FOOD TRUCK MYSTERIES: The Complete Series (14 Books)
Page 36
“So the case involves rich people. How is that different?” I asked, trying to think of anything but the facts of what had just happened to me.
“Not just money, but power and connections. They knew enough to approach the health inspector who could be bribed. I bet they’d already figured out who was most likely to be coerced in that way. Then they arranged for your aunt to get that inspector three times in a row. That’s connected. They were also able to get your account numbers and fake this deposit. Again, connections and power. People who have money and power are dangerous. They never like to lose it.”
“Okay, I agree with that. But lots of people have that type of money, and they don’t all go shooting out bank windows.” I was shivering a little as I spoke. I knew the signs of shock. Apparently Land knew them as well, because he wrapped his arms around me to keep me warm.
“I guarantee you that when they find the guys who shot this place up that they won’t be the type to have power and money. This was a hit for hire scenario. If they get caught by the police, someone else will take the fall for this, and the person behind all of this will still be free to do whatever they want, which includes taking another chance to kill you.”
“If? I want to know—do you think that Jax is involved in this? I mean, that he’s been bought?”
Land shrugged. “I told you to keep your distance. The suit he had on the other day was very expensive. It was not something he could normally afford on a policeman’s salary, even if the policeman is single. It was a warning flag to me. If they can bribe him, then no one is safe.”
I took a deep breath. At least he was just making assumptions based on what he saw. While I thought Danvers was an unmitigated ass, I wasn’t yet ready to call him a thief and worse.
“You said there were two things that bothered you? What would the second be?” I felt myself warming a little in the comfort of his arms. My lips didn’t feel like they were blue anymore. My teeth had stopped chattering.
“The woman today who came to talk to you, the one whose sister was shot. She told you that she’s from Russia. I don’t know if that’s true or not, but I’m praying the Russians are not involved in whatever is going on. They’re a nasty lot. If that’s the case, we might as well take the food truck and move to another city.”
“Without a fight?” I asked, feeling my blood warm. I wasn’t the type to cut-and-run, no matter who shot at me.
“Without a fight. They would have no qualms about killing both of us, and Mariel Mills as well. You don’t want to mess with them.”
I could hear the wail of sirens in the distance. I was glad to know that help was on the way. The teller was still whimpering, and I wanted someone to look at Land’s gunshot wounds.
“So why did you have a gun on you?” I asked, thinking about how he’d saved my life again. He was certainly prepared for anything.
“Concealed carry,” Land said without elaboration.
“Come on. What were you before you were a chef? A hit man, a sharpshooter in the military, a major in the Army? There’s no way that you don’t have military training for what you did today.”
He looked down at me with a frown. “I’d rather not talk about it now. Besides, I’m not an American citizen. How would I be in your Army?”
I noticed how he didn’t bother to try to refute the rest of the occupations. “I don’t know. I’m fishing here. So what do we do next?” I asked.
“We wait for the police and turn over everything—and I mean everything to them. This needs to stop now.”
“Will we be safe?” I asked as the EMTs pulled up to the bank.
“Safer,” Land said.
Chapter 7
Danvers was there in minutes. He barely beat the EMTs, who came into the bank and started looking at us. We directed them to look at the tellers first. They didn’t seem to be hurt, so the EMTs approached us again. One of them started pulling a few shards of glass from my face and arm, while the other took a look at the wounds that Land had received.
They started moving us to the ambulance. I wasn’t worried about the costs at the moment. I knew that Land had good insurance, the same as mine, and we would be covered under my short-term disability policy since this had happened while conducting business on behalf of the food truck. Still it seemed anticlimactic to be carted off to the hospital and far away from the scene of the action.
Danvers took one look at us in the back of the ambulance and called for additional back-up. He must have suspected something along the same lines as Land, because he had a full crime scene team coming out to look at the bank.
The doors closed, and the ambulance started moving. “Just a precaution,” said one of the EMTs. “I can’t understand how you got out of there with just a few minor injuries. The place looked like a battlefield.”
I nodded. “I had back-up,” I said, looking at Land.
The EMT smiled. “That’s always good. Your injuries are not life threatening, but obviously we want to get you stitched up and ensure the wounds don’t get infected. Hopefully, you’ll be out of the hospital in no time.”
Land looked at the man. “Did you happen to notice if there was any blood outside? I emptied a magazine at the guys who did it.”
The EMT shook his head. “I didn’t notice, but to be honest, most of the times those guys have a person they can go to in order to treat injuries. If they come to the hospital the gun shots have to be reported, and there would be a lot of unwanted questions.”
The ambulance pulled up at University Hospital, which seemed to be where all the victims of this case ended up. We were put into two wheelchairs. The doors opened, and the EMTs took us in different directions. “Wait—we’re together,” I said, thinking as the words came out of my mouth that they would be misconstrued.
“You can see him again after he’s cleaned up. Don’t worry. I’ll tell the ER nurse about it.” He wheeled me to a hospital bed with a curtain around it. They helped me on to the bed, and I waited for someone to come see me. Finally, a nurse brought me a gown, and indicated that I should put it on. As I took off my t-shirt, I understood why. The shirt was stained with blood, cut from the shards of glass, and torn where I’d used it to treat Land’s wounds. I slid the gown on and waited some more.
