Fortune Hunter (A Miss Fortune Mystery Book 8) (17 page)

“What are you doing sneaking up behind me?” I whispered. “I could have shot you.”

“You’re not that reckless. Why are you looking through the fence?”

“Come with me,” I said and hurried for the Jeep. I didn’t know what was going on in that backyard, but if I didn’t get to that scope soon, there was a good chance I was going to miss it.

“Where’s your motorcycle?” I asked as I opened the box.

“Your house. I was going to follow you from Gertie’s but she sent me a text before I could leave asking me to get something upstairs. You had that look, so I knew you were up to something besides a hot shower and bed. By the time I got to your house you were pulling away, but I saw where you turned and had a good guess where you were going.”

“So you walked over here?” I asked as I moved the equipment around, looking for the scope.

“I jogged. I’m in good shape. Are you going to tell me what the hell you’re looking for in that box, and why?”

“Aha!” I grabbed the scope out of the box and headed back for the house, Ida Belle trotting beside me. I told her about the light and held up the scope. She nodded and pointed to the house next door.

“No dogs,” she whispered and indicated a large oak tree near the side of the house.

I nodded. She wanted me to go into the neighbors’ yard and scale the tree for a better view. We crept up to the fence and I was just getting ready to jump for the top when Ida Belle grabbed my arm and pointed above the fence. I looked up and saw a flashlight moving in the master bedroom of Nolan’s house.

I
took
off at a dead run for my Jeep. I could hear Ida Belle’s footsteps pounding behind mine. She jumped in as I put it in gear and tore off down the street. “Call Marie and warn her,” I said.

“She’s not there,” Ida Belle said. “She called me earlier. Nolan insisted that he could manage the night on his own and that she needed some real rest.”

“Then call Nolan. I don’t know what is going on, but we need to get him out of that house.”

I wheeled around the corner and practically jumped the curb into Nolan’s driveway.

“He’s not answering,” Ida Belle said as she leaped out of the Jeep and we ran to the front door. I pressed the doorbell, then banged on the door.

“Call Carter,” I said.

Ida Belle started dialing and I banged on the door again, yelled Nolan’s name, then started banging again. I heard Ida Belle telling Carter to get to Nolan’s house now.

It felt like it took forever, but it was probably less than a minute when the door opened and Nolan peered out, looking confused and slightly out of breath. “Sorry, I was in the restroom,” he said. “Is something wrong?”

“Someone is upstairs in your house,” I said.

Nolan’s eyes widened. “What?” He backed up his wheelchair, allowing us to enter. “I don’t understand.”

“We were driving by and saw a small light moving in the master bedroom,” I explained. “Is anyone here with you?”

“No! I told Marie I’d be fine. She was so tired…we should call the police.”

“I already have,” Ida Belle said. “They’ll be here any minute.”

“I’m going upstairs to check,” I said.

“Should you do that?” Nolan asked. “What if he has a gun? I don’t want…”

“Don’t worry,” I said and pulled my pistol from my waistband. “I’m armed.”

I took two strides toward the stairs when a huge boom of thunder ripped through the night air and the house went dark.

“Power’s out,” Ida Belle said.

I pulled out my cell phone and turned on the flashlight, refusing to be deterred by a little thing like no light.

“Be careful,” Nolan said as I continued up the stairs. “Shouldn’t we do something?” I heard him ask Ida Belle.

I bounded up the stairs and hurried down the hallway. Crime scene tape was still draped across the doorway to the master bedroom and the door was pulled shut. A new dead bolt had been installed on the outside so that the door could be secured from the hallway. That way, they could delay repair of the breached window in case they needed to review it again, but prevent entry into the rest of the house. I unlocked the dead bolt and turned the doorknob, then pushed the door open a crack and peered inside. I didn’t see the flashlight moving around, but he could have extinguished it and been hiding in a corner just waiting for me to step inside.

Carter would probably pitch a fit, but that’s exactly what I did. I pushed the door open wide, then bent under one set of crime scene tape while stepping over the other. I turned on my cell phone flashlight and shone it around the room. No one was lurking in the corners, but that didn’t mean there weren’t hiding places. I pulled open the closet doors and moved the clothes around, making sure no one lurked behind them, then dropped down and peered under the bed. It was one of those with an adjustable base, so no place to hide there.

I stood back up and walked over to the window. The latch was closed, but I knew from what Marie had told us that if you jiggled it a bit, you could get the window open with little problem. I didn’t want to touch anything, so I turned around to head back downstairs and Carter stepped into the bedroom, carrying a flashlight.

“Trying to do my job?” he asked.

“No. Just making sure the room was clear. I touched the dead bolt, doorknob to the room, the closet doors, and the clothes. Nothing else.”

He nodded and glanced around the room. I could tell he wasn’t happy.

