by Lucy Quinn
Evie nodded. “The worst part is over. Let’s see about cleaning this place up for whoever comes to deal with Gertie’s estate. I’m pretty sure she’d want them to have fresh linens.”
“They’re in the hall closet,” Raúl said with sadness in his voice. Dora looked over at him and truly believed he had cared for Gertie and Myrtle. While she wasn’t excusing the fact that he’d planned and executed two women’s deaths, she did understand how someone could do things out of desperation.
She’d recently done a few questionable things herself. Dora didn’t like unfinished business, and the weight of her situation was heavy on her shoulders. Never in a million years had she expected to have a warrant out for her arrest. It made her stomach churn with angst that there was nothing she could do to fix it right away. It was frustrating that Evie and she had to drive across the country chasing after a flash drive before she could turn herself in to the police and clear her name.
Dora let out a sigh and did the one thing she could do. She walked over to the pantry to grab a broom and mop and get started on the donut mess in the kitchen, a place she knew she could set things right.
26
“Isn’t this fabulous, Dor?” Evie asked as she gazed at the California coast’s night sky through the open section of their VW pop-top camper bus. They’d gotten to Clamshell Cove just before midnight, almost twelve hours past when they’d hoped to arrive. Luke had secured them the bus like he’d promised, camping ready with all the necessary items they’d need for a life on the road, but it took a couple hours of Evie and him fiddling with a fuel pump replacement before it was ready for a long trip. They didn’t get out of New Orleans until dawn. Considering their vintage 1970s bus shuddered like a washing machine with an uneven load when the speedometer reached sixty-five, they’d had to drive conservatively. They’d also eaten up time changing their disguise. Their story had hit nationwide news, and both women were more afraid of being recognized than ever.
Even though USPS tracking showed their package had arrived at Windy Weathers’ house earlier in the day, Dora and Evie decided the middle of the night wasn’t the best time to go knocking on her door to inquire about it, so they were camped out in the parking lot of a state park near the ocean until morning.
Evie’s sleeping bag rustled as she lifted her arms over her head and listened to the crickets chirping and the waves crashing on the sand in the distance. “Look at all those stars. Do you ever wonder what aliens really look like?”
Dora chuckled. “Aliens?”
“Yes, aliens,” Evie said as she lifted up on an elbow to look at her friend. Dora’s hair was sticking out at odd angles, and it was all Evie could do not to laugh. While Luke and she had worked on repairing the bus, Dora had taken the scissors to her hair to give herself a pixie. Considering Dora hadn’t been the one to spend a few months getting her cosmetology license, it was a plan that had worked better in her friend’s mind than in reality.
Dora’s hair looked like a toddler had cut it, but Evie wasn’t going to tell her that. She’d been the good friend by slapping some gel on her hands and spiking Dora’s do to create a chaotic style all while convincing her that nobody would ever expect it from her. Not that it kept Dora from bursting into tears when she saw it, but as long as Evie made sure Dora didn’t see a mirror they’d be fine.
She’d need to stay away from a mirror as well. Evie had known better, but in solidarity she’d cut her own hair off too. Curls and a pixie were not a good mix, and she knew with the pink dye that she could only manage to tame into a strawberry blonde color, she resembled little orphan Annie. Even Sunshine had gotten a little makeover with some nontoxic pink dye for her tail. Since they had a lost-girl look going with their hairstyles, they’d opted to work it and picked up a few ill-fitting, worn clothing items from a thrift store in some town they’d passed through in New Mexico. Their new appearance was perfect for Clamshell Cove judging by the patrons at the local bar where they’d stopped to use the bathroom before retiring for the night.
“Just think,” Evie said. “Aliens could be smoking hot men who live to serve women.”
Dora chuckled before she let out a big yawn. “Or cranky people who don’t have access to coffee one hundred different ways. Please agree we can stop and splurge on something yummy tomorrow before we find Windy Weathers. With a name like that, something tells me we’re going to need it before we meet her.”
Evie yawned, too and snuggled her pup. “Deal,” she said before they both fell asleep.
They awoke to dense fog that made driving to the coffee shop feel as if they were in a dream-like state. And after the heat of New Orleans, it was a bit of an adjustment to be shivering in their shorts and sweatshirts while they got sugary caffeinated concoctions before heading to the outskirts of town where Windy Weathers lived.
With the eeriness of the fog and the horrible state of the road they were driving on, Evie couldn’t help but worry it was an omen, one they should heed, and she almost said something about it to Dora. But she took one look at her best friend, and Evie knew Dora was just as worried as she was. Her brow was furrowed in concentration, and she had a white-knuckle grip on the steering wheel as she navigated the rough terrain.
“This is it, Dor,” she lied. “I have a good feeling about this. We’re going to sweet talk Windy into giving us the Buddha and hightail it back to the nearest police station to turn ourselves in. No way can the cops out here be crooked.”
Dora shot Evie a furtive glance. “That’s what I’d have said about Brian.”
