FOOD TRUCK MYSTERIES: The Complete Series (14 Books)

by Chloe Kendrick

  “Can I see you?” he said through gritted teeth. “We need to talk.”

  She smiled at him, and I nodded to her. I wanted to stay out of this situation, though I did take a moment to text Land about the matter. As her big brother, I thought he’d want to know what was going down.

  Danvers ranted at Sabine for several minutes while I poured coffee and took in the money. None of the customers seemed to mind the wait, since they were being provided a free show. Sabine still had plenty of time before she had to get started on the lunch fare, but I kept an eye on her for Land. The funny thing was that today Sabine looked calm and placid, while Danvers looked mad enough to explode. I knew the reasons she had worn make-up today. She had wanted to look perfect when she put the screws to him about some matter.

  The acrimony between them had gone on for several months now. The two had dated a while back, and it ended when Danvers had dumped her for less than fantastic reasons. Sabine had mourned for a lengthy period, but lately, she’d seemed more like her old self. I had thought that perhaps she’d found someone new, but in this case, it was starting to look like her flame with Danvers had been rekindled. Land would not be happy. He’d never approved of the relationship. Now it looked as though she had done something to hurt Danvers in return.

  Danvers said something, and Sabine turned on her heel and walked back into the food truck. She didn’t say a word as she started preparing the sweet and spicy condiments for the hot dogs. The smells of the toppings filled the small space with delicious scents. I hope that enough wafted out of the truck to tempt the customers.

  Land either knew what was going on or had a good idea about it, because he showed up a few minutes early with the other food truck. He came over and entered the truck without a word. Sabine had not talked much since the incident with Danvers, but she seemed quite pleased with herself. That was perhaps more disturbing than the actual incident.

  “So, what’s going on with you and Danvers?” Land said, not even greeting me upon entry. I tried to make eye contact, but he was too busy staring at Sabine.

  “Geez, did he call you and tattle?” she asked, looking less pleased with herself than she had a few minutes ago. “I should have known.”

  “You’re going,” Land said simply. I knew that tone of voice. It was the one he used when he was right, and he would brook no opposition. I had rarely ever heard that tone turned on me, but I knew at those moments, I had to be prepared to fight or agree.

  “Going where?” I asked.

  Before anyone could answer, Sabine threw her apron down and walked out.

  “Think she’s coming back?” I asked. “Or am I stuck cleaning up everything this afternoon too?”

  Land shrugged. “Sorry, I might have timed that a little better.”

  “So what was that all about? Where is she going?” If I was going to have to work harder today as a result of this mysterious event, I wanted answers.

  “A police benefit. Sabine agreed to go to the event as Danvers’ date. Apparently, he thinks that schmoozing with a good-looking woman on his arm will help him get this promotion he wants so badly. So he’s apparently using her just as much as she is using him for revenge. However, last night, Sabine texted him and cancelled. The event is tonight, and she was going to leave him stranded without a date. In reality, I doubt that anyone would have noticed who Danvers came with, but he feels that being settled and happily involved is a major criterion for the promotion,” Land sighed. “I thought things had settled down between them, but apparently not. She is still pissed about being dumped and was taking out her revenge on him. He’s still using her to get ahead.”

  I rolled my eyes. “I’m so glad that I’m married. I wouldn’t ever want to go back to the dating stage again.”

  He turned and looked in my eyes. “I’m glad too. This is an exciting new stage of our relationship.”

  Then he made up for not greeting me when he first walked in.

  When we finished, I still had to clean the truck, count the cash, and get the truck ready for tomorrow. There would be no time for me to visit the lawyer this evening. I’d be lucky to be home by 5:00 p.m., and Land had been insistent that I take Sabine with me to the lawyer. While I didn’t think it was needed, I trusted his instincts at times when mine failed me.

  Chapter 4

  I finally made it home a little after 5:00 p.m. that evening. I felt like I was wasting time on the investigation by taking an evening off. So I decided to text a few old college friends to see if they knew Brent Collier and had had any dealings with him since he left the school.

  It didn’t take long to find them on my phone, and I sent out a group text asking anyone if they knew of Brent Collier and what he was doing these days. I made the request generic enough that no one would immediately suspect me of prying into a murder case. However, given my record for stumbling over dead bodies, I figured that a few of the grads would suspect what I was up to. I wasn’t going to give them any details. They could just as easily read the papers and find out for themselves what had happened to him.

  A few responses started out without giving me much hope. Two girls and a guy told me that they hadn’t seen Brent since college, and one seemed to remember that he hadn’t made it to graduation. Their memories were vague and unhelpful, since I seemed to know far more about him than they did.

  About an hour after I’d sent out the group text, my phone pinged. I didn’t check it in a hurry. I was watching a video on service businesses and raising ROI. I certainly thought that my fellow grads would understand an activity so related to business school.

  I forgot about the text until Land called to see if I wanted anything from the food truck. I gladly accepted, since I had cleaned up the remains of the day’s food in Dogs on the Roll. Scrubbing pots and pans always left me unwilling to cook for myself. When he hung up, I checked my messages.

