“Donny?” The bewildered voice of his first wife floated up the stairway. “Stephanie, what’s going on? Has Donny shown up yet?”
My stomach clenched. Oh, yes, he’d come. And gone. But I couldn’t find my voice.
Luckily, Gertie had no such problem. “Bull, honey, let Kitty come on up.”
Kitty ran lightly up the stairs. “Is Donny here? Is he drunk?” She stopped next to Gertie. From the angle where we stood the only part of her ex-husband that was visible were the bottoms of his black dress shoes. “He’s passed out drunk, isn’t he?” Her hands clenched by her side, and she shook with a barely contained rage. “I knew he’d find a way to ruin Cassandra’s day, the bastard. I’m going to kill him.”
But as the words left her lips, the paramedics moved away from Donny’s body, showing Kitty Masters that she wasn’t the first person that day to have the same idea.
AN HOUR LATER WE WERE gathered at the police station. Carter looked weary and Kase looked worried. Donny’s body had been taken to the morgue, and the former and current Mrs. Donny Masters sat in separate meeting rooms giving their statements to deputies. Cassandra and her fiancé were at the hospital at Shawn’s bedside waiting to see if he’d recover from an overdose. Carter and Kase had their heads together conferring over notes while Fortune, Gertie, and I loitered in the police station hallway like law enforcement groupies.
“I don’t like this,” Fortune said. “Not one bit.”
I shot an annoyed look in her direction. “Really? The rest of us are having so much fun.”
Gertie frowned. “Don’t start, either one of you. It’s not going to help us figure out where Ida Belle is.”
And this was the crux of our problem. Somehow, in the melee at the Masters house, we’d lost my great-aunt, Walter, and Lenora. So far as we knew, Lenora had no idea her step-son had been killed. We were anxious to get word to her before she heard it from someone else. One of the sheriff’s deputies who was at the hospital keeping an eye on Cassandra and Shawn was under strict orders to let us know if Lenora showed up at the hospital.
“Could the three of them have gone off to hash things out?” I suggested.
“Bash it out would be more like it,” Gertie said. “Last I saw of Ida Belle, she was madder than a wet hen on a hot tin roof.”
I was too tired to point out the absurdity of her metaphor. “Could they have been kidnapped by the murderer?”
Fortune shrugged. “To what end? Whoever pulled the trigger would be desperate to get out of there. You can’t move fast when you’re hustling hostages around.”
I watched her carefully. She was nervous, which did nothing to reassure me. Her pensive expression told me what her words didn’t. She thought that the three missing seniors had met the same fate as Donny. But she couldn’t be right. Aunt Ida Belle couldn’t be dead. Not now, not like this.
“Maybe it was the wife,” Gertie suggested.
“Which one?” Fortune asked.
Gertie threw up her hands. “Either one, I don’t have a preference. Maybe the newer model? She was upstairs when you and Mayeux got up there, wasn’t she?”
I nodded. “Yes, leaning over her husband’s body.”
“Did you see a gun?” Fortune asked.
“I don’t know. I don’t think so. If Kase had, he’d have pointed it out to Carter.” I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to replay the scene in my mind. I shook my head. “I can’t remember any details. All I could see was the blood on Donny’s shirt.” I crossed my hands over my stomach, willing it not to retch. “There was so much blood. Maybe Carmen hid the gun before we got upstairs. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be hard on yourself,” Fortune said. “It takes years of practice to learn to assess a crime scene.”
Years? Perhaps this was true for the Queen of Delusion, but I could never get used to seeing freshly murdered bodies. I certainly couldn’t speak about it so dispassionately.
Gertie reached out and laid a hand on my shoulder. “Try one more time, kiddo. Tell us everything you remember from the moment you last saw Ida Belle. Don’t over-think it, just talk.”
I nodded. “Okay. After you and Bull left us, Kase and I stood on the lawn with Aunt Ida Belle. She was distressed that Lenora had spirited Walter away. Kase offered to go find him but that just set her off.”
Gertie snorted. “I can see it.”
“She then took off toward the house, but I didn’t watch her. She might have gone into the house or in another direction. I don’t know. I feel so stupid for not paying more attention.”
