Jana DeLeon - Miss Fortune 05 - Gator Bait

by Jana DeLeon

  Gertie perked up. “It’s just up the highway. Maybe a twenty-minute drive.”

  “Then I guess we’re talking a night trip?”

  “Whoo-hoo!” Gertie hooted, causing a flock of pigeons to launch off a bench. “Road trip.”

  Ida Belle frowned. “There may be a problem with the storage facility.”

  “What kind of problem?” I asked.

  “It’s owned by Big and Little Hebert.”

  “Oh,” I said, mulling over this particular piece of information. We ran across Big and Little during a recent trip down investigative lane. They were part of a mob family based in New Orleans, and according to the rumor mill, worked the loan shark end of the business for the area. But we really had no way of knowing what all they had their fingers in.

  Then I started to smile, and the more I thought about it, the more it tickled me.

  “So,” I said, “the ATF just parked evidence in a storage facility owned by mobsters.”

  Gertie began to giggle, and finally a grin broke through Ida Belle’s stern expression.

  “Okay,” Ida Belle said, “I can see the hilarity on the part of the Feds, but any plans we had of visiting that facility need to be considered from all angles. We have no way of knowing what the Heberts are using the facility for, but my guess is that some of it is the kind of business they don’t want anyone to know about.”

  “Which means really good security,” Gertie said. “Like maybe dogs.”

  “Or that Hulk of a security detail they had at their office,” I said.

  “The bottom line,” Ida Belle said, “is it’s not the church or the sheriff’s department or someone’s home. If we do this, we have to be prepared, and armed.”

  “Okay,” I agreed. “So where do we start?”

  My cell phone signaled that I’d received a text and I pulled it out to check. It was from Carter.

  Can you come back to the hospital as soon as possible?

  I frowned and showed the text to Ida Belle and Gertie. “What do you think he wants?”

  Gertie grinned. “You have to ask?”

  Ida Belle waved a hand in dismissal. “Your mind is always in the gutter lately. The man is hardly in any condition for romantic liaisons, and even if he were, the hospital is hardly the location for such things.”

  “Especially with his mother in the room,” I added.

  “Ick,” Gertie said. “You two really know how to spoil the mood.”

  “So hospital dating aside,” I said, “any other thoughts?”

  Ida Belle nodded. “My guess is he’s trying to remember.”

  “And he thinks I can help? I don’t see how.”

  “You were the only other person on the lake Saturday evening. You might have seen whatever it was that troubled Carter. You just wouldn’t have known something was amiss.”

  I stretched my mind back to that evening, trying to focus on our boat ride to the island and the things I’d seen along the way. “I just don’t see how…”

  “It’s a long shot,” Ida Belle said, “but in that hospital bed with a memory that’s not working properly, it’s also the only thing Carter has.”

  “It must be killing him to just sit there,” Gertie agreed. “Carter was never the sort to watch things happen.”

  “So what do I do?” I asked.

  “Go,” Ida Belle said. “Tell him everything you can remember about that night. I know it’s grasping at straws, but there’s always the slim chance it will jar something in his memory—something that we can use to get to the bottom of this.”

  “And if you see he’s having a thought,” Gertie said, “then you will have to lure it out of him.”

  “True,” Ida Belle said. “His natural inclination will be to keep anything he recalls from you, especially given our past involvements where we weren’t supposed to be involved.”

  “So I get to be charming, too? This is looking like more fun by the minute. Hey, I wonder if what he wrote on his laptop would jar his memory?”

  “Maybe, but you can’t risk telling him about it,” Ida Belle said. “It would compromise everything we did today and put you right back in an uncomfortable spotlight. As soon as he’s released from the hospital, Carter will check for notes. We’ll know soon enough if what he wrote jars his memory.”

  “And the break-in before us? At some point, we have to tell him that his home was compromised.”

