Hurricane Force (A Miss Fortune Mystery Book 7) (12 page)

I had a feeling that if I could figure out the answer to that question, I could bust this mission wide open. I had a name and address for Max. Hopefully, the address wasn’t as fake as the name. That was the first place to start. Just as soon as I could get away from Sinful.

Feeling better now that I had a course of action, I stepped off the picnic table and startled myself when water came right up to the ankles. I shone my flashlight at my feet and saw the bayou swirling around me. The tide must have started coming in while I was talking to Harrison. Something moved to the right of my feet and I directed my penlight that way, praying it wasn’t an alligator.

My prayers were answered. It wasn’t an alligator.
 

Unfortunately, it was a snake. A really big snake.

It must have been looking for a place to land because it darted straight for my legs. I tried to jump back onto the picnic table, but it was too late—the snake wrapped around my ankle and clenched as if it had just secured the last raft on the
Titanic
.
 

I tried not to panic, but all those stories Gertie had told me about water moccasins jumping into hunters’ hip waders ran through my mind like the credits to a movie. If that snake headed up my yoga pants, Ahmad wouldn’t have to kill me. I’d have a heart attack and die on the spot.
 

I shook my leg a little, but the snake just tightened more.
 

Think.
 

My phone was right where I’d left it on the corner of the picnic table and out of my reach, unless I took a stroll, which didn’t seem like the best option given the circumstances. My pistol was in my sports bra, but I couldn’t shoot it without shooting myself, so that was out.
 

I watched as the water moved up another half inch. The snake shifted.
 

That was it! The snake was trying to get out of the water. If I waded in deeper, he might take off.

Or crawl up higher.

Shit.

There was only one thing left to do. Call for backup.

I wasn’t sure yelling would work and I didn’t want to take a chance of aggravating the snake, so I did the only smart thing I could do. I shot a round through the bedroom window where Ida Belle was sleeping. I only had a little bit of moonlight to work with, but it was enough to illuminate the outline of the window. I aimed high, and the bullet pierced the glass at one of the top panes. I heard the tinkling of glass and mentally added that to the list of things I had to repair.

I waited to hear commotion from inside the house, but aside from my heavy breathing, it was like a cone of silence had descended on the backyard. Since Merlin had decided to start prowling the house yowling, I knew Ally had put in earplugs before she went to bed, but I had no idea why the other two hadn’t responded. I was just about to fire again when I heard the back door creak open.

“Ida Belle?” I half yelled, half cried.

“Fortune?” Ida Belle’s voice sounded back. “Where are you?”

“At the picnic table.”

“Did you fire that shot?”

Then it clicked. Ida Belle’s first assumption was that Ahmad’s men had fired the shot. She wasn’t ignoring it. She was being cautious. “Yes. That was my cry for help.”

Ida Belle turned on her flashlight and started across the yard toward me. “It was a damned loud cry. Almost gave me a heart attack, and you took out one of the globes on the ceiling fan.”

“I’ll put it on my list, assuming I’m around to make the repairs.”

“What the hell is wrong? And what were you doing out here in the first place? Are you stuck?”

“Sorta,” I said, figuring answering the last question was the easiest. As Ida Belle stepped up in front of me, I pointed to my foot. “The tide came in and I acquired a passenger.”

Ida Belle shone the light on my foot and took a step back. “Holy shit!”

“You are not making me feel better about the situation.”

“Sorry. Okay, give me a minute to think.”

“In a minute, I’m shooting my own leg off.”

“What’s all the racket?” Gertie’s voice sounded behind us. “I got up to go to the bathroom and heard yelling.”

The fact that she’d slept through the gunshot was beyond troubling, but we could address that another time. Assuming I had another time.

“Fortune’s got a situation,” Ida Belle said.

Gertie tromped across the yard and stepped up beside Ida Belle. “The tide’s coming in. Try walking toward the house and you won’t be standing in the bayou. This hardly rates yelling, and it was far too simple to be a situation.”

“Would you like me to walk in the house with this?” I grabbed her flashlight and trained it on my leg.
 

Gertie let out a strangled cry and leaped for the picnic table, crawling up to the top to stand. “Holy crap. Shoot it or something.”

“I can’t without hitting my leg,” I said.

“You don’t need both of them, do you?” she asked.

“I was kinda thinking I might,” I said. “But I’m willing to reconsider.”

“Shut up, you two,” Ida Belle said. “I’m trying to think.”

I stared. “You’re telling me you two have never seen this before? It didn’t happen to Mary Jo or Billy Bob on the third night of the full moon in March or something and now there’s a town law about it?” My voice began to trail up in volume and pitch. I didn’t want to admit it, but I was starting to panic a little.

Ida Belle looked up at Gertie. “This isn’t a constrictor. Water snakes wrap around things all the time…just usually not a person’s legs.”

Gertie nodded. “When they jump into hip waders, the person wearing them hops out.”

“I can’t hop out of my ankle, so we need a different plan.”

“The snake is trying to get out of the water,” Ida Belle said, “so what about wading in deeper?”

“I thought about that, but what if he runs up my pants leg? All kinds of bad things would happen then.”

“Pull up your pants leg first,” Gertie said. “If you got it up around your knee there wouldn’t be a gap for the snake to get into.”

“That’s a start,” Ida Belle said. “Maybe if you get the pants leg up, then wade in, the snake will loosen a bit, then we can pull it off your leg.”

“I do not understand this ‘we’ of which you speak,” Gertie said. “I’m staying right here until all snakes have cleared the area.”

“I’ll do it, you sissy,” Ida Belle said, but she didn’t sound completely convinced. “Pull up your pants leg, Fortune.”

