by Shari Hearn
Text copyright ©2016 by the Author.
This work was made possible by a special license through the Kindle Worlds publishing program and has not necessarily been reviewed by Jana DeLeon. All characters, scenes, events, plots and related elements appearing in the original The Miss Fortune Series remain the exclusive copyrighted and/or trademarked property of Jana DeLeon, or their affiliates or licensors.
For more information on Kindle Worlds: http://www.amazon.com/kindleworlds
Overdue
A Miss Fortune
Kindle Worlds Novella
Written by
Shari Hearn
Thank you Kathleen and Carla for all your wonderful notes.
Cover design by Susan Colis at CoverKicks.com
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter One
In a land where tyranny reigns, one man will teach the world that freedom is worth fighting for.
Hmmm. Maybe. Though it sounded a little melodramatic. And did I really want to read about a world filled with wimps who have to depend on one man to save them? There weren’t TWO brave men in the entire world? Just one? And what about the women? What are they doing during all of this tyranny? Picking their noses? I put the book back in the library cart and grabbed another one.
When Misty Breeze took the oath as sheriff, she swore to cut down anyone who threatened the good people of Pancake Junction. But what if the threat was a virus? And what if the man she loved was responsible for unleashing it throughout the town? Would she remain steadfast or melt under the come-hither gaze of his sexy green eyes?
Or maybe pop him one between those eyes. Come on, he was nothing more than a bioterrorist. As a CIA assassin I’d dealt with many bioterrorists, some with sexy, green eyes. Control your hormones, Misty Breeze.
Okay, maybe searching for a book in the “to-be-shelved” cart at the Sinful Library wasn’t a good idea. But I had to fill my free time with something other than obsessing about my breakup with Carter. Gertie and Ida Belle were trying, honestly they were, but I was getting a little tired of their sympathetic looks every time I caught their eyes. Maybe a good book or two could take me out of my misery for a few hours.
“May I help you locate something?”
I turned around to find a woman standing a couple feet away, holding several books that she added to the cart.
Five-foot-four, late twenties, long brown hair held back with a yellow hairband matching her yellow sundress. Plucky smile. Eager eyes. And very pregnant. Threat level: Unless her water breaks and I’m expected to deliver the baby, extremely low.
“Uh, yeah. I’m looking for a few books to occupy my time.”
“You’ve come to the right person, then,” she said, giving me a wink. “I’m Chrissy, and I’m one of the librarians. Helping you is my business.” She winked again.
“Good. I’m looking for something in the mystery vein.” I refrained from winking. “Or maybe a political thriller.”
“I see. Any particular author’s style you like?”
Out of the corner of my eye I saw an older woman approaching.
“Yeah, I read one a week ago. A mystery. Really kept me guessing. But, sorry, I can’t remember the name of the author.”
“Is everything okay?” the older woman asked as she planted herself a few inches away from Chrissy. A pair of glasses rested on her chest, secured around her neck by a glittery pink cord.
“Just helping one of our patrons find a book,” Chrissy said. She then turned back to me. “This is Lucy, our Head Librarian.”
Lucy slipped on her glasses and scrutinized me. “Hmmm. Looking for a book. Is that so?”
And I scrutinized her: Mid-sixties, five-foot-one, red hair, probably dyed. Sending out a major dictator vibe. Threat level: Annoying but harmless.
I nodded. “Just looking for a good political thriller, or a mystery.”
“Hmmm…”
A big dose of attitude was behind that “hmmm…,” but I couldn’t quite decipher it. “Yeah. Oh, and I was going to go to your computers and see where you keep your books on medieval warfare. But, since you’re here, maybe you could tell me where I could find those as well.” Yeah, geeky, but I loved researching weapons from all different time periods.
Lucy drew her head back and scowled.
“Is that a problem? Reading about the medieval period isn’t illegal on Tuesdays, is it?” I gave a chuckle.
