Free Marshmallow S'More Murder (Merry Wrath Mysteries Book 3) by Leslie Langtry Page B

"Oh, no."
    It wasn't unusual to get beat up in our line of work. I'd actually had my nose broken twice. You couldn't tell. I knew a plastic surgeon in Paraguay who owed me a favor. But you're still never really prepared to see it when it happens to your friends.
    "He's still alive," Maria said quietly. "That's something." But from the look on her face I could tell she was worried.
    "Go to the album. See if there's anything more," I pleaded, mostly to get the image of Riley's battered face out of my head.
    "There's a video," Maria said. "That's it." She hit play.
    Riley's face filled the screen—this time he looked fine. He must've made the video before his beating.
    "Wrath…" he said to the camera, "if you find this, and I hope you will, the yakuza found some connection between Midori's death and me." He paused to look around himself, before turning his attention back to the camera.
    "I don't think they know about you. But they're closing in. If you find this, it means they've got me. No one else in the Agency knows about Ito. You need to get help."
    A crash sounded in the background, and Riley turned to his left. "They're here—" Then the screen went black, and the video ended.
    Dammit.
    I leaned back on the bench, defeated. That was it? The packet just had a phone Riley had left for us so we'd know he was in trouble—something we already knew? I'd hoped the packet had detailed directions to where Riley was being held, complete with timetables as to when his captors would be breaking for dinner or the bathroom. Instead, it was just a video message that told us this was about Midori Ito.
    I knew sometimes clues didn't pan out like you'd wanted them to. No matter what you had to do to get them. Like sneaking around the Japanese Embassy. And wanting the clue to be more wouldn't make it so. It was a hazard of the trade.
    "So it is the yakuza," Maria said. "And they have him here." She swept the park with her arm. "Somewhere in the area."
    "This is not good." I had a talent for stating the obvious. How could Maria and I take on the yakuza alone? They always travelled in large groups. There'd be a lot more than just two of them. And finding their safe house would make the classic idea of a needle in a haystack look like finding an atom on a planet. I wasn't in a good place to deal with this. I had twelve little girls with me, and I didn't work at the CIA anymore.
    "This may be a lost cause, Merry," Maria said.
    I shook my head. "No. I can't give up." I couldn't figure out how to manage it, but I couldn't quit. "Riley helped me twice in the last year. I can't abandon him now."
    We sat there for about ten minutes sightlessly watching the girls play, our minds working on the puzzle. Both Maria and I were trained agents with field experience. That was an advantage. And we had a couple of resources still at Langley we could exploit. That was another advantage.
    Riley was here, somewhere. We'd just missed him at the Japanese Embassy. That was something. Now we just needed to find him. But how?
    "This isn't Riley's phone," I said, as if that would help. "All of Riley's calls were from his phone. We've tried calling him back, but that doesn't work. I don't even know how he's charging it."
    Maria shook her head. "What should we do?"
    I sighed. "We're going to have to find out who the new yakuza guys in town are."
    To be honest, I knew this might come up. I just hoped it wouldn't.
    "You have a contact here?" Maria asked.
    "I have a contact. She's not here. She's in Virginia," I said, regretting each word as I spoke it.
    Maria stood. "What are we waiting for?"
    "A reason not to go," I said. There was no way this would be easy. It was a two-hour drive from the city, and I had no idea what to do with the girls. But if anyone knew which members of the yakuza were in the States, it would be this woman.
    "Why not?" Maria asked. "I mean, aside from the girls."
    "Because Elvinia Loretta Thigpen is a huge pain in the ass," I said as I stood to