Good to Go: Book 1 Georgie B. Goode Gypsy Caravan Cozy Mystery Read online

  “To who?”

  Rosa, disappearing down the steps, simply cackled again, and waved a dismissive hand.

  “Who’s Leo?” Georgie called after her.

  Ignoring her, Rosa steamed off across the concrete apron to the front door of the office block, passing her grandson on the way. Johnny stopped for a moment to say something, and then continued to where Georgie stood in the door of the van, frowning after her great-grandmother.

  “Rosa been upsetting you again?” he asked, then without waiting for an answer, smoothed a hand over the carved handrail. “Beautiful work on this van. It will sell itself.” He beamed at his daughter. “All ready to roll?”

  “Twenty-five vintage caravans and trailers,” Georgie said to him. “You set it at twenty-five.”

  “You said you didn’t care what the quota was,” he reminded her.

  “But I thought you’d be fair. That’s ridiculous. The most I’ve sold in a month was thirteen, and that was after a big RV show.”

  “Jerry says he can do it.”

  “You’re playing us off against each other.”

  “Yep,” he admitted cheerfully, giving her his trademark wide smile. His eyes were crafty. Johnny B. Goode was a born grifter. “Nothing comes too easily at Johnny B. Goode’s RV Empire. When did I not make you work for your money?”

  Never, she had to admit.

  “Come here.” He opened his arms wide, and she walked down three steps and into his hug. “I love you, girl. You’ll do me proud.”

  “I will.” Pushing aside the doubt, she kissed him on the cheek. “I’ll be towing this van into the Expo, and I’ll have the sales. It will be me heading up vintage vans, not Jerry.”

  “He wants it. He wants it all.”

  “I know,” she said, irritated. “And you’d let him have it.”

  “If he earned it. And you’ll get it if you earn it.” He gave her a little shake. “Come on, girl, have some confidence in yourself.”

  “I do. I really do.” She looked over his shoulder to where Rosa was disappearing through the front door. “Was it your idea to bring Rosa here today?”

  “She asked me to.” He cocked a head sideways. “She told you about the crystal ball?” ‘

  “Yes. I saw it inside.”

  “She put it there this morning. Convinced that it’s your destiny to follow in her footsteps. You picking this van was a sign, she said.” He gave her a long look, uncharacteristically solemn. “You always could read people, Georgie. That’s why you’re so good with our customers. Don’t dismiss it completely.”

  Georgie shook her head. She came from one stubborn family. Jerry wanted to head sales—in everything, including her vintage vans. Her great grandma, scary old bird, wanted her to become some gypsy fortune-teller. As if. She looked down at her t-shirt and jeans, and compared herself to Rosa in her brightly patterned, embroidered outfits. No way. And now her father was telling her to think about it.

  Sheesh.

  She was twenty-nine, had five years of college and two different degrees behind her to prove that she knew, really knew, design. Every RV she had outfitted proved it. Telling fortunes just didn’t enter the picture.

  She knew vintage vans, too, and she could damn well sell them.

  Now all she had to do was reach those targets.

  “Goodbye, Dad.” She hugged him again, with a weird feeling that she was just starting the next phase of her life. A whole division of the company, all hers.

  Suck that up, brother Jerry.

  She swung into the big powerful truck that had a custom wooden canopy painted to match her beautiful gypsy van, and gunned the engine.

  Georgie B. Goode was good to go.

  CHAPTER 3

  “Excuse me.”

  Georgie pegged her t-shirt to the tiny clothesline set up behind her caravan, and turned to see who was there. A woman in a loose plaid shirt and denim shorts was standing there, her gaze flicking between Georgie and the van. She spared a glance for the stained glass inserts, and then looked back at Georgie again.

  Another potential sale, thought Georgie with satisfaction. People loved this van. They looked at their boring standard RVs and trailers, and they looked at her gypsy van, and they wanted one for themselves. As she had predicted, it was selling itself. Only three days on the road, stopping at a park just outside Fort Wayne the first day and now the big popular new RV park near Dayton for the last two days, and already she had converted two enquiries into deposits, with another woman interested. She was on track for twenty-five sales.