My lighthearted humor was lost on Lucy. She parted her thin lips to respond, but before she uttered any words, the door to the library was flung open and Gertie raced inside, stopping a moment to double over and catch her breath. She straightened and glanced around the room, spotting me.
“Fortune!” she screamed.
“Shhhhh!” Lucy held her stiff, bony finger up to her mauve lips, shooting a stern look at Gertie.
Gertie ignored her and raced over. “Just spotted your Jeep out front,” she said between deep breaths. “Thought I’d pop in and say ‘hi.’”
Lucy shushed her again. “Use your library voice, please,” she whispered.
“What are you doing here? Alone?” Gertie asked in a loud whisper, a look of panic on her face.
“Looking for a book,” I whispered.
Gertie grabbed my arm. “I’m here now. Let’s go find it together.”
“Your friend wanted a book recommendation,” Lucy said in a quiet voice dripping with accusation. “Said she forgot an author’s name. Also wanted to know where she could find a book on medieval warfare.”
Gertie grimaced.
“Why is that an issue? Am I missing something?” I asked.
Lucy folded her arms, slowly, making sure I didn’t miss the disapproval behind the movement. “I’ve heard about you. You’re Sandy-Sue Morrow, aren’t you?”
I nodded. “Call me Fortune.”
“You’re a librarian. From some hoity-toity library up North.”
“Yeah…”
Truth was, of course, I was the furthest thing from a librarian. But the real Sandy-Sue Morrow, the one I was pretending to be while hiding out in Sinful, was a librarian, and, according to her uncle, my boss, a very good one.
“Did you suddenly forget the Dewey Decimal System?” Lucy asked, glaring at me. “And I’ve never met a librarian who forgot an author’s name. Authors are our lifeblood, Miss Morrow. I find that puzzling.” She turned her pointy-nosed, critical face toward Gertie. “Don’t you?”
Oh, crap. My funk about my breakup with Carter had made me sloppy about maintaining my cover. I’d forgotten a real librarian could spot a fraud in a second.
Gertie shook her head. “Is she doing that again?” She looked at me. “You just couldn’t help yourself, could you?” Then looked back at Lucy. “Not only is Fortune a librarian, but she teaches library science. Sometimes she just can’t help herself from testing other librarians. Just last week we were in the library in Mudbug and she grilled the librarians there, finally tripping one up who couldn’t remember the call number corresponding to stoic philosophy.” She looked at me. “Can you believe that gal didn’t know it right off the top of her head?”
I played along and shook my head. “It was embarrassing, actually.”
Gertie glared at Lucy. “You know it, of course, don’t you, Lucy? Off the
top of your head?” Gertie snapped her fingers in Lucy’s face.
Lucy’s eyelids fluttered. “Stop that.”
Gertie continued snapping. “How about Natural Sciences – Bryophyta?” More snapping of her fingers “Metallurgy?”
“Metallurgy: Six-sixty-nine,” Chrissy shouted.
Gertie shot me a look and nodded discreetly.
“That’s correct,” I said. “Very good, Chrissy.”
“Stoic philosophy is one hundred, eighty-eight,” Lucy said, before shooting me a dirty look. “And I don’t appreciate you barreling into the Sinful Library and testing my staff. We may not be a big-city library with all its fancy bells and whistles like you’re used to, but we’re no bumpkins either.”
“Yes, shame on you,” Gertie said, wagging her finger at me before turning back to Lucy. “We’re really trying to help her shed her big-city, Yankee ways. It’s been a struggle.”
“Mea culpa,” I said, hanging my head.
“Latin, four-seventy through four-seventy-nine,” Chrissy said proudly.
“That wasn’t part of the test, dear,” Gertie said, patting her on the shoulder. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, Fortune is going to go help me find a good mystery.”
I headed toward a row of bookshelves. “Right this way.”
Gertie grabbed my arm and pulled me in the opposite direction. “As in fiction,” she whispered.
We ducked into one of the rows of fiction and Gertie crossed her arms. “What were you thinking, coming here without me or Ida Belle?”
