“I need to take the license plates off the car, too,” Gertie said. “Just in case.”
I didn’t want to think about just in case. I set out at a slow clip, concentrating on one footstep at a time. I’d had to wear girlie clothes for some of my undercover work, but I’d never worn anything this high or this pointy. I felt like I was walking on my toes. Thank God for superior balance, because it only took me ten steps or so to get into a rhythm that at least didn’t make it appear as if I was going to fall on my face at any minute. By the time I reached the lobby door, Ida Belle and Gertie stepped up beside me, then slipped behind the fake plants under the entry overhang. One look at Gertie in the nun’s costume, hiding behind a fake ficus, had me struggling not to laugh. The irony was simply too good. Ida Belle, on the other hand, looked perfectly comfortable in a flannel shirt, enormously wide ball cap, and work boots, but then now that I thought about it, Ida Belle almost always got to opt out of the ridiculous dress part of things.
I took two steps toward the sliding doors and they opened. No other sounds indicated my passage, which made me happy. I stepped inside the lobby and looked over at the front desk, but no one was there. I frowned and stepped closer. That’s when I saw a sign on the desk indicating that the clerk would return at ten fifteen. I checked my watch. Ten forty. Maybe he’d fallen asleep somewhere. There was a button on the counter with a sign that read “Press for Emergency Service.” He was probably taking advantage of that fact and was crashed in one of the nearby offices.
I went back to the front door and waved at Ida Belle and Gertie, who hurried inside. I pointed at the empty desk and the sign and they nodded as we slid by and headed down the hallway past the desk. At the end of the hall, we found a sign for the conference room and Gertie pulled out the key to unlock the door. We slipped inside and locked the door behind us before turning on the lights.
Under the bright fluorescent lights, Gertie looked even more ridiculous than she had in the dim light outside. For starters, the habit was too big for her head and the front of it kept slipping over her eyes. The collar appeared to be strangling her, and she kept coughing. The cross she wore was so large that the top started at the base of her neck and continued almost to her midsection.
“Why is that cross so huge?” I asked.
“I got the costume from one of those vampire-hunter stores,” Gertie said.
“Are you supposed to use the cross to knock the vampire out?” I asked. “And what are you holding?”
“A Bible,” Gertie said. “No nun is complete without her Bible.”
I stared down at the black book. “Uh-huh. Why do you need both hands to hold it?”
“I might have hidden a couple things in it,” Gertie said.
“What things?” Ida Belle asked.
“Nothing you need to know about,” Gertie said. “If everything goes as planned, we won’t need any of them.”
Ida Belle didn’t looked convinced, but short of wresting the fake Bible from Gertie’s two-handed grasp, we weren’t going to find out what she was hauling. She’d had her purse in the car, so the answer was “potentially anything.”
“Let’s get moving,” Ida Belle said. “If we can get out of here before the clerk comes back, that would be optimum.”
We headed to the table that was piled high with boxes and stacks of paper and started shuffling stuff around.
“Here it is,” Gertie said.
“You sure it’s hers?” I asked.
“Pretty sure.” Gertie held the laptop up where we could see the “Celia the Great” sticker on the side.
“She had stickers made,” I said. “Wow.”
“The great what is the question,” Ida Belle said, “and there are so many options.”
Gertie nodded. “Great pain in the butt.”
“Great liar,” Ida Belle said.
I took the laptop from Gertie and opened it before they got too carried away. Words that described Celia was a long and unpleasant list. I opened the laptop and the password box popped up.
“Of course she has a password,” Gertie said.
“No worries,” I said, and typed in celiathegreat. The password box disappeared and the operating system started powering up. I looked over at Ida Belle, who rolled her eyes.
“Okay,” I said, and clicked on Facebook. “Let’s go see who the great idiot has been messaging with.”
It didn’t take long to find what we were looking for. Mainly because there was only one message, from a corporal named Jimmy Barlass. Either Celia deleted messages once the conversation was over or people avoided messaging her at all. I was going with option number two.
I opened the message thread and we all leaned over to look at the exchange.
I hope you got that photo I sent of me in my new green dress.
Yes. The shade of green brings out the sparkle in your eyes. I have never seen you look so beautiful. You should always wear that dress.
I looked up. “Is that the baby-shit-green dress?”