  Ida Belle shot an anxious glance at Gertie. “I have to be honest. The break-in concerns me most, but we still need to play our cards close…at least for now. Once Carter is released, Emmaline will stay with him and one of us will insist on staying as well.”

  “Won’t they think that’s strange?”

  “I’ll tell Emmaline it will make us feel better, given the strangeness of the situation,” Ida Belle said. “And with Carter not physically up to par, she’ll agree. There’s nothing Emmaline cares about more than her son, and she’ll do whatever necessary to protect him.”

  “And she won’t ask questions,” Gertie said. “Not of us.”

  “That’s handy,” I said. “What about tonight?”

  “Don’t worry about that,” Ida Belle said. “Gertie and I will do the necessary reconnaissance on the storage facility. We’ll have a plan by the time you get back to Sinful.”

  “Then I will head to the hospital to deceive, inveigle, and obfuscate.”

  Gertie pointed at me. “X-Files reference. Very nice. You’re really coming along on this pop culture thing.”

  Ida Belle shook her head. “The X-Files is hardly pop culture. Some of the seasons are so old they didn’t even have cell phones yet.”

  “But it’s classic investigation,” Gertie argued. “It never hurts to bone up on our skills.”

  “They’re investigating unexplained phenomena,” Ida Belle said.

  “This is Sinful,” I pointed out.

  Ida Belle sighed. “Carry on.”

  ###

  It went against all my better judgment, but I changed into jeans and a turquoise top before heading to the hospital. Normally, I would have gone in whatever I had on, which in this case was yoga pants and a T-shirt, but when I’d reached for my car keys earlier, I had this twinge that maybe I should look more presentable.

  I’d hurried upstairs to throw on another outfit, all the time wondering if I should just shoot myself. All this pretending to be a girlie girl was making me, well…girlie.

  It’s because of Carter.

  I shut that thought down as quickly as I could. The last thing I needed to become was one of those women who thought she had to attract a man with her looks. If a man couldn’t lock onto far more important things than a pretty face, then he lacked substance and was of no interest to me.

  Who the hell are you fooling?

  I sighed as I pulled my Jeep onto the highway.

  “Nobody,” I said out loud.

  But I was trying to fool myself. Sometimes I tried to fool myself into believing this was just another undercover job and when the time came, I’d pack my duffel bag and skip out of Sinful as quickly as I rode in. Sometimes I tried to fool myself into thinking that if I wanted it, I could have a more normal life. Normal being one with friends, hobbies that didn’t include death, and maybe even a relationship.

  Then reality set in and I realized how big a mess I’d made of everything. I’d broken the first rule of undercover engagement and formed real attachments. Granted, the people in Sinful weren’t anything similar to my CIA targets, but when my time in Sinful was done, the feelings I’d formed for all of them would make it hard to go.

  And even harder to tell Carter the truth.

  That was the real kicker. And it was something I knew I’d have to do one day. No way could I leave Sinful without telling Carter about the real me. That was one conversation I’d give anything to never have, but it was unavoidable. And the deadline for having it was approaching rapidly. The situation with Director Morrow already had Harrison on alert. If he suspected a
ny danger other than the norm, he’d yank me in a second and place me somewhere else. And even if I stayed my term in Sinful, that only gave me until the end of summer. Sandy-Sue Morrow had a full-time librarian job when school started up again. She was only in Sinful for three months.

  One month had already passed. It seemed like a lifetime, and also only a second.

  As I turned into the hospital parking lot and rolled into a slot in the visitors’ section, I forced my mind to shift gears. Right now, I had to focus on helping Carter remember, and making sure he thought I was only a visiting librarian who was concerned about his well-being. I’d played that role a million times before already, but I knew this time was going to be so much harder than the others.

  Emmaline smiled at me when I walked into Carter’s room. Carter’s eyes were closed and his chest rose and fell in rhythm.

  “He finally dozed off after he called you,” Emmaline said. “I’ve been trying to get him to sleep, but he’s so stubborn.”

