Hurricane Force (A Miss Fortune Mystery Book 7) (2 page)

All heads turned slightly to look at the man in the back corner. He’d polished off the pancakes and was now tearing into a slice of ham. Celia caught sight of her husband and sucked in a breath.

“You!” she said. “What are you doing here?”

Max looked up from his breakfast, his expression one of complete and utter boredom. “Eating.” He dropped his head back down and went to work on the ham again.

Celia’s face flushed red and her hands shook.

I leaned toward Gertie. “Is she packing?”
 

“I hope not,” Gertie said. “I don’t want to hit the floor in these slacks.”

“You already hit the sidewalk.”

“Oh yeah. I forgot.”

Celia stomped to the back of the café. I watched her hands carefully. “She’s not reaching into her purse,” I said. “That’s a good sign.”

“It’s a café,” Gertie whispered. “No shortage of knives.”

“I can outrun a knife.”
 

Celia stopped in front of Max’s table and glared down at him. “What are you doing in Sinful?”

“This is my hometown,” Max said. “I can’t visit my hometown?”

His tone was slightly mocking, and I waited for Celia’s head to spin around and pop off her body.
 

“No,” Celia said. “You can’t just visit your hometown when you abandoned it and everyone in it years ago. Not even a phone call or a letter. Nothing to let anyone know you were still alive.”

“That was sorta the whole idea.”

“You didn’t even come to your daughter’s funeral!”

Max smirked, and I decided right then that no matter how much I disliked Celia, I disliked Max even more. There was something about his entire demeanor that was all off. Celia was a complete bitch and being married to her was probably like walking through the valley of the shadow of death, but behind that smirk was something else. Something cruel.

“Are you still passing off that old lie?” Max asked. “We both know Pansy was no kin of mine.”

There was a sharp intake of breath and I looked over at Ida Belle and Gertie, who looked back at me and gave me a slight headshake. Holy crap, this was getting good. If Pansy wasn’t Max’s biological daughter and not even Gertie and Ida Belle knew about it, then Max’s return was going to be like an earthquake hitting Sinful, right underneath Celia’s house.

Celia turned practically purple and started to sputter. “You should have stayed away. No one wants you here.”

“Yeah, well, I’ve come to collect what’s mine.”

“What’s yours?” Celia’s voice shot up several octaves. “Nothing here is yours. You gave it all up when you left.”

“That might be what you think, but the legal system thinks differently. We bought that house together, so half the equity in it is mine, and there’s my boat.”

“Your damned boat sank! And good luck getting half the equity in the house. Last time I checked, the legal system didn’t award settlements to dead people.”

Max’s eyes widened a bit.

“That’s right,” Celia continued. “I had you declared legally dead, and as far as I’m concerned, that’s the status you’ll keep.”

“Is that a threat?”
 

“I suppose it is.” Celia whirled around and stalked out of the café, letting the door slam shut behind her. A second later, the entire café erupted in excited conversation.

“Holy crap,” I said. “Pansy wasn’t his daughter? Did you have any idea?”

Ida Belle and Gertie shook their heads.

“Do you think it’s even true?” I asked.

“She didn’t argue the point,” Ida Belle said, “and she looked like she was going to pass out, so yeah, I’d say it’s a definite possibility.”

Gertie cringed. “I can’t believe more than one man slept with her. Ick. Celia always claimed Pansy was born early, but she went to New Orleans to have her and stayed for a month. She said Pansy had to stay in the hospital, but when she finally got back to Sinful, the baby looked plenty big to me. Of course, the thought crossed my mind that she might have been pregnant before she got married. The wedding was a bit of a rush job, but I never once thought that Max wasn’t Pansy’s father.”

“I can’t believe something that big never got out,” I said.
 

Ally frowned. “When we were kids, Pansy said something to me once about her ‘real’ father. I thought she was pretending, you know, since Uncle Max had run off and all, but maybe she knew or suspected, anyway.”

