The Miss Fortune Series: Nearly Departed (Kindle Worlds Novella) by Shari Hearn

Author:Shari Hearn [Hearn, Shari]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Kindle Worlds
Published: 2015-04-26T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SIX

The sun bid goodbye to another day in Sinful. An hour to go before I would wheel myself into the Swamp Bar in an effort to find a potential killer.

I’d been living in Cookie’s chair all day. Eating the foods Cookie ate. Watching old Hee Haw reruns that Cookie watched. I even made a call to Walter’s store pretending to be Cookie, complaining about a bottle of fizz-less Coke he sold me.

“Where are the little bubbles in my Coke?” I had screamed at him when he picked up. “If I wanted to drink something brown with no bubbles I’d go out and get me a glass of swamp water. You want me to drink swamp water?”

“No, Miss Cookie,” Walter said to me.

Gertie had listened while I made my prank call, holding her hand over her mouth to keep from laughing. I must have been convincing because Walter apologized, offering to comp me a brand, spanking new two-liter bottle of Coke the next time I came into the store.

I was ready.

Eighty-thirty finally arrived. Gertie left the house first, in order to scout for any nosy neighbors lurking about. Luckily there were only a couple of teenage girls sitting on my neighbor’s low brick wall surrounding his yard. They were engrossed in some emotionally charged discussion about some guy named Wyatt who was found sucking face with some girl named Ashley. They wouldn’t be a threat. At least to me. Couldn’t say the same for Wyatt and Ashley.

I wheeled myself down my walkway to a van Ida Belle had borrowed for the night from one of the Sinful Ladies; it was equipped with a wheelchair lift. A cane rested on my lap. Ida Belle said Cookie could walk with a cane, but that after her daughter, Delphine, started whizzing around in her mobility scooter, Cookie insisted on wheels of her own. She would still get up and walk if the occasion called for it, like a square dance at the senior center, or, Ida Belle was told by an informant, a game of pool at the Swamp Bar.

We were a few feet away from the van when Ida Belle, who walked by my side, whispered, “Uh-oh, we’ve got trouble.”

Following her gaze, I saw the sheriff’s department SUV pull up in front of the neighbor’s house and stop.

Carter stepped out and shut the door.

My pulse raced. My hour of reckoning was coming sooner than I thought. It was one thing to fool a drunk in the Swamp Bar. But, Carter?

“Ladies,” Carter said, walking toward us. But his focus was totally on me. “Miss Cookie?” He arched an eyebrow. “What are you doing here?”

I scrunched my face. “What?”

“He asked what you’re doing here, Cookie,” Ida Belle screamed.

“None of your business,” I said to him.

“Delphine’s a little under the weather,” Gertie said. “So we offered to keep her mother company for the day.”

“Really? That’s… unusual for you, isn’t it?”

“Are you saying we’re not kind enough people to want to lend a hand to Sinful’s elders?” Ida Belle asked, playing up her indignation by placing her hand on her hip.

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