  “Good morning.” She nodded and waited for the usual round of questions. How much did it cost, how long would it take to build, what was it like to tow…

  “I know it’s early, but I was just wondering… when are you open for business?”

  “Well, now, I guess,” Georgie said. “I’m open all the time, really.”

  “You are?” Heartened, the other woman smiled back. “How much do you charge?”

  “There’s no fee for a consultation.”

  “Wow,” said the woman. “The last fortune teller I went to charged, like, twenty dollars before I even got through the door. Through the tent flap, that is. And that was for fifteen minutes.”

  “Fortune-teller?” Georgie’s hopes dimmed. “No, sorry, I don’t do that. I just consult with people who want to buy a caravan.” Georgie glanced down at her usual t-shirt teamed with khaki shorts. Nope, nothing there to say ‘fortune-teller’.

  “Oh.” Her face falling, the woman cast a glance at the van. “It’s very nice, but I don’t want to buy one. I just want to know if this guy I’m going out with is the right one. For me. For, like, a life partner.” She moved a step closer and gnawed at a fingernail. “He wants me to sell my motorhome and move in with him.”

  Don’t do it, Georgie thought instinctively. She shrugged, trying to look blank.

  The woman looked at her hopefully. “You are a real gypsy, right? You can do, like, readings?” She nodded at the van. “Tracey down on the back said that when you showed her through the van yesterday you had a crystal ball. She said you told her that it had been in your family for generations.”

  Damn. Georgie remembered Tracey. She had gossiped cheerfully for almost an hour, wanting to know everything about the caravan and gypsies and vintage vans and Georgie herself. Naturally she had spotted the crystal ball and asked about that too.

  “It belonged to my great-grandmother,” Georgie said. “She’s the fortune-teller, not me.”

  “Can I see it?”

  No, Georgie wanted to say. Go away. But her natural good manners wouldn’t let her. “Well…I guess.”

  She went inside to get it, intending to stand at the top of the steps and hold it up for a moment, like the trophy at the Superbowl, before returning it to the shelf. But the woman was hot on her heels, and when she turned around, she was standing right there at the entrance to the van.

  “Wow,” she said, staring around at everything. “This is, like, something out of a book! No wonder Tracey is dead set on buying one.”

  “She is?” said Georgie, diverted. “She didn’t tell me that.”

  “She’s going to work on Jamie. That’s her husband. He wants to buy a new 4WD, so she’s going to tell him he can have one if she can have one of these.” She grinned, showing slightly crossed front teeth. “Tracey knows how to get what she wants. I’ll give her two days, max, before she’s back to order one. Or even today.”

  Georgie beamed at her. “That’s great!”

  In her hands, the crystal ball grew warm. Georgie felt an odd shiver go creeping along her spine. She stared down into the surface, through the surface. In the crystalline depths, something like a layer of smoke curled.

  Eeek.

  “Are you sure you can’t see anything in there? Did your great-grandma maybe teach you just a little bit?”

  Georgie glanced up to see Kaylene staring at her curiously.

  Kaylene? Where did that come from? The wom
an hadn’t introduced herself.

  “I’m Georgie,” she said, holding out her hand. “And your name?”

  “Kaylene,” the woman said.

  Oh hell.

  “Can you have a look? Just to see? I’m happy to pay,” Kaylene said earnestly. “I really need to know.”

  Georgie wavered. The creepy feeling persisted, and the crystal ball grew warmer still.

  “All right,” she said. “But I don’t really do this, you know. I can’t guarantee that I’m right. So I can’t charge you anything.” She gestured at the L-shaped bench seat, upholstered in luxurious maroon velvet, tucked in behind her neat little wooden table. It was currently littered with Johnny B. Goode’s RV Empire brochures and the two order forms that she had scanned and sent through to the office.

  Georgie transferred the paperwork to the kitchen bench and sat down with Kaylene. They both stared at the crystal ball.

  “Now what?” asked Kaylene. “Am I supposed to see something in there?”