“Did she say who it was?” Ida Belle asked.

Ally shook her head. “Just something about Aunt Celia and a trip to San Francisco.”

Ida Belle and Gertie looked at each other. “You don’t think?” Gertie said.

“What?” Ally said. “Do you know what that means?”

Ida Belle whipped out her phone. “Celia had family out there that she used to visit—an aunt and some cousins—but she stopped going after she graduated from high school.”

“That’s right,” Gertie said. “Of course, it didn’t mean anything back then. She married Max and they settled down in Sinful, so nothing to set off alarms.”

“Got it!” Ida Belle turned her phone around and showed us a high school yearbook picture of a man.

A man who looked a whole lot more like Pansy than Max did.

“Who is that?” I asked.

Ida Belle smiled. “The aunt’s husband.”

“Holy crap!” Ally shouted, then slapped her hand over her mouth. She glanced around the café, then leaned in. “Celia had an affair with her uncle? What the hell is wrong with my family?”

Gertie frowned. “I don’t know as I’d call it an affair. The uncle had to be in his midforties at the time, and Celia was only eighteen. I know women are a lot more knowledgeable about things these days, but back then, a man that age could have pulled a fast one on an impressionable young woman. And Celia’s mother was strict. She had no street smarts to speak of.”

“That’s true enough,” Ida Belle said, “and if you consider that Celia never had much in the way of male attention, then it’s a recipe for being taken advantage of.”

“So if Celia was pregnant with another man’s child, why did Max marry her?” I asked.

Ida Belle shook her head. “That is a damned good question.”

“I think we should mull it over with some blueberry pancakes,” Gertie said.

I nodded. “That’s the best idea I’ve heard in a long time.”

“Make a note,” Ida Belle said. “Her next idea is sure to be a doozy.”

Chapter Two

As we exited the café, Deputy Carter LeBlanc ran out of the sheriff’s department. In his jeans and black T-shirt, with his rugged good looks and awesome body, he looked as if he’d stepped off of one of those law enforcement hottie calendars. I felt my entire body stir and my heart leap more than just a little. Carter had become one of the biggest surprises I’d encountered since I’d arrived in Sinful. He was also my biggest dilemma.

He caught sight of us and hurried across the street, frowning. As he approached, I raised my right hand. “I swear, whatever it is, we didn’t do it. We were just having breakfast and watching the Celia and Max show.”

“Ah man,” Carter said. “Celia and Max had a showdown? I can’t believe I missed it. What happened?”

“Max basically said Pansy wasn’t his daughter,” I said.

Carter’s eyes widened. “Really?”

“Scout’s honor,” Gertie said.

“You weren’t a Scout,” Ida Belle said.

“Only because they wouldn’t let girls in,” Gertie said. “Anyway, Max wouldn’t say why he came back or where he’s been all this time, and Francine had a crack at him before Celia got there.”

Carter looked impressed. “If Francine couldn’t get it out of him, he must really be up to something big. We could have used her in Iraq.”

“So if you weren’t coming over here to accuse us of something that I’m certain we would never do, why were you frowning?” I asked.
 

“The hurricane,” he said.

“Crap.”

“I knew it.”

Ida Belle and Gertie both spoke at once.

“What?” I asked, completely confused.

“Tropical Storm Lizzie turned into a hurricane in the wee hours of the morning,” Ida Belle said. “It was headed for Mobile, but apparently, it’s shifted.”

Carter nodded. “Looks to come in somewhere between New Orleans and Gulfport.”

I felt a bit of panic course through me. Desert storms, assassins, and incendiary devices I could deal with. Hurricanes were outside of my scope. “Do we need to evacuate?”

“No,” Ida Belle said. “If it comes in that far east, we’ll just get flash flooding and a tornado or two.”

“Sounds like a good reason to leave to me,” I said.