  Sure enough, someone else had texted me. The message was not a group comment, but a text sent solely to me. I opened it and read.

  Beware of Brent. He’s trouble.

  Two things struck me. The first was that the person had used the present tense, meaning they still thought Collier was alive. That was probably a point in favor for this person not being the killer. The second was that the message seemed to be personal, as if the person had been swindled by Collier, rather than having heard about it third-hand.

  I scrolled up and determined that the texter was Emily Ambler, an alum who I remembered well. She’d been the one to always sit in the front row with her hand up in the air to answer every question. The one who turned her papers in three class periods before they were due. Not to say that I was a poor student. I graduated near the top of my class, but I had never veered into the teacher’s pet category.

  I knew from the few people I spoke with that Emily lived in town, so I should be able to get an address and talk to her more. I wanted to hear about her experiences. Had she been offered money for a business? How far had Brent’s scam gone with her?

  I wrote down the text and her contact information, so I could deal with her later. I doubted that Danvers would be interviewing my classmates to learn about other dodges. So I would have a fairly clear field there.

  Land pulled up about the time that I heard the phone ping again. Dinner was far more important to me than another vague answer, so I went to the door to let him in.

  He’d brought a soup dish and the entrée, which was made with fish, but whose name I didn’t know. I was starving by this point and wolfed down the food in no time flat.

  “You seem awfully hungry,” Land said, seeming more curious about my appetite than normal.

  I knew where this topic was leading. We had stopped using protection upon our return from the honeymoon, and everything that I said or did was now seen through the lens of a potential pregnancy in Land’s eyes. While we were both anxious to have a family, I didn’t see my every statement or mouthful of food as an indicator of my maternal status.

  “I’m just ea
ting for one, albeit a hungry one,” I said. Since the situation had been diffused, I went ahead and finished my dinner. I told Land about the text messages that I’d sent out, and Emily’s reply.

  “That doesn’t sound exactly promising,” he said. “She would be more likely if she’d used the past tense on him.” For someone raised in Europe, Land had an incredible grasp of English. If asked, he could probably diagram a sentence.

  “I’m still going to follow up. Maybe she knows of other people who were swindled by Brent.”

  I remembered the phone and pulled it over to me. Land was not a big fan of phone use at the table. For someone who had traveled the world and done things other people couldn’t even dream of, he could still be traditional at times. For him, dinnertime and the resulting conversations were sacrosanct.

  I checked the message quickly, but the first glance didn’t tell me enough. Another message had just arrived, but the text only came up with a number, and not a name. That was curious, since I’d only sent the original text to my contacts, who were all listed by their name in my contacts list.

  So how had this person gotten my number and responded promptly to a question only put out to a few people I knew? Had someone in the group sent the text to a third party, or was someone using a different phone to avoid recognition? Was the message a warning that had just come at a time when I was asking the same question? That combination seemed unlikely, but of course, it was always possible.

  Land must have seen on my face that something was puzzling me. He spun the phone around and looked at the text. He immediately caught on to why I was puzzled. “Who is this with only the number?” he asked.

  “That’s just it. I don’t know. It seems a bit odd, and a little bit menacing.” I was still puzzled by the timing most of all. Other strangers had helped me in the past, but never so close to the initial question. This had to be related to someone who had received the message from me about Brent Collier.

  Land picked up the phone and did a quick search through my directory to see if he could find the number. Of course, it wasn’t there. “We could call the number back and find out what’s going on.”

  “Do you think that’s a good idea?” I asked, wondering how a threatening person would feel about a callback.

  “It’s either a burner phone or a real cell number. If it’s real, then we talk to whoever it was. If it’s a burner, we’ll get Danvers to look into the matter.”

  Land pulled his phone out of his pocket and dialed, so that the caller would not recognize this number. Land’s phone was on speaker, so I could hear the response. The phone rang and finally clicked off. The owner hadn’t even thought enough of the phone to set up the voicemail.

  “Probably a burner,” Land said. “So it’s a whole new level of something to look into.”

  I nodded. I would have been much more relaxed if the number had just gone to a standard voicemail. I assumed that Land was going to call Danvers sometime this evening to tell him about the message—until I remembered that he and Sabine were likely at the dance already.

  “So, any word from Sabine?” I asked, deliberately trying to change the subject.

  He shook his head. “But Danvers sent me a text with a photo of the two of them arm-in-arm, so I know she’s there.”

  “Do you think that situation will ever settle down?” I asked. I thought back to our own relationship, which had progressed from co-workers to friends to romantic interests, without so much as an argument. We’d both agreed and been in sync with each other every step of the way.

  Land shrugged. “I hope so. I’m getting tired of playing referee. It’s like she’s 10 again, pouting and wanting her own way.”

  “And you’re sure you want a child after dealing with her?” I asked, bringing the conversation back to where we’d begun.

  He took my hand in his. “With you, no question.”

