The Miss Fortune Series: Nearly Departed (Kindle Worlds Novella) (5 page)

They
scurried back to their chairs. Ida Belle pulled hers next to Gertie in front of
the laptop. “She was insulting you, in case you were wondering,” Ida Belle
said.

I brought
up Facebook on my own laptop, then slid it over to Gertie. “Log me into your
Facebook page. I want to check your Sinful friends to see if anyone posted a
selfie while standing in line.”

She reached
over and typed in her user ID. “Don’t look,” she said to Ida Belle as she typed
her password.

“
Ida
Belle stop looking?
That’s your password?”

“I knew
you’d look.”

I sighed.
“You do realize the brain doesn’t register negative words like
don’t
,
right? All it hears is
look
.”

“Well,
thank you for sharing that with me in that snarky way of yours, Fortune,”
Gertie snapped as she typed her Facebook password before passing my laptop back
to me.

I stared at
the computer screen as Gertie’s Facebook homepage began loading.

“And,
Fortune?”

“Yeah?” I
said, still focused on the screen.

“Don’t
look.”

I looked up
and found Gertie’s middle finger extended inches from my face. With a smug look
plastered on her face, she went back to her video scan as someone knocked on Ida
Belle’s front door.

“Ida Belle?
You in there?”

Carter.

“Operation Lawman,”
Ida Belle said, as she and Gertie sprung into action.

I quickly
put the debris back in the paper bags. Gertie threw a knitting basket over to
me and I stuffed the bags under the half-finished potholders. Ida Belle
collected all our pages of notes and shoved them under the padded table
protector. Gertie’s fingers typed at breakneck speed.

“Ida
Belle?” Carter called out again.

“Be right
there, Carter.”

Ida Belle
leapt out of her chair and rushed into the kitchen, running back into the
dining room with a plate filled with cookies that she set on the table, and
then ran to the front door. Gertie swung her laptop around so I could see the
screen as well.

Ida Belle took
a moment to catch her breath, then opened the door. “Hey, Carter.”

Carter
looked around her and spotted Gertie and me at the table.

“I thought
I’d find you all together. No one answered my knocks at Gertie’s or Fortune’s.”

“Brilliant
police work,” Ida Belle said, smiling. I rolled my eyes. Jeeze, even the Sinful
village idiot could see behind that one.

“Hello,
Carter,” Gertie waved.

“You’re the
one I’m looking for, Gertie.”

I whispered
in her ear, “Remember, you’re still shaky from almost being blown to bits in a
casket.”

“Right,”
she said, wringing her hands. “Did you catch him?” Her voice now shook.

I shot her
a
don’t-go-overboard
look.

“Not yet,”
he called from the doorway.

“Well, come
on in,” Ida Belle said, ushering him in. “We have chocolate chip cookies.”

Carter
stepped inside and strode over to the dining table.

“Fortune,”
he said, nodding to me.

“You can
kiss her if you want,” Gertie said, offering me up like I was a used car he
needed to take for a spin.

“I’m on
duty.”

“Didn’t
stop you earlier today.”

I flashed
her the dirtiest look possible.

“Not that I
remember much about the kiss. I was traumatized. Still am.” Gertie held out the
plate of cookies. “Cookie?”

Carter
looked down at the plate. “They’re shaped like coffins.”

“They were
from my funeral after-party. We have some skeleton-shaped ones if you’d prefer
those.”

I snatched
a cookie from the plate. “Hopefully you’ll catch a break in the case soon.”

Carter
arched an eyebrow. “My job would be easier if Ida Belle hadn’t announced to all
the funeral attendees that they should give all their tips and videos to her
first.”

“I did
that?”

“Yes, I
believe you did.”

“I think
maybe those people misunderstood Ida Belle,” I said. “If you ask me, some of
those people seemed like they were hitting the cough medicine a little early,
if you know what I mean.”

“Stay out
of the investigation,” Carter said. His eyes bore into me and damned if my
brain didn’t send signals to all parts of my body. Parts I’d rather it would
have ignored at the moment. Nothing Carter did could take the sexy out of his
eyes.

But sexy
eyes or not, I had a mission. Help identify the bomber before Carter was forced
to bring in the ATF. “What makes you think we’re inserting ourselves into this
investigation?”

“Are you
watching everyone’s videos? Trying to spot a potential suspect?”

Something
caught my eye next to my laptop. I had forgotten to put away one of the bags of
debris into the knitting basket. Gertie noticed it too.

“Don’t
look!” Gertie shouted, shielding her laptop screen with her hands.

Carter
looked down at Gertie’s screen. “Take your hands away, Gertie.”

“Fine then,
I’ll add sound. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

Gertie
turned up the volume to the most god-awful scream I’d ever heard. While Carter directed
his attention on Gertie’s screen, I slid the bag from next to my laptop and
dropped it under the table.

Gertie
continued with her distraction. “You remember my great-niece Fran, don’t you?
This is the video of her giving birth to her first child. I was sharing this
little miracle with Fortune. Since I was almost killed today, I thought it
would be nice to be reminded of something good in the world. To get my mind off
things.”

I forced
myself to look at Gertie’s screen. My stomach lurched. I would have rather taken
on Ahmad than watch a video of a baby being born.

“Oh looky,”
Gertie said, clapping. “The baby’s head is pushing through.”

Carter
sighed. “Turn that thing off.”

Gertie
pressed
pause
, freezing the image on the screen.

“Off, not
pause.”

She clicked
the video off.

Running low
on patience, Carter took a deep breath. “If you think that video is going to
send me screaming out of here, you’re wrong. I’ve helped deliver babies. Four
to be exact. Now, if I were to go snooping on your computer, would I find
videos and photos of your mock funeral today?”