  How would I know? Georgie thought desperately. “Well, can you see anything?” she asked, covertly watching the swirly smoky stuff in the center of Rosa’s crystal ball. She moved her hands back away a little. It was actually making her feel warm.

  “No,” Kaylene said. “It just looks like a ball. Is it really crystal or is it glass?”

  “It’s really crystal,” Georgie assured her. (Rosa wouldn’t use anything but crystal, would she?)

  “So what do I do now?”

  Georgie felt a drop of sweat on her forehead. This was like sitting for an exam when you not only hadn’t studied, but the test paper was written in Martian. “Um. Just think about what you want to know,” she suggested, and waited, mentally crossing her fingers.

  Brian, came the name. Along with a creepy feeling in her spine.

  She felt a sense of relief. At least she wasn’t blank. “This, um, guy you’re asking about. Is his name Brian?”

  Kaylene looked disappointed. “No.”

  Brian, came the name again. It was almost clear enough to make Georgie look over her shoulder to make sure they were alone.

  “I keep getting Brian,” she told Kaylene. “Would his middle name be Brian? Or his surname—like, O’Brien?” Oh God, she thought, I sound like one of those fake mediums who keep asking questions of some audience volunteer. (“I’m getting a male. Someone who recently passed. Would it be your father? No? Your uncle? No? There’s definitely someone here who wants to talk to you…”)

  “No,” Kaylene said. “Definitely not Brian or O’Brien.” Then her face cleared. “You’re not talking about Brian Payne are you? The one in the big converted bus? He asked me out a couple of times before I started going out with Darryl.” Her hand flew to her mouth. “Oops. Was I supposed to tell you his name?”

  “I don’t think it matters,” Georgie said. “So, it’s Darryl you’re asking about?”

  “Yes.”

  Brian, said the voice in her head insistently.

  “Tell me about Brian Payne,” she said.

  Kaylene frowned. “He just travels around the country, working here and there. I don’t know much about him.”

  “But you went out with him?”

  “Yes. But he’s not the one I want to know about. It’s Darryl. He’s talking about both of us living in his motorhome, getting married. Should I?” Her eyes moved from Georgie to the crystal ball, as though waiting for the answer to emerge.

  Seriously out of her depth, Georgie said, “Why do you feel you need to consult a fortune-teller, Kaylene? Are you worried for some reason?”

  “No. He’s, like, good to me and all. Really good. But he keeps himself to himself. I don’t know. My mother says I’m gullible.” There was a note of defensiveness in the other woman’s voice. “I don’t have much luck with men.”

  Georgie looked back into the crystal ball and jumped in surprise. The swirly mist in there had parted to reveal something else. There were several shadowy women in there, just for an instant before they flickered out of sight. And again she felt the name, Brian…

  She glanced up to find Kaylene watching her narrowly. “You saw something, didn’t you? I saw your face. What is it?”

  Georgie shook her head. “I’m not getting anything about Darryl. Just that you should be wary about someone called Brian.” She could see the disappointment on Kaylene’s face. “I’m sorry. I told you, I’m new to this.”

  “That’s all right. I just wanted to be sure. I seem to pick ’em every time, the losers. Liars and cheats. I was hoping this time would be different.”

  “It might be.” Georgie cast around for something to say. “But if you feel that something’s not right, you should pay attention to that feeling.”

  “Yeah.” Kaylene didn’t move. “But how do I know when I’ve found a good one? I don’t know what to do.”

  Since Georgie had been a gypsy fortune-teller for exactly ten minutes, and appeared to have failed miserably so far, she didn’t have the answer to that one. She settled for: “If you’re not sure, you shouldn’t make any major decisions yet.”

  Kaylene sighed, shrugged and stood up. “Thanks for trying.”

  Georgie stood too. “Good luck, Kaylene.”

  “Thanks.”

  Georgie saw her to the door, and stood at the top of the steps watching her walk away, depression evident in every step.

  Damn. Georgie really, really wanted to help her, but she was hopeless at this.

  Who was Brian? Was there a Brian?