Brian was Dora’s neighbor whom they’d found out wasn’t a good cop after all when they discovered he was scamming elderly people out of their life savings for a fake animal rescue charity. “Well, just the same, I think we’ve got this.” Her phone chirped with directions, telling them they were six hundred feet from their destination.
The bus rattled as Dora maneuvered around a series of potholes, trying to avoid the ones that appeared to be digging attempts toward China. “Goodness, Windy lives in the middle of nowhere.”
“There it is,” Evie said when she saw a dirt road. “Turn right.”
Dora slowed to a crawl and turned onto the road where they saw a large wooden gate blocking their way about twenty feet into the woodlands. “I guess she likes her privacy,” Dora said as she put the bus in park. “I don’t see an intercom or doorbell, do you?”
Evie spotted an oversized mailbox with a large crate below it that might be used to keep packages safe from the elements, but she didn’t see any way to alert the homeowner of their presence. “I don’t, but we might not need to announce ourselves. Let’s check the mailbox. She might not have gotten yesterday’s mail yet.”
Dora let out a sigh. “More mail fraud.” But she turned off the bus’s engine anyway. “I suppose I should be used to this by now.”
“We’re not going to steal anything, Dor.” The bus door groaned as Evie pushed it open. She and Sunshine hopped out. “We’re just returning property to its rightful owner. We’ll even leave the fifteen dollars she spent to get it.”
That seemed to placate Dora, and bits of gravel crunched under their feet as they made their way over to the mailbox. The metal flap creaked when Evie tugged it open to look inside. “Yes!” she cried when she saw mail inside. But nothing was big enough to be the Buddha, so she went for the wooden trunk below. “Jackpot.” There were a dozen packages that appeared to be large enough to contain the piggy bank, and she bent down to pull them out.
“Uh-oh,” Dora said. “Evie, look.”
“What?” Evie stood up with her arms full of mail to look in the direction Dora had pointed. There was a security camera high up in a tree. “Pshaw, that’s probably there to scare people. Nobody actually watches those things. Now help me—”
Sunshine let out a whine just as the distinct sound of a rifle being cocked made both Dora and Evie stiffen with fear, and packages thudded on the ground when Evie dropped them. Both women raised their hands
over their heads and turned in the direction of the gun.
“Oh god,” Dora moaned.
Two burly looking men with the kind of muscles Evie had fantasized about were holding rifles and glaring at them. For once, Sunshine was completely silent and still as she shook near Evie’s feet. Evie quickly said, “This isn’t what it looks like. We’re actually looking for something that got sent to Windy by mistake.”
“A Buddha bank,” Dora uttered rapidly. “She bought it from us, well, someone we know—”
The men’s eyes narrowed into tiny slits, and Evie was sure they weren’t buying Dora’s story, so she interrupted. “Really well. Gertie is like family, and she wasn’t supposed to sell the Buddha piggy bank.”
“Right,” Dora said. “But she did, and we’re here to get it back.”
The men exchanged a glance that made Evie think their time on earth was about to end. She made a last-ditch effort to save them. “We even have money to reimburse her. Please, can we just talk to Windy and sort this whole thing out? We honestly don’t mean any harm.”
A thin woman stepped out from the trees. She had on faded overalls that were hanging on her body by the suspenders and her long silver hair was in a loose side braid. “Boys, lower your guns.” She scanned Dora and Evie with her gaze. “These two girls look like they could use a good meal.” She smiled making her suntanned face crinkle into a roadmap of life. “I have a feeling they’ve got an interesting story to tell.”
Boy, did they ever.
Read more in Chaos in California.
About the Author
Lucy Quinn is the brainchild of New York Times bestselling author Deanna Chase and USA Today bestselling author Violet Vaughn. Having met over a decade ago in a lampwork bead forum, the pair were first what they like to call “show wives” as they traveled the country together, selling their handmade glass beads. So when they both started writing fiction, it seemed only natural for the two friends to pair up with their hilarious, laugh-out-loud, cozy mysteries. At least they think so. Now they travel the country, meeting up in various cities to plan each new Lucy Quinn book while giggling madly at themselves and the ridiculous situations they force on their characters. They very much hope you enjoy them as much as they do.
Deanna Chase, is a native Californian, transplanted to the slower paced lifestyle of southeastern Louisiana. When she isn’t writing, she is often goofing off with her husband in New Orleans or playing with her two shih tzu dogs.
Violet Vaughn lives on a small island off the coast of Maine where she spends most mornings walking along the water with her Portuguese water dogs.
www.lucyquinnauthor.com
[email protected]
Also by Lucy Quinn
Secret Seal Isle Mysteries
New Corpse in Town
Life in the Dead Lane
A Walk on the Dead Side
Any Way You Bury It
Death is in the Air
Signed, Sealed, Fatal I’m Yours
Sweet Corpse of Mine
Knocking on Death’s Door
Highway to Homicide
* * *
Accidentally Undercover
Peril in Pensacola
Mischief in New Orleans
Chaos in California
more to come…