In Good Hands: Book 5 Georgie B. Goode Gypsy Caravan Cozy Mystery Read online

  IN GOOD HANDS

  Book 5 of the Georgie B. Goode

  Gypsy Caravan Cozy Mystery Series

  By

  Marg McAlister

  Copyright © 2015 Marg McAlister

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Book Description

  Copyright

  Get Your Free Book!

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  From the Author

  Book Description

  It’s a very a reluctant Georgie that finds herself back in Elkhart to take part in a cable TV special starring the Goode family and their huge family business.

  There’s not much room for a film crew in a vintage trailer, especially when you add a bossy presenter like Jaxx Saxby. Actually, ‘bossy’ is probably being kind. A few other words fit Jaxx too, like ‘patronising’, ‘rude’ and ‘arrogant’; as she keeps insisting that they’re in good hands and they should just keep their opinions to themselves and listen to her.

  Unfortunately, during a crystal ball reading recorded on camera, Georgie realizes that Jaxx is in grave danger —but where that threat is coming from is not easy to work out, since most people around Jaxx Saxby have good reason to dislike her! Bad luck seems to follow her around.

  Georgie and her team get to work following the clues to unmask the stalker, racing against time as the film shoot draws to a close. The problems escalate, and it’s soon clear that Jaxx is not the only target. As tempers wear thin and Jaxx becomes ever more impossible, Georgie has to rise to the challenge to discover the truth — before Jaxx suffers an accident from which there’s no coming back!

  Copyright

  In Good Hands

  Copyright 2015 Marg McAlister

  GeorgieBGoode.com

  Cover Design by Annie Moril

  Illawarra ePublishing electronic publication

  EBooks are not transferable. All Rights are reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner without permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. No part of this book may be scanned, uploaded or distributed via the Internet or any other means, electronic or print, without the author’s permission.

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.

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  Whether she wanted to believe it or not, from birth Georgie was destined to follow in Great-Grandma Rosa’s footsteps—as well as inherit her crystal ball! Here’s your chance to find out more about the crabby old lady that Georgie sees as a kind of taciturn genie.

  Visit my website below to get your complimentary copy of “Fortune’s Wheel”.

  http://georgiebgoode.com/free-georgie-book/

  ~~~

  The Georgie B. Goode Gypsy Caravan Cozy Mystery Series

  In order of publication

  Good to Go (Book 1)

  Georgie Be Good (Book 2)

  Good Riddance (Book 3)

  Up to No Good (Book 4)

  In Good Hands (Book 5)

  Books 1-2-3 Boxed Set

  ~~~

  Release Dates for future titles can be viewed here on Georgie’s website.

  Chapter 1

  Jaxx Saxby frowned at Georgie and shook an admonishing finger back and forth in front of her nose. “Don’t look at the camera. Look at me.”

  “Oh. Sorry.” Georgie forced a smile, and wondered whether it was too late to change her mind. She fought down a wild urge to jump up from the seat, hurtle down the steps of her gypsy caravan and keep going.

  It was very much too late: her father had not only agreed to this cable TV special about his gargantuan Johnny B. Goode RV Empire, he was more enthusiastic than he’d been about anything ever. From the moment Jaxx Saxby had sashayed into his office and said “We’d like to feature you on our cable TV show “From Little Things” - you’ve heard of it, of course?” he was putty in her hands. He’d not only heard of the show that traced the growth of successful businesses from humble beginnings, he had often commented that his business deserved to be on it.

  Now Johnny B. Goode had checked off something else on his bucket list, and at the tail end of the shoot, it was finally Georgie’s turn to be interviewed. So here she was, stuck with one of the most annoying people she had ever met, being forced to perform for the cameras.

  Georgie sneaked another look at the woman sitting opposite while she was flipping through some sort of running sheet. With her artfully tossed auburn hair, botoxed lips and figure-hugging outfits she was a hair’s breadth away from looking more like a porn star than a TV presenter, but it seemed to work with the viewers.

  If she bolted, Georgie was sure that Jaxx would chase right after her – or, more likely, bark an imperious command to her producer, Lilli Chin Lee, and send her in hot pursuit.

  She cast an eye at the crystal ball, hidden under its black velvet cloth, waiting to be unveiled. Another surge of panic hit. What if it didn’t work while the cameras were on her? What if she looked like a complete fraud?

  Lilli leaned forward from where she was propped against the cooktop opposite the table and pointed at the pink pig next to Georgie’s elbow. “What’s that? Can we move it? It doesn’t really add to the atmosphere.”

  “It’s my donation piggy bank.” Feeling the color rising in her cheeks, Georgie grabbed the pig and passed it to the producer.

  Lilli tilted the pig and read the note stuck to its belly. “‘Donations to Red Cross’. What, you mean you do readings for free?”

  “Yes. Well, just a donation, but how much is up to the customer.”

  “Then how do you make any money?”

  “I don’t.” Feeling hunted, Georgie looked around for help, but her gypsy caravan was filled with strangers and cameras and cables. No friends in sight: Layla and Tammy were outside waiting to be debriefed after it was all over.

