Hook, Line and Blinker (A Miss Fortune Mystery Book 10)
Page 2
“If you want to contest the audit,” Carter said, “you need to file the appropriate paperwork, but in the meantime, I need to collect the keys to government buildings that are in your possession.”
If Celia had been capable of it, I swear her head would have spun around on her neck just like in The Exorcist. She sputtered several times, then pulled a set of keys out of her purse. I was waiting for her to fling them in Carter’s face, but then Celia did something entirely unexpected.
She took off running.
Shoving people to the side, Celia bolted away from the crowd and in between the buildings, screaming that she would throw the keys in the bayou before she turned them over to lying, cheating trash. Everyone was so stunned that it took at least a couple seconds before anyone reacted.
Then the chase was on.
Gertie was the closest of our group to the edge of the crowd so she got out first, but Ida Belle and I were close behind. The guy with the fish was the farthest out, as the crowd had forced him to stand some ways back before the announcement came. He was lumbering toward Celia at a pace much faster than I would have given him credit for, especially as he was still clutching the rod and the fish.
I passed Gertie as we rounded the building and saw Celia about thirty feet ahead, not too far from the bayou. She flung her arm back, the keys still clutched in her hand, and I knew she was about to throw them.
“Hell, no!” the guy with the fish yelled, and then tossed the enormous bass at Celia, as though he were skipping stones on the water.
The fish hit the ground before it reached her but slid under her foot as she raced forward. Her leg shot out from under her and she fell backward, flinging the keys up in the air. I dodged to the right and snagged the keys. Gertie did not have time to put on the brakes and ran right over Celia, treading in the middle of her chest before falling forward onto the fish.
Gertie’s weight on the slimy fish didn’t slow it down one bit. It continued its forward progress down the bank and deposited both of them in the water. As Gertie struggled to stand up, the guy with the rod started reeling the fish back in. When Gertie came dripping wet up the bank, Celia sat up and pointed a finger at her.
“I want her arrested for assault,” Celia said.
Carter, who was standing in between Celia and the bank, raised his eyebrows. I could tell he was struggling not to smile.
“She ruined my dress,” Celia continued to rant, “and probably broke a rib.”
“I wish I’d broken a rib,” Gertie said. “Then you wouldn’t be able to gasbag around town the way you do. The fact that your mouth is open is a sure sign nothing is bruised.”
“Except maybe her ego,” Ida Belle said.
“Nice,” I said.
“Then arrest that man for assaulting me with a fish,” Celia said. “He made me fall. I could have been seriously injured.”
“We’re not that lucky,” the fish dude said. “And besides, it wasn’t intentional. I dropped the fish while I was running.”
Carter looked around at the crowd that had gathered. “Did anyone see this man throw the fish?”
The entire crowd took on innocent expressions with lots of head shaking. Carter looked over at me, Gertie, and Ida Belle, and we shrugged.
“Did you see him throw the fish?” Carter asked Celia.
“Of course I didn’t see him throw the fish,” Celia said. “He was behind me. But it couldn’t have gotten under my feet unless he threw it.”
“Or he dropped it while running and kicked it under you,” Ida Belle said. “Not like you were breaking any land speed records there. A slimy fish could easily outrun you.”
“I believe you wanted these.” I turned to Carter and handed him the keys, then looked down at Celia. “You should really consider a better wardrobe. That dress is coming apart and your forty-year-old bra is showing.”
Celia looked down at the white bra peeking out of her torn dress and shrieked. She jumped up from the ground, clutching her chest as if she were having a heart attack, and glared at me.
“This is war,” she said to Ida Belle.
Ida Belle smiled. “Bring it on.”
Chapter Two
After the bowling-with-fish excitement, Gertie headed home for a shower and change of clothes, and Ida Belle and I decided that all the running and sarcasm had made us hungry. We walked over to the café, where Ally managed to squeeze us into our regular table at the back of the restaurant.
“I heard Aunt Celia got attacked with a fish,” Ally said.
“Yeah,” Ida Belle said, “but her legs and mouth continued working, so we’re still not safe.”
Ally shook her head. “She’s not going to let this go. I heard her talking on the sidewalk yesterday to one of her minions. She’s really lost it, blaming Fortune for everything that has gone wrong with her life lately.”
“That’s bullshit and she knows it,” Ida Belle said. “Everything wrong with Celia’s life is directly tied to Celia’s choices. She just refuses to own up to it.”
“I know that,” Ally said. “But I’m afraid of what she might do.”
“What can she do?” Ida Belle asked. “Fortune hasn’t done anything wrong. And now that Marie is mayor, Celia’s control of the sheriff’s department is over. Unless she goes completely psycho and shoots Fortune or burns her house down, what else does she have left?”
Ally frowned. “I don’t know, but I still worry. She’s always managed to cause trouble. Her entire life is a master’s class in creating chaos and unhappiness. I hope you’re right.”
Ally headed off to get our drinks, and I blew out a breath. Ida Belle looked at me and narrowed her eyes.
“You don’t think that bag of hot air can cause trouble, do you?” Ida Belle asked.