“I wanted a book.”
“Didn’t I tell you to always have one of us come along with you to the library? For you, this is the most dangerous place in Sinful. Lucy is Celia’s best friend. And she fancies herself an amateur sleuth. If it got back to Celia that Sandy-Sue Morrow was an idiot when it came to finding a book in the library, she might tell Celia and she and Celia might start an investigation into who you really are.”
She touched my hand. “I know the threat of Ahmad finding you here has lessened because of what happened last week,” she said, referring to the shootout and takedown of several of Ahmad’s men in New Orleans, “but Ahmad himself is still a threat. You never know who might overhear something and pass it along to someone with a connection to him. And it’d just be like Celia to start digging if she thought there was something ‘off’ about you.”
I sighed. “You’re right. I let my guard down. Libraries are not my area of expertise. So how’d you know so much about the Dewey Decimal System? Stoic philosophy? Where’d that come from?”
“When I was a young teacher, I used to work in the library as an assistant during the summers to earn extra money. The Dewey Decimal tables are seared into my memory.”
I heard a door slam, then, “Gertie! Fortune!” It was Ida Belle.
“Shhhhh!”
Soon Lucy brought Ida Belle to our row. “They’re right here,” Lucy whispered. “And if you three can’t keep it down I’m going to have to ask you all to leave.” She directed her next words to me. “Unlike your big-city libraries, we still demand good manners.”
“I got your text,” Ida Belle said to Gertie after Lucy disappeared. Half of her head was in curlers. The other half wet. “What are you doing coming here without one of us?”
“You made Ida Belle leave her hair appointment because I was in the library?”
“Well, I panicked.”
“Did she do anything un-librarian-like?” Ida Belle asked.
“She asked for recommendations for a good mystery, and asked where she could find a book on medieval weaponry.”
Ida Belle shook her head. I got hit in the face with a few sprays of water. “Not good.”
Gertie wiped a few droplets of water from her cheek. “It’s okay. I pulled a cover story out of my butt. I think it might have worked.”
“C’mon, it’s not that bad a mistake.”
“Lucy is best friends with Celia,” Ida Belle said.
“So I heard.”
“And the biggest snoop and megaphone in Sinful. We’ve had issues with her for decades.” She looked at Gertie. “Remember that time in ninety-five when I caught her going through my garbage and picking through my store receipts?”
Gertie closed her eyes and nodded her head.
“It wasn’t long before everyone in Sinful knew I was coloring my hair.”
Gertie opened her eyes. “It became known as Colorgate.”
“I’m just trying to keep you from the evil that is Lucy,” Ida Belle said.
“She’s here,” Gertie whispered as Lucy and Chrissy stepped into our aisle, Chrissy pushing the re-shelving cart. Gertie absently grabbed a book from the shelf and held it up. “Why, thank you for your expert recommendation, Fortune. I asked for something stimulating, and you delivered.” Then quickly put it back on the shelf when she realized it was a romantic novel titled, The Pizza Man Always Rings Twice. The cover showed a half-naked man with the pizza box covering his groin.
Lucy cleared her throat. She had a look of contrition on her face. “Excuse me, Miss Morrow…”
“Call me Fortune.”
“Fortune.” She fiddled with the glasses hanging around her neck. “I was wondering if I might ask you a question.”
I noticed Chrissy struggling to reshelve a book on the top shelf.
“Sure. Just a second.” I grabbed the book from Chrissy’s hand. “I’m a few inches taller than you, Chrissy,” I said. “Why don’t you let me put that away for you?”
“Thank you,” she said, relieved.
I slipped the book into its place on the shelf. “No problem. Glad to help. We librarians need to stick together.” I winked at Gertie and Ida Belle. “Now, what was your question, Lucy?”
Lucy continued fiddling with her glasses. “I was just wondering when you plan on wrapping up Marge’s estate and heading back to work as a librarian?”