  “There could be an angle in that,” Lilli said to Jaxx. “Ask the question in the interview.”

  “No, please don’t.” The last thing Georgie wanted to do was launch into an explanation of why and how she had started asking for donations instead of charging for a consultation—which was mostly because she didn’t want to be labeled a shyster. “It’s a personal thing.”

  “Hmm.” Jaxx pursed her lips. “Oh well, I suppose you don’t want a stream of freeloaders all turning up to have their fortunes read.”

  “It’s not that. I don’t do a lot of it.” Georgie changed the subject. “So, what are we going to talk about?”

  Jaxx waved a languid hand at her producer. “Lilli? Do you have the questions prepared?”

  “Don’t I always?” Lilli said sweetly, but Georgie didn’t miss the brief flash of irritation in her eyes.

  “Cheat sheets ready?”

  “Of course.” Lilli exchanged a look with Seth, the cameraman, who was standing next to her peering through the lens. They didn’t actually roll their eyes, but Georgie could feel it.
r />   The cameraman adjusted his headphones. “Sound check. You first, Jaxx.”

  “Testing, testing, one two three,” she said in a bored voice. “I’m interviewing, um,” she paused to glance at the paper in front of her, “Georgie, gypsy fortune-teller, daughter of Johnny B. Goode.”

  Great. An interviewer who couldn’t even remember her name.

  “That’s fine.” The cameraman gave a thumbs-up. “Now you, Georgie.”

  “Testing one two three,” she said obligingly. “Being interviewed by, um,” she drummed her fingers on the table as though trying to remember, “Jaxx Saxby.”

  It all went completely over Jaxx’s head, but Lilli bit back a smile.

  “Are we all ready, then?” Jaxx took a deep breath and flipped out the ends of her hair before addressing Georgie. “You don’t need to worry if you fluff a line. Seth can do as many takes as necessary.”

  “Having said that,” Lilli put in, “the fewer takes we need, the better.”

  Nervousness curled in Georgie’s stomach. This was all completely alien to her usual quiet environment, with a gently flickering candle in the background. Today she was trying not to squint into the glare of the portable lights.

  “I usually light a candle,” she said. “But it wouldn’t have any effect with all these lights.”

  “We can do fill-ins later,” Seth told her. “Different angles, close-up shots, that kind of thing. Ready to begin?”

  “As ready as we’ll ever be,” Jaxx said. “Lilli? Questions?”

  “Got them here,” Lilli said, holding up a sheaf of paper. She picked one to hold up and set the others down on the cooktop, and stood to one side of Georgie, out of view of the camera but where Jaxx could see her prompts. “Start with the usual intro.”

  Georgie turned slightly to read it. It said:

  GEORGIE B. GOODE

  DAUGHTER

  GYPSY FORTUNE TELLER

  CRYSTAL BALL

  GREAT-GRANDMA ROSA

  “Georgie! Look at me, remember?” Jaxx said sharply. “Not Lilli. Not the camera. They’re not there, all right?”

  Georgie looked guiltily back at Jaxx. “Sorry.”

  “After three,” Seth said. “Three, two, one…and we’re rolling.”

  Jaxx beamed at the camera, waited a beat, and then said brightly: “You might think that an RV business is all about motorhomes, trailers and fifth wheels, but that’s not the case with Johnny. B. Goode’s family. His daughter, Georgie, has followed a different path. She has taken to the road in a colorful gypsy trailer and earns a living telling fortunes with her grandma Rosa’s crystal ball. We’re going to…”

  Georgie held up a hand. “Wait—sorry, but that’s not quite right. I don’t actually earn a living through telling fortunes, remember. And it’s my great grandmother, not my grandmother.”

  “Cut,” Seth said.

  Jaxx groaned and smacked herself on the forehead. “Georgie. You’ll have a chance to have your say in a moment. That was just the intro.”

  “I know, I’m sorry,” Georgie said hastily. “But I don’t earn a living doing this, so it would be wrong to say I do. And, well, Rosa is my father’s grandmother, not mine.”

  “You could change that to “has people lining up”, Lilli said to Jaxx. “As in: “she has taken to the road, yada yada yada, and has people lining up to have their fortunes told. With her great grandma’s crystal ball.”

  “I suppose so.” Jaxx looked a mite petulant about having Lilli tell her what to do, regardless of whether or not it was the producer’s job. “Let’s try again. Georgie, please, try to remember you’re in good hands here. We’ve done this a thousand times before, so just go along with what we say.”

  “When you’re ready,” Seth said, and waited a beat. “Three, two, one…rolling.”

  Lilli went through her spiel again, ending with: “…and now we’re going to find out more about what happens when a gypsy actually looks into a crystal ball. Georgie, let’s imagine that I’m coming to you to have my fortune told. What happens next?”

  “I usually wait to see what you will say,” Georgie said. “Some people come right out and tell me what they want to know. Others are happy to let it roll along and see what I come up with.”

