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I slept like a rock and awoke to the heartwarming scent of fresh coffee. Rolling to my side, I opened one eye, expecting to find Carter staring back at me. Instead, there was a multicolored blanket folded neatly where his body should’ve been.
I gulped at the thought. Don’t get too comfortable with these overnight watchman ideas.
“Sandy-Sue, you up there?” Gertie stood at the bottom of the steps. “Coffee’s on. Come join us!”
I traipsed by her without a second glance. “He only slept over to irk me.”
Ida Belle pressed her lips together and didn’t utter a sound. Gertie covered her ears. “I don’t want to know.”
“He makes good coffee.” Ida Belle lifted her cup.
I froze in the middle of reaching for a mug. “He made coffee?”
“Sounding more and more like a keeper all the time if you ask me,” Gertie said.
“I wouldn’t know.”
“Oh stop it,” Gertie said. “Carter’s a good person. Women in this town consider him a real catch.”
“I haven’t thrown out a net as far as I know.” I sipped the hot brew. “But his coffee is better than mine so that’s saying something.”
“He implied as much,” Ida Belle said, shooting me a broad smile.
After I sipped on the first cup, I set aside my mug and said, “Look, he’s one of those happily-ever-after guys. And I’m the kind of woman who likes to keep things moving.”
“Sounds like a beautiful collision waiting to happen if you ask me.” For an old maid, Gertie was a hopeless romantic sometimes.
“That sounded like an oxymoron.” Ida Belle folded her arms. “Fortune, you should do what you think is right. If you think it’s fine to bed hop from his place to yours, go right ahead, but...”
“Whoa.” I shook my finger in front of them. “That did not happen here.”
“If you say so,” Gertie said, returning to her coffee. “Besides, it’s not our business.”
“That’s the first smart thing you’ve said this morning. It’s not. But still yet, I want to be perfectly clear. Carter and I aren’t sleeping together.”
A door slammed and all heads turned. The topic of conversation strode inside with a wicked smile plastered on his face. He looked at me as if we’d enjoyed breakfast, lunch, dinner, and an unforgettable dessert.
“What say you, Carter?” Gertie asked, prying. “Fortune says you aren’t sleeping together.”
“Yet.” He kept his eyes on me and acted as if we were alone.
“See there?” Gertie said, seemingly pleased.
“I can’t believe you,” I said.
“The nerve,” Ida Belle said, apparently siding with me.
As if Carter had already learned how to make himself at home, he opened the pantry, pulled out a white to-go cup, and filled it to the brim. “Honey, I hope you have a good day.” And with that, he left me to my own defenses which were now shattered beyond repair.
####
WITH CARTER OUT OF the way, Gertie and Ida Belle jumped into solve-a-mystery mode. Ida Belle handed off a stack of photocopies. “Since Carter was here and Sheriff Lee was under the weather, I went down to the station last night and made copies.”
“You broke in?” I was asking a question for which I already knew the answer.
“I borrowed the copier. Let’s leave it at that.”
I glanced down at the stack of pages. The small print was impossible to read from a distance. “Did you leave five bucks on Sheriff Lee’s desk?”
“I’ll make her go back and pick it up if she did,” Gertie said. “I made the ole grump a pot of chicken soup yesterday. The least he can do is support our cause.”
“What’s our cause exactly?”
Ida Belle patted the stack of papers. “Protecting you and each other.”
“Of course,” I said, flipping over the first page and gasping as soon as I saw the bold print. On second thought, maybe backup wasn’t a bad idea.
“Told you that would get her,” Gertie said.
I read over the first few lines and then looked up at my sidekicks. “The Stiletto Scandal?” The one-liner was splattered across the top of the black and white flyer. High-heel shoes flanked the letters on either side of the headline.
Clearing my throat, I read, “CIA Agent Fortune Redding is wanted in connection with an international crime. A bounty has been placed on this agent’s head. If you’ve seen her or have knowledge of her whereabouts, contact Agent Redding’s current handler: Max Worthright.” I shook my head. “This isn’t right.” I jabbed my finger at the paper. “I don’t know a Max Worthright.”
“We didn’t think you did.”
“Sounds like a fake name,” Ida Belle agreed. “There’s more. Keep reading.”
“What’d you have there?” Carter reentered the kitchen without our knowledge. We slowly turned our heads at the same time. Gulping, I waited for Ida Belle to speak first. She typically handled the unexpected.
“Let a man spend the night and he thinks he has the keys to the kingdom.” Ida Belle shook her head. Given the look on Carter’s face, he already knew what was going on, but as if that weren’t enough, the paper in his hand told the story.
“Let me guess,” Carter said, tapering his temper. “You broke in my office, used my copier, and forgot to clear the memory?”
“Something like that,” Ida Belle said, staring at his hands.
“Great.” They might as well hand over the rope and watch me swing.
Carter’s look of shock changed to fury and then concern. Was I supposed to confess my sins or deny all accusations?
“Clearly I wouldn’t be associated with someone named Worthright.”
“So you’re saying if the guy’s name was Smith or Jones then it would make more sense and in that case it would be perfectly practical to assume you’re wanted in connection with this stiletto scandal. Then, and only then, it would be appropriate to ask for an explanation or maybe haul you in for questioning?”
“Exactly.” I wasn’t off the hook.
“She didn’t mean that,” Gertie said.
“Since you’re so good at make believe, let’s pretend,” Carter chided. “Play along with me. Want to?”
“Sure.” Gertie sat down and patted my hand. “Don’t worry, dear. We’ll handle this.”
“Handle it?” Carter couldn’t control his rising anger. His red face gave him away. “How do you propose to handle this, Gertie? Fortune has a price on her head!”