“If we left every time there was a threat of flooding and tornadoes,” Gertie said, “no one would live here at all.”

“Seriously?” I looked at the three of them. “I’ve been living in a constant state of weather peril and none of you thought you should fill me in?”

Carter raised one eyebrow. “Given the things you’ve involved yourself in since arriving in Sinful, I’m going to go out on a limb and say even if the hurricane hit Sinful directly, it would be a better bet than some of the other choices you’ve made.”

I frowned. It wasn’t exactly untrue, but it was slightly rude of him to point it out while I was having my moment of panic. “Fine,” I said, relaxing. “If you guys say there’s nothing to worry about, then I won’t worry. What do I need to do to prepare, boil water or something?”

“Only if you’re delivering a baby,” Gertie said, “which happened during a hurricane a couple years back.”

“You delivered a baby?” Suddenly, it all became scary again.
 

“I tried asking him to stay in there for another day,” Gertie said, “but babies can be stubborn that way.”

“She really did ask,” Ida Belle said. “Pleaded, actually.”

“I don’t blame her,” I said. “Okay, so baby delivering aside, what do I need to do?” My mind whirled with all the things in Marge’s house. Did I board up windows? Did I have enough beer to last out the storm? What if the power went out? Could Ally make blueberry muffins over a campfire? And what would I build a campfire out of? I didn’t like the fig tree much, but it was live wood. It probably wouldn’t burn very well.

“It’s simple,” Ida Belle said. “You close the storm shutters and secure them, fill the bathtubs with water, make sure you have flashlights and batteries, and that’s it.”

“Why are we taking baths?” I asked.

Carter laughed. “If we lose utilities, you’ll need the water to flush toilets.”

“Unless you want to fish it out of the bayou,” Gertie said. “Plenty of people do.”

“No thanks.” I’d seen what lived in the bayou and didn’t want any of it near places my naked butt rested. “So I batten down the hatches and ride it out? That’s it?”

“Oh, you can’t stay at your house when the storm hits shore,” Ida Belle said. “You’re right on the bayou, and there’s a chance the bayou could come inside your kitchen. Everyone with property on water goes to one of the churches. Gertie and I handle those staying at the Baptist church and Celia and her group handle those staying at the Catholic church.”

“Just when I thought I’d gotten out of going to church this week,” I grumbled.
 

“Pastor Don’s visiting his sister, so there won’t be any preaching,” Gertie said. “But I can’t promise no singing or prayer. People tend to get worried when the storm hits.”

Yeah. I was right there with them.

“We best get to the store and get more batteries before the rush,” Ida Belle said.

“I’ll catch up with you guys later,” Carter said. “I’m on my way to the fire department to get the storm alarm set off.” He gave me a quick kiss, then hurried off down the street.
 

Gertie reached into her purse and brought out three sets of earplugs. “You want to put these on. Trust me.”

Ida Belle took a pair and popped them in her ears. “She’s right,” she yelled. “That siren is horribly loud. Sounds like a dinosaur-sized cat wailing.”

I stuck one earplug in and nodded. I already needed them if Ida Belle was going to keep yelling.
 

We headed across the street to the General Store. Walter was in his usual spot behind the counter, reading the newspaper. He looked up when we came in and nodded. “Figured you’d be in when you heard the news. I put together a box of supplies for the church. It’s sitting by the hat rack. I’ll have Scooter run it over for you as soon as you check and make sure you don’t need anything else.”

“We need batteries!” Ida Belle yelled.
 

Walter winced and I waved an earplug at him.

“Ah,” he said. “Carter’s going to get the siren set off.” He pulled out a pair of earmuffs and put them on. “I still have to hear customers, but at least the muffs take the edge off.” He motioned Ida Belle and Gertie toward the box he’d referred to before and they set off across the store to check it out.

“Take those off for a minute,” I said.

“What?” Walter yelled.

I reached up and yanked the muffs off his head. “I don’t want to yell.”