FOOD TRUCK MYSTERIES: The Complete Series (14 Books)

by Chloe Kendrick

  I arrived a little early. I had no idea what Jimmy looked like these days. I was assuming he’d changed a bit since age nine. I looked around, mentally discounting the men who were too old or too desperate from the possibilities. I’d narrowed it down to about five, when a man came in through the revolving doors.

  While there were traces of Jimmy, the man in front of me would have been called a hunk as an understatement. He had devastatingly blue eyes with black hair that stood out against his flawless skin. He was about six feet tall with those model-like broad shoulders and a narrow waist.

  He spotted me immediately. He extended a hand, shook it vigorously, shrugged and then leaned in for a kiss on the cheek. Maybe it was my imagination, but it felt like his lips burned my skin. I was still being shocked by his looks and didn’t speak.

  “Maeve, it’s been forever. How are you?” he asked with a smile that would have done a toothpaste commercial proud. “I’d heard that you’d graduated from business school. What are you up to?”

  I cringed a little, knowing that my answer would have a dampening effect on the evening. My friends all tended to look down at my business, though I used most of the business practices I’d learned in school. I was making decisions that they were years from making, and earning more money all the time. Still a food truck wasn’t, and never would be, Wall Street.

  I shared my story with him, from start to finish. It really wasn’t the way I’d seen the start of the evening going. I had planned to grill him like the swordfish special and have answers to all my questions by dessert. However, we were well into the entrée before I could even ask a question about him. I blushed a little thinking about how much I’d talked about myself.

  Jimmy had ordered a steak and baked potato that looked to die for, but I knew that I’d have to work out if I were to down that many calories in the evening. He apparently had either an excellent metabolism or willpower to go to the gym every day, two things that I lacked.

  “I’ve been talking too much,” I said, looking down at the prawns in a sauce that I knew I couldn’t whip up, even if I tried. I would struggle to even describe the sauce to Carter for him to imitate. “Tell me about you. What have you been up to these past 15 years?”

  Jimmy’s story started out rather mundanely, school, football, and his family. It wasn’t until his father had disappeared that he shocked me. “It really took a toll on me to be suspected of his disappearance. The police acted like I’d done something with my dad, and my world fell apart.”

  I tried to look sympathetic, which I was, but I was also dying of curiosity now. I was also focused, trying to remember each and every word, because I knew I’d be reporting this to Land, sooner rather than later. “Why were the police looking at you as a suspect?” I asked. “They can be fairly obtuse about things.”

  “My dad and I had a fight over the car of all things. It sucks that those are the last things I said to my dad. I wish I could go back and change that. If I’d known he was going to disappear, I’d have told him how much I love him and always had, not that I hated him and that all the other kids had cars and I didn’t.” Jimmy looked a little misty-eyed here, and so was I. Jimmy would never get to tell his dad those things, though I suspected that Mr. Carr had known.

  “It was pretty bad for a while. The police pulled me out of class a few times to ask me more questions. They followed me for about two weeks, thinking I would give them a clue to the disappearance. I lost a lot of friends. My grades dropped. I had a bad time of it.”

  “How did he disappear? I mean, I heard that he was gone, but not when or how? My dad was pretty tight-lipped about it, plus he had the additional workload from your dad being missing.” I tried to look concerned and fascinated by his every word.

  “Long story. My dad was something of a fanatic about punctuality. So when he had a business trip, he usually left the day before. It was the same story with that trip, but he never showed up at his destination. He never arrived at his hotel. The police traced the most likely route of the trip, but they found no one who had seen his car. They found no trace of him or the car at any exit along the highway. They looked off the highway on either side, thinking that he might have run off the road, but nothing showed up. It was as if he’d fallen off the face of the earth. It was a hard time for our family.”

  “I’m really sorry to hear that,” I said sincerely. I’d been so focused on the impact to my own father that I’d forgotten that other people had already suffered for Mr. Carr’s disappearance. Mrs. Carr didn’t show much of her pain on the outside, but Jimmy was sharing the raw side of what had happened.

  “Yeah, it didn’t help that I got involved with a bad crowd. I did some drugs, drank too much. Got some cool tats, though.” He raised one side of his shirt to show me a tat and the firmest eight-pack I’d ever seen. I highly suspected that the move had just been made to try to secure my interest in him.

  I waved a hand in his direction. “It looks like you’ve turned things around,” I said, though deep down I knew that I was being incredibly shallow. Just because he was hot did not mean that Jimmy had his life together. He’d just been blessed with good genes.

  He shrugged. “My grades were so bad that I couldn’t get into college. I went to a community school for a couple of years. I lived away from home. I moved out and just kept a very low profile. Not many friends, not much of anything but my dog. It helped get my head on straight. I knew that I hadn’t done anything wrong – that I wasn’t involved in his disappearance, so I started acting that way again. After my two years were done there, I reapplied for college and got in. I graduated in December, a little late, but here I am.”

