The Miss Fortune Series: Overdue (Kindle Worlds Novella) (2 page)

“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.

“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.”

I stared at her.

Ida Belle rubbed her eyes. “Did you have to go there?”

“Yes, I did,” Gertie said. “She’ll be in that library all day. She can’t be running outside every time she has to—”

“Green peppers,” I said, just to get off the topic. “Just don’t put green peppers on anything.”

Gertie nodded. “No stuffed green pepper, then. And just for good measure I’ll stick in a couple tablets of Gas X. Okay, let’s talk about your work attire.”

“I remember snooping around your Sandy-Sue wardrobe when you first arrived,” Ida Belle said. “That pink skirt and short-sleeved white top with the leaf pattern would be nice, but you’ll be reaching and bending over a lot, so I think you should go with the khaki slacks and blue-striped top with the boat neck.”

“Wait a minute. You went through my closets when I first got here?”

“Of course I did,” Ida Belle said. “How else could I know who you really were if I couldn’t get intimate intel?”

“It was day three of your visit,” Gertie said. “I was getting you tipsy downstairs with a couple of beers while Ida Belle tossed your bedroom.”

“I knew something was up when I saw a closet full of girlie outfits and all you wore around town were yoga pants and jeans. I thought, ‘why would someone go to the trouble of packing all those pink clothes and not wear them?’”

I folded my arms and shook my head. “Unbelievable.”

“Oh, don’t get your panties in a bunch,” Gertie said. “You would have done the same thing. Okay, moving on.” She picked up a photo of a smiling little girl cut from a magazine. “Outside of Lucy, this will be your biggest threat.”

Ida Belle nodded. “Lucy will probably assign you the Little Sinful Readers’ Book Hour. I was there once during story time. It took me two visits to my hairdresser to get the gum out of my hair.”

“Hm-hm. They’re cute from a distance, but they can quickly transform into this in minutes.” Gertie picked up another magazine cutout of a zombie, blood dripping from its mouth. “In addition to the Gas X, I’ll make sure to pack a bottle of Sinful Ladies’ Cough Syrup in your lunch sack.”

“And a pack of tissues, a bottle of hand sanitizer, and ample supply of latex gloves. Every kid in there is a walking Petri dish,” Ida Belle added.

I blew out a breath. “In other words, this is war.”

Gertie nodded her head. “Word.”

For the next two hours I studied the library layout and Dewey Decimal codes, and familiarized myself with the story the Little Sinful Readers were scheduled to hear tomorrow. By the end of hours three and four, I had increased my score on Gertie’s Dewey Decimal quiz threefold. By hour five, I was ready.

That’s when I stepped outside to take a break, just in time to catch Carter’s truck pulling into his driveway.
Crap
. I knew this would happen. With Gertie living directly across the street from Carter, I was bound to run into him sooner or later. I had really hoped it would be later. It had only been two days since he made it clear he had no interest in dating a CIA agent. Not to mention the pain I had caused him by lying about who I was for the past six weeks. I felt way too raw for this.

I crouched behind a bush and watched as he got out of his truck. Reaching back inside, he pulled out a grocery bag. He kicked the door closed and started toward his house, then stopped and turned back, looking in my direction. The screen door opened and Ida Belle stepped out on the porch. She waved to him and he nodded back, tentative almost. I couldn’t blame him. He’d not only found out that I was lying to him about who I was, but that two women he thought he knew well had a secret past. I’d have been just as angry and hurt as he was now.

“He’s in his house,” Ida Belle said. “You can come up for air.”

I straightened up and then plopped down in one of Gertie’s patio chairs. “Maybe Gertie’s isn’t the best place to meet.”

Ida Belle pulled another chair next to mine and sat. “Avoiding him is not going to solve anything. And I do speak from experience.”

“Walter?”

She nodded. Walter had been after Ida Belle to marry him for forty years. But Ida Belle wasn’t the marrying kind, so Walter had to settle with being her best male friend.

“He must really love you not to have gone after other women in all that time.”

“Oh, he did. And I encouraged him to.” She shrugged. “But he never committed to anyone. Damn fool always thought I’d change my mind.”

“At least you didn’t lie to him.”

“Your lie was necessary. Carter’s life may have been in danger if he knew who you really were.”

“Yeah, at least that’s what I kept telling myself. You and I both know that wasn’t the real reason.”

“Your situation is complicated.”