  “I’ll go with ‘let it roll along,’” Jaxx said. She flicked her hair again and leaned forward conspiratorially. “I might be interested to know whether you see any tall dark strangers coming into my life.” She gave a low, throaty chuckle. “But if you foresee any airline crashes that involve me, keep it to yourself!”

  “You should know that using a crystal ball is not like switching on a computer,” Georgie told her. “I can’t tap into some magical database in the sky.” She slowly drew the cloth off the crystal ball, which instantly reflected the glare of the television lights. “In fact, at times it’s like dealing with a stubborn teenager. I can sit here with questions in mind, and be met with the equivalent of a blank look.”

  Jaxx laughed for the camera. “I hope that doesn’t happen today. I must admit, I’m curious. Show me what you do.”

  “I start by holding a question in my mind. In this case, it’s general: ‘What does the future hold for Jaxx Saxby?’” Georgie drew the crystal ball slightly closer and gently closed her hands around it. “I’d like you to keep the same question in your mind, Jaxx. Or anything else that you want to know.”

  “OK.” Jaxx waited for five seconds, watching her, and then said, “What happens when you put your hands on the crystal ball? Does that make a difference?”

  As long as the person with me doesn’t keep talking, Georgie wanted to say. Instead, she said, “It seems to help create some sort of connection.” She shut out Jaxx, and closed her eyes. What does the future hold for Jaxx Saxby…?

  “Do you feel anything when you do that?”

  “I often feel a sensation of warmth.”

  “Is that what you’re feeling now?”

  “Yes.” Somehow, despite Jaxx and her interruptions, Georgie was detecting the familiar sensation of her skin becoming warmer. There was a flicker of something in her mind.

  Relieved, she almost huffed out a sigh of relief. She should be able to satisfy the woman with some small insight. She really, really wanted to come up with something that would convince her. How embarrassing would it be to have to say, in front of an audience of millions, “Sorry, I wasn’t able to get anything today.”

  She felt a whisper of air on her fingers and opened her eyes to see that Jaxx had hunched so far forward that her nose was almost on the crystal ball. “What can you see?”

  Georgie took her hands away and saw the gently swirling white mist that presaged a message of some kind. She glanced again at Jaxx, curious about whether she could see it too. One look at her face was enough to see that she could. Her mouth dropped open very slightly, and when she looked up at Georgie, her eyes were a little wider. “What’s that misty white stuff?”

  “I don’t really know. It just appears—although not everyone can see it,” Georgie told her. “Sssh. Be very quiet for a moment, and I’ll see what I can pick up.”

  A tiny frown came and went on Jaxx’s face at being told to hush, but she pressed her lips together prettily and adopted an expression of tense anticipation.

  The mist in the crystal ball slowly began to darken. It turned the color of heavy storm clouds, and then began to spin.

  And in the middle of it, Georgie could see the form of a woman, running. Pursued.

  Jaxx.

  Oh, hell. She couldn’t tell her that.

  Chapter 2

  “Wow,” said Jaxx, her brow slightly furrowed. “It’s changed color. Does that mean anything?”

  “Sssh,” Georgie said. “Let me concentrate. It could mean anything.” Anything threatening, that is, she thought. They were not talking of rainbows and kittens here.

  She closed her eyes, shutting out Jaxx and the lights and the camera in her peripheral vision. What is the threat to Jaxx?

  It w
ould have been nice to see into the future a bit more clearly here. As in a razor-sharp image of somebody holding a processing number, waiting to have his mug shot taken before being slung into a cell.

  No such luck, but there was something coming through. She felt a growing certainty that it was not a male behind the threat, but a female… hmm, interesting. Conscious of the camera on her, Georgie ran through the possibilities mentally, hoping for some sort of psychic hit. Jaxx’s mother? Her sister, niece? Had she had an affair with a married man—stolen away someone’s husband?

  No, no, no. None of those seemed to hit the target.

  A succession of images winked through her mind, barely there before they were gone. A house on a cliff overlooking the sea. A flash of red as a car hurtled around a bend in a road before it disappeared at warp speed into the distance. And then Jaxx, her auburn hair whipping around her face in the breeze, leaning against the same red car. She seemed to be on the edge of a lake, staring into the water, looking at her own reflection.

  Then, as though someone had turned off a tap, everything stopped.

  Georgie snapped back and opened her eyes.

  Jaxx stared at her, and then back to the crystal ball. “You weren’t actually looking into the crystal ball,” she pointed out. “You had your eyes closed. Does that mean you see things in your mind?”

  Thank God for Jaxx and her endless questions, giving her time to think. There was no way she was going to share all that she had just seen on camera.

  “That mist you can see is a signal to me that there is information waiting to be picked up,” Georgie explained, still trying to make sense of what she had seen without exposing it all to the camera. “I don’t often see actual images in the crystal ball. If I relax and just let the messages come through, I can see pictures in my mind. Or words; I might catch a fragment of conversation or hear a voice.” The ‘voice’ was quite likely to be her great-grandma Rosa, but she didn’t plan to talk about that.

  “Look, the color has changed again,” Jaxx said, pointing to the crystal ball with one perfectly shaped scarlet fingernail. “It’s back to white.”