“If I weren’t here pretending to be an entirely different person, I would say absolutely not. I’ve come up against five-year-olds who were smarter and deadlier than Celia. But if she starts looking into Sandy-Sue, I don’t know how well my cover will hold.”
“The CIA put it in place, didn’t they? If they can’t provide a solid cover, then I’m not sure who can.”
“Even the CIA can’t prevent Celia from tracking down colleagues or a neighbor or the guy at the coffee shop around the corner—any of whom might have a picture of Sandy-Sue or whom she might have told she was going to Europe for the summer and not Sinful.”
Ida Belle’s expression shifted slightly, and I could see the glimmer of worry in her eyes, but she was trying not to let it show.
“Well, there’s no point in worrying about it until we need to,” she said. “Even if we tried, there’s no way to predict what Celia might do. She’s always been a loose cannon, and ever since the situations with Pansy and Maxwell, she’s gone even further over into the crazy zone.”
Celia’s husband had disappeared some twenty years ago and had long been presumed dead by everyone. He’d made a miraculous appearance last month and had brought a trail of trouble along with him. His reign of terror was over now, but before it ended, he’d managed to bring to light some things Celia would have rather left in the closet. Celia’s daughter, Pansy, was a whole other can of worms, apparently taking after the man she’d thought was her father in the “bringing trouble with you” game. Both situations had ended badly for Celia’s family.
So yes, Celia had definitely lived through some stress lately, but she’d picked her husband and she’d raised her daughter, and needed to take some responsibility on both counts. Blaming me, when she’d only met me two months before, hardly seemed fair or logical. But then, I was pretty sure Celia had never been accused of being either. I just hoped she kept a bit of a lid on the crazy long enough for my situation with Ahmad to resolve itself.
“Have you heard from Harrison lately?” Ida Belle asked.
“You must have been reading my mind,” I said. “But no. I haven’t heard from him in a while. I need to check in, but I have a feeling I already know what he’s going to say.”
“They’ll find him,” Ida Belle said.
“Maybe. He’s a hard man to find even when he’s not hiding. So many layers of protection. Body doubles. He doesn’t take many chances.”
“But he does take them. Sooner or later, he’ll take a chance that winds up on the CIA’s radar. And then all this will be over.”
“I really hope so.” Because if the summer passed without the CIA finding Ahmad, my future looked pretty grim. The real Sandy-Sue was a librarian with the school district. I was expected to be long gone by the time school started. Sticking around would raise more than a couple of eyebrows. Not to mention that the real Sandy-Sue probably wanted to liquidate the house and her aunt’s belongings for the cash.
The bottom line—I couldn’t maintain cover in Sinful forever.
Carter called late that evening, saying he planned on grilling that night and wanted to know if I was interested in a burgers-and-beer celebration. I was definitely up for celebrating the end of the reign of Celia the Antichrist, and I couldn’t think of a time I’d passed on burgers and beer. Besides, I’d spent the afternoon testing moonshine with Ida Belle and Gertie and was already half lit. Food seemed like a good idea, and sitting in a chair doing nothing sounded even better.
But when Carter’s quitting time at the sheriff’s department came and went without so much as text, I knew something was wrong. Had Celia figured out a way to cause trouble already? I sent Carter a text asking him to let me know if we were still on for tonight and watched the phone for a bit, but the text didn’t even show as read. Whatever he was doing, he wasn’t looking at his phone.
The whole thing with Celia and her threat had bothered me more than I expected. I’d been used to blowing off her blustering, but for some reason, this time it felt real. I was afraid she’d finally reached that point where she had nothing to lose and was going to launch full force into her attack on me.
Since Carter was MIA and I was starving, I headed into the kitchen to grab a piece of cobbler and my laptop. I sat at the kitchen table and went through my whole secure-access, bouncing-around-servers thing, and then sent an email to Harrison.
To: hotdudeinNE
From: farmgirl433
Things are back to normal here since the storm. Same ole drama, but I don’t expect that to change any time soon. Still, I’m getting kind of tired of dealing with some of the more frustrating people around me, especially one busybody neighbor who is constantly trying to get into my personal business. I might need to get away for a while. Maybe I’ll come visit you if you’re not too busy with work. Is it still hot there?
I hit Send and shoved a huge bite of cobbler in my mouth. My email was cryptic, but I knew Harrison would understand exactly what I was trying to convey. Someone might look closely enough at me to compromise my cover, and I needed an extraction plan in place in case it happened. I figured Harrison and Morrow already had a couple of things in mind, and I was more than certain that I wouldn’t like any of them.
I had hated the idea of coming to Sinful. Had protested with all of my being and had been so dead set against it that I was ready to risk an assassination just to avoid it. But I’d been wrong. Coming to Sinful and becoming friends with Ida Belle and Gertie was one of the best things that had ever happened to me. The other was Carter. Meeting them and seeing how life could be had made me question everything about my past choices to the point that I’d finally decided I’d gotten most everything wrong.