I sat my pistol on the picnic table and inched the yoga pants up my leg. The snake looked up, but didn’t move. So far, so good. I pulled the pants up another couple inches.

“Slow and steady,” Gertie said as she leaned over to watch the progress.

“What do you think I’m doing?” I asked and pulled on the pants until they slipped over my knee and stuck.

“Is it tight enough on your leg?” Ida Belle asked.

Slowly, I reached down and rolled the yoga pants over several times, pulling them up on my leg until I darn near cut off the circulation. “It is now. Let’s get this over with before my leg goes numb.”

“That could be a good thing,” Gertie said. “Then you wouldn’t feel if the snake bites you.”

“Are you ready?” I asked Ida Belle.

She looked at the snake and frowned, then handed Gertie her flashlight. “Give me your nightshirt and make sure you keep that light trained on the snake.”

“What?” Gertie said. “I’m not giving you my nightshirt.”

“I’m not grabbing that thing bare-handed, and there’s no time to go looking for gloves.”

“Then use your own nightshirt,” Gertie said.

“This is silk,” Ida Belle said. “It’s not thick enough. Yours is flannel since you’re always cold. You sleep in a sports bra. It’s no different than being out here in your bathing suit.”

“Says the woman who doesn’t have to take off her clothes,” Gertie grumbled as she pulled her nightshirt over her head and tossed it to Ida Belle.

“Says the woman who has to grab the snake,” Ida Belle corrected and wrapped the nightshirt around her right hand and up her forearm. “Okay. I’m ready.”

I nodded. “I’m going to step to the right to get out of the way of the picnic table, then I’ll step back.”

Ida Belle moved in front of me and as I took the step to the side, she mirrored my movement. Gertie stood bent over on the edge of the picnic table, shining the light on my leg.
 

Ida Belle leaned over, her right hand outstretched and ready to grab. I took a deep breath and blew it out.
 

“One. Two. Three!”

Chapter Nine

I took a big step backward, Ida Belle moving in sync with me. As soon as my leg went underwater, I felt the snake loosen. Ida Belle reached into the water and grabbed the tail of the snake, then pulled. I closed my eyes and waited for the bite that I was sure was coming but instead, the snake unraveled and sprang loose, reaching backward toward Ida Belle. Just before the head made it around to her hand, Ida Belle yelled and flung the snake.

Right at Gertie.

Gertie brandished the flashlight like a sword and attempted to whack the snake away from her, but she lost her balance. She fell off the side of the picnic table, crashing into Ida Belle and me and knocking us all down into the water. All of a sudden, the water thrashed with three sets of frantic, tangled limbs.
 

“Get off of me!”

“You’re on my leg!”

“I can’t move!”

“The snake is coming back!”

It was probably only a couple of seconds, but it felt like it took an eternity to get out of the water and run like a madman for dry land. We stopped about twenty feet from the picnic table and stood there, huddled and dripping.
 

“Who has a flashlight?” I asked.

“I dropped Ida Belle’s in the water.”

I pulled my penlight out of my pocket and clicked. Nothing. “It’s ruined. Where’s your light, Gertie?”

“I think it’s still on the picnic table. If I didn’t kick it off.”

My phone!

I froze as a string of curse words raced through my mind.
 

“My cell phone was on the picnic table,” I said. “I have to have it.”

“I’m not going anywhere near that water,” Gertie said. “In fact, I’m seriously considering moving to the desert.”

“Then there’s rattlers,” I said.
 

“At least they give you a warning.”

I was just about to head back inside and rustle up another flashlight when a beam of light shone on us from behind. We all turned around, hands over our eyes, trying to see into the light.

“I’m almost afraid to ask,” Carter said, “but I suppose it’s my job. What the hell is going on here? I got reports of gunfire and screaming, then I show up and the three of you are standing here soaking wet and dressed, well, weird.”

I looked over at Gertie, who stood there in her camouflage sports bra and matching underwear, and Ida Belle, who wore some thin, short red silky thing, and then down at my pants leg, which was still wrapped around my thigh.

“I heard a noise and came outside to check it out,” I said. “Then a snake wrapped around my leg and I shot my pistol through the bedroom window where Ida Belle was sleeping to get some help.”

Carter directed the light down at the ground so that the glow reflected back up but allowed us all to see. He looked at my leg with the offending pants leg. “Is that going numb?”

“A little. Anyway, I left my phone on the picnic table, but we lost our flashlights in the great snake-wrangling adventure, then fell in the water, and now we have no light and I need my phone.”

Carter shook his head. “If you had your phone, why didn’t you just call for help?”

“Because my phone was out of reach and I was afraid to move, but since my pistol was in my bra, I had a backup plan.”

“Your mind is scary on so many levels,” Carter said. He directed the flashlight away from us and set off for the picnic table, sloshing in the water as he went. He returned holding my phone, my pistol, and Gertie’s small flashlight. “Will you three please go inside and stay there at least until daylight?”

“We can probably manage that,” Ida Belle said.

“Please do,” Carter said, then looked at me. “Do you realize that every time I get a call about random gunfire in the middle of the night, I automatically start driving this way? I don’t even have to hear the address first. What does that tell you?”

“That no one else in Sinful is living it up, apparently,” I said.

“I wouldn’t call getting my ankle felt up by a snake ‘living it up,’” Gertie said, “but it’s definitely not boring, like everyone else in this town.”

“The entertainment value aside,” Carter said, “which was probably high if I’d shown up ten minutes sooner, I’d really appreciate it if you’d become boring until tomorrow.”

He turned around and headed across the lawn.
 

“He’s in a mood,” Gertie said.