Louisiana Longshot (A Miss Fortune Mystery, Book 1) (13 page)

I wasn’t worried about the first two, and if Deputy LeBlanc got it in his head to run my prints, looking to find some dirt on me, he’d come up empty-handed. Morrow had seen to that himself. There was no trace of me left in federal databases.
 

But all it would take is a couple of phone calls to the right people and he might find out that the real Sandy-Sue Morrow was jet-setting in Europe. And that discovery would bring down the whole house of cards.

Chapter Ten

I fixed a ham sandwich, went into the living room, and tried to concentrate on a hunting show on television. None of the so-called professionals on the show had a thing on Ida Belle, which was both impressive and worrisome at the same time. I was a trained assassin and wasn’t sure I could have made the shot Ida Belle did under the same circumstances. At close range, I was excellent at hand-to-hand, or shoe-to-hand, combat, but I preferred to do my shooting from a distance and with a scope.
 

I swallowed the last bite of my sandwich and crumpled the napkin onto the plate sitting on the side table next to me. Who was I trying to fool—sitting here, pretending I wasn’t spending every moment thinking about Marie, Melvin, Deputy LeBlanc, Ida Belle and Gertie, and the dark cloud of gloom that had descended on me ever since I’d arrived in Sinful? I could watch stupid television from now until the end of time, but the problem wasn’t going away—not until someone found Marie and everything moved into the legal system.

Which left me right in Deputy LeBlanc’s line of sight until the case ceased being his responsibility and became the state prosecutor’s problem.

I drummed my fingers on the table until the noise made me crazy. Finally, I grabbed the bag of cookies I’d been about to dive into, jumped up from the chair, and hurried out the door. I’d looked up Ida Belle’s and Gertie’s addresses on the Internet the other night when I was doing my research, but their telephone numbers had been unlisted.
 

I’d try Gertie’s house first, and if they weren’t there, I’d head to Ida Belle’s next. It seemed the only way to ensure maintaining my cover was to find someone who didn’t want to be found. It wasn’t that much different from my real job, except the part about not having to kill anyone at the end of the mission. As the intended target was some kindly old lady who’d been abused by her husband and mother, I figured I could restrain myself.

Gertie’s house was two blocks over from mine, so I stuck a cookie in my mouth and started out up the street, then made the turn around the corner to head to Gertie’s. No sooner had I rounded the huge hedge on the corner than I ran straight into Deputy LeBlanc, who was parked next to the curb, securing his boat to the trailer.
 

Despite my quick pace and complete lack of braking, he didn’t even budge when I slammed into his back. As he whirled around, I took a step back, a bit surprised at how solid he was. It seemed I had originally underestimated Deputy LeBlanc on almost every level.
 

“Sorry,” I said, figuring taking the polite route would be best.

“In a hurry?”

“Just getting some exercise.”

He looked down at the bag of chocolate chip cookies I had clutched in my hand, then raised one eyebrow.

“The cookies are the reason I have to exercise,” I lied. “I’m not allowed to eat any unless I exercise while doing it.”

He gave me a placating smile. “Sounds complicated.”
 

“It works for me.” I popped another cookie in my mouth. “Guess that means I have to run.”

He put his hand on my arm before I took the first step. “I couldn’t help but notice that your cookies were taking you the direction of Gertie’s house.”

“And? This entire town is the size of a postage stamp and is surrounded by bayous. Unless I plan on swimming, I’m going to be walking toward everyone’s house, eventually.”

 
“Hmmm. I thought maybe you were about to ignore my good advice about staying out of my murder investigation.”

“I was not.”

He stared at me, clearly not believing a word.

“I don’t even know where she lives.”

He studied my face, but he didn’t have a chance. Lying was a huge part of my job. I’d been trained by the best forensic psychologists in the world. My own father wouldn’t have been able to catch me lying by body language or facial expression.