I’d already decided to leave the CIA when this nightmare was over, but what I still wasn’t completely sure about was what I would do afterward. Ida Belle and Gertie had been pushing me toward getting my private investigator license, and I’ll admit, it was an intriguing idea, but I knew it would put a strain on my relationship with Carter. He was still coming to terms with who I really was and all the lies I’d told to keep it a secret. He’d had a relationship with a Special Forces woman in the past that had ended tragically, and he’d sworn he’d never get involved with a woman who took those sorts of risks again. I knew that PIs normally didn’t have the kind of risk associated with their work that Special Forces or federal agents did, but Sinful had proved to be a hotbed of criminal activity with a lot of violence associated.
I took a drink of soda and slumped back in my seat. None of it mattered if Celia managed to find what she was looking for. If she blew my cover, I’d be whisked away to a new location and unable to talk to anyone in Sinful until Ahmad was in custody or dead. That could be weeks or months or God forbid, even years. It was a bleak thought. Anything could happen over a long period of time. Ida Belle and Gertie weren’t getting any younger. They could get ill or even worse. Carter could decide he’d made a mistake getting involved with me and start dating a nice, pretty girl who’d never been shot at and hadn’t been paid to kill people for a living.
Basically, I could be forgotten. Replaced.
I blew out a breath and my computer beeped, signaling an incoming email. I was a bit surprised that Harrison had responded so quickly, but popped upright in my chair and clicked on the message.
To: farmgirl433
From: hotdudeinNE
I tried to tell you to be nice to nosy old ladies. If you’re nice, they bring baked goods and try to set you up with their grandsons, but if you’re remotely off-putting, they see it as a challenge. The weather cooled a bit here for a while, but it’s right back up into the stratosphere. I would love to have you for a visit, but I wouldn’t have time to even share a cup of coffee at the moment. I’m bringing on some additional help the next couple days. Let me see how that works and I’ll let you know if it frees me up any.
Looking forward to seeing you again. Avoid the neighbor. She sounds exhausting.
My pulse ticked up a notch as I read the email. The weather cooling meant the CIA had no luck locating Ahmad, but if things were heating up into the stratosphere now, then they had a hot tip. So hot they were bringing in more agents to work it—hence Harrison’s comment about additional help. I was especially excited to read that he thought he’d know more in a couple of days. That meant that whatever tip they were working, the job was already under way.
If the CIA could set me free soon, I would be the happiest person in the world.
With a ton of decisions to make very quickly.
A knock on my door brought me out of my thoughts, and I logged off and closed my laptop, figuring it was Carter. He knew my real identity and had met my partner, Harrison, but I didn’t feel like sharing this with him just yet. I didn’t want him getting his hopes up. Mine were already up enough for both of us.
I hurried to the front door and was surprised to see Ida Belle and Gertie standing there. Ida Belle looked worried. Gertie looked confused. Neither gave me a warm, fuzzy feeling. I waved them in and closed and locked the door behind them. I’d gotten lax the last couple of weeks with locks during the day and was trying to correct that bad habit. It might be all right for other residents of Sinful to take such a risk, but it was a foolish one for me to indulge in.
“Sorry,” Ida Belle said. “I forgot my key.”
“And I didn’t have a chance to grab my purse,” Gertie said. “Ida Belle dragged me out of my house so fast, I didn’t even have time to put on shoes.”
I looked down at her bare feet with lime-green polish.
Ida Belle waved a hand in dismissal. “No one’s going to see you but Fortune, and she’s seen a lot worse of you than green toes.”
“What if Carter shows up?” Gertie said.
“He’s seen worse too,” Ida Belle said. “I’ve
got an emergency. Kitchen?”
“Of course,” I said, and we started back to the kitchen, our usual room for plotting, gossiping, and brainstorming. Whatever was going on was serious. Ida Belle wasn’t one for drama, and even if she hadn’t stated it was an emergency, I could see the strain on her face. I hoped nothing had happened with Celia and the election. If anyone could figure out a way to mess things up, it would be Celia.
Whatever it was, clearly Gertie hadn’t heard about it yet, which meant that Ida Belle had gotten the information directly from Marie or from one of her Sinful Ladies, who reported everything of interest to Ida Belle so that she was always aware of what was going on in Sinful. Ida Belle and Gertie took a seat at the table, and I pulled some sodas out of the refrigerator and passed them around. I reserved the right to move to the harder stuff depending on what Ida Belle had to say.
“What’s going on?” Gertie asked. “Is something wrong with Marie? Did Celia figure out a way to screw things up for her?”
“No,” Ida Belle said. “It has nothing to do with Marie.”
“Thank God,” Gertie said, looking as relieved as I felt.
“There was an incident at Hot Rod’s shop,” Ida Belle said.
Hot Rod Hank was a local guy who turned regular vehicles into lightning on wheels. Ida Belle had recently purchased a Blazer from him that went so fast it made you younger.
“What kind of incident?” I asked, wondering which one of his souped-up vehicles he’d been in when the incident occurred and what level of warp speed he’d been operating it at.
“There was a break-in,” Ida Belle said. “Someone cracked him over the head with a tire iron. He’s in the hospital and hasn’t regained consciousness.”
“Oh no!”
“That’s horrible!”
Gertie and I expressed our dismay at the same time.
“Was it robbery?” I asked. “They probably figured no one would be there on a Sunday night.”