“I didn’t want to lose him. But I didn’t let him have me, either. Not an easy position to put a man in.”

“I understand that one,” she said.

“So what did you do when you’d see Walter with other women? I mean, even if you didn’t want to be married to him, it must have stung when you’d see him with someone else.”

“I sucked it up and moved on.”

“What do you think Gertie would have done, had she been in your situation?”

Ida Belle thought for a moment. “I don’t really have to imagine. She used to date quite a bit.”

Gertie had once told me that even though she never wanted to settle down, she had had a number of flings.

“And when one of her flings would be over and she’d see him moving on to another woman,” Ida Belle said, “she’d take a week and drown herself in cough syrup and ice cream and cry every night over the saddest romance novel she could stand.”

“I’m afraid that’s going to be me.” In fact, I had already cried over a peach pie Ally had brought home after the breakup. It surprised and scared the hell out of me.

Ida Belle sighed. “Letting it all out like Gertie does isn’t a bad thing.”

Gertie stuck her head out the door. “Recess is over.”

Neither Ida Belle nor I moved.

“As in, get your butts inside! Don’t make me put you two in detention. We have two more hours to make Fortune battle ready.”

I pulled myself out of the chair and extended a hand to Ida Belle. She followed Gertie inside. Before joining them, I turned around and glanced at Carter’s house. Through an opening in his blinds I saw him walking through his living room talking on his phone. A pang of jealousy hit me. It could have been his mother on the other end and not a potential girlfriend, but it really didn’t matter, because whoever it was, it wasn’t me.

Lucy was seated at a table in the break room when I arrived at the library. She looked up from her newspaper and took a sip of coffee as I headed toward the small refrigerator to deposit my lunch.

“I hope you can find room in there for that lunch of yours,” she said, setting the paper and mug of coffee down.

When Gertie said she was packing me a bag lunch, I had envisioned one of those smaller lunch bags I used to take to school. But Gertie packed a lunch the way she packed her purse. It was more like a hurricane survival kit: A meatloaf sandwich, small salad and banana for lunch, an apple and several energy bars in case I was hungry later, a bottle of Sinful Ladies Cough Syrup, a bottle of vitamin water, a baggie of aspirin and Gas X, and a roll of duct tape because…

“Because you never know when you’ll need duct tape,” she had said when she packed my bag.

I scrunched the bag up as best I could and squeezed it in between an orange plastic lunchbox and a canvas lunch sack.

“My lunch is in the orange lunchbox,” Lucy said. “My name is clearly marked on the top.”

“Okay,” I said. “Nice to know that.”

“I don’t take very kindly to people who raid other people’s lunches.”

“Duly noted.”

“You’re welcome to coffee.”

“Thank you,” I said as I grabbed a mug from the drying rack and poured myself a cup.

“And clean the mug after you’re done. I’m not your mom.”

Plenty of words in the English language could describe Lucy, most of them impolite to say out loud. The word,
mom
certainly wasn’t one of them. Soon a woman in her thirties entered.

“Oh, hello,” she said, extending a hand out to me. “You must be Chrissy’s replacement.”

“Sandy-Sue Morrow,” I said, shaking her hand.

“I’m Madigan, the library assistant,” she said, smiling.

“Miss Morrow will be with us for the next three days, until Mrs. Bottomley takes over,” Lucy said to Madigan.

“Well, glad to have you aboard,” Madigan said. “I’ve seen you around town with Deputy LeBlanc. He seems nice. Is he nice?”

“Uh… yeah. He’s nice.” Damn, just hearing his name was about to bring a tear to my eye.

“Love your purse,” Madigan said, referring to the pink purse that my CIA partner, Harrison had picked out for me to complete my Sandy-Sue beauty queen look. Today was the first time I’d used it. In fact, I’d forgotten all about it until Ida Belle reminded me I was using it to stuff a hole I’d accidentally made in the living room wall. The way Madigan’s eyes were bugging out, the purse was probably made by a famous designer.

“Oh, my goodness, is that a Sebastian Morelli?”

I had no idea, but I nodded my head and smiled anyway. Designer purses weren’t my thing. The only accessories I ever spent money on were my growing collection of top-of-the-line ankle holsters. No cheapies for MY weapons.

Lucy clapped her hands together. “Enough about Miss Morrow’s extravagant purse which she somehow managed on a librarian’s salary. Madigan, is the reshelving cart ready to roll?”

“Stuffed to the gills.”

