Amaretto Amber (Franki Amato Mysteries Book 3) (3 page)

I scratched the back of my head. "Uh, about that—"

"No need to apologize," she said, giving my forearm a squeeze.

"Honestly, I wasn't—"

"Shht!" She flapped her caftaned arms like yellow wings.

I was starting to get annoyed. This witch wouldn't let me get a word in edgewise.

"The truth is, yesterday I was having a down day. I have SAD. You know, Seasonal Affective Disorder? And with spring around the corner, I'm prone to severe highs and lows."

Awesome. Of all the witches I could've run into, I had to go and meet the one with serious mood swings. "Hey, no need to explain," I said, trying to keep her spirits on the upswing. "I just came to get—"

"Help with the curse?"

I cocked my head to one side. "No, my phone."

"Well, why didn't you say so?" she asked, pulling my cell from her pocket.

I swallowed bile as I took the phone and shoved it into my bag. This witch was not only a wacko, she was also just plain willful. I knew that I should have left right then and there, but my curiosity got the best of me. "What did you mean by that curse comment?"

"It's obvious that someone has put a hex on you."

Even if you knew nothing about my life, the events of the past twenty-four hours were compelling enough evidence to support her argument, no matter how deranged it may have sounded. "It is?" I asked against my better judgment. "How do you know?"

She looked me up and down like I was the lunatic. "I'm something of an expert in these matters."

I shook my head, trying to knock some sense into it. "No offense or anything, but I don't believe in curses or witchcraft."

"If a witch had sent me to jail," she began in a droll tone, "I'd reconsider that position."

I shot her a steely stare. "I think we both know that had nothing to do with a curse. And besides, it's not like I have any witch enemies. The people I know are more the
malocchio
, or evil eye, types."

Her purple eyelids lowered. "You can put a curse on yourself, you know. If you wish someone harm, gossip about them, or call them names, those are curses that can boomerang back on you."

I'm not going to lie—I felt a stab of panic upon hearing this news. But then I got hold of myself. "If that's the case then I'm cursed for life, and no witch in the world will be able to undo it."

She crossed her arms, and her pupils turned to slits like the ones on her jewelry. "Try me."

I pulled my bag in front of my chest in a defensive posture. Were my eyes playing tricks on me? Or were hers? "Let me think on it," I gushed, making for the exit. "Now that I have my phone back, I need to make a long-overdue call to my boyfriend."

"Then know this," she said, pointing a yellow-lacquered fingernail at my forehead like a wand. "You'll never be able to have a healthy relationship until that curse is lifted."

I started to tell her that if she knew my family then she'd realize that I could never have a healthy relationship anyway—curse or no. But I didn't want to provoke her. Her mood had taken a turn for the worse, and I wasn't sure what this witch was capable of. "I'll take my chances," I said as I pushed open the door. "Thanks for returning my phone, though."

I hurried from the shop and turned down St. Ann where I'd parked my car, thinking about Theodora's eyes. That pupil thing had to be some kind of magic trick. I mean, what kind of sucker did that witch take me for? And as for the curse, the only thing to blame for my current wretched state was good old-fashioned bad luck—and my family and friends.

I pulled out my cell to call Bradley. The screen was black, so I pressed the power button. Nothing. The battery was dead.

Again, regular old bad luck. Right?

I shoved my phone back into my bag and proceeded down the street. Then an eerie sensation came over me. It wasn't an I've-been-cursed feeling, because I knew that was nonsense. It was more of an I'm-being-followed feeling. I glanced over my shoulder, but all I saw were a few tourists. Still, something didn't seem right. So, when I reached my car, I wasted no time getting inside.

And I told myself that the culprit was probably just the usual dark cloud hanging over me.

"
Mannaggia a me
," I muttered as I plugged my cell phone into the car charger and contemplated how to explain my stint in the slammer to Bradley. Then a stunning realization hit me—I'd just said "damn me" in Italian, which qualified as cursing myself. I resolved to stop doing that stat.

The phone display lit up, and I scrolled through the list of missed calls. As I'd expected, most of them were from Bradley, and several were from my mother who was undoubtedly dying to find out whether I was engaged. But there were also a couple from Bradley's secretary, Ruth Walker.

It wasn't unusual for Ruth to call since our relationship pre-dated her position with Bradley. We met while I was investigating the murder of her previous employer, Ivanna Jones, and it was instant, well, appreciation. She had an abrupt, judgmental demeanor, but she had an eye for detail and a mind like a Rolodex, which made her an ideal assistant. She was also approaching sixty and quite plain, which made her an ideal assistant for Bradley.

Because I'd helped Ruth to get a job at Ponchartrain Bank, she'd taken it upon herself to keep me informed of certain goings on, and I didn't object. It wasn't spying—it was more like safekeeping. And if you knew even half the stunts Bradley's last secretary, Pauline Violette, had pulled, you wouldn't blame me one bit.