  I walked over to the bed and nodded. “He wants answers.”

  “We all do,” Emmaline agreed. “But exhaustion will only make his memories harder to retrieve.”

  I looked down at her. Even with her makeup half worn off and her hair mussed from sleeping in a hospital chair, she was still a beautiful woman. “You look like you could use a break, too,” I said. “Why don’t you go home, have a shower and a change of clothes? Grab a decent meal and maybe even a nap.”

  The spark in her eyes when I mentioned a shower let me know she really wanted to go, but she was still in protective mode. “Don’t worry,” I said. “I’ll stay with him until you get back. Take your time. I don’t have anything to do until later tonight.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “I’m positive. I imagine when he wakes up, he’ll want to grill me, trying to remember what he saw Saturday. You can’t help with that, and it will likely be frustrating for both of us when I can’t help. No use for you to feel the frustration of the situation any more than you already do.”

  Emmaline smiled and rose from her chair. “You’re a wonderful person, Fortune. I can see why my son set his sights on you.” She leaned over to kiss my cheek. “Thank you for looking out for him. I know he thinks he doesn’t need any help, but even the toughest of men benefit from a strong woman who’s got their back.”

  “What was his father like?” I didn’t mean to blurt it out, but all of a sudden, I really wanted to know. Carter never spoke of him, so I had always been afraid to ask. And I wasn’t about to ask Ida Belle, Gertie, or Ally such personal things about Carter. Not when I was busy trying to convince them that I wasn’t interested in a relationship.

  “Carter’s father…he was a complicated man. All stoic and strong and never willing to ask for help. Now you know where Carter gets it. But there was also the other side of him—the side no one saw but me and Carter—the gentle and fun-loving side.” She sighed. “He was the most loyal, the most honest person I’ve ever met. Not a day goes by that I don’t miss him. The memories are so vivid that sometimes it seems he just passed yesterday.”

  “What happened to him? I mean, if you want to tell me.”

  “Nothing scandalous or interesting. Just a simple heart attack, but he was offshore fishing with some buddies when it happened and they couldn’t get him help in time. His family has a history of that sort of thing. It’s probably why Carter eats healthy most of the time and is always exercising. His father was better about it when he was young, but as he got older he slacked off the exercise and indulged in too much of Francine’s food.” She smiled. “Not that I’m not guilty of that myself.”

  “Me too. That woman’s cooking should be a controlled substance.”

  Emmaline laughed. “And now that we’ve talked about it, I think I’ll call in an order and pick it up on my way home.”

  She gave me a wave and headed out of the room. I grabbed an automotive magazine from the nightstand and took a seat in the chair Emmaline had vacated. I opened up to an article on restoring old cars and nodded off to sleep before I’d finished the first paragraph.

  Chapter Ten

  I awakened with a start and bolted up from my chair, completely unaware of my surroundings and brandishing the magazine like a bat. Then Carter started to chuckle and I remembered I was at the hospital, currently poised to strike an unknown assailant with paper.

  “Unless you’re going after a dog with that,” Carter said, “I don’t think it’s going to be a big deterrent.”

  I tossed the magazine on the nightstand and took a breath to steady my racing pulse. “I don’t know, the articles might bore someone to death.”

  “I can agree with you there. Put me out like a light last night. Worked better than the painkillers.”

  I stretched my arms up and rolled my head around. “Apparently, it had the same effect on me. I must have dozed off.”

  “If that was dozing, you were doing a mighty fine job of it. And you snore.”

  “I do not snore.”

  “Like a freight train. The nurse even looked inside once to make sure it wasn’t an earthquake.”

  “Now you’re just being mean. Why didn’t you wake me up?”

  “It’s not like you had the easiest time of it yesterday. I have a good idea of what it physically took to get me up from the boat. And I bet you didn’t sleep all that well besides, with everything that happened.”