“I can explain.” I needed to call Harrison. He was handling the back office of this operation and should’ve been in contact with Carter from the beginning. The locals should’ve been apprised of the situation, or at least this local should’ve been informed. Carter was trustworthy. I trusted him.
Then again, maybe my CIA training was for naught and I had lost my good instincts while crawling around on sand in the middle of a hot desert. God only knew what else I might have lost over there. A shoe, as an example.
“Why don’t you start at the beginning.” His icy eyes pierced through mine.
“It was a prank,” Ida Belle blurted out.
“A prank?” He twisted his mouth. “No. That one doesn’t work, Ida Belle.”
“You can call Walter and ask...”
“Already done. He said to ask you. Might want to leave my uncle out of this one.”
“Trader,” I mumbled. “Walter knows?”
“Walter knows everything, dear,” Gertie said, patting my hand again.
Jumping to my feet, I closed the distance between me and Carter. “I’ll explain everything. There isn’t time right now.” I shook my finger at the paperwork scattered on the table. “We found that in Casey’s motel room and...”
“You were in Casey’s motel room?”
“Yes and be glad we were,” Gertie said. “Otherwise we wouldn’t have known that Casey was here to kill Fortune.”
“What?” Carter took a double-take. “You think Casey came here to kill you?”
“Carter, it’s the only thing that makes sense.”
“See that?” Gertie leaned toward Ida Belle. “She’s calling him by his first name again.”
“Not now, Gertie,” I said, watching Carter. “I need you to trust me.”
“If you’d needed that? You would’ve come to me on day one and said, ‘Deputy LeBlanc, I’m in the witness protection program’ but no, you had to wait so I could find out like this!”
I took a breath, weighing options. If Carter called that number, I had to run. There wasn’t another choice. Shooting Ida Belle a sideways glance, I knew that she understood the same. Gauging the look of betrayal on his face, I started to speak, but Ida Belle shook her head. She’d handle Carter and she definitely possessed more experience in the field of negotiations.
“Carter, you’ve been in law enforcement long enough to know that when someone is in this much danger, a pinup poster isn’t distributed all over the country with a contact number for a so-called handler. The CIA does whatever they can to protect their own.”
“You’re CIA?” He screeched. “And you two knew this?”
“We did,” Gertie said, seemingly proud.
Carter paced. He walked over to the refrigerator and opened the door. Peering inside, he eyed the last piece of carrot cake. My mouth watered at the thought of Ally’s rich cream cheese icing.
“You said Ally made this?”
“Fortune did,” Ida Belle teased, unable to hide a smile.
“It’s mine.” He pulled it from the refrigerator, found a fork in the nearby drawer, and helped himself to a first bite. “Hmm. That sure is good.”
“If he’s taunting us, that’s a good sign,” Gertie said.
“You shouldn’t keep cake in the fridge,” Ida Belle said. “Dries it out.”
My mouth watered as I watched Carter. He seemingly enjoyed my last piece of cake. I imagined the rich taste of each sweet bite, the rich icing with a hint of cinnamon took me back to another place and time—childhood. A nearby bakery kept a variety of cakes. Every now and then, I’d find a large piece boxed up with a note from my dad Dwight Redding, the CIA’s flawless agent.
If only I could’ve been more like him.
“What are you going to do?” I hesitated to ask.
“Right now?” He took another bite of savory perfection. “I’m eating and thinking.”
The first wasn’t the problem. The second? Suggested there might be several.
“And when you’re done?” Gertie asked, hopeful.
He rested his fork on the plate. “I’m phoning a friend at Langley, telling him I have his girl, and that will be that.”
“You can’t!” Ida Belle looked like she might flog him.
I couldn’t breathe. Surely he wasn’t serious.
“Give me one good reason why.” His gaze bore into Ida Belle.
“That number isn’t legitimate. She doesn’t know that Worthright fellow. He isn’t her handler. It’s a trap, Carter.”
“You think I don’t know that?” He cut off another bite and smacked his lips as he enjoyed more icing than cake. “I’m not stupid. No one puts a handler’s number on a wanted-type poster. We’re not living in the eighteen hundreds.”
A collective sigh fell to the room.
“Well at least we can all agree on that,” I said, somewhat relieved, but still burdened by the look of indecision on Carter’s face. “I hope you’re enjoying yourself.”
“Thoroughly.” He smacked his lips. “I’m still waiting for someone to tell me what’s going on. Don’t leave out one detail because it may be the one that matters.”
Gertie sat straighter in her chair. “She was a trained assassin hired to take out the worst men this world has ever seen.”
“Gertie!” I definitely needed to call Harrison. He’d throw a fit. And Director Morrow? Once he heard about this, I might earn my walking papers once and for all.
Carter set aside his plate. “Explains why you’re carrying a nine millimeter.”
“Guess so.”
“But not why you’re in Sinful.”
“She’s hiding, dear.”
“Given that flyer? I guessed as much.”
“Carter, you can’t call your friend at Langley or anywhere else.”
“Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t.”
“She’s not the kind of person that you rat on.”
“Rat?” He scoffed at that.
“Fortune treats others the way she wants to be treated.” Gertie stuffed her hands behind her back and crossed her fingers.
“Most of the time anyway,” Ida Belle said.
“So you enjoy having a tapered heel embedded in your head, do you?”
The other shoe—or stiletto—finally dropped. Carter had known far more than we’d thought.
“Who are you? Sandy-Sue Morrow, Fortune Redding, or someone else altogether?”
“I could ask you the same thing.”
“Oh that’s an easy one. I’m the man who may just save your life.”