“Don’t be silly, honey. If you hadn’t been enjoying the day with your man, you’d have been wasting precious time,” Gertie said.
Kase wasn’t my man, but this wasn’t the time to set Gertie straight. We could do that after we found Aunt Ida Belle. “Kase and I talked for a few moments more, and then Kitty came up to us and asked for my help. She said that Donny hadn’t shown up and that she wanted me to help calm Cassandra down. I agreed to accompany her to the house.”
“How did Kitty seem?” Gertie said. “Maybe she shot Donny and then rushed out to get you and Kase so she could lead you upstairs and act stunned with the two of you as witnesses.”
I shook my head. “I don’t think so. She appeared flustered, but that seems normal for her.”
“How did she act when she saw the body?” Fortune asked.
I shrugged. “She didn’t go upstairs with us. On the way to the house so many people stopped her that she suggested we go ahead without her. She said she’d be right along.”
“Odd that she’d stop to talk to guests at a time like that,” Fortune said.
“It’s not odd at all,” I disagreed. “It was the only polite thing for a hostess to do.”
“Ida Belle needs our help.” Gertie said. “I can feel it in my old bones.”
Her concern for my great-aunt was so palpable that tears filled my eyes. Gertie was easy to make fun of, easy to tease or dismiss as wacky, but she was a dear and loyal friend to Aunt Ida Belle. I wrung my hands. “What are we going to do?”
“We’re going to find them, that’s what we’re going to do.” Gertie rubbed her hands together, a determined look on her face. “Ida Belle would come looking for us, wouldn’t she?”
Neither Fortune nor I dignified this with an answer. Of course she would come after us, guns blazing, of this I had no doubt.
“That’s settled. We’re going after her.” Gertie grabbed her purse. “C’mon.”
“Wait,” I protested, “We don’t know where she is.”
Gertie grinned. “We’ll figure it out on the way there. Let’s roll.”
Chapter Twelve
“DO YOU THINK THEY BOUGHT it?” I asked from the backseat of Gertie’s Cadillac.
Fortune, who was riding shotgun, checked the car’s side mirror. “We’re clear. No one’s following us. Carter will be tied up for a while yet with filing reports, so don’t worry about him. Your boyfriend, however, will hunt us down if he thinks we’re up to something.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Gertie said. She swerved wildly to avoid a pothole. “By the time he figures out we lied to him, we’ll have found Ida Belle and Walter.”
From her lips to God’s ears. I, however, didn’t share her confidence that we’d outrun Kase if he decided to come after us. But hopefully he and Carter were still at the station waiting for us to return. They’d had the audacity to question our intentions when we told them we were going to pick up sandwiches and apple pie to bring back to them. At first, it didn’t look like they were buying it, but the thought of Ally’s baking must have tipped the scales in our favor. Their complete lack of trust that we were headed where we said we were would have been downright insulting if they hadn’t been right.
I clung to the seat in front of me. Gertie was tearing up the road as if she knew exactly where she was going. “Where are we going? Back to the Masters home?”
“Nope. Still haven’t heard squat from Bull, which means he hasn’t seen hide no
r hair of anyone.”
“What if Bull’s in on it?” I asked.
Gertie slammed on the brakes. New York City cabbies had nothing on this woman. Luckily, I already had a grip on the back of her seat, so the whiplash wasn’t too painful.
She slipped the Caddy into park and twisted around to face me. “What did you just say?”
I’d never seen her so irate. “We don’t know Bull very well. In fact, if I’m not mistaken, you’re the only one who knew him before tonight.” My words sounded more accusatory than I meant them to, but I didn’t think we should eliminate Bull Dozer from suspicion just because Gertie was sweet on him.
Gertie’s eyes narrowed. “Those are fighting words, Miss Prim and Proper.”
“Stop, stop, stop.” Fortune’s words were laced with frustration. “Fighting about a man isn’t going to help Ida Belle, so just can it. Gertie, turn around and drive.”
Once we were back to racing down the dirt road, Gertie spoke again. “Bull’s not our guy.”
Her confident tone implied she had someone else in mind. “So, who is then?” I asked.