“What the hell is going on?” I asked. “It makes no sense for someone to return to a crime scene.”

“No, it doesn’t.”

I wondered if Derrick Miller was still in police custody, but then I supposed it didn’t matter. I’d seen Brandon Dugas leave his house with a flashlight. Ida Belle had seen him in the swamp using his computer. He was lying to his wife. The evidence was circumstantial but it all pointed in the same horrible direction.

“Let’s get out of here,” Carter said. “I’ll have a team work the window again, but I don’t expect they’ll find anything this time either.”

“I, uh, I need to tell you something else,” I said. “But I don’t want to do it in front of Nolan because I could be wrong.”

Carter frowned. “Okay. Let me get the situation on-site handled and then we’ll talk.”

We headed back downstairs to find an anxious Nolan and Ida Belle waiting at the bottom of the stairs.

“It’s clear,” I said. “There was no one up there.”

“Was the window open?” Nolan asked.

“No,” I said, “but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t used. I’m sure he heard us pounding on the door. He had plenty of time to leave before I got up there to check.”

“I don’t understand,” Nolan said. “Why would he come back here? What possible reason could he have?”

“I don’t know,” Carter said. “But I don’t like it. I’m sorry, Nolan, but I’m going to have to insist on removing you from the house tonight, for your own safety. You’re already at a disadvantage, and with the power out, it makes it worse.”

“But that’s not possible,” Nolan protested. “I can’t just pop over to a friend’s house and stay.”

“I know you need special accommodations,” Carter said. “The sheriff’s department will gladly pay for a room at the hotel just up the highway. It won’t be fancy, but you’ll be able to function and it will be safe.”

“Wow,” Nolan said, apparently still trying to process everything and coming up short. “If you think it’s best. I just need to pack a few things from the guest room. Ida Belle, if you wouldn’t mind, I think there’s a small duffel bag on the top shelf of the closet in there. If you could get it down for me.”

“Of course,” Ida Belle said. “And I’ll help you put some things together.”

Carter called Deputy Breaux and told him to get over to Nolan’s house now, then called the hotel and made a reservation. Deputy Breaux had just stepped inside when Ida Belle and Nolan returned with a packed bag. Carter instructed the deputy to take Nolan to the hotel and see that he was comfortable.

“That’s not necessary,” Nolan said. “I’d prefer to drive my own car. Besides, I need to return here tomorrow, assuming it’s all right.”

Carter nodded. “Then I’ll have Deputy Breaux follow you.”

“Do I wait on your call tomorrow?” Nolan asked. “To know when I can return home?”

Carter shook his head. “Hopefully, they’ll get the power back on sometime tonight. I’ll have my team work the window first thing tomorrow morning. It won’t take long. If you want to return sometime midmorning, you should be in the clear. I’ll probably go ahead and release the master bedroom back to you as well. That way you can have that window fixed.”

“Oh, that’s a relief,” Nolan said. “My upper back is killing me sleeping in the guest bed. The adjustable one is much better for me.” He flushed a bit. “I know it sounds morbid, sleeping in there, but I ordered new mattresses. They should arrive in a day or two.”

“It’s not morbid,” Ida Belle said, and patted his shoulder. “You do what you need to do.”

He gave her a grateful look. “Thank you, all of you, for looking out for me. I don’t know what I would do without you.”

“Get to the hotel,” Carter said, “and try to get some rest. I’ll come by tomorrow to bring you up to date on everything.”

“Thank you,” Nolan said again and headed to the kitchen for the garage.

Deputy Breaux went outside and hopped in his truck, ready to follow Nolan to the hotel. We trailed outside onto the porch and Carter locked the front door.

“Do you want to come down to the sheriff’s department?” he asked.

Ida Belle looked over at me, eyebrows raised.

“I told Carter we had some information for him,” I said.

Ida Belle nodded. “If it’s all the same, I’d prefer to do it at Gertie’s house. She’s laid up with a bad ankle, but she was there for part of it, too.”

“Okay,” Carter said. “I’ll follow you over there.”

We jumped in the Jeep and Ida Belle called Gertie to inform her that things had happened and we were on our way to her house, Carter in tow. I could hear her excited voice asking Ida Belle what had happened, but Ida Belle said we only wanted to tell it once and would be there in less than a minute.

The drizzle that had been coming down turned into giant sheets of rain by the time we pulled into Gertie’s driveway. Her power was off as well, but I could see light behind the living room blinds. We ran to the door and let ourselves in, Carter only steps behind us. Gertie was still in her recliner, but she’d retrieved two gas lamps and had them sitting on the end table and coffee table in the living room. They illuminated the room fairly well.

“I’m going to grab some towels,” Ida Belle said and headed into the guest bedroom, using her phone as a flashlight. She returned with three towels and we all did our best to dry ourselves.