“Probably the end of summer.”
“I see.”
“But it won’t come soon enough for Fortune.” Ida Belle patted me on the shoulder. “She’s eager to get back to her old job.”
“As a librarian,” Gertie added.
“You miss it, then?” Lucy asked.
Gertie opened her mouth to speak, but I held up my hand. For God’s sake, I could answer a question on my own. I’d handled tougher opponents than a busybody named Lucy.
“Would a bird miss its wings?” I asked, laying it on thick. “I do miss it, Lucy. Coming here now, taking in the sweet aroma of knowledge…” I took a big whiff. “I love the smell of books in the morning. And chatting up the Dewey Decimal System? I feel like I’m home.” You want schmaltz, Lucy? I’ll give you schmaltz. “It’s taking all the strength I have not to push Chrissy out of the way and reshelve that cart of books myself. God I envy you two. Surrounded by words, millions of words. Words that make up stories.” I picked up the book, Murder in Pancake Junction from the cart and held it up. “Will Misty Breeze save the folks of Pancake Junction from tainted syrup? I know the good folks of Sinful want to know. And you have the honor of providing the answers to them. And don’t get me started about stoic philosophy. I would do anything to switch places with you.”
“See, I told you she’d do it,” Chrissy said, smiling.
“Do what?” Gertie asked.
“Well,” Lucy said, “Chrissy is going on maternity leave tomorrow and we just received word that old Mrs. Bottomley, who was supposed to come out of retirement to help, can’t start for another three days. So, we’d be happy if you could fill in until then, Miss Morrow.”
The smirky gleam in Lucy’s eyes said she had just pulled a fast one on me. She was good. Scary good. She wanted me close by for surveillance purposes. I had to nip this in the bud.
“And I’d love to, except that the next few days I was going to catalogue my great-aunt Marge’s silverware.”
Ida Belle stepped in between us. “Which she can put off a week. She’ll do it.”
“What?”
>
“She’ll have no problem with that,” Gertie added, folding her arms.
I saw the looks between Gertie, Ida Belle and Lucy. It was “game on” and I was nothing more than their ping-pong ball.
Chapter Two
“Class is in session,” Gertie said, slapping a page containing the Dewey Decimal System numbers in front of me as I sat at her dining table. Gertie had converted her dining room into a makeshift classroom, complete with a whiteboard on which she’d drawn a floor plan of the library. A small stack of pages from a magazine sat on the table.
“This is ridiculous. There’s no way I can become a substitute librarian overnight.”
Gertie shook her head. “You’re a CIA operative. I bet you’ve had to familiarize yourself with the details of other professions in less time than this.”
She was right. I had. “Okay, let me rephrase that. I don’t want to do it.”
“You have to,” Ida Belle said. “You promised to do it.”
“No, you two did the promising. I was the one who stepped into the trap Lucy set for me.”
Gertie took an exaggerated whiff of air. “Oh, I love the smell of books in the morning,” she said, imitating me. She shook her head. “You were practically begging Lucy to ask you to work there. And now it’s up to me to whip you into shape before tomorrow.”
“I’ll just call her and say something came up.”
Ida Belle shook her head. She had since gotten her hair finished at the beauty parlor, though one side did appear curlier than the other side. “And then you’re on her radar. No, you can do this. Don’t worry, Gertie and I will be there in case you get in a jam.”
“Why do I get the feeling I’m being punished so you two can score points against Lucy?”
“Our feud with her has nothing to do with this. Just because Carter knows who you really are doesn’t mean you can lower your guard,” Ida Belle said. “Lucy’s megaphone can be heard around the world.”
Gertie picked up an extendable pocket pointer, pulled it out to its full length of two feet, and tapped at the white board. “Right here is the break room. That’s where the librarians and assistants stash their purses and lunches. So first thing go in there and say ‘hi’ to everyone. I’ll pack a lunch for you. Anything cause you gas? Because you don’t want to get gassy there. That library has terrible echoes.”