The Miss Fortune Series: Nearly Departed (Kindle Worlds Novella) (3 page)

I love you,
Gertie! And, dammit, how dare you remind me I will probably lose you and Ida
Belle someday. You’re just like my mother! Damn her for dying and leaving me
with my father!

The words that
burst into my head horrified me.

“Fortune,
come on, just have fun with it,” Gertie whispered again.

“No!” I
shouted at her. “It’s not fair! I will not lose someone else! I’ve only known
you for five weeks. Dammit, Gertie! I love you! I’m not ready for you to go.
Even pretend!”

What did I
just do?

Something
wet trickled from my eye. I turned away from the audience and wiped it from my
face.

What the
hell is happening? CIA assassins don’t cry!

Be strong,
Fortune.
My father’s voice.

I looked
down at Gertie’s stunned face. I mouthed, “Sorry” to her before turning back to
an equally stunned audience. Ida Belle held her face in her hands and shook her
head.

“Fortune,”
Gertie whispered from the casket.

I turned
and looked back down at her. “I screwed up, Gertie. I’m sorry. I don’t know
why, but I can’t do this.”

“Fortune,
shut up and listen. Do you hear that?”

I listened
for a moment. There was no mistaking the beeping sound. “Yeah, I hear beeping.
Where’s it coming from?”

“Fortune, I
could be wrong, but I think there’s a bomb under my butt.”

“A bomb
under your butt?” I said loudly.

“What’d she
say?” Cookie screamed.

“She said there’s
a bomb under Gertie’s butt!” Delphine answered.

A
collective scream erupted from the stands. Ida Belle jumped up from her seat
and rushed over, followed by Ally, who was almost run over by Delphine and Cookie
as they cranked up the speeds on their motorized scooter and wheelchair and
raced for the doorway. The Divas kicked off their heels and sprung into action,
grabbing those using walkers and canes, hauling them over their sequined
shoulders and sprinting outside.

“Did you
say a bomb?” Ida Belle asked as she ran up to us.

“You help
Gertie out of the casket.” I dove under the coffin, held up above the floor by
a steel frame on wheels.

I didn’t
see an explosive secured underneath the casket, so I hopped back up to check
beneath the quilting where Gertie had been lying. Yanking it all out I saw it. A
molded clay cylinder, about four inches long, attached to a cell phone
detonator. It appeared to be C-4 explosive. And the digital display on the
attached timer told me it would blow in five minutes, forty seconds.

“We have
five minutes till it goes off. Get the hell out of here!” I yelled to Ida
Belle, Gertie and Ally.

“If this
thing explodes in here, the flying debris might kill someone,” Ida Belle said.

“I know. I’m
going to leave it inside the casket and roll it to the swamp out back. I just
hope this steel is strong enough to minimize the blast.”

I shut the
half-lid, unlocked the parking brakes on the metal-frame rollers with my foot, then
grabbed onto the casket, rolling it around to face the back emergency exit that
emptied out to the bayou. Ida Belle came up beside me and placed her hands on
the casket.

“Get out of
here!” I screamed at her.

“Not
without you.”

Gertie
squeezed in on the other side of me and grabbed on as well. “Ally, you go push
the stragglers out.”

“No, maybe
I should help push—”

“Go!” we
all screamed.

“Get those
people out of here!” I added.

She turned
and ran back to the crowd rushing for the doors.

“Let’s go!”
I shouted to Gertie and Ida Belle.

We pushed
the casket as fast as we could toward the double-door emergency exit, which
stood closed about ten yards away.

“Fortune,
you go open the door!”

I let go of
the casket and bolted ahead for the emergency doors. They wouldn’t budge. I
checked the locking mechanism and saw a loose bolt jamming the handle. Gertie
and Ida Belle slowed to a stop inches away from me.

Gertie
lifted the lid and peeked inside. “Three minutes, Fortune.”

“It’s stuck.
We’ll have to use the casket as a battering ram.”

“With a
bomb inside?”

“It’s C-4.
Movement won’t cause it to go off. Just the ignition.” I had never seen Ida
Belle’s and Gertie’s faces reflect such terror before. “It’s the only choice we
have.”

I joined
them on the far side of the casket. “We’ll have to back it up and hit the door
hard.”

“You sure
this thing won’t go off with us behind it?” asked Ida Belle.

“I’ve used
this stuff before. Trust me.”

“That’s
good enough for me,” Gertie said. “If you’re wrong, thank you for your kind
words today. I love you too. And I love you, Ida Belle.”

“And I love
you both,” Ida Belle said.

We pulled
the casket back a good ten feet.

“On my
signal,” I said. “Go!”