“New video releases updated?”

She nodded. “Check.”

Lucy drummed her fingers on the table. “Chrissy usually handles the Little Sinful Readers on Wednesday mornings. I guess story time will have to be reassigned.” More drumming.

Madigan shifted her eyes away from Lucy.

“Whom shall I pick to read to the little darlings?” A smile formed on Lucy’s face, the kind of face where a smile just automatically looked evil.

Madigan pulled in a deep breath.

Lucy glared at me. “Time to prove what you’re made of, Miss Morrow.”

Madigan released her breath, a look of relief washing over her face.

“They’re just children, Lucy. Not like I’m facing a pack of angry Dobermans.” Been there, done that. At least this time I’d get an assist from Gertie and Ida Belle.

She chuckled. “Well, we’ll see, won’t we?” Lucy looked up at the wall clock as the minute hand counted down to opening. She stood. “Ladies…” She extended her hand toward Madigan. Madigan reached out and placed a hand on top of Lucy’s. Lucy looked at me and raised her eyebrows. I reached my hand in as well.

“What are we?” Lucy asked.

“Librarians,” Madigan said.

“What is our purpose?”

“To instill a love of reading.”

“Our public is waiting,” Lucy said solemnly. “Go out there and do Sinful proud.”

We pulled our hands back.

“You might want to lock that fancy pants purse up before you begin, Miss Morrow,” Lucy said. “You’re cubby number four.”

She left the room and I put the purse in cubby four, then slipped the key in my pocket. “Well, she’s certainly dedicated,” I said to Madigan.

“Crazy’s more like it,” Madigan whispered. “But what would you expect? Celia’s her best friend. That tells you something.” She touched my shoulder. “If there’s anything you need the next three days, just let me know.”

Good to know I had some support in addition to Ida Belle and Gertie. But if my experience in Sinful taught me anything, it was
don’t lower your guard
.

At five minutes till opening Madigan began re-shelving her cart of books. I was directed to sit at the circulation desk. In addition to checking out patrons’ books and answering questions, Lucy assigned me the task of compiling book recommendations for the local high school as well as various Sinful book clubs. Lucy sat at a desk off to the side, researching future library acquisitions.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” Lucy said, glancing at the glass double doors where a small crowd gathered, waiting for the opening. Ida Belle and Gertie were the first in line. “They come in here once every two weeks like clockwork to check out books. And now they’re here two days in a row?”

“That’s not against Sinful law, is it?”

“No it’s not. It’s just awfully curious, if you ask me.”

Gertie rapped on the glass door. Lucy held her hand up and pointed to her watch. Gertie rapped on the glass again, pointing to the watch she was wearing. Lucy pursed her lips and again made a big gesture with her finger, pointing to her own watch.

“We go by my watch,” she said in Gertie’s direction, as if Gertie could hear her on the other side of the door. “Not yours. Mine. And my watch says you have forty-five more seconds.” A few seconds later she said, “Forty.” She kept her eyes on her watch as she calmly got up from her chair and walked to the double doors. She stood at the doors, keeping her eyes on her watch.

Gertie rapped on the glass again. Lucy opened the door a crack and glared at Gertie. “Stop it!” She then shut the door and stared at her watch again. “Five, four, three, two, one.”

Lucy opened one of the double doors. Before she could get “Welcome to the Sinful Library” out of her mouth, Gertie breezed past her.

“You need a new watch,” Gertie said.

“You need to rein in your friend,” Lucy said to Ida Belle.

“Not likely,” Ida Belle said as she and Gertie strode over to my desk.

“Watcha doing?” Gertie asked.

“Researching new book suggestions for the freshman reading list at Sinful High.”

Gertie flashed me a subtle thumbs-up. She had anticipated Lucy would ask me to research books for the coming school year. The school wanted to make sure that whatever new books were added to the reading list would be available for students to check out if they couldn’t afford to buy them. So into the wee hours of the morning I researched book lists and suggestions from educational groups around the country, as well as other themed book lists, making note of Southern authors, which I then downloaded onto my phone. I had suggestions for every grade level, as well as for every book club in Sinful.

Lucy came up behind Gertie and shushed her in her ear. “Sandy-Sue is working.”

“Actually, I’m almost finished,” I said to Lucy.

She gasped audibly. “You’ve come up with ten book suggestions? With annotations?”

“Actually, twenty. Why limit the pursuit of good literature to ten?”

