Free Hurricane Force (A Miss Fortune Mystery Book 7) by Jana DeLeon

plan is already in place. We’ll stay here tonight and reassess in the morning. Hopefully, Harrison will have some more information soon. He’s supposed to text as soon as he knows anything, then I can call when I’m clear to.”
    Ida Belle started to say something, but stopped when Gertie and Ally came back into the living room.  
    “Gertie says she has enough ground meat in her car to feed half of Sinful,” Ally said. “We’re going to haul it out and make hamburgers tonight, and I’ll mix up some for meat loaf. It’s good for us that Fortune doesn’t keep much in her refrigerator besides beer. With Ida Belle’s gas, we should be able to keep it fresh for several days.”
    “I guess the upside is that I won’t need my iron pill,” Ida Belle said. “At least this time it’s beef. Last time, Gertie had more chicken than KFC. I couldn’t eat chicken or eggs for almost a year.”
    Ally grinned and headed outside. Gertie lagged behind. “Did you tell her the plan?” Gertie asked.
    “I hadn’t gotten that far yet,” Ida Belle said.
    The word “plan” had taken on a whole new connotation since I’d met Gertie and Ida Belle, usually an illegal one. “What plan?”
    “Well, first, we figured we’d cook up the burgers and you could take some to the sheriff’s department for Carter and work your feminine wiles on him to get the scoop on Max,” Gertie said.  
    “Then I reminded Gertie,” Ida Belle said, “that she’d just put you and ‘feminine wiles’ in the same sentence.”
    “Right,” Gertie said, “but as Carter is a man, I figured you could distract him simply by standing there.”
    “Given that he’s a man,” I said, “isn’t he just as likely to be distracted by the burger?”
    Ida Belle looked over at Gertie, who threw her hands in the air. “I know. I know. You already said that. But if Fortune is there, then it’s double the distraction, and last time I checked, a hamburger couldn’t talk someone into staying put if we need it.”
    “Why, exactly, do we need Carter to stay put?” I asked.
    “So that Ida Belle and I can read Carter’s notes on Max, of course.”
    I shook my head. “I’m flattered by your faith in me, but even if I was standing in Carter’s office, wearing hamburgers like a bikini, I don’t think he’d miss you two going through his paperwork.”
    Gertie perked up. “A bikini burger. I could work with that.”
    Ida Belle glanced at Gertie, her expression a mixture of “what the heck” and “Good God, woman.”  
    “Actually,” Ida Belle said, “Carter will probably be up front since it’s only him and Deputy Breaux on duty. Marie is staying at the church again tonight with some people whose houses aren’t habitable. She’ll let us know when Deputy Breaux goes out for a patrol, and then we’ll swoop in. Then you only have to keep Carter up front eating while we visit Carter’s office by way of the ladies’ room excuse.”
    I’d visited Carter’s office by way of the ladies’ room once and lost a perfectly good pair of tennis shoes in the process. “And what if his notes are up front with him?”
    “Then you’ll have to get him back into his office somehow,” Gertie said.
    “And I’m supposed to do that how?”
    “That hamburger bikini idea had some merit,” Gertie said.
    Ida Belle waved a hand at her. “If the notes are up front, then one of us will create a distraction that gets him away from the front and you can read the notes.”
    “This is the weakest plan ever,” I said. “And that’s saying a lot.”
    Ally banged into the screen door and Gertie hurried over to open it. “Sorry about that,” she said to Ally. “We got caught up talking about ground beef recipes.”
    Ally raised an eyebrow, while clutching at least fifteen packs of ground meat. “Fortune was discussing recipes?”
    “She was discussing what she’d like to eat,” Gertie said.
    Ally grinned. “That I can believe.” She headed down the