  I smiled at him, glad to know that his story had a good ending. I might suspect Jimmy of a crime of passion or anger, but the whole stuffed in a freezer ordeal was something that had been thought out in advance. Plus where did a teenager store a large freezer? He couldn’t rent a storage unit, and it was highly unlikely that he would have stored the body at his house. I was sure that the police had searched it thoroughly. Those pesky details kept coming up. Murray’s possessions were in one unit, and it was likely that Mr. Carr had been stored in another. The two seemed unrelated, but I didn’t much believe in coincidences.

  “So did you ever hear from him again?” I asked, finally finishing my prawns. My stomach was full now, though the dessert menu beckoned.

  “Not a word, Never heard from him again. My mom thinks he’s dead, and as I’ve grown up, I have to agree with her. He’d never stay away this long, so the other alternative is that he’s dead.”

  We looked over the desserts and decided to split a piece of double fudge cake. I wondered if I would be able to fit into my jeans tomorrow at this rate, but it was only half a piece.

  After the order had been placed with the waiter, Jimmy looked at me. His blue eyes were hard to avoid. “So what’s going on here? I mean it’s great to see you. You look fantastic, but why are you calling me out of the blue after 15 years? Then there’s all this talk about my dad. Are you writing a book or something?”

  I cringed inside. The truth was far more damning than that. I wasn’t going to tell Jimmy about the body in the freezer or how I thought it was his dad. The police could do that in a few days. I doubted that I had the skills to break it gently to a man that had been through hell because of it.

  “Well, it’s like this. I just got a new apartment, and I found out that the former tenant disappeared out of the blue. Not like your dad, but definitely without warning. Then I ran into your mom, and I got to thinking about you and how you’d just dropped out of my life. So I just thought I’d check in. A lot of my friends left Capital City after graduation, and so I’m always looking to expand my social circle. It’s not easy to make friends when you get up at 4 a.m. to run a food truck.”

  A broad grin broke out on his face. “Cool. Sorry to be doubtful, but you’d be surprised how many people are like amateur crime buffs and want to hit me up with their theories on my dad or w
ant to question me again about his disappearance. It builds up a wall of distrust.”

  I was sure that it did. The cake was delivered, and we split it. I’d forgotten how intimate it was to share a food item with another person. I hoped he wasn’t thinking that I was hitting on him.

  The bill came. He tried to insist on paying, but we ended up splitting it. We parted ways at the door. He’d tried a kiss, but all I offered him was my cheek. We exchanged cell numbers and made tentative plans to see each other again.

  A few days ago, Jimmy would have been my ideal guy: a businessman who was drop dead gorgeous, who shared many of the same experiences and expectations that I had. Yet now, I was thinking of someone else on the way home, someone I was planning to kiss again in the near future.

  Putting that out of my mind, I tried to focus on what Jimmy Carr had told me. Precious little, I thought. He had been personally affected. It had harmed his life, and he’d only begun to recover from the disappearance. I felt sorry for him in a way, as I wondered if the news of his father’s death would hit him as hard as the disappearance had.

  The details of the disappearance pointed to someone at his work. Another employee would be the most likely person to know the itinerary of his business trip, to know his route and the approximate time that he would leave for the trip. I thought of my father again and the chance of losing him to this investigation. I could easily understand how Jimmy could have lost his way, but nothing about the disappearance said that he was involved.

  *

  I arrived at the food truck early the next morning. I’d texted Carter to tell him that I had the truck. He indicated that Aaron was going to drop him off at the food truck. Sure enough, they showed up about 20 minutes later, Carter gave Aaron a kiss before getting out and getting to work.

  “You two seem rather chummy,” I pointed out as he came in.

  “And you seem rather chipper,” Carter replied. “What’s going on with you? Did you and Detective Delicious have a date last night?”

  “You first,” I pointed out. “After all, you originally said that you and Aaron had dated – past tense. But this looks pretty present tense to me.”

  “My, aren’t you the grammar guide this morning. We’ve been talking since all this started. He was rather floored by his uncle’s disappearance. I don’t want to sound like a bad boyfriend, but we broke up because that was all he could talk about. I got tired of him not wanting to think about anything else.”

  “I didn’t get the impression that they were that close,” I said as I counted the cash for the morning rush. “I didn’t realize.”

  “That’s the issue. They weren’t all that close,” Carter answered. “He talked about him once in a while, but not very often. Then after he was gone, it was all Aaron could talk about. It was so weird.”

  “Did Aaron know that his uncle had left half of his estate to him?” I asked, thinking back to the details of the will. Remembering what Mrs. Carr had said, a disappearance would mean a seven year wait to get half of the portfolio.

  “I don’t know, but I’m not sure I like what you’re implying,” Carter said.

  “I’m not accusing him of murder, but I would think it would be painfully difficult to have half of the estate sit out there for years until the courts declared Murray legally dead.” I thought of what $25,000 would do for Aaron.

  “He doesn’t care. Aaron told me that his uncle got taken to the cleaners in the divorce, and that he didn’t have much. So why would he care about a few dollars?” Carter looked less annoyed than before. I was glad that I’d de-escalated things between us.

  “What about his cousin? Does he care about the money?” I asked, thinking about the will’s provisions.