Finally a doctor and a nurse came in. They began to pull out some of the shards, the ones that were more deeply embedded. One was on the side of my forehead, and the doctor added two stitches to that one. The rest of the cuts either didn’t bleed at all or only required a Band-Aid. I was glad. I had no desire to go back to the food truck looking like a version of the Frankenstein’s bride.
Fortunately for me, they provided me with a slight sedative. The sensation of having glass pulled from my body following the shoot-out I’d experienced had frazzled my nerves. I rested on the bed and allowed them to work. I floated along as if I were watching them work on my body from afar.
When they were done, the doctor took one look at my t-shirt on the chair and offered to give me a hospital t-shirt as a replacement for it. Given that my choices were the hospital shirt or a gown, I figured that the new t-shirt would be less noticeable. I waited some more for someone to bring it back.
Finally, an orderly brought me the shirt and I changed as soon as the curtains were closed again. I felt much better to be back in normal clothes.
I stood up, opened the curtain and walked down the row of beds, looking for Land. I found him about seven beds down. He was still in the hospital gown and looking impatient. His arm had been bandaged over the crease and his thumb appeared to have stitches. It looked much less dangerous now than it had at the bank. I was glad to see that he was going to be okay.
“That was my first shoot-out,” I said, sitting on the edge of the bed. “I can’t say that I want to try this again.”
Land shrugged. He seemed very mellow, and I wondered if he’s been given some of the same sedative that I’d been given. He seemed almost too mellow to be Land. “You get used to it.”
“Security, undercover work.” He said it matter-of-factly, as though I already knew that he had such a background. I had suspected something like this in the past few days, but I’d given up hope that he would ever explain his past to me.
“I serve hot dogs, so I’m a little out of my element,” I said. I started thinking about what he’d said. “Are you on assignment now? Is working at Dogs on the Roll part of an undercover assignment?”
He laughed. “Yeah, someone is killing the great hot dog chefs of Europe.” He leaned back and smiled at me.
I recognized the reference—and the sarcasm. “Fine, but why hot dogs after being a secret agent? Doesn’t this seem dull?”
He smirked at me. “First, that’s not even a job title. Secret Agent Man is a 1960s song. I got good at what I did before, but I hated it. I wanted to move to America, so I decided to switch careers as well as continents. This is much more enjoyable than being shot at.” He stopped and looked at his arm. “Well, most days.”
I thought about pushing the matter to learn more, but he’d trusted me with this much—or he’d been too mellow to stop his mouth. In either case, I didn’t want to take unfair advantage of him. I stopped an orderly and asked for a shirt for Land as well. I figured that he would need it given that his shirt was in no better condition than mine. The orderly looked at me, and then trotted off to find a shirt.
While we were waiting, Detective Danvers entered the ER. I could hear his voice down the hallway, apparently causing a commotion because I’d left my bed. He was afraid that I’d been taken by force from the hospital.
The nurse came down to Land’s bed and pulled the curtain open. “They’re both in here.”
Danvers strode in, looking like thunder. “You’re supposed to wait to be released, not just go wandering the hallways. In case you missed it, someone tried to kill you today.”
In my slightly fuzzy state I wasn’t sure if he was annoyed because he actually cared about me or if I was just causing him a lot of work these days. I thought about consulting Land, but my chef was about to nod off on the bed.
“I remember being shot at, yes,” I said, “but answers are not going to come to someone who sits on a hospital bed waiting to be discharged for two stitches. I’m fine.”
Danvers looked at Land’s arm. “So I see.”
“So have you learned anything about the shootings?” Land asked, even though his eyes were closed. I had assumed that he’d dropped off to sleep, but apparently he was listening to the conversation.
“Not much. A few people at the restaurant next door gave us a description, but it boils down to blue sedan. The plates were covered with mud or paint or something, so we couldn’t get the plates either. So now it’s a matter of looking at some traffic cameras and seeing if we can locate them.”
I remembered Land’s words. Even finding the men would not fix this problem. The shooters would not sell out the person who had hired them to do this job. The person who wanted me dead would just look elsewhere for someone else do to the crime.
That didn’t get us any closer to the person behind all of this. It just meant that I had to be careful. I knew I’d start by varying my routines. Even so, there was only so much I could do. I still had to be at the food truck from 5 a.m. to 2 p.m. with the window open and coming in contact with everyone who stood in front of me. I knew that I couldn’t shut down the truck either. I needed the money too much. Even if I had an extra $30,000 in the bank, I didn’t want to give in to those who would try to kill me. I was stubborn.
“So were you in security too?” I asked, the words spilling out of my mouth without thought. I wasn’t sure if it was the stress or the sedatives, but I was certainly open with my questioning today.
Danvers shot Land a look that was both pleading and pissed. I wasn’t sure why he felt that way, but obviously he had not wanted to share that information with me. Now he knew that the cat was out of the bag.
I waited for an answer, but nothing was forthcoming from him. The moments passed in silence.