My instincts told me to skip my messages and call Ruth ASAP. I slowed to a stop at the intersection of Dauphine and St. Peter and tapped her number. As a steady stream of tourists passed, I put the phone to my ear and spotted a salon called Vaxing for Vomen. Someone had obviously scratched off the first half of both
w
's from the glass door. But still. The sign made the services sound more than a little harsh, especially for something like a bikini wax.

The phone rang once, and then someone picked up.

"I heard you went to the cooler," Ruth boomed without bothering to say hello.

"The cooler?" I repeated, imagining myself pulling a beer from an ice chest. Make that a bottle of Prosecco.

"You know, the dungeon? The hole?"

Now I knew what she meant. Unfortunately. "Why don't you just say 'jail'?"

She snorted. "I pretty much did."

I started to say something snarky but bit my tongue, because now I was more worried about whether word of my arrest was out at the bank. "Who told you I went to jail?"

"Who do you think?" she barked. "After you no-showed at The Sazerac, Bradley panicked and asked me to help him call the hospitals."

"Really?" Despite my guilt for making him worry, my heart swelled at the news of his concern. "That's so sweet."

"Well, Lord knows it's not like you to miss a drink."

That heart swell I mentioned? Shriveled right up.

"Anyhoo," she continued, "he called me this morning and said you were in the pokey. Of course, I told him last night that we should've been calling the jails," she added in a lo-and-behold-I-was-right tone.

I floored the gas and sped around some tourists. Not only was I sorry that I'd phoned Ruth, I was also regretting ever recommending her for the job. "Is this what you were calling on a weekend to tell me?"

"Hell no. My weekends are too precious," she said as though mine weren't. "But there's some ugly business going on at the bank that we need to chat about away from the prying eyes and inquiring minds."

I heard the sound of ice clinking in a glass, and I wondered whether she was drinking. Ruth never touched alcohol—that is, unless you counted digestives (she didn't). "What's the ugly business?"

"You."

"Me?" I glared at the phone. She'd better hope that she'd been hitting the bottle. "I don't even work there."

"No, but your bank president beau does. And that new manager they transferred here from headquarters—Jeff Payne?" She gave a humorless chuckle. "Mark my words, he came to The Big Easy looking for more than a managerial position."

I gasped. "You mean, he's after Bradley's job?"

"Darn tootin'." She crunched a piece of ice.

"That weasel!" I exclaimed. "But what does this have to do with me? It's not like I have a say in the hiring."

"You could play a role in the firing, though."

"How about you dispense with the riddles, Ruth?" I flipped on my turn signal and mentally flipped her the bird. "Then maybe I can take part in this conversation."

She made a slurping sound followed by a sonorous swallow. "Do you even know what a bank president does?"

"Yeah, he…presides." Okay, so I didn't know the specifics of what Bradley did for a living, but in my defense, we didn't see each other very often because of our work schedules. And when we did get together, we had better things to do than discuss his job duties.

"There's a little more to it than that," she said as sarcastic as a classroom teacher at a home-schooling seminar. "The president is responsible for the financial well being of the bank and for its credibility with the community, staff, and board of directors."

"And Ponchartrain Bank couldn't have a more honest, upstanding president than Bradley Hartmann," I said, pulling up to a red light.

"I agree," she intoned. "It's his girlfriend that everyone is worried about."

My heart sank. "Why? What have I done?"

"Oh, I don't know…investigating the internal affairs of the bank, assaulting a bank employee, breaking and entering into the bank's security room, stealing bank information."

By this point, my heart had sunk so low that it was sitting on my stomach. "But, I did all those things to protect Bradley," I protested. "And the bank."

"The problem is that no one from the bank asked you to," she said, and I could practically hear the frown lines around her mouth permeating her pronunciation. "To make matters worse, Bradley didn't press charges that time he and the cop found you in the security room after hours. So now his credibility is in question."

A car horn sounded behind me, startling me from my shock. I took a quick left and asked, "How do you know all of this?"

She drained the rest of her drink with a loud straw-sucking sound. "I might have read a file on Jeff's desktop."

"Does Bradley know?" I whispered.

"He doesn't know that Jeff has a file about him on his desktop, but he's gotten the idea that you're a professional problem."

My heart stopped.

"Oh, blast and damnation," Ruth bellowed out of nowhere. "It's a quarter after twelve. I've got to get my popcorn popped and my Pimm's poured before the Judge Judy marathon starts. Meanwhile, you lay low, missy. Because if you get in trouble again, you could cost Bradley and me both our jobs. And if that happens," she began, lowering her voice like a guillotine, "Central Lockup's going to seem like a sanctuary."

The line went dead.

I dropped the phone and gripped the steering wheel. My worst fear was coming true, but it was even worse than I'd thought. Someone was trying to prove that I was unsuitable for Bradley, so much so that he could lose his job over me (as for Ruth, she could fend for herself).

Explaining my jaunt to jail suddenly got a whole lot harder.

