Hurricane Force (A Miss Fortune Mystery Book 7) (25 page)

I looked over at Agent Moss. “You got my clothes?” I asked quietly.

He nodded and handed me a black jacket and cap that matched what he was wearing. I replaced my yoga pants with black slacks, pulled the suit jacket over my black T-shirt, stuffed my hair up into the cap, and gave him a thumbs-up. He motioned two more identically dressed agents, who’d been standing guard in the hallway, into the room.

Two of us took each coffin and started rolling them down the hall. We slid both coffins into the back of a black van with the funeral home logo on it, then two of the agents jumped into a black sedan that held the funeral home logo, and the lead agent and I climbed into the van. As soon as we pulled out of the parking lot, I headed to the back of the van and opened the coffins.
 

Gertie popped up, gasping for air, then locked in on my outfit. “What the hell? Why aren’t you in a coffin?”

“Because we could only fit two in the van,” I said.

“So? You could have played dead and I could have been the funeral home assistant.”

“Sure,” I said. “I mean, you would have only had to lift this coffin, which weighs about two hundred fifty pounds plus your body weight, but I’m sure that would have been no problem.”

“You’d be surprised what adrenaline can do,” Gertie said.
 

“Stop your bitching,” Ida Belle said. “It wasn’t that long and I could breathe in there as well as I can in my own bed. The silk is nice. I might have to get some sheets like that.”

“How do we look?” I asked Agent Moss.

He picked up a radio and contacted the other agents, asking for a report.
 

Clear.

That single word relayed back a couple seconds later and I felt some of the tension in my shoulders release. No one had followed us.

“So we’re good?” Gertie asked.

“For the moment,” I said. “We’ve still got to get to the safe house, but no one is following us.”

“Great,” Gertie said. “I don’t suppose we could stop at an IHOP or something. I’m starving.”

“I think you’re going to have to wait,” I said.

“The safe house is stocked with food,” Agent Moss said. “You should be in place in an hour or so.”

Gertie wrestled her purse out from under the lower part of the coffin. I knew I should have insisted the FBI search that purse of doom before they got into the coffins, but selfishly, I knew I might get into a situation where I would welcome something from Gertie’s bag of tricks.
 

“It’s a good thing I don’t depend on other people,” Gertie said. She pulled out a bottle of soda and a package of peanut butter crackers. “I have three of these. Anyone interested?”

“Not unless you’re sharing your soda,” Ida Belle said. “Those things stick to the roof of my mouth.”

Gertie reached into her purse and pulled out two more sodas.

“What else do you have in there?” I asked.

“None of your business,” Gertie said, “but I still contend I could have lifted the coffin.”

She was probably right. Gertie’s right shoulder had a slight dip and she leaned a bit to the right all the time, I’m sure from the weight of that purse. I wouldn’t have been completely surprised if she had rolled a tank out of that bag, just like in the cartoons. I had a bit of concern about what kind of weaponry she was packing—and I’m sure it was extensive—but I couldn’t ask about it in front of Agent Moss or he’d confiscate it. I could only pray that the safety was engaged on everything. I grabbed a soda and a package of crackers and took a seat on Ida Belle’s coffin.

The ride to the funeral home went quicker than I expected, especially given the lack of conversation during the ride. I knew why I was silent. I had more to think about than any twenty people usually did in an entire lifetime. I wasn’t sure what Ida Belle and Gertie were dwelling on, but their occasional glances at me and then each other made me think it was probably the same things I was dwelling on.

Agent Moss had been short on words since we’d met, but that was standard operating procedure for Feds. Per Morrow’s direction, the FBI wasn’t to know my true identity, so Agent Moss wouldn’t see any reason to speak to me as an associate. We were just three women who’d witnessed something we shouldn’t have seen and needed to be secured.
 

The only thing I refused to allow myself to think about was Carter. Every time my thoughts attempted to shift to him, I forced a change of direction. My doomed relationship wasn’t a factor in my decisions. I needed to make a logical, responsible decision about my future. Thoughts of Carter and what might have been had no place in my consideration.
 

Unfortunately, I didn’t know how the takedown would go or how my reception at the CIA would be afterward, and both were huge factors in my decision-making. Or maybe they weren’t. Maybe if Director Morrow told me I could return to the CIA but had to answer the phones for a year, I’d apologize and go back to DC like a good little soldier. If only Gertie had a crystal ball in that bag of hers. Life had been so much easier when I only had one thing to do and someone else usually made decisions for me.
 

As we pulled up to the back entrance at the funeral home, I closed Ida Belle and Gertie back up and took my seat next to Agent Moss. He parked and we headed to the back of the van to unload. The two agents following us arrived a minute later. The funeral home director poked his head out the rear door and motioned to us to collect the transport carts in the hallway behind him.
 

“You’ve got about thirty minutes before people start arriving for this evening’s viewing,” he said. He glanced at the coffins. “Are you sure they’re okay in there?”

“Of course we’re not okay,” Gertie yelled. “We’re alive and in coffins.”

The funeral director blanched and his hands shook as he pushed a transfer cart out the door. Apparently dead people in coffins he could handle, but shove a live one in there, and it freaked him out. It took all kinds.

Agent Moss and I slid Ida Belle’s coffin onto the cart and pushed it to the side while the other two agents pulled Gertie’s coffin onto the cart.
 

And that’s where our great plan blew up right in our faces.

Chapter Eighteen

I saw the cart move forward as the agents made their final pull on the coffin to get it completely on the cart, but by the time I yelled and leaped for the cart, it was already rolling away.
 

“Idiots!” Agent Moss yelled as we took off running.
 