“Yeah, that’s none of your business,” Danvers said finally. True, it wasn’t my business, but my curiosity was aroused since neither one of them were talkative about it. I envisioned them as James Bond types, who circled the globe fighting crime, except that they’d ended up in Capital City.
“Land thinks that the person behind this insulated himself from the crimes by hiring someone to shoot at us. Thoughts on that?” I said, sitting down on the edge of Land’s hospital bed.
“Land certainly talks a lot when he gets shot,” Danvers noted. “Yeah, this feels like a gang shooting except that there are no gangs in this part of town. It would be odd if they just drove half an hour out of their way to shoot up a bank branch.”
I remembered the money that had been deposited into my account and explained the situation to Danvers. He nodded. “The tellers brought that up. We had them check again, and the money is gone. It was definitely used to keep you standing in one spot, so you’d be an easy target.”
Even though I knew the money wasn’t mine, I felt robbed that someone had taken it all back. It had been a lure, a bait to get me in a place where they could shoot me. With access to electronic fund transfers, this definitely looked like something much larger than a gang drive-by gone wrong.
“We’re looking into the transfer to see if we can find where the money went, but if they were sophisticated enough to do this, then I’m sure they’ve managed a series of transfers to keep us guessing for months.”
Danvers asked a few more questions and left. Land was pretty out of it still, so I let him sleep for a while. The ER staff indicated that he could rest there unless they got swamped. Since I was still feeling a little fuzzy, I decided to walk it off rather than stay put. My mind was reeling, and I needed the exercise to get away from these thoughts.
I decided to walk up to Mariel Mills’ room and see how she was doing.
Chapter 8
When I got to the room, I was surprised to see it empty. I was immediately concerned that something had happened to Mariel, but the nurse assured me that Mariel was fine and had been released that morning. I drew a heavy sigh of release and made my way back down to the ER.
I walked into the curtained area where Land was. Like me, he’d had a gown on, but when I walked in, he was shirtless. I had seen glimpses of his abs before when he reached for something in the van or when he raised the hem to dry himself off, but I’d never gotten the full view before. Apparently security work required a great body.
His chest was well-muscled and chiseled. He had flat abs with clearly defined ridges in them and a slight trail of hair leading into his jeans. I admit—I stopped and stared.
“Hand me that shirt,” he said, not even noticing my interest. “Thanks for getting it for me.”
“No problem. I think the nurse thought that we would scare people if we went out the way we were.”
He nodded. “Probably. Might have been fun.” He gave me a grin, and I returned it. Land was usually so uptight. It was heart melting to see him relaxed and smiling. Maybe I needed to get him some more of whatever they’d given him.
We checked out with the nurse. I wasn’t sure what to do since we’d caught a ride from an ambulance to the hospital. I got out my phone and called for a cab. It was probably better to have a little more time to feel more like myself before driving.
The cab dropped us off at the bank. I checked out the car thoroughly before getting in. I wasn’t sure what a bomb looked like, but I checked under the hood and under the body. The shooters had not touched my car, though the bank was boarded up. Most of the glass had been swept up, but I doubted that the bank branch would be open for business in the near future.
Land slid into the passenger’s seat, and I knew I was good eno
ugh to drive. He fell asleep before we got out of the parking lot. Since he was asleep and wouldn’t notice—or care, I decided to swing by Mariel’s house. I wanted to get that letter from her, the sooner the better. I had a hunch that Linda had tried to convey a message to her with that odd last letter.
We drove to the house and I pulled up in front, parking on the street. The house looked cozy from my vantage point with candles flickering inside. I almost hated to rouse her, but given the afternoon I’d had, I felt it was in my best interest to get this taken care of quickly.
I walked up on the porch and realized that the flames were not coming from candles. Something was on fire inside the house. The smell of burning paper and fabric was unmistakable. I coughed twice as I tried the front door. It was locked tight.
Since I’d already been to the house, I knew the way in from the back. I tried the back door which was also locked tight. The window to the basement was locked from the inside as well. I cursed as I grabbed a paving stone from the landing and threw it into the back door window. The crashing and tinkle of the glass reminded me of my adventures earlier that day, and I gritted my teeth, knowing that I wanted Mariel to live, just as Land and I had survived.
The kitchen was filled with smoke. My first mistake was taking a deep breath once I got inside. The smoke smelled of wood and paper—and perhaps gasoline. I couldn’t quite make out all the smells in the house. I ran to the stairs. I took them two at a time. I’d only been here the one time before, and I had trouble adjusting my mind to where I was in the thick smoke. One room had flames already shooting from it.
The door to Mariel’s bedroom was closed, and I tread carefully there, knowing that opening the door in the wrong conditions could make me into a well-done food truck owner. I touched the knob, but it was only warm to the touch. I turned the knob and pushed the door open, standing as far to the side as I could. No flames came out, and I hurried into the bedroom. Mariel was on the floor—in pieces. Someone had beheaded her, just as they had with her sister. I felt the bile rise up in my throat, but I didn’t have time for that now. I gagged a little and spat in the corner. Vomit would be the least of the problems with this house—if it made it.