Finally, he dropped his hand and gave me a single nod. “Try not to eat too many more of those. Trouble seems to follow you around. The thought of you roaming the streets makes me nervous.”

“Ha. You’ve got man-eating monsters pretending to be frogs in your backyard, banana pudding wars, missing people, and an unsolved murder. I am the least of your worries.”

Before he could get in another word or I could even see his expression, I stepped to his side and started off up the street at a good clip. Maybe he’d think about that and decide that checking into my background was a waste of time. As I approached Gertie’s street, I slowed just a bit and made a show of looking up and down the street for traffic. I could still feel his eyes on me, but I wanted to verify that I hadn’t lost my touch. I hadn’t.

Damn.

I crossed the street and went into a park, the opposite direction of Gertie’s house. I’d walk across the park to the bayou and circle around through the tree line to the row of houses behind Gertie’s. Then I’d cut through to her house. I heard Deputy LeBlanc’s truck engine fire up and the enormous tires turning on the pavement. A little girl and her mother were playing in a sandbox, so I stopped to pet her puppy, a roly-poly, happy, brown little thing. I heard the truck slow as it passed the park, but finally, it sped up and the noise of the obnoxious tires faded into the distance.
 

I said good-bye to the puppy and its people and continued on my original course to the bayou. The truck was gone, but Deputy LeBlanc could easily have rounded a corner and parked to spy on me. It was best I stick to my stealth plan. As I skirted the edge of the park around the bayou, I started to realize exactly how vast the swamp wasteland that surrounded Sinful really was. Narrow passages of water, which Ida Belle had called channels, stretched in every direction like wavy spiderwebs weaving across the land. If a piece of Harvey hadn’t surfaced the day I arrived in town, I would have believed this the perfect place to dump a body.

Apparently, Marie had felt the same way.

The tree line curved to the left, and I trudged alongside it until I was behind the last row of houses that made up the town of Sinful. All I needed to do was find a way through that last row and into the block before it, and I’d be safely tucked away at Gertie’s house. I scanned the backyards, looking for an entry point, but a row of eight-foot fences stared back at me. At the far end of the row of houses, the bayou curved around, cutting off access unless I wanted to swim. Circling back the other way put me right back in the open and exposed to Deputy LeBlanc, who might be lurking behind a bush.
 

Mind made up, I approached the row of fences. It was only eight feet. If I couldn’t scale eight feet, I needed to go ahead and retire. Gertie’s house was in the middle of the block, directly across the street from the row of houses I was behind, so I chose a stretch of fence in the middle.
 

I looked down at the bag of cookies and sighed before tossing the whole thing into the bayou. Then, I leapt up, grabbed the top row of the fence, and pulled myself up to peer into the yard. The last thing I needed was to run into a loud or angry dog.

The backyard was clear except for a barbecue pit, a single lawn chair, and a doghouse. A careful study of the doghouse proved it to be empty, so I pulled myself over the fence and jumped over the hedge that lined the back wall of the fence. I did a quick drop and roll, then bounced back up, ready to take off across the lawn. That’s when I heard the rattle of a doorknob. I sprang back into the bushes, hoping my stay would be a temporary one.
 

An enormous Rottweiler bounded out the back door and hurried to the center of the lawn, where he stood scanning his domain, no doubt to ensure it was free of intruders. Before I could launch into panic mode, my training took over and I immediately modified my breathing to control my heartbeat.

Just wait it out.

With any luck, the owner had let him out to do his business, and he’d do it and go back inside. He sniffed the ground and then lifted his head and sniffed the air. I was certain he couldn’t hear me as I hadn’t moved a muscle and was barely breathing, but I knew he could smell me, or at least smell the apple-scented shampoo that the beauty shop had insisted I use on my fake hair. Finally, he turned and trotted over to a section of the fence on the side of the yard and hiked a leg. Slowly, I let out the breath I’d been holding.