I ran like an Olympic sprinter, but the odds were against me. The parking lot sloped down and the weight of the coffin made it gain speed in a way I couldn’t manage. I prayed it veered to the left and hit the curb. It wouldn’t be the most comfortable way to unload, but it beat the alternative. Unfortunately, the alternative was the cart’s selection, and it shot out of the driveway and down the alley. I could hear Gertie screaming as it bumped along.

I didn’t think it was possible, but I dialed up my speed another notch. Agent Moss couldn’t keep pace, but I could hear his footsteps pounding close behind me. The entire time I ran, I watched the busy street at the end of the alley and prayed the cart would veer left or right. If it shot into traffic, that would be very bad. The last thing I wanted was for Gertie to actually die in that coffin. That would be an irony that didn’t have a bit of humor connected to it.

The coffin was about twenty yards from the end of the alley when I closed in on it, only five feet away. It had just cleared a section of fencing and was about to skirt a back driveway when a hot dog vendor pushed his cart into the alley. The coffin hit the vendor cart right in the side, tipping the entire thing over and scattering wieners and buns all over the alley. The vendor, who was knocked down by the initial impact, jumped up, ready to raise hell over his cart, then took one look at the coffin tipped on its side and paled.

As I rushed up to the side of the coffin, the top flew open and Gertie started crawling out. The hot dog vendor made the sign of the cross, then passed out right in the middle of a stack of buns. I reached down to help Gertie up as she struggled to get to her feet. Agent Moss ran up beside me, surveying the damage and looking like he was about to have a heart attack.

“Get her out of here,” he said. “I’ll fix this.”

“Wait,” Gertie said and reached back inside the coffin for her purse.
 

“Hurry up,” I said.

She took two steps, then stopped. “Are those beef?” She bent over and started picking up wieners and buns, stuffing them into her purse.

I grabbed her arm and pulled. “You have to get out of sight.”

Gertie slung the purse over her shoulder and we ran back up the alley and into the funeral home. We dashed into the room secured for unloading and collapsed on two chairs. Ida Belle hurried over as soon as we entered.

“Are you all right?” she asked. “I heard screaming and the funeral director looks like he’s going to cry, but no one will tell me what happened.”

“Considering I almost died in that coffin,” Gertie said, “I’m doing okay. But I’m going to feel it tomorrow.” She pulled a wiener and bun out of her purse and put them together. “Anyone else want one? I have quite a few.”

Ida Belle looked over at me, her confusion apparent.

“Later,” I said as the funeral home director ran into the room, muttering and wiping his sweating, bald forehead with a silk handkerchief. Ida Belle was right. He did look ready to cry.

“This is a tragedy,” he said. “How can I possibly explain this? My reputation will be ruined.”

“Agent Moss is going to handle it,” I said. “Stop worrying.”

The funeral director looked a tiny bit hopeful but not convinced. I couldn’t really blame him. Agent Moss could throw money at the vendor for the cart repairs and the loss of revenue and stock, but it would require an exorcism to make him unsee Gertie crawling out of that coffin.
 

“Is the SUV out front?” I asked the other two agents, who’d left Agent Moss to deal with everything and would probably be hearing about it for the next month or two.

One of them nodded.
 

“Then go get it and bring it around back,” I said. “And don’t screw up this time.”

They started to hesitate. After all, to them I was just some broad who needed protection, but apparently their embarrassment at allowing Gertie to get away overrode any indignation of being ordered around by a civilian, because they filed silently out of the room.
 

Agent Moss entered a couple minutes later. “Everything’s settled with the vendor,” he assured the funeral director. “I told him we were a private transport company and not affiliated with your funeral home. He has a contact number to call with a damage amount and we’ll be issuing him a check.”

“Thank God.” The funeral director slid into a chair, his entire body seeming to relax into jelly. I hoped he could work up the energy to run his viewing. It would start any minute.

“I sent the agents to get the SUV,” I said.

Agent Moss nodded. “They were pulling around when I came in the back door. I’ve already removed the decals from the car and van. I’ll call for someone to pick up them up as soon as we leave. We need to get out of here now before people start arriving.”

We headed out of the funeral home and into the SUV. The door had barely closed behind us when I heard the lock slide into place. I’d never seen a man happier to get rid of people than the funeral home director had been.
 

I climbed into the second row of seats next to one of the other agents and looked out the limo-tinted windows as we drove. I didn’t know New Orleans very well, but I had no doubt Ida Belle and Gertie were watching and would know where the safe house was located within the city. I knew it didn’t matter as we were supposed to stay put, but something about not knowing my exact location bothered me. Navigating the bayous around Sinful with Ida Belle and Gertie had always frustrated me. If I didn’t know any better, I would swear some of them shifted overnight.

We were still somewhere near downtown when Agent Moss turned onto a side street and parked at the curb in front of an old two-story brick building. The red brick was chipped and crumbling, but no more so than any of the other historical buildings surrounding it. We exited the SUV and Agent Moss waved us inside and upstairs. At the top of the stairs was a single locked door. Agent Moss unlocked the door and we followed him inside.

It was a studio apartment and wasn’t a big space—maybe eight hundred square feet total—but it had been equipped for our stay. Three twin beds lined one wall where big venetian screen room dividers stood next to them. I assumed that was our sleeping quarters. Agents Two and Three were on guard duty and I supposed would share the couch on their off shift. Agent Moss had other things to oversee and looked more than ready to ditch all of us.

The kitchen was small but serviceable, and the pantry and refrigerator were well stocked. I was a bit concerned about five people and one tiny bathroom, but it wasn’t exactly something that could be fixed. I pulled off my cap and the suit and tossed them onto one of the beds.
 

“I guess this is home,” I said.

Gertie sat her purse on the middle bed and flopped down beside it. “Those hot dogs gave me heartburn. I don’t suppose there’s an Alka-Seltzer in that pantry, is there?”