We rushed toward
the door with the casket. It made a dent. But a dent wouldn’t be good enough.

Gertie
lifted the lid to check the time. “Two minutes, twenty-five seconds.”

“Again!” I
shouted.

We pulled
the casket back another ten feet.

“Go!”

We charged
at the emergency exit doors. Everything went in slow motion as they burst open,
spilling us and the casket onto the grassy area out back. The bayou beckoned
another thirty yards away. I glanced around to make sure no people were in our
intended dumping spot. It was hot, so there was a good chance no one would be
out in the swamp.

“Let’s aim
for that clear spot between the trees and down the bank,” I said. “It should
explode in the water. When I say, ‘let go,’ we’ll give it a hard shove and run
like hell back around to the front of the rec center.”

We ran
toward the clearing. When the ground started tilting downward I yelled, “LET
GO!” We shoved the casket and it went sailing toward the bayou.

And then I
spotted it. A boat. Heading in the direction of the intended explosion.

“No!”

Ida Belle
and Gertie noticed it too. We ran toward the boat as it slowly approached,
flailing our arms. Crap, it was Carter. He sat in the boat, along with Celia
and a man I didn’t recognize. He must have been the location scout Carter spoke
about.

“Go back!”
I screamed at them. “Bomb!”

Carter swung
the boat around and headed in the opposite direction. I looked back and saw the
casket had hit the water and was sinking fast.

“Run!” I
screamed to Gertie and Ida Belle.

We hustled
our butts up the grassy hill. Seconds later the casket exploded, sending muddy swamp
water, wet quilting and assorted fish raining down on us.

But it
could have been worse. Much worse.

I collapsed
on the grass.

Seconds
passed. Felt like hours.

“Ida Belle.
Gertie.”

“Present,”
Ida Belle said. I spotted her lying a few feet from me, covered in mud.

Gertie
tapped my shoulder. “I’m right here.”

I turned
and saw her inches from me. She plucked a fish out of her blouse and tossed it
on the ground. “There goes my casket,” she said. “Where’s—”

“Carter!” I
jumped up and ran in the direction of where Carter had turned around. Through
the reeds I saw his boat, capsized. The stranger held onto the overturned boat
while Carter was helping Celia to dry land. I ran into the water and swam to the
stranger, placing my arms around his shoulder. “Here, lean back,” I told him.
“I’ll get you to safety.”

I waded
through the stinky, murky water until we neared the banks of the bayou. “You
can crawl out from here,” I told him.

“Thanks,”
he said, still pretty dazed.

Celia sat
frozen on the muddy ground. Carter plucked a crab off her leg and tossed it
back in the water.

“Is she
okay?” I asked.

“Yeah, just
a little in shock,” Carter said. “What the hell was that?”

“The casket
was rigged with an explosive.”

“Of
course,” Carter said. “Why did I even ask?”

After checking on Carter and
Celia’s safety, I returned to the grassy area behind the rec center that was
now covered in mud and plant debris from the explosion. Ida Belle and Gertie stood,
wiping mud off their hair and clothes.

“Anybody
else have swamp mud in her bra?” Ida Belle asked.

“I’ll have
to burn these clothes,” Gertie said. “How’s Carter and the others?”

“They’re
all fine. But I wouldn’t count on Sinful being in the movies anytime soon.
Look, Carter’s on the phone rounding up some assistance to process the crime
scene. He may have to call in the ATF.”

“Who would
want me dead?” Gertie asked, a tear rolling down her dirty face. “And on the
day of my fake funeral. That’s just rude.”

“You
wouldn’t happen to have a pair of latex gloves in your megapurse, would you?” I
asked Gertie.

She grabbed
her gigantic, used-to-be-white purse from the ground next to her, opened it,
and after a few seconds of rummaging through it, pulled out two fat packages of
latex gloves.

“Powdered
or non powdered?” she asked.

“Non. And
if I asked if you had some sterile paper bags…”

Ida Belle
rolled her eyes. “Oh, please.”

Gertie pulled
out a bundle of new lunch bags.

“I’m not
even going to ask why you carry those things.”

“Evidence
collecting, of course.” Gertie said, shrugging. “Isn’t that why anyone carries
latex gloves and lunch bags?”

She handed
me a pair of gloves and I slipped them on, plucking a bag from the bundle. “We
don’t have much time before Carter gets here. Once this area’s declared a crime
scene, we won’t find anything.” I scanned the grassy area. “Okay, what we’re
looking for are pieces of the bomb. It was a digital timer, so look for
something electronic.”

“Something
like this?” Ida Belle held up a bag. She opened it and I saw several black
plastic shards inside.