He finished his business, then trotted back to the back door and barked. I felt relief wash over me. The owner would let him back in the house, and this would be just another minor delay in my trip to Gertie’s. But when the back door opened, the dog did not walk in. Instead, the owner walked out.

Deputy LeBlanc!

I felt the blood rush out of my face. Of all the bushes in Sinful to hide in, I had managed to choose bushes that belonged to the one person I was trying desperately to avoid. No way would he take trespassing into his fenced backyard as part of my workout routine.

Using a single finger, I moved leaves out of the way to get a better view. Maybe he’d just stepped out to smoke or something and would be heading back inside, complete with Rambo dog. My hopes were dashed when he set a plate of hamburger patties next to the grill, then opened the grill and lit the flame. Once the grill was lit, he sat in the lawn chair and lifted the beer he was holding in his other hand to take a drink.

This was
so
not good.

My chance of remaining undiscovered by the dog during the time it took for him to cook the stack of hamburger patties was so miniscule that it wasn’t even worth calculating. The dog, standing next to the lawn chair so that Deputy LeBlanc could stroke his massive head, suddenly stiffened and looked straight at my hiding place. If I could have mentally willed myself to become a leaf, I would have done so.
 

After what seemed like an excruciating amount of time, the dog finally relaxed and sank to the ground next to the chair. At that moment, I felt a vibration in my pocket and struggled not to make a sound.
 

The cell phone.

Harrison had bought me a disposable cell phone before I left D.C. He was the only one with the number, and he wasn’t supposed to use it unless there was an emergency. I felt my pulse increase as I abandoned my sniper breathing and eased the phone from my pocket, saying a prayer of thanks that the ringer hadn’t been on.

I glanced at the display and saw I had a text message—from Gertie!

I didn’t know or even care how she’d gotten my number. All I knew was that she’d just thrown me a lifeline. I watched Deputy LeBlanc consume his beer for a couple of minutes, then finally got the movement I’d been waiting on. He rose from the lawn chair to put the burgers on the grill. Immediately, I went to text messages, hoping the noise he made putting the burgers to cook would mask the sound of my texting.
 

Where are you? Need to talk.

That was the message from Gertie. No shit, we needed to talk. I kept one eye on the dog and used both hands to tap out my message, glad I’d bothered to develop texting-without-looking skills. I glanced down at my message to check it before sending.

Call Deputy LeBlanc at his home. I’ll explain later.

I pressed Send, slipped the phone back in my pocket, and prayed. A couple of seconds later, I heard a phone ringing inside Deputy LeBlanc’s house. He looked at the back door and frowned, and for a moment, I was afraid he was going to ignore it. Finally, he sighed, closed the cover on the grill, and walked inside. Unfortunately, he left Rambo Rottweiler outside.

As I hadn’t given Gertie criteria for keeping him on the phone, I didn’t have much time. Between the time constraint and the dog, crossing the backyard was completely out of the question. I picked up a rock from the landscaping bed and threw it at the fence in the far corner of the yard.
 

Rambo dog launched in that direction, and I spun and jumped for the top of the fence. I was halfway over before I realized a lock of my fake hair was caught in the bush. My head yanked backward and my eyes watered, but it was too late to stop the momentum. I tumbled over the top of the fence and the hair ripped from my head with a sickening tear.
 

I bit my bottom lip and held in a string of cursing as I ran for the tree line. I could hear Rambo dog barking at the fence behind me and the back door of Deputy LeBlanc’s house bang shut as I dove into some brush at the edge of the swamp. I heard Deputy LeBlanc yell at the dog, and I froze behind the brush. If he found that piece of hair, I was sunk. Being Creole country, this wasn’t exactly a town of women with long blond hair. Most of the hair I’d seen so far had been silver or gray.

I waited a couple of seconds more, then hurried through the brush and back into the park. As I burst out of the tree line into the playground, everyone stopped what they were doing and stared.
 

“Bird watching,” I said, and hurried past.