“Well, why
not?” Ida Belle said. “It’s her funeral. Of course she wants to remember it.”

“It’s
evidence. And you had no right to tell people to filter it through you. I could
charge you with obstruction of justice.”

I turned
away from the
miracle of life horror show
and glared at Carter. “The
videos are digital, Carter. No one’s stopping anyone in Sinful from sharing
them with you as well.”

“You’re
right,” he said, casting his eyes toward me.

I never
noticed he had curly lashes. I made a note to myself to check those out the
next time I kissed him.

“But half
those people said they already sent their stuff to Ida Belle, and if I want it,
get it from her. So now I’m telling all of you, send me everything you have. Is
that clear?”

We mumbled
our agreement.

“Oh, and you
three wouldn’t have left the swamp today with any bomb debris, now would you?”

“What do we
look like? The bomb squad?” I asked.

“Honestly,
Fortune, sometimes I don’t know what to think. I’m bringing it up because I
thought there’d be more debris scattered around where you three were located.”

“Well, who
knows, maybe some opposable-thumbed raccoon made off with some of the debris.
Maybe the same raccoon that broke into Marge’s house my first week here.” I
hated lying to him. But with my cover just one ATF investigation from being
blown, I saw no other choice.

“But I’m
sure some will wash up on the banks somewhere.” That part was actually true.
When we finished solving this case, we planned on re-scattering the debris
around the swamp.

Carter
sighed and picked up a couple cookies from the plate. “Then I guess I’ll leave.
You enjoy the birth video of Gertie’s great-niece… what’s her name again?”

“Fran,”
Gertie said.

Carter
nodded. He winked at me, which kinda felt like a kiss, then headed for the
door. He opened it and turned around once more to us.

“By the
way, Gertie, if you’re going to pull up a YouTube video of a woman giving birth
and claim it’s your great-niece Fran, you might want to double-check the
nationality. The last I remember, Fran is not Chinese.” He smiled and closed
the door behind him.

“Chinese?”

“Well, I
didn’t have time to double-check. Who knew he’d get past the birth canal and
look at her face.”

Ida Belle
sat and continued scrolling through her text messages from funeralgoers. “That
man of yours is getting more onto us every day.”

“My man?
Carter’s not
my
man. He’s a man I had a date with. I’m sure he has a
whole list of women he’s interested in dating.”

I waited
for Ida Belle or Gertie to contradict me, but instead they continued their
work.

“I mean, I
would expect him to see other women. He knows I’m only in Sinful for the
summer.”

Again, no
response. I could feel my pulse pick up. “His mother’s probably mentioned him
dating other women, right?” A wave of heat traveled from my neck and spread out
over my cheeks.
I did not just do that. I did not just fish for reassurance
about my standing with Carter.

Gertie’s
bottom lip quivered. They were playing me.

“It’s
eating her up inside, Ida Belle. Maybe we should reassure her so she can go
back to work.”

Ida Belle
nodded. “He’s not interested in anyone else.”

“Like I
care,” I said. “Can we please get back to work?”

But inside
I had suddenly become a multiple personality. One of
me
was insulted
they would think I cared if Carter was interested in other women. Another
me
was a giggly girl dancing inside myself. Not sure what kind of dance, but it
involved some hip and butt action. But then giggly girl gave way to reality
me
.
I’d never had a man who made me feel the way Carter did. What would happen at
the end of the summer if we got more serious? Would we go through some big
breakup? There was no way I was going to become the type of woman who sat
around crying in her ice cream after a breakup. Of course, I never believed I
would have been the type of woman fishing for reassurance about a man, either.

“Fortune,
you okay?” Ida Belle asked. “Looks like something put the fright in you.”

I shook my
head. “No no, I’m fine. I want to catch this guy, that’s all. Let’s get back to
work.”

While
Gertie and Ida Belle focused on texts and videos sent by funeralgoers, I spent
the next hour scrutinizing Gertie’s Facebook friends. My hope was that some of
them posted photos of the funeral or the line outside the rec center that would
yield some clues.

“So far
I’ve counted eighteen selfies of people in front of your fake dead body in the
casket.” I clicked on Dora Dubois’s page where she had posted a group selfie of
the Sinful Splits in front of fake-dead Gertie with a smile on her face.
“You’re laughing in Dora’s picture.”

“The
bowling league. They always tell dirty jokes to get me to laugh. Dora’s
amazing. She must know a hundred jokes where the punch line is ‘Cool Whip.’”
Gertie laughed and wiped at her eyes. “That’s why I have ice cream on my pie
now.”

Clovis
Allard’s page was next. A string of goofy selfies while standing in line. Clovis
was 80 plus, with enough nose and ear hair to knit a decent-sized sweater. Too bad
he couldn’t transfer those hairs to his wrinkled, bald head. But it was the
shot of him taking a swig of Sinful Ladies Society Cough Syrup that caught my
eye. Standing in line next to him was the Yankee hater, wearing a Sinful
Sluggers baseball cap. And then another shot, one Clovis took just before going
into the rec center. A shot of a juggler Gertie hired to entertain people in
line while they waited. A few feet away, sitting on a park bench, was a man,
his head tilted downward, wearing jeans and a baseball cap, same color as the
one Fred was wearing. I downloaded the photo and enlarged it.

“Hey,” I
said, swinging my laptop around so they could see the photo. “Remember that guy
in Francine’s? The guy who said something about me being a Yankee?”

“Fred
Barbaret?” Ida Belle asked.

I nodded. “He
was in one of the photos standing in line. And I think this might be him again
sitting on the park bench.”

Ida Belle
looked at the screen. “Could be him. I’m not sure.”