MURDER IN THE SPOTLIGHT (Food Truck Mysteries Book 2) Read Online Free PDF

idea how you’ll pay for it?”
    I shrugged. “I just assumed that it was a cliché meant to scare us. I didn’t really think that anything worse than urine on the kitchenware would happen.”
    “Yeah, it appears that someone, or some group of people, is pretty disgruntled on the show. The producers asked me to look into it.”
    “A homicide detective?” Land asked. “Isn’t that a little extreme?”
    “It’s a high profile case, and the captain wanted a detective on the case who might have an in with the cast or crew.” Danvers looked around to see if anyone was around. Since he’d already spoken, it seemed a little late for that.
    “So you mean us?” I said. Danvers was going to use our food truck as a form of bait, apparently, to get a nasty poison pen writer to come out in the open. I didn’t like the idea of jeopardizing our place in the contest to help the police. Let them pick another food truck, and just let us sail on to victory.
    “The captain mentioned you by name, so yeah.” Danvers tried to give me a smile, but I wasn’t having any of it. His flirting typically came when he wanted me to help him.
    “Great. So what do you want to do? Review every piece of film that we’re in? Ask if we’ve seen anything unusual?”
    Danvers shook his head. “No, nothing like that. For now, I’m just hoping that you pass on anything—impressions you have or anything you hear or see on the set. If it comes to it, I might want to be on the truck for an episode or two.”
    I furrowed my brows and looked hard at him. “Are you sure that you’re not just doing this to get on television? You’re starting to sound like Betty.”
    “Betty was an aspiring celebrity?” Danvers asked as he pulled out his notebook. When the notebook came out, it was officially police business.
    I told him of several of the encounters with Betty and her general behavior on set. He took some notes as I talked. In summarizing what she’d done, the events seemed minor compared to what Danvers was suggesting. I doubted that she would jeopardize being on the episodes just to get back at the other contestants. It seemed like overkill, even for her.
    In return, Danvers listed the other incidents to date. Most of them were harmless. Grease left on a burner that ignited when the stove was turned on. While if it had been done on a larger scale, it might have been dangerous; since only a few tablespoons of grease had been used, it was just enough to cause consternation. All the spoons had been removed from Jerry’s truck. The change had been removed from another truck, which made for a sticky time until the truck had moved to charging a flat rate for their food.
    The events seemed more like the work of a gremlin than a serious threat to the program. None of them were earthshattering or detrimental to the challenges. They were mainly nuisances that hurt the spirit and will power of the individual teams. I wondered what the purpose of the pranks was if not to give the person behind them a leg up in the competition.
    We closed up the truck for the afternoon. I noticed that despite all of Danvers’ talk about helping out on the food truck, he made no effort to help us with the day’s cleanup. We finished the cleanup and put the truck away for the day.

Chapter 4
     
    The next challenge wasn’t until Friday, so I had three days to get my blood pressure back to normal. The daily routine was easy for me, and I tried not to think of what Danvers had said about the pranks. The thought of being caught up in someone’s sophomoric antics didn’t make me feel good about the competition or myself.
    Business at our normal location had picked up. I counted about 50 new patrons to the truck. They asked about the contest, who was winning and about Johnny Ruck. I could answer the last question, but we were strictly forbidden from talking about the proceedings on the set or during each challenge. Nothing would kill a reality show like someone telling the