“It’s really coming down out there,” I said. “No surprise that the power is gone.”

“Yes, yes,” Gertie said, “it’s raining cats and dogs, but what happened?”

Ida Belle looked over at me and I knew she was waiting on me to take the lead, especially as she still didn’t know exactly what I was doing at Peaches’s house in the first place and didn’t want to say the wrong thing.

“Ida Belle and I were here at Gertie’s tonight,” I said, “making sure her ankle was wrapped well and that she had everything she needed downstairs.”

“What happened to your ankle?” Carter asked.

Gertie waved a hand in dismissal. “I fell off the back deck. It’s just a sprain.”

I held in a smile. She didn’t say whose back deck she’d fallen from, nor did she add that it was on the second story, but then we couldn’t exactly hand out that information, either.

“Anyway,” I continued, “Ida Belle and I left and I had a book on guns that I was going to lend her so she followed me to my house. We chatted for a bit and noticed the weather getting bad. I offered to take her home and store her bike in my garage, so we took off in my Jeep, trying to beat the storm. When we passed by Brandon Dugas’s house, we saw someone walking through the living room with a flashlight. The shape was too big to be Peaches, so we assumed it was Brandon.”

Carter’s eyes narrowed. “You saw Brandon Dugas with a flashlight?”

“Unless there was another larger person in their house,” I said, “there’s no other explanation. The power wasn’t out yet so it looked strange. I stopped the Jeep and we saw the light go down the hallway to the kitchen. We sat there a couple of minutes, wondering what could be going on when Ida Belle saw a light moving in the master bedroom of Nolan’s house.”

Ida Belle nodded. “Fortune hauled butt around the block. I tried to call Nolan, but he didn’t answer. When we got there, we ran for the front door and Fortune started yelling and pounding while I called you.”

Gertie’s hand flew up over her mouth. “Oh my God. Is Nolan all right?”

“He’s fine,” Ida Belle said. “I think we startled him more than anything, but it startled us as well.”

Carter, who’d been silently taking all this in, frowned. “Back up to the part about Brandon. Do you actually think it was him in Nolan’s bedroom?”

Gertie, Ida Belle, and I looked at one another, and I could tell none of us were thrilled about the things we were about to say. But we also knew we had no choice.

“The Brandon part of things is what I didn’t want to say in front of Nolan,” I said. “We’ve discovered some things about Brandon that don’t add up.”

“I think you better explain,” Carter said.

We took turns telling what we had seen until Carter knew everything about Brandon that we did, except I left out the part about putting a tracker on Brandon’s truck. It was bad enough I went into Nolan’s master bedroom, and quite frankly, I was surprised he hadn’t complained about that yet. But I was certain the tracker thing would send him right into the stratosphere.

Carter blew out a breath. “Why didn’t you tell me this information before now?”

“For what purpose?” I asked. “We didn’t know what he was up to.”

“I thought it might be an affair,” Gertie said. “We didn’t want to say anything unless we knew for sure because of Peaches.”

“And you think it was Brandon who was inside Nolan’s house?” Carter asked.

“We can’t be sure,” I said. “It certainly looks that way, but we didn’t actually see him go there. Everything we’ve told you is circumstantial.”

“Yeah,” Carter agreed, “but damning.” He cursed and rose from his chair. “What the hell is Brandon thinking? He’s got a great wife and baby and makes a good living. Why would he want to go screw all that up?”

The three of us shook our heads.

“We don’t know,” Ida Belle said. “But if Brandon is the one who killed Gail…”

Carter nodded. “Yeah, I get it.” He ran one hand through his hair. “I need to get back to the sheriff’s department and process all of this. I appreciate the information, but from this point forward, I need you to steer clear of Brandon and Peaches. At least until I get this figured out.”

We all nodded. The general mood in the room was beyond gloom. No one seemed to have any fight left in them.

“Are you going to question Brandon?” Gertie asked.

“Not yet,” Carter said. “Not until I have a plan.” He headed for the front door, then turned as he was about to exit. “I know I don’t have to say this, but watch your backs.”

He closed the door and Ida Belle went immediately to lock it.

Gertie looked up at us. “I assume that wasn’t everything?”

“Of course not,” Ida Belle said.

Gertie grinned. “Then what are you waiting for?”

I explained to Gertie that I’d gone home but decided I wanted to check out Brandon’s truck and see if there were any clues inside as to what he had been up to. I didn’t want to tell either of them about the tracker. Not yet. Maybe not at all. If Brandon had killed Gail, he wouldn’t hesitate to kill any of us as well. Ida Belle had seen the box of equipment in my Jeep, but when she’d arrived at Brandon’s house, I was at the back fence, so she didn’t know I’d had time to put anything in place.