Fortune Hunter (A Miss Fortune Mystery Book 8) by Jana DeLeon Read Free Book Online Page B

rubbed her nose with her finger. “That’s how it all started. The message turned into a conversation and pretty soon we were talking for hours every day. Roses gave way to discussions of our personal lives. He told me about being stationed in Iraq and the hardships our soldiers had to face every day. It was disheartening to hear how bad things were. I felt sorry for Thorne, living that way.”
    “Of course you did,” Gertie said. “Any decent person would.”
    “I suppose that’s what he wanted,” Beulah said. “Just to get my money.”
    “When did he ask for the money?” I asked.
    “Not right away, of course,” Beulah said. “We’d been talking every day for six months or so before he even hinted at marriage. Of course, I didn’t take him seriously, but he kept insisting and finally, I believed him. Or maybe I didn’t. But I wanted to bad enough to send the money.”
    “Then what happened?” Ida Belle asked.
    “I went online the next morning, as usual, and tried to send Thorne a message but his account was gone. I thought at first it was a mistake…that Facebook had accidentally removed his account. So I sent an email to the address he’d given me for PayPal.”
    Ida Belle shook her head. “But he never answered.”
    “No. That was two weeks ago. At first, I didn’t want to report it. I thought what if he’d died in combat? But then who would have deleted his account? Once I finally faced the fact that I’d been snookered, I knew I should go to the police, but I was so ashamed. It took me another week to work up the courage to report it.”
    “There is nothing for you to be ashamed about,” Gertie said. “That criminal is the one who should be ashamed. There’s a hotter place in hell for people like him.”
    “I certainly hope you’re right,” Beulah agreed, “but if it’s all the same to God, I’d like to see him pay here on earth first.”
    “I don’t blame you,” I said. “Do you have any pictures of Thorne?”
    Beulah nodded. “I downloaded them to my desktop. I’d made this montage with one of those picture softwares.” She sighed. “More things to be embarrassed about.”
    “Any information you have will be helpful,” Ida Belle said, “even if you think it might not be true. Mailing address, email, Facebook account name.”
    “And any proper names he mentioned,” I said. “Like cities, people, schools, churches.”
    I was in Sinful pretending to be someone else, but I’d still asked people to call me by the name I usually responded to. I claimed it was a nickname, and so far no one had questioned it. Even when people were lying, sometimes the truth slipped into their conversations.
    “I typed it all up after I talked to Ida Belle,” Beulah said. “I know it’s a lot to ask, getting you involved with such things, but I can’t help but think you’ll have a better go at it than Carter. He’s a great deputy, but he’s a man. This is women sort of business.”
    What she meant was that ferreting out the catfish was better done by conniving, sneaky females than an average male. I had to agree with her on that one. Not just because Ida Belle and Gertie could get the truth out of a death row inmate, but because the victims were exclusively women, and they were far more likely to give details to other women. They would probably skimp on specifics when talking to Carter.
    Beulah rose from her chair and came back a couple minutes later with her laptop. “I have everything in one folder. Who do you want me to send it to?”
    “Email it to me,” Ida Belle said. “We’ll take a look at it tonight and let you know what we figure out.”
    Beulah tapped on the keyboard, then closed the laptop. “I can’t tell you how much I appreciate this. I’m okay without the money, but it’s not right. He already broke my heart. I don’t see any good reason why he should cripple my savings account, too.”
    “He shouldn’t,” Ida Belle said. “And if there’s anything we can