The Artful Goddaughter (8 page)

“Mission accomplished,” I said into the phone. “I fulfilled the terms of the will.”

“Good work, sugar. Ol' Seb would be proud. Just a sec.”

I waited. I could hear Aunt Miriam's voice in the background.

Sammy came back on the line. “Sorry, gotta run. I have to get Paulo to bail your Bronx cousin out of the cop shop.”

Holy cannoli. “Carmine? What did he do?”

“Apparently, he got caught passing funny fives. Imagine that.”

The Canton counterfeits? I gulped. “Where'd he pick up something like that?”

Sammy chuckled. “At a poker game. You might want to have a talk with that man of yours. He has potential. Gotta run.”

Potential?

The phone went
click
.

My eyes were wide as I swung around to Pete.

“You? You took those fives to the poker game?”

Pete was grinning.

“That's why you were playing nice with Carmine and Bertoni,” I said. “I couldn't figure it out.”

Pete's big arms reached forward to gather me up.

“Payback is sweet. Happy wedding gift, beautiful.”

Payback, indeed. I met his eyes and smiled. “You are
really
going to fit into this family.”

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Many thanks to my dear friend and colleague Alison Bruce, who loves this series and is always generous with support and encouragement.

Thanks also to Cathy Astolfo and Cheryl Freedman, who read my early drafts and provide feedback, usually in the form of laughter, thankfully.

Sincere thanks to John Thompson, for sharing his vast knowledge of security systems and patiently answering my novice questions.

And finally, I am particularly grateful to the wonderful team at Orca Books and particularly my editor, Ruth Linka, who makes every step of the publishing journey a pleasure.

Library Digest compared
MELODIE CAMPBELL
to Janet Evanovich. But comedy and mystery writing came to Melodie after she was a bank manager, marketing director and college instructor. Melodie has over two hundred publications, including one hundred comedy credits and forty short stories, and has won ten awards for short fiction. In 2014 Melodie won both the Derringer Award and the Arthur Ellis Award for
The Goddaughter's Revenge
. She is the executive director of Crime Writers of Canada and lives outside of Toronto, Ontario.