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

holding the bill by the corner which meant he had hopes of finding some fingerprints.
    The inscription on the side of the bill said “LP.” I had no idea where this one could go.
    “Little person,” Carter said without changing expression. “She could barely reach the counter. I had to lean down to get the twenty from her. I marked it on there in code, so she wouldn’t think I was being rude.”
    Danvers rolled his eyes. “Well, at least we should be able to find her more easily. What about the other two?”
    Carter took the bills and stared at them a moment. I guessed after marking most of the bills all day, he’d forgotten the code for some. However, finally he handed the GMS bill to Danvers. “This lady reminded me of my grandma Smith. I hope it’s not her. I would feel too bad about busting a grandmother.”
    “And the other?” Danvers asked, pointing to the bill in Carter’s hand.
    “I don’t remember this guy as well, but he was in a gray suit and blue tie, business type. Not much to look at though, which is why I just wrote about what he had on.”
    They decided that Carter would go down to the police station off Government Square after his shift to work with the sketch artist. With that, Carter got back to work. Danvers left without speaking a word to me, and I caught a cab to the secured lot.

Chapter 3
     
     
    “You know this has to be a conspiracy of some sort,” Land said after he’d dropped off the keys to me that night. Apparently, Sabine thought that it was less intrusive to return the keys through her brother rather than get up at 4a.m. I could easily see her point, but it worried me a bit that her enthusiasm for work had markedly worn off given her situation with the police detective.
    “But why? How did this happen all of a sudden?” I said, trying not to trot out my favorite conspiracy theory. Land was not all that fond of my idea that Ryan Pohler was behind the scheme.
    “Who knows? No one just announces that they’re going to start passing fake money. They had to have had the plates, special paper and a large set-up, and then they started passing bills.” Land looked through the refrigerator as he talked, trying to find something to eat. He would have to be a better detective than me for that to happen. The refrigerator was almost bare.
    “But just as the new truck opens and only in that location,” I said for the second time in this conversation. Danvers had polled his peers, but no other cases of counterfeiting were ongoing in Capital City. That meant that our truck was being exclusively targeted to pass the money. I found this more than a little hard to take as coincidence. It felt like personal malice.
    On the bright side, the highlighters had arrived and arrangements were being made so that I could work at Taco Inferno for a few days to try to learn more about the situation with the counterfeit bills. While Land wasn’t thrilled with the set-up, Sabine was going to take over the truck for two or three days by herself until I got to the bottom of this. I had more faith in her than Land did, which was a fairly low bar to hurdle.
    Land gave me a long goodnight kiss, since I still had to get up at four to be at Dogs on the Roll before my shift at the other truck. It was going to be a long day, and Land’s affection made me feel better about it.
    ***
    The next day started early, and I was at the truck first before Sabine arrived. She showed up around 5:30, which was earlier than Carter had usually shown up. However, today she didn’t look like herself. She had dark bags under her eyes and a sullen expression. I figured that this had something to do with Detective Danvers, but I didn’t want to meddle. Honestly, I did want to meddle, but given that she was running the truck for me, I chose not to. I couldn’t interfere and then ask for help.
    The shift went quickly, and it was nine before I knew it. Sabine actually told me the time, and then ushered me out of the truck.