“Lenora Masters.”
“What?” I didn’t just hear that.
“She may be right,” Fortune said. “Think about it. Who’s the most unlikely member of the Masters family to be behind something like this?”
I groaned aloud. “Honestly, Fortune. This isn’t a mystery novel. We’re talking about a real murder, not a whodunit with a colorful cast of characters. This is real life, and little old ladies are very often what they appear to be. Quiet. Shy. Retiring, as well as retired.” My gaze flitted to Gertie. “With a few notable exceptions, of course. But my point is that not everyone sees life through the same distorted lens that you apparently do.”
“Holy crap, you’ve done it now, Stephanie.” Gertie shook her head. “Fortune, let it go. Remember that she’s just a wee babe in terms of having seen the world.”
“No, Gertie, don’t sugarcoat this,” I said. “Fortune, I respect that as a librarian you’ve read hundreds of books, but this is reality. Aunt Ida Belle, Walter, and Lenora are in real trouble. Gertie and I need you to stay focused.”
Fortune’s response was a string of unladylike expletives that I wouldn’t repeat even if someone put a gun to my head.
“If you two young’uns don’t stop bickering, I’m going to pull over, let you out, and you can walk back to town.” Gertie hit the accelerator, which catapulted us near into light speed.
“Where are we going?” Fortune asked before I could, but I wanted to know the same thing. Clearly, Gertie had a destination in mind.
“Walter’s fishing cabin.”
Again with a cabin? Was there some unwritten law in Sinful that every crisis required a visit to an isolated cabin? When Boris Sidorov kidnapped me several weeks ago, he’d ordered his henchmen to deliver me to an old hunting cabin where he’d intended to kill me. Luckily, Aunt Ida Belle, Gertie, and Fortune had busted in to save me. Then, just about a week ago, Fortune and I had taken a trip to Number Two and found Boris and one of his thugs hiding in yet another cabin. Fortune had blown out both of Boris’ kneecaps, so that had ended well, at least for us, but now we were going for a threepeat?
“We’re wasting precious time, Gertie,” I said. Not that I had any better idea where we should begin to look, but I just couldn’t buy that they were at Walter’s cabin. “For all we know, they were whisked onto a boat and they’re out in the middle of the bayou somewhere.” I shivered, and not because it was chilly. “Lenora can’t be the one who’s behind this.”
“Why not?” Fortune challenged me. “And don’t give me this ‘old ladies don’t kill’ crap either.”
“Lenora would hardly have killed her own step-child,” I shot back. “Think about it, Fortune. Someone shot that man straight in the chest and they were aiming to kill. Hardly the work of a mother figure.”
“Prisons are full of women who’ve killed their children, Stephanie. Give me a real reason that Lenora isn’t the one behind all of this.”
“Why on earth would she get involved with drug trafficking? She has a lovely home—”
“Which could have been provided for with drug money,” Fortune interrupted me. “You’ve got to admit that she’s erratic and displays some bizarre behavior at times.”
True, but I could well say that about most of the people in Sinful. Lenora Masters wasn’t any crazier than anyone else who called this town home.
“Hush up, now, both of you.” Gertie slowed the car and turned off the lights. “We’re almost there.” The Cadillac rolled to a stop and Gertie cut the engine. She turned to look at us. “I know Lenora’s going to kill Walter and frame Ida Belle for murder unless we stop her.”
WITH GERTIE IN THE lead, Fortune and I crept along behind her as we approached the cabin. I didn’t see a car, but it could well be hidden. A small golden light glowed through the closed curtains.
“Wait,” I hissed. I grabbed hold of Gertie’s elbow so that she’d stop walking. “What if we’re interrupting?”
“That’s the whole point, kiddo. We want to get to Lenora before she kills Walter.”
“No, that’s not what I meant.” I leaned in and lowered my voice. “What if Walter and Aunt Ida Belle are here in a—” how to put this delicately? “—romantic capacity?”
Both Fortune and Gertie stared at me for a full minute before they rolled their eyes in perfect synchronicity. Fortune shook her head. “Trust me, that isn’t what’s going on in there, Stephanie. At this point we’re just going to have to trust Gertie’s intuition. She’s known Lenora far longer than we have.”