She stomped behind me and stared at the computer screen. “I don’t like that one,” she said, pointing to the screen.

“Then you’d be disagreeing with seven of the eight major Louisiana reading associations’ recommendations.” I gave her one of my
are you sure?
faces.

“Hmmmm,” Ida Belle said, shaking her head. “Seven of the eight, huh?”

“Print the list,” Lucy said behind gritted teeth. “And you two stop bothering her.”

“We’ll be sitting over there reading magazines,” Gertie said, pointing to a grouping of overstuffed chairs near the magazine racks.

“I can compile more book lists if you’d like,” I said to Lucy.

She spat out a “no,” then told me to sit and answer patrons’ questions for the next thirty minutes until I was needed for the Little Sinful Readers’ Book Hour. “You need to save up your strength,” she added, her lips upturning slightly as she stormed back to her desk and plopped in her chair.

Soon, a man approached.

Early fifties, just under six foot, silver-gray patch of hair on his two-years-away-from-completely-bald head. A mole on the right side of his nose. Threat level: Low.

“You must be the substitute librarian,” he said, extending his hand.

“Yes. Sandy-Sue Morrow. People call me Fortune.”

We shook.

“My name is Cleve Armand.” He stood a moment, waiting to see if I recognized his name, before continuing. “I’m a local author. I go by the name of CJ Banks.” He waited again.

The name clicked with me.
Misty Breeze. Poisoned syrup. Boyfriend with the come-hither green eyes.

“You wrote
Murder in
Pancake Junction
?”

I had made it a point to research writers who lived within a hundred-mile radius of Sinful.
Pancake Junction
wasn’t my cup of tea, but it was currently doing quite well on the sales charts.

I recited his bio. “On a lark you published it yourself, but it became so popular that it landed you a huge publishing contract for at least four more books in the series.”

He smiled. “That’s correct. I was a twenty-year-in-the-making overnight success. My earlier publishing efforts weren’t quite as fruitful.”

He reached into his book bag and pulled out two hardcover copies of
Death by Boysenberry
. “Lucy told me how popular my first
Pancake Junction
was in Sinful, so I thought I’d donate book two, which just came out last week.” He set the books on my desk, then reached in and pulled out another copy. “And this one is for you.” He picked up a pen from my desk and wrote in the inside cover then handed it to me.

I read it aloud, “‘Stay away from the syrup – CJ.’”

I thanked him and he strode over to the science section.

The next twenty minutes were pretty uneventful. And then the children began arriving. My pulse ticked up as one by one mothers pushed through the double doors with their four- to six-year-olds in tow. The CIA operative in me took over and I began assessing my targets.

Female. Three-foot-four inches. Dark hair in pigtails. Wearing a pink, frilly tutu and purple sparkly shirt. Remnants of a green candy substance clinging to her lips and hands. Threat level: Sticky.

Male. Three-foot-eight inches. Shooting everyone in sight with his finger-gun. Threat level: Annoying.

Twin boys. Three-foot-six inches. Wearing matching shorts and Sponge Bob shirts. Screeching greetings to the other kids. Threat level: Ear Splitting.

Female. Three-foot-six inches. Wearing a pink bathing suit and swim goggles, holding a blow-up floaty ring wrapped around her middle. Threat level: Weird.

There were ten children in all, only one of them earning a threat-level rating of low, that is, until she snacked on a little treasure she found inside her nose. I’d definitely be wearing latex gloves around that one.

Gertie and Ida Belle stood up from their chairs in the magazine section. Ida Belle took a deep breath and then joined Gertie in a quick prayer. After an “amen,” they opened their eyes and Gertie nodded to me. Time for Operation Story Hour.

I heard a low, guttural laugh a few inches from my ear and whipped around, almost putting my eye out on Lucy’s pointy nose.

“Enjoy yourself, Miss Morrow,” Lucy said, shoving a thin children’s book in my hand.

“I intend to, Lucy.”

Our eyes locked, challenging one another to break the stare. Until: “She wiped her booger on me!” a boy shrieked from inside the children’s section.

“Your public is waiting,” Lucy said, stepping back. “Don’t forget your hand sanitizer.”

I joined Gertie and Ida Belle and we began our slow march to the children’s section.

“Hold it!” Lucy whisper-shouted as she came up from behind. She glared at Ida Belle and Gertie. “You two are not joining her. This is a
children’s
story hour.”