  “He lives across the country and works for some start-up IT company near San Francisco. He didn’t even come home after Murray disappeared. I doubt that he cares about it either.”

  “Have you met him?” I asked, trying to steer back to the personal from the police matter.

  “No, Aaron and I dated for about nine months and ended it about four months ago when he got so crazy about this stuff with his uncle. He just felt that the police weren’t doing anything to find him, and I was baffled as to why Aaron was putting all this effort into someone he’d barely interacted with when he was around.”

  “So what’s changed?” I asked, hoping that the investigation might have made a love match.

  “I don’t know if it’s because I’m now interested in his obsession or if he’s gotten over it, but we’re talking about other things. It’s been like it used to be.”

  “So is it Facebook official yet?” I said with a grin.

  “No, I’m holding back a little still,” Carter admitted. “I’m worried.”

  “What’s to be worried about?”

  “Maeve, what if he was so obsessed because he was involved in the killing? What if he couldn’t think of anything else because he’s the one who killed his uncle? Most killers are known to their victims, and they certainly knew each other. Maybe I’m just getting suspicious from working with you and Land, but I worry that his desire to find the kidnapper stems from the fact that he wants to hide that he’s the person who did this.”

  I hadn’t thought of that. I knew with my father that he had not committed any crime. I had years of understanding of the man to know better. However, in a dating situation, it would be different. The other person might only have shown you their best side. The side that killed people for money may have been hidden.

  “It’s best to go slow anyway,” I said, trying to sound wise.

  “Especially if you think they may have killed someone. That’s why this investigation is so important to me. I want to find out for sure if Aaron is involved before I get too involved.”

  I nodded. That seemed like a good point. “So what are you going to do?”

  “Just keep things casual for a bit. I’m certainly not going to tell him that I’m holding him off to see if he’s a killer. That wouldn’t go over well, but dating after a break-up is certainly enough reason to go slow.”

  I nodded, seeing his point. I looked over to where the other truck should be and thought of Land. I had no doubts about his character, even though there were parts of his life that he kept hidden. I wondered if dating would give me access to all of those secrets, or if I even wanted to know all those things about him.

  Carter looked at me. “So it’s like that, is it?”

  “What?” I focused back on the food truck and wondered what he’d seen or thought he’d seen.

  “The wistful look over at where the other food truck should be. Either you are very, very enamored of Basque in the Sun, or you have a crush on someone who works there.”

  I rolled my eyes. Carter’s powers of perception seemed to be limited to who was interested in whom, but he was uncannily right. If Murray had disappeared because of a soured romance, this case would have been solved by Carter days ago.

  I went back to work in silence, thinking that he might forget about the matter. He seemed to be busy with the condiments, but at one point, I caught him humming “Some Enchanted Evening,” and I had a hunch he wasn’t thinking of Aaron.

  *

  Detective Danvers showed up just as the lunch crowd was thinning. I was a bit surprised. It was early for him, which likely meant that he had some news. My heart froze, thinking that he’d found the link to my father and wanted to tell me that he’d been arrested. My mind flew to horrible consequences. I felt panic well up in me, even though logically I knew that I hadn’t even heard his news.

  He waited his turn and ordered a coffee and hot dog. I comped the food, thinking that a little bribery might help the circumstances. “How are you?” he asked, looking at me carefully. I felt very uncomfortable, trying to look casual.

  “Good. How goes the investigation?” I tried to keep my hands busy by putting out more utensils, even though it was getting to be close to closing time.

  “I think we’ve found Longhill,�
�� he said with a look of triumph on his face. “You’ll never believe where he is.”

  “Istanbul? Russia?” I said, thinking of places where people might easily get lost in the foreign crowds. I had no idea what countries had extradition treaties with the US, but I would have thought that would be the first place to look.

  He shook his head. “Capital City. Our IT guys tracked down the IP address of the emails he sent. They were from a library on the west side of town. We’ve got a stakeout going on there now. I hope to have him in the next day or two.”

  “He’s here?” I asked. I had a bad feeling about this revelation. I could barely go to a mall without being recognized by someone who knew me. How could someone who had “disappeared” still live in the same town and not be seen at some point by someone? His photo had been on the news and in the papers. Certainly someone had to have seen him in the six months he’d been gone. It seemed improbable at best.

  “Yeah, he even has some relatives not too far from there. Can you believe it?”

  I could, but I didn’t like the implications. I needed to talk to Aaron quickly about this.

  Danvers was rambling on. “So you can call off your questions and dinners with people. We’ve got this under control now. It should be wrapped up in 24 hours.”

  I squinted at Danvers. Had he just mentioned that I’d gone to dinner with someone about the case? That bothered me. I hadn’t mentioned the dinner with Jimmy to anyone – not Land, not Carter, and not even my family. It meant I was being watched. There was only one reason for me to be put under surveillance – information. Danvers had allowed me to start an unofficial investigation into Longhill’s disappearance, hoping that I would flush someone or something out of hiding. Then he’d had me followed so that he could see what I’d learned through deductions. And I’d led them right to the Carrs.