  “Hmmm,” I said and nodded. The reality was that Sunday hadn’t even been the most strenuous day I’d had since I’d been in Sinful, and certainly not the most stressful. Compared to my day job, it was a walk in the park. Truth be known, I’d slept like the dead, just not as long as I would have liked. But I couldn’t exactly relay any of those truths to Carter, who thought I’d had a librarian-turned-Wonder-Woman moment.

  “Do you always leap up from a dead sleep ready to attack?” he asked.

  “I do when I’m in unfamiliar territory, or think there’s an intruder in the room.”

  “Or a raccoon in your attic? I’m probably lucky you aren’t armed with more than a magazine.”

  I shifted my weight from one leg to the other, ready to change the conversation to things I was more comfortable talking about. Like anything not related to me, especially since I was currently saying a silent prayer of thanks that I’d decided to leave my weapon at home. If I’d jumped up in a ready position with my pistol, that would have been very, very bad. Average civilians did not have weapon response time anywhere near what I did.

  “How are you feeling?” I asked.

  “Like I got shot and almost drowned,” he said. “Other than that and the fact that I can’t remember a thing since Saturday night, everything’s peachy.”

  “At least you don’t snore.”

  He laughed. “And I remember Saturday night. The real tragedy would have been forgetting our dinner.”

  I felt a blush run up my neck. “It’s only a pleasant memory because I didn’t do the cooking.”

  “The cooking was spectacular,” he agreed, “but the company was better.”

  He cocked his head and studied me. “You’re actually blushing.”

  “Am not.”

  “It’s nice…and different, to be around a beautiful woman who isn’t vain.”

  I shook my head. “I’m not beautiful.”

  “The fact that you don’t know it only makes it more so.”

  I was so uncomfortable that I was about to fake a bathroom call when a nurse pushed open the door and walked inside the room.

  “Time for a checkup,” she said, then looked at me. “You can stay if you’d like. It’s just a routine heart, bandage, and machines sort of thing. No forced nudity.”

  “If there’s no nudity, I don’t see any reason to stay,” I said.

  The nurse laughed and Carter grinned. “You got a live one here,” the nurse said. “Now, sit still for a minute and let me check those bandages.”

  “Where did my mom go?” Carter asked as the nurse we
nt about her duties.

  “I sent her packing. She looked like she could use a break. I promised her I’d stay until she got back.”

  “Thank you for that. Hopefully she’ll take advantage of your kindness and get some sleep. I know she hovered all night in the lobby. Probably drove the night shift crazy.”

  I shrugged. “She’s your mom. That’s her job.” I thought it was nice the way Emmaline fussed over Carter. I liked to think that if my mother had lived, she’d be the same way with me.

  The nurse made notes on Carter’s clipboard and hung it back on the end of the bed. “All done, and looks good. Do you need any pain meds?” she asked.

  “I’m fine right now,” Carter said.

  She held up a plastic tube with a remote attached to it. “Well, if the pain gets too bad, just push this little button and help will be on the way.” She gave us both a nod and exited the room.

  “You sure you don’t need the pain meds?” I asked.

  “They make me sleepy, and we need to talk.”

  I must not have looked convinced.

  “I promise I’ll take them as soon as we’re done.”

  “Okay,” I said. “Have you talked to Deputy Breaux today?”

  “Yeah, a couple of times. He said you called this morning and told him to try to get my boat up from the bottom of the lake.”

  “Sorry. I know you told us not to interfere, but when Ida Belle, Gertie, and I got to talking about it, we thought it might be a good idea.”

  “It was an excellent idea, and one I didn’t grasp onto until hours after you did, which just goes to show how unfocused I am.”

  “Give yourself a break. You almost died. You get several Delayed Mental Reaction free cards for that.”

  “I hope I don’t use them all up today.”

  “Have you talked to Deputy Breaux since they got the boat up?”

  “No!” He sat up straight in the bed. “He was supposed to call me as soon as he had the boat secured…assuming they could manage that in the first place. You know something about the boat?”