Free The Miss Fortune Series: Undercover Bubba (Kindle Worlds Novella) (Miss Chance meets Miss Fortune Book 3) by Sam Cheever

pulling the strings. Maybe they have Brother Mike locked up somewhere and are using Felonius to close some loose ends.”
    “So they sent Felly’s dad back to the monastery to retrieve the ledger from Brother Mike’s room?”
    “I wonder what Mike had in that ledger?” Ida Belle mused.
    “Only one way to find out,” Cal said. “Let’s go pay the Heberts a visit.”
    Unfortunately for us, we didn’t move fast enough. As we were climbing into Cal’s rented Jeep, a familiar truck drove down the street and pulled up to the curb in front of Fortune’s house.
    Carter climbed out of the big truck and sauntered in our direction, his handsome mug dark with anger. He stopped in front of Fortune and dropped his hands to his hips, dangerously close to his gun. He just stared down at her as she met his gaze, unflinching.
    “Carter,” she finally said.
    “Fortune. Or should I say Sister Fortune?”
    Two lines briefly appeared between Fortune’s brows before she smoothed them out and smiled. “Do you know something I don’t? Are we related?”
    Carter lifted a finger and drew a curved line in the air that connected the Swamp Team 3 plus 1 (that would be me). “You four impersonated nuns, entered the Catholic church under false pretenses, and then proceeded to cause massive destruction while inside.” His glare deepened. “Tell me why I shouldn’t arrest you.”
    “Nuns?” Ida Belle looked so shocked I almost believed she was innocent. “Have you been drinking, Carter? Why in the world would we dress up as nuns?”
    He crossed muscular arms over his chest. “That’s exactly what I wondered. I’m surprised lightning didn’t sizzle from the sky. But I never know why you three…” He scanned me a look that told me he was including me in the censure even though I was only a plus one. “…do what you do. I’m sure in your beady little brains you had a reason. I don’t even care. I just know I have a crime scene with lots of prints and four suspects.”
    “Why do you think it was us?” Fortune asked the Deputy.
    He lifted a brow in derision. “Besides the fact that when wonky stuff goes down it’s always you?”
    “Yeah. Despite that.” She frowned.
    “Because the Mayor said she saw you.”
    “That’s a lie,” Gertie blurted out. “She never saw us.”
    Carter lifted the other brow, a smug smile tugging at his lips.
    “What she means to say,” Ida Belle said with a warning glance to Gertie, “Is that Celia couldn’t have seen us because we weren’t there.”
    “You know Celia has it out for us,” Fortune told him. “She just assumes everything bad that happens is our fault.”
    “And it’s not?” Carter asked.
    Silence met his question. It was clear Fortune was trying to find a way not to lie to him. I threw Cal a pleading glance, hoping, as the only non-suspect, he could distract Carter from the war path.
    “I have to agree, Carter,” Cal tried. “The Mayor does seem to have it out for them.”
    Carter looked down at the ground, his jaw flexing. “There’s no question that Celia blames everything bad on you three.” Again he scanned me a look to let me know that, in this case at least, I was included. “But there’s no chance in Hell four random nuns from the Vatican just happened to show up in Sinful and vandalize The Blessed Mother.”
    Fortune shrugged. “Everybody’s an art critic. You should have seen the chaos at the Mudbug Art Emporium yesterday.” She slanted him a look. “Where, by the way, we were around the time of the Mary molestation.”
    Not exactly a lie… It was around that time.
    “I won’t even address the fact that you were at an art show when you were supposed to be under house arrest.” He favored each of my three friends with an individual glower. “Just tell me how you knew when Mary Magdalene was molested if you weren’t there?”
    “You’re kidding right?” Gertie asked him with a snort. “The Sinful gossip mill works at the speed of light. We