“And this?”
Gertie pulled out two rolled-up bags from her purse. “I found plastic bits and
wires.”

I could
feel my mouth drop.

Ida Belle
shook her head. “What do you think we’ve been doing while you were gone?
Twiddling our thumbs?” She pointed down to the ground. “And if I’m not mistaken,
that looks like a piece of evidence under the bush by your left foot.”

She was
right. I knelt down and plucked shards of the digital timer face from the grass
and dropped them into my bag, shooting looks at both of them. “Who are you
two?”

“We
wouldn’t have lasted long as spies if we didn’t know how to gather evidence,”
Ida Belle said.

I heard footsteps
in the mud heading our way. “Carter.”

Ida Belle
stuffed her bag in her purse. I threw mine to Gertie and she dropped it inside
her purse. Carter stepped through the reeds, a shell-shocked look on his face that
in a way made him hotter than he already was. I expected him to launch into
lecture mode, so I thought it best to strike first.

“Okay, I
know, it was stupid. But what were we supposed to do? Let it explode inside the
rec center?”

He didn’t
answer. Instead he rushed toward me and took my face in his muddy hands and
planted one of the best kisses to date on my mouth.

Gertie
cleared her throat. “We can leave.”

Carter
slowly pulled away from me and released my face. He then walked over to Gertie
and grabbed her face as well, kissing her forehead.

Releasing
her, he then set his sights on Ida Belle, who looked at me and shrugged. After
planting a kiss on her forehead, he rushed back to me and held me tight for a
good minute before loosening his grip.

“You all could
have been killed.”

“But we
weren’t,” I said quickly. “That’s the most important thing.”

Carter
glanced around the muddy debris. “Deputy Breaux’s on his way to help secure the
crime scene.”

“The crime
scene?” I asked, playing the innocent librarian he thought I was.

“The one
you’re standing in. The one you should now leave so as not to disturb any
evidence.”

“Evidence?”
Gertie asked.

“From the
blast.”

“Oh yeah…
sure,” I said.

But we
didn’t move. Gertie twiddled her thumbs.

“Now would
be a good time,” Carter said.

I sighed.
Hopefully the evidence we had been able to take would be enough to give us a
clue to the bomb’s maker. But I had my suspicions—one Yankee hater named Fred. As
I turned to walk away, Carter grabbed at my shoulders and spun me around for
one last goodbye kiss.

“Whoa,” I
said, taking in some air as he released me. “If this is what an exploding
casket gives me, bring them on.”

“Don’t even
say that,” he said, his eyes tearing up. “You’ll need to go to the station and
give your statements before you head on home.”

“Of
course.”

He looked
at Gertie. “Be prepared with a list of anyone who might want you dead.”

“A list?”
Gertie said, scowling. She looked at Ida Belle. “Did you hear that? A list. He
didn’t say, ‘now, Gertie, could you possibly think of anyone who might want to
kill you?’ No, he said, ‘come up with a list.’”

Ida Belle
shrugged. “I’ll help you.”

“You can
put my name at the top of that list!” Celia pushed her way through the reeds,
covered in mud.

“I want
them arrested!” she screamed.

“For what?”
Carter asked.

“For trying
to blow the mayor up for starters!”

“Excuse me,
but I was the intended victim,” Gertie said. “And either your right boob likes
to wiggle on its own or there’s something alive under your dress.”

Celia
looked down at her chest, saw something squirm, and screamed at Carter. “Get it
out! Get it out!” She shook her arms wildly in the air.

Carter
rushed to her side and stuck his hand down the front of her dress. “Stop
moving,” he said. Seconds later he pulled out a small fish and tossed it back
into the water.

“Celia, why
don’t you go back and keep our company… company.”

“That will
be the last funeral you ever throw,” Celia hissed at Gertie. “From now on there
will be a new city ordinance. Only one funeral per person!” Celia flicked a few
specks of mud Gertie’s way, turned, and disappeared through the reeds.

“Go before she
comes back,” Carter said. I turned to join Ida Belle and Gertie.

“Wait! One
thing I’m curious about though,” Carter said. “How did you even know a bomb was
hidden in the casket?”

I exchanged
glances with Ida Belle and Gertie.

“
Burn
Notice
marathon,” Gertie said.

I shrugged,
remembering the spy show Gertie had me watch back-to-back episodes of several
nights ago. “Oh yeah,
Burn Notice
marathon.”

Carter
nodded.

It was a
great show. I had instantly identified with the female character who just
wanted to shoot everyone. Now, if we could only wrap this case up in one hour
like they did on TV. But I had a feeling we weren’t going to be so lucky.