As I pondered my predicament, I merged onto I-10 West. A green Nissan Cube cut me off, and Theodora's pupils popped into my mind.

And I started to wonder whether a person could actually be cursed.

*   *   *

Napoleon pawed at the pillow covering my face.

"All right, I'll call him," I huffed. "Can't a girl take an afternoon nap in peace?" I felt around for my phone on the nightstand.

Of course, I knew my dog had no conception of the fact that I was stalling on calling my boyfriend. But Napoleon could sense when something was bothering me, and recently he'd taken to hounding me, so to speak, until I started acting normally again. Like a total Cairn terror.

After knocking the lamp and the alarm clock off my nightstand, I was able to find my phone. I pulled off the pillow and tapped Bradley's number.

The call went straight to voice mail.

I tossed the phone onto my hot pink duvet and stared at the matching canopy. My first thought was that the black, French bordello-style bed Glenda had picked out for my "boudoir" was so ugly that I seriously doubted whether a prostitute could get any action in it. And my next thought was that Bradley was so mad he was probably avoiding me.

The phone rang, and I rushed to answer.

"Before you say anything, Bradley, I want to apologize for—"

"Francesca Lucia Amato," my mother's shrill voice scolded from the other end of the line. "What did you do to Bradley this time?"

I pulled the pillow back over my face. Ever since the age of seven when I'd whacked my older brother Anthony over the head with his light saber for cutting my Totally Hair Barbie's long brunette locks, my mother had treated me like a delinquent. I'll admit that I could be combative, but it wasn't like I was a criminal—yesterday notwithstanding. "I didn't do anything to him, Mom." And that was the truth, but what I was about to say certainly wasn't. "Everything's fine."

She slammed the receiver onto what I knew to be the kitchen counter. "He didn't propose!"

"
È una zitella gattara a vita
," Nonna wailed in the background, as if on cue.

According to my nonna's proclamation, I'd apparently earned two new distinctions since turning thirty: the first was that I was now a zitella
for life
, and the second was that I was also officially a zitella
gattara
, or old maid cat lady, even though I was allergic to feline dander and had only ever owned dogs. "Um, what happened to Nonna's vow of silence?"

"She's been forgetting about that vow quite often today," my mother grumbled.

"Give-a me a break-a, woman," Nonna cried. "I'm old!"

"Like just now," my mother added through what sounded like clenched teeth.

"Dad's not around, is he?" I asked, trying to hide the hopeful desperation in my tone. "He hasn't wished me happy birthday yet." Not that it would do any good, but at least it would get my mom off the phone.

The receiver hit the counter. "Joe! Get on the other line! It's Francesca!"

A blissful silence ensued as we waited for my father to pick up.

Then I heard my nonna praying loudly for a Savior—not Jesus, mind you, but a husband for me.

"Maybe Dad didn't hear you?" I pressed, anxious to get back to my own private hell.

My mother sighed. "It must be that wax buildup in his ears. I bought him a kit to clean that out, but does he listen to me?" She slammed down the receiver. "Joe! Could you stop playing blackjack on that computer and come wish your damn daughter a happy belated birthday?"

There was another blessed moment of serenity while my mom once again waited and while I tried to figure out how I felt about my dad's wax-encrusted ears and that "damn daughter" comment.

"What is that man
doing
?" my mother exclaimed. "Give me a minute, Francesca. I'm going to have to go find him." The phone hit the counter and then crashed to the floor. "Joseph!
Giuseppe
!" she added, as though my dad might not have recognized the Anglicized version of his name.

Nonna stopped praying. "
Madonna mia
!" she cried. "
San Giuseppe
!"

I wasn't sure what was happening, but either my nonna had just had some sort of revelation, or she was invoking the assistance of the Virgin Mary and the patron saint of Italy and the Catholic Church on my behalf.

Someone picked up the receiver. "Franki," Nonna began, her voice not unlike the Godfather's when he made someone an offer they couldn't refuse, "we have-a some hope."

"We
do
?" This was truly news to me.

"I just-a remembered," she rasped. "
La tavola di San Giuseppe
."

"What about Saint Joseph's table?" I asked, mildly intrigued. It seemed like everyone was talking about that festival lately.

"You know, the
limoni
."

"I don't know anything about any lemons, Nonna." Except for the fact that life was giving them to me by the bushel these days.

"It's a tradition, Franki. A
zitella
take-a the lemon from-a San Giuseppe's table, and by the next-a year she have-a the husband. But no one can-a see, or it's-a no gonna work."

"Wait. You mean,
steal
a lemon from the altar? To land a husband?"

"Of course," she replied, as though everyone knew that was how hard-up Catholic gals got their grooms.

"Whatever happened to 'thou shalt not steal'?" I asked, scratching my neck uneasily. The good sisters at my Catholic Sunday school had worked hard to instill psychosomatic disorders in us kids at the mere suggestion of committing a sin, so this conversation was making me itchy.

"It's-a like-a we say in
Italia
. All is-a permitted in-a war and-a love."