  The sound of laughter drifted across the park, and she glanced over to where a small crowd of people were gathered around a big shiny silver and black motorhome, parked on a site that had been vacant the night before. They were animated, looking at someone barely visible behind all the heads.

  Georgie squinted at it, and then, as a woman moved and she caught sight of the logo on the motorhome, realization dawned. A dark wave of fury lanced through her.

  Jerry.

  Here, in her park, on her territory, in one of the big sales RVs with Johnny B. Goode’s RV Empire emblazoned all over it. What was he doing?

  CHAPTER 4

  Georgie ran down the steps and pushed her way through the crowd.

  “Hey, look who it isn’t! My little sister Georgie.” Jerry beamed at her, satisfaction all over his handsome face. He had his arm around Tracey’s shoulder…and he was clutching an order form. “I’ve just been telling Tracey here that I could expedite her order so she could have her new gypsy van inside six weeks—as long as she signs today.” He bestowed a smile that was all white teeth and dimples on Tracey, who looked both dazed and thrilled. “So she did!”

  Georgie stared at Tracey.

  Tracey, whom she had spent a whole hour with the day before. Showing her every inch of her darling Vardo van.

  Tracey’s smile dimmed somewhat. “That’s all right, isn’t it? Jerry told me that it’s a family company, so it didn’t matter which one of you it was.”

  “That’s perfectly fine,” said Georgie with a fixed smile. “Jerry, when you’ve finished here, can you pop in and see me for a moment? There’s something we need to discuss.” She forced a casual wave to the group. “Excuse me. I need to finish my washing.”

  She wheeled around and strode back to the van.

  What she needed was Jerry’s head on a platter. They had it right in Game of Thrones: off with his head! Then stick it on a pike. She imagined Jerry’s head grinning down from a pike right in front of Johnny B. Goode’s RV Empire.

  If she didn’t suck at it, she might have consulted her crystal ball. Suppose she hit Jerry over his pretty-boy head with the baseball bat she kept tucked down beside the bed, and he ended up in the ER, would she be arrested?

  Probably. But it might be worth it.

  ~~~

  Jerry took his time, and it was twenty minutes before he showed up and squeezed himself into the bench seat inside her van.

  Georgie folded her arms and glared at him. “You can’t do thi
s. You’re breaking the rules.”

  He wriggled and pushed at the table, which didn’t give an inch. “There are no rules. Honestly, Georgie, how can you live in a space this big? Can’t we go and talk in mine?”

  “See, you don’t even like vintage vans.” Crossly, she flicked the catch under the table and swung it out to make more space. “That’s all you have to do. Dad designed it so everything adjusts. But you don’t know that, because you don’t know anything about them. Do you?”

  “I know enough. Enough to nail the deal, which you didn’t do. You would have let her escape.”

  “You cheated.” Georgie stabbed a finger at him. “You let me show the van and then you stole my customer.”

  “No, Georgie, I was strategizing. If you knew anything about sales you’d know that. I knew you’d attract attention in your little gypsy caravan, and if I followed you I could close on all the ones you let through the net.” He folded his arms and smiled, his warm brown eyes sympathetic, oozing sincerity. “You don’t really want to do this. Stop fighting it, Georgie girl. You enjoy styling and design. Let me do the selling.”

  Bereft of words, Georgie stared at him. Jerry had not only raided the family DNA bank for looks, but had more than his fair share of intelligence and charm. Customers loved him. Men wanted to be his pal. Women wanted to bed him. Kids swarmed all over him. Even dogs liked him. It just wasn’t fair. Jerry would mercilessly run over anyone in his path, and then they would thank him with their dying breath. How could she fight him?

  I love vintage, she reminded herself. That’s MY division.

  “No,” she said.

  Jerry sighed. He gave her the kind of look a caring father would give a four year old who was acting out right before they did something stupid. The kind of look that said I’ll have to let you learn from experience. She’d seen that look many times, from their father.

  Only thing was, her father cared about her.

  But he cared about his RV Empire too. He meant what he said. If Jerry sold more vintage vans, he was the one who’d get the job.