  I blushed. Despite our time together, he could still embarrass me with these random compliments. I was much more used to our no-nonsense discussions of daily activities and the business. The times when he showed how much he loved me, I always grew flushed and embarrassed as though this was the very time I’d realized the depths of his emotion.

  Fortunately, the phone pinged again, and I snatched it up. However, it wasn’t what I expected. Someone had snapped and sent a photo of Danvers and Sabine dancing. It didn’t look forced, and the photo didn’t appear like he’d pulled a gun to make Sabine dance.

  She looked lovely, and the dress was both demure and fetching. I thought she’d probably bought it for exactly this kind of thing. Sabine could be very premeditated at times. Given the effort she taken to choose this dress, I wondered if she had changed her mind again and was playing to get him back.

  I showed it to Land, who merely nodded and said, “I’m glad to see that they are having a good time.”

  I looked at him. This was not the normal attitude Land had towards Danvers; he had warned me repeatedly not to trust the police detective, who lived for self-aggrandizement. I started to say something, but then changed my mind and let it go. If he was happy about the situation, then I would be as well.

  I yawned. With that, we headed over to the sofa. We’d watch TV until I could keep my eyes open, and then I’d go to bed, hours before Land would join me.

  ***

  Monday morning broke brightly, and I was up and at work without incident. I wasn’t sure if I’d see Sabine today or not. She had stomped out of the truck Friday and presumably had a late night, so anything was possible.

  Yet she showed up at the normal time without giving any indication of the events of the past few days. I let things slide after a brief hello and went back to prepping for the morning glut of coffee drinkers.

  She prepped the condiments for the black bean salsa for today. Sabine had come up with it, and the condiment had been a success. She was busy cutting cilantro as I opened the window. The customers were already lined up, and I had my hands full for the first few hours as I served both urns of coffee and filled them up for another go-round.

  It wasn’t until nearly 10:00 a.m. that Detective Danvers came to the food truck. I had expected a visit from him, either to speak to Sabine or yell at me—or both, as it turned out.

  She stopped the preparations and walked outside with him for a few minutes. Their talk was animated, but without the raised voices of their last encounter. I didn’t bother to text Land, since I would see him soon, and it appeared as though Sabine had the situation under control.

  She came back into the truck, and Danvers approached the window. “So I thought you’d want to know that Brent Collier has a long arrest record. No convictions, but it would only have been a matter of time before he was locked up for something. He had too many arrests not to get nailed for one of them eventually.”

  “How did he get off?” I asked, though I had a suspicion that I already knew the answer. I had told Sabine that we would be going to the lawyer’s office after today’s shift. She listened in carefully as Danvers talked to me, registering who was being discussed.

  “His lawyer,” Danvers said. “He’s the type of guy who would love a client like Collier— just slick enough to be able to get him off on all charges. It was probably a game with them.”

  “Are the records online?” I asked innocently.

  “The bare bones of the cases. No mentions of the people who were bilked, if that’s what you’re after. For their own safety, we don’t include the victims of crimes—and to keep you away from them,” he added. “If they’re suckered once, it’s a good bet that they’ll be suckered again.”

  I nodded. I already had a meeting set up with Emily Ambler in about an hour, so I wasn’t too worried about the lack of information online. I would hopefully be able to find out some additional names from her.

  Danvers took his coffee, sipped heavily, and walked away without a word. I was glad to see him gone. I didn’t want him here distracting Sabine or watching me talk to a possible victim of Brent Co
llier’s schemes.

  Emily showed up about an hour later. She was running late, and I was getting concerned that she would hit at the lunch rush. However, she got there shortly after 10:30, so I had some time. Sabine had already been warned that I’d take a few minutes off to talk to this woman. Despite her seeming truce with Danvers, she was more than happy to allow me the time to investigate a case where I might show him up.

  Emily was one of those fair-complected girls who had to stay out of the sun, or else she burned. She had long, blonde hair that was caught by a breeze today and blew behind her like a Venus in Capital City. She’d always been beautiful, but she never seemed to date. Perhaps men were intimidated by her, or maybe she had bigger plans than marriage and family. I wasn’t sure why, but I’d never known her to bring a man to any event—including today.

  She nodded at me as she approached, and I made my way out of the truck and down to the edge of the Square. Emily gave me one of those less-than-warm one-armed hugs.

  “So this is the business?” she asked, as she took in the food truck. “How is it doing?”

  I explained that this was the first of three, soon to be four, if I ever got around to placing that ad, trucks that I owned. Her estimation of me went up; it was plain from the way that she began talking about a legitimate business rather than the cute hobby I had.

  “So you met with Brent?” she asked. “When was this?”

  “A few days ago. He wants to buy my business, and I was trying to check him out to see if he’s legitimate. The price for the trucks was great, and I wanted to learn more.”

  She looked around, and then gazed directly into my eyes. Her stare was penetrating. “Don’t do it. Make an excuse. Tell him anything you want, but don’t do it. Don’t sign any papers and don’t talk to his lawyer.”

  Her statements made me more certain that she knew something. “Why?”