Free miss fortune mystery (ff) - bayou bubba by sam cheever

groaning, and then slammed down, tires skidding against the pavement as Ida Belle accelerated to take us back out of town.
    I fell sideways on the first jerk of the wheel, hitting the plastic window trim with my uninjured cheek as she whipped us around, and ended up on the floor, legs akimbo.
    “You all right back there?”
    I gathered myself up and slid back onto the seat, rubbing my cheek. “A little warning would have been nice.”
    Ida Belle offered a, “who me?” look in the mirror.
    Gertie shook her head. “Ida Belle doesn’t mess around, Felicity. If you ask her to turn around she turns around.” She popped another chunk of fudge into her mouth.
    I glared at the back of Gertie’s frizzy, gray head but it did me no good. The two women might as well have been alone in the truck for all the attention they paid me.
    We drove past Lena’s and Ida Belle slowed. “You watch the right side, Felicity and Gertie will watch the left.”
    The road curved away from the bayou a quarter of a mile from Lena’s and wove into a thick forest of cypress trees. It was so dark under the trees I started to wonder if I’d even be able to see the bike or the house it was parked in front of.
    A minute later the road turned back toward the water and the trees thinned out on the water side, brightening our path.
    My gaze fixed on the tree line on my side, I concentrated on looking for the familiar shape of a bike as we shot past.
    Suddenly, Gertie shrieked, “Watch out!”
    Ida Belle slammed her foot on the brake and I flew forward, my legs hitting the back of the bench seat and my torso slamming downward.
    Pain spiked up my nose as it connected with the seat. I hung there for a minute, butt in the air and little birdies flying around my head. Two pairs of hands grasped my arms and tugged.
    “Sorry, Felicity,” Ida Belle said.
    “There was a gator crossing the road,” Gertie explained.
    I mumbled something unintelligible into the musty smelling seat.
    “What was that? Come on, girl, get your face out of the seat.”
    I tried to shake my head but it barely moved. I stopped when I realized I was giving myself fabric burn on my most likely broken nose. I was going to look like an alcoholic with Rosacea by the time I got back to Sinful.
    Voices danced around my head with the little birdies for a minute and then something that felt like iron clamps grabbed my shoulders and I was flung backward, smacking my head against the back window.
    “Ugh!” I groaned, sitting back and closing my eyes so the world would stop spinning. “Just shoot me between the eyes. It would be faster.”
    Ida Belle opened the door of the truck. “Toughen up, girl. I see a bicycle.”
    My eyes shot open. “A bike? Where?”
     
     

 
     
     
    CHAPTER TEN
     
    The bike rested against the knobby trunk of a cypress tree. It was yellow, with tires like cross country bikers used, wide with heavy tread. The bike was in decent shape and had a wide, wire basket strapped to the handlebars.
    I ran my fingers over the narrow seat, trying to remember if I’d ever seen my father riding a bike.
    A car approached slowly on the winding road, veering around the haphazardly parked truck. I glanced toward the dark sedan, the craggy profile of its driver igniting a spark of memory that I couldn’t quite grasp.
    “It doesn’t look like anybody’s home,” Gertie whispered.
    Ida Belle pushed past her and pounded on the weathered door. “There’s only one way to find out.”
    A long moment passed and Ida Belle pounded again, harder the second time. I caught a flicker of movement out of the corner of my eye. When I turned my head I saw the curtain in one of the front windows of the house drop back into place. “Someone’s in there.”
    Gertie eyed the window. “You’d probably fit through there, Felicity. Ida Belle and I could heft you up…”
    I shook my head. “I’m still concussed from the drive over. I’m not letting you two throw me through a window.”
    Ida