riley started. He paused for a moment before saying, "Okay. We'll stay out here."

  Though Hilly was more like an honorary Girl Scout than a registered one, she followed us in the door. There was a large room with tables and rusted chairs. The older women started to drag chairs into a circle, and we jumped in to help.

  Once there was a chair for everyone, we sat. The older women on one side, Hilly, the girls, and me on the other.

  I was hoping we were safe, but these women were trying to come off as intimidating. The leader of the group glared imperiously at us, as if to imply she was a force to be reckoned with.

  The sense that something was familiar still twitched in the back recesses of my brain. I pushed these thoughts aside for the moment. "Is this Camp Deer Path?" I asked as questions poured out of me. "Why are you here? We were sent by the Council to find this place. Why are you treating us like enemies?"

  The older woman frowned and got to her feet, walked over to the mantle of a huge fireplace, and brought back a painted stick before slowly sitting back in her chair.

  "This is the sacred lodge." She scowled. "No one talks without the Talking Stick."

  "What's a Talking Stick?" Ava asked.

  One of the women who appeared to be twins took the stick. "You can't talk unless you have the stick, dear. It's impolite."

  "Oh," Ava said. "Sorry."

  The leader took the stick. "That's talking without the Talking Stick!"

  The girls looked at me. I gave them a nod. This was kind of their territory, so we needed to follow their rules. It seemed kind of primitive, actually. Like a tribe on the Amazon I'd stumbled into accidentally once. I wasn't in any danger because I was carrying a Discman with a Beyonce CD inside. When they heard the music, they thought I was a god and decided not to eat me. The track "Single Ladies" was a favorite on raw fish night.

  "This is hallowed ground," the leader intoned. "We are all that's left of our troop."

  Inez's eyes bulged. "The rest died?"

  A smiling lady grabbed the stick. "Oh no, dear. The others didn't come with us."

  The leader took the stick back. "They were unbelievers. We are Troop 0014, out of Hiawatha Council."

  I motioned for the stick, but she didn't give it up.

  "I am Betty," the woman said. "That's Laura." She indicated a tall woman whose grey hair still had red highlights in it. "That's Ada." She pointed to a woman of average height with two long silver braids and an intense gaze. "This is Esme." The pretty Latina lady smiled warmly and waved. "And those are the two Sharons." She indicated a pair of women with matching dark salt-and-pepper ponytails who could've been twins.

  One of the Sharons took the stick. "We used to have four Sharons. All with the same last initial!"

  Whoa. That's what was familiar! Betty, Laura, Ada, Esme, Sharon, and Sharon were the future, elderly Betty, Lauren, Ava, Inez, Kaitlyn, and Kaitlyn. Had we stumbled into a time warp? I didn't really think they existed, but these women and their counterpart girls had the same personality and mannerisms.

  So this was what hell looked like. And it had two Bettys.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  I held out my han
d once more, but Betty was faster and took it from…um, Betty.

  "I'm Betty too." She introduced the girls and then Hilly. "Mrs. Wrath is our leader."

  Did I imagine it, or did the older women sit up a little straighter?

  "We're looking for this place so we can map it for our Bronze Award," Betty added. She spoke specifically to the older Betty. "And you kind of look like me."

  Betty Sr. took the stick back. "I have no idea what you're talking about. Betty is a very common name."

  One of the Sharons grabbed the stick. "She's right. You and Betty Two look alike."

  I walked over and took the stick. Sharon handed it over with a smile.

  "First of all, it's not Betty Two as much as it's Betty also. Secondly, why are you here? We were told this was a private preserve," I said. "Let's just start there."

  Betty Sr. held out her hand and Betty Jr. took the stick from me and gave it to her older doppelganger.

  "We are the guardians of this camp. When it closed, we decided to move here and protect it."

  "You've been here all these years?" I was stunned. That couldn't be right.

  Betty Sr. handed Betty Jr. the stick and nodded.

  Betty Jr. brought it to me. "You can't talk without the Talking Stick, remember."

  I held my hand out and the girl handed me the stick. "Right. Sorry. You said when it closed. Surely you haven't been here since then."

  Betty delivered the stick back to Betty.

  The woman shifted in her chair. "We have forsworn the outside world. When this camp closed, we were eighteen. We came here and have not left these woods since."

  My jaw dropped open. I closed it because I wasn't sure if a thought counted as something that required the talking stick.

  Hilly got up and took the stick. "You've been in here all that time? And you've never gone out?"

  I wasn't sure, but I thought our Betty said as she took the stick from Hilly, "That's pretty badass."

  I waited until the stick was delivered up to me and said, "As the only registered Girl Scout leader in this room, I am declaring martial law." I wasn't sure that was a thing. "We do not need the stick to converse. Seriously, it would take forever."