Frustration welled up within me. I was certain that they were barking up the wrong tree. But how to convince them? “I’m one hundred percent sure that Lenora is as innocent in all of this as Aunt Ida Belle is. I’m so sure that I’d bet my pearls that Gertie’s wrong.”
Instead of answering me, Fortune cupped her hands together and put them in front of her mouth. She let out an ear-splitting imitation of an owl.
“Good thinking,” Gertie whispered. “You finish that up and I’ll sneak around front.”
I watched her go with more than a little trepidation. “Finish what up?”
Fortune changed the position of her hands and emitted another unearthly sound.
“Finish what up?” I asked again. “Fortune, what are you doing?”
She dropped her hands. “Sending a signal to Ida Belle that the cavalry’s here. Let me finish.”
I waited while she repeated the owl sound and then added another bird call. What was this? Some sort of avian Morse code?
“Okay, let’s go,” Fortune said when she was finished.
“Wait, I don’t know what we’re doing,” I protested. My heart was hammering in my chest. “What’s the plan?”
Fortune met my eye. “Look, Stephanie, maybe you should wait in the car.” She held up a hand when I started to object. “That way you can call for help if something goes wrong.”
“Something? Try everything’s going wrong.” I heard the high-pitched squeal that my voice had morphed into but Fortune’s calm unnerved me. Wait in the car? What was I? A Labrador? “I think we should call for help now.”
“Good idea.” Fortune glanced over her shoulder in the direction of the Cadillac. “Head over to the car, call for help, and then give us five to seven minutes to wrap this up. That’s all the time we’ll need.”
Before I could object, she sprinted toward the cabin. I confess that I uttered a most unladylike curse, however if any situation ever called for blue language, I believed this was it. The only reasonable course of action was to call for help. I jogged back to the car where I’d left my cell phone, hoping against hope that I could get some sort of signal this far out of town.
Which, of course, I couldn’t. I shook my phone, held it up above my head, turned it to the left and to the right, and then did the whole hokey-pokey reception dance, but nothing brought forth a single bar. Disgusted, I
tossed the phone back into the Cadillac.
I took a dozen steps toward the cabin before I froze. Behind me, no more than twenty feet at most, was the unmistakable sound of a gigantic creature crunching through the underbrush. I squeezed my eyes shut. I issued a silent prayer that it would turn around and run the other way. Fast. But instead, the sounds came closer. For the first time ever, I wished I were packing more than just lipstick and a tissue in my handbag. “Go away,” I cried. Although I heard the anguish in my voice, I doubted that whatever manner of beast this was would care about my fear. I buried my face in my hands and waited for it to pounce.
The pounce came, but it was in the form of two large arms wrapping themselves around my waist. I let out a whoosh of pent up oxygen that I’d been saving for my last scream on earth when I recognized the scent of Kase’s cologne.
He pulled me back close against his chest. “Unless Ally has opened a bakery here in the woods, you’ve got some serious explaining to do.”
Chapter Thirteen
I DIDN’T WASTE PRECIOUS time apologizing for misleading Kase. Nor did I ask how he found us—time for that explanation later. The only thing that mattered now was filling him on the girls’ wild idea that Lenora Masters was the one who was behind the drug trafficking and the kidnapping. But after my words tumbled out in a rush, he didn’t reject their theory.
Instead, he frowned. “Well, I’ll be damned. And Gertie’s sure about this?”
I nodded.
“Fortune’s on board?” he asked.
“Yes, but I’m not about to give credence to her wild ideas. Her grasp on reality is tenuous at best.”
He narrowed his eyes. “You’re sure?”
I reached up and touched my necklace. “Sure enough that I bet my pearls on it.”
He drew his hand down over his face. “Where are Gertie and Fortune now?”
I pointed toward the cabin. “They wanted me to call for help, but I couldn’t get a signal.”
Kase furrowed his brow. “Wait here while I call for backup.” He took a few steps away from me but then doubled back to put a hand under my elbow. “Better yet, come with me.” He led me back to his truck and insisted I sit in the cab while he phoned in to the station.
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