FIVE WILL GET YOU TWENTY (Food Truck Mysteries Book 9) Read Online Free PDF

truck and go home but that didn’t look like it would happen.
    Sabine shrugged. “Maybe a half hour ago? I wasn’t watching the time. It wasn’t long after you went to visit my brother.” Her use of “my brother” made me worry a little as well. Normally, she was more than happy to give Land to me, but today the words seemed proprietary.
    “Can you—?” I started.
    “I’ll put the truck back and deposit the cash. No problems. Just don’t make me go over there with that egotistical gasbag.”
    I assumed she was talking about Danvers, and I told her that would be great. I handed her the deposit bag and the keys to the truck. I’d have to get those back tonight or wait for her to arrive the next morning to get in. I texted Land to ask if he could pick them up later. That would give me a good excuse to see him again this evening.
    Walking as fast as I could without mowing people down, I arrived at Taco Inferno in about 10 minutes. I was nearly out of breath by the time I arrived. I had imagined Carter in handcuffs or the food truck being towed off to the forensics lab. However, nothing like that had happened at all.
    Danvers and Carter were chatting amiably in the truck. The lunch crowd had thinned out, and Carter distributed free coffee to patrons who asked for it. For the first two weeks, we were giving away the last urn of coffee each day to promote sales at the new food truck.
    Given the line of people waiting to pick up a cup of coffee, I would call the promotion a success. Since we would have dumped the coffee out anyway, the only cost was the expense of creamer, sugar packets, cups and stir sticks.
    “What’s up?” I asked as I stepped up into the truck. “You called and wanted to see me?”
    Danvers nodded and handed me four more $20 bills. “All fake,” he said with a certain air of resignation. At least, he wasn’t sorely pissed off like Sabine. I wondered if he would resolve this issue by proposing, or if he’d just drop her.
    I explained the steps that we were taking to ensure that this was a very short-term problem. Carter looked at me strangely when I said that I’d be working with him for a few days in the new truck.
    “I just don’t want to put too much on you,” I said. “It’s a lot to ask to cook, serve and detect.”
    He nodded. “I had a system for today. I can’t identify them and ask them questions, but I know which customers passed bad bills.”
    I looked at the bills again. In the corner of each one, there were ink marks, just letters that made no sense to me. The first one read “TDQT.”
    I held it out to Carter. “What is this supposed to mean?” I asked. “Are you using code of some sort?”
    “Sort of. I wanted a way to remember who had given me the currency without writing a story about them on it. So I wrote a few initials so that I could keep track of what came from whom.”
    “So what the hell does it mean?” Danvers said. His annoyance radiated from his tone. “This isn’t a Nancy Drew novel. It’s an open police investigation.”
    Carter flushed a little. “This one was tall dude, cutie. He was a little flirty, and I remember him well. He was 6 foot 1, about 175 pounds, nice arms, brown hair and brown eyes. I could probably do a police sketch if you needed.”
    Danvers eyes widened. He looked like he wanted to say something, but he stopped himself and settled for a compliment instead. “That’s a pretty good description you just gave. Have you seen him before?”
    Carter shook his head. “No, but this is only my second day at this location. He could be a regular with time, which is why I’m a little worried about giving out all the details on customers. They could all be the backbone of the business here.”
    I was impressed. I might still worry about him being on time in the mornings, but at least he was thinking ahead to a long-term business plan of keeping the customers happy.
    “And this one?” Danvers said, holding out a second bill. He was