A THIEF OF ANY MAN (Food Truck Mysteries Book 6) by Chloe Kendrick Page A

found.”
    His point made sense, but obviously I knew that we hadn’t done it. Unlike Big Tony’s body, the corpse of Emma Creech had only been in the lot for a couple of days. It could have been weeks before her body was as pungent as Big Tony’s corpse. So the discovery had thrown a monkey wrench into the killer’s plans.
    My mind rushed back to wonder about Sabine again, but I couldn’t voice my fears to Land. What if she’d called someone on her way back to tell us about the identification, or even before that? She could easily have let someone know.
    While I couldn’t ask him, I wondered if Land was thinking the same thing. Normally he looks at all aspects of a situation, even when the facts were unpleasant. I was fairly certain he’d done that here, but I didn’t want to ask him to face those likely conclusions. When a family member had been a suspect in a murder case, he had stood by me and helped me to find the evidence to clear him. I couldn’t do any less for Land now.
    So if none of us had notified the killer – or worse yet, been the killer – then how could that person have known that time was of the essence in burning down the house? I wanted to question Sabine. Not because I suspected her, but because I wondered if she had told a friend about the multiple murders in the secured parking lot. That could be a lead to finding out who knew. Since I was off the next day, I made plans to contact her and find out.
    In the meantime, though, I had to let Carter know that he’d be working with Land for the next few days. I didn’t want him to suffer for my nosiness and desire to get involved in murder. By his own admission, the added benefit of being involved in excitement kept him working for us, but I also knew that he needed the income to help pay for his mother’s overwhelming health bills.
    We talked for just a second about the case and his modified hours for the interim. At least he could be excluded from suspicion about telling others about the discovery of Emma Creech’s body. He’d been genuinely surprised, and he wasn’t that good an actor. His shock was not something he could have faked.
    Thinking again about who could have told about the murders, I realized that Danvers had a point. We were the most likely people to have spilled the beans to someone who wanted secrets kept.
    After a few more minutes, Land drove me home. I asked him to spend the night, but he shook his head. He reminded me that he would still have to get up in the morning to prep the food truck. The full menu that Basque in the Sun offered required significantly more groundwork than making hot dogs. I was grateful for the easier menu and Carter’s help.
    In exchange, I was able to get Sabine’s phone number from him without much trouble. We said good-night at the door, and I headed inside for the night.
     
     
    True to my word, I texted Sabine when I awoke. It was after 9am, and I marveled at how different it was to wake late and have the time off. I yawned and made a pot of coffee. As I inhaled the familiar aroma of Land’s special blend, which I now knew came from his grandfather, I texted Sabine and invited her to lunch. I wasn’t sure what time she started work at the secured lot, but I knew it was after 3pm, which was when I was usually done for the day.
    She responded quickly and suggested a restaurant in the South Street area of town, which had become somewhat trendy over the past few years. I’d participated in a few food truck events in the area, but those precluded me from actually sitting down and eating a pleasant meal in that locale.
    I spent part of the morning reading articles on Big Tony Borelli. Today’s papers were full of histories of the mobster and a general timeline of events surrounding his disappearance. As Danvers had said, the press had picked up some rumors in the past few weeks about the mobster’s disappearance. As I continued to read stories about him, the information became more detailed