I did my best to describe her without being overly catty and not expressing my own internal fears that she was far prettier than me. I did mention her low-cut dress and heels and that she was older than me.
I heard Land take a deep breath, and I wasn’t sure what his answer would hold. “First, this woman is not my wife. Never has been, never will be. I’d never lie about something like that to you. You mean too much to me. That said, I’m still going to need to talk to you about this matter. I don’t want to do this on the phone. I’ll be there in 20.”
He hung up before I could speak, and I wasn’t sure what to feel. On one hand, she wasn’t his wife, so none of the visions that had flashed through my head of women objecting at my wedding would come true. Perhaps at some level, I couldn’t believe the good luck I’d had since I’d inherited the first food truck. I ran a successful business. I had a wonderful fiancé. I had plans for a bigger operation. Yet, I couldn’t forget that six months before I’d inherited that first truck, I’d been sitting on my parents’ sofa, unable to get a job. That fear and insecurity stayed with me, and I think at some level that it drove my ambitions to do more and have more. I’d far surpassed some of my fellow students who were still stuck in the same low-paying entry-level jobs that they’d started with.
So while I knew that Land was good with his word, I was concerned. The matter was grave enough that Land was coming in six hours early to work. That didn’t bode well. It also worried me that this woman was okay with announcing that she’d been married to Land, which was provably false. Was she delusional, or was she just wanting to get our attention?
True to his word, Land was there in less than 20 minutes. He came into the food truck, took me in his arms and kissed me deeply. I needed that reassurance, though Sabine was in the background making noises during the kiss.
“Are you okay?” he asked, staring down into my eyes. He locked my gaze, and I worried. Normally he was far more laid back than this. I could feel the tension in his neck and shoulders. He was worried. This felt serious.
“I’ll be better when I know what’s going on,” I replied honestly. “A woman says she’s your wife, and you say that she’s not. Which is it?”
He drew another deep breath. I was beginning to worry more. “She’s not my wife. I told you that she wasn’t.”
“But…?” I asked, sensing a larger story here.
“But we do have a past. It’s a past mission that I went on, which is why I didn’t want to talk about it on the phone. If she’s back in town, I thought that perhaps my phone could be bugged. So an in-person talk seemed like a better choice.
“When I was in the Army, I went on an undercover mission. I had to pretend to be married to a woman. All of the men in the organization we were infiltrating were married with kids. It was supposed to feel like a family organization, but in fact, it gave the group a means of retaliation. Do what we say, or your loved ones faced danger.”
I could tell already that I was not going to like this story. Any group that went after women and children for whatever things the husband or father did was not a group that I’d want to be a part of.
“Her name was Carona. She was also Basque, and she was also a corporal in the Army. She liked me and volunteered to play the part of my wife. I hated it, but I think she liked playing the role—and making me uncomfortable in the process. I think she enjoyed that part. If she couldn’t make me like her, then she could have her revenge by making me squirm. She did that as often as she could.”
I rolled my eyes. I knew women like this. If they couldn’t get what they wanted, then they resorted to petty means of revenge. I never saw the purpose of lashing out at others if you didn’t get your way. Granted, I hadn’t had a lot of experience with relationships before Land, but I’d always been practical about any dealings with people.
“We had to live in the same house for a long period of time—a few months. It felt like forever with her. I honestly had to lock the door to my bedroom in the last month. Finally, we brought down the group, and we parted ways. She wanted to continue living there, with me, but I moved out the first day I could. She was pissed and told me that she’d tell the woman I loved that I had been married before. So I’m guessing this is her come back to do that.” I was shocked that Land was being this open with me. Usually, I felt like I had to pull teeth to learn things about his past. He was always open about emotions and events in the present, but I had learned from experience that he felt the past should be left in its obscurity.
This was the sort of story I had expected from him regarding his earlier life. He and Danvers made comments at times about cases they’d worked on and investigations they’d undertaken. So I knew that he’d had a certain amount of danger in his life. I had always wondered how he’d ended up with the rather mundane work of chef on a food truck, but he’d always told me that the type of work he’d done before was a younger man’s game. He had expressed on numerous occasions that he wanted a solid, stable life. I wasn’t sure that my penchant for stumbling over corpses was the closest thing to that dream.
I nodded though in response to what he’d told me. “That would explain why Sabine had never heard of her. You were in the Army, and she was in school.”
“Yeah, I was very careful not to let my assignment spill over into my real family. I wouldn’t have done the assignment, if I thought for a second that they would be in danger.” Land gave me a melancholy smile. I knew that he loved his family, even though their old-country ways got on his nerves at times.
“So what now?” I asked. The “ex-wife” of Land’s had not left any information on how to get in touch with her. She could be anywhere in Capital City, or anywhere on the run. It was impossible for us to know. I couldn’t believe that she’d come all this way just to tell me once that she’d been married to Land and leave. It wasn’t likely to be very effective in breaking us up or even making us have an argument.
He wrapped his arms around me. “You certainly seem to be taking this well,” he noted.
I returned the hug gladly. “I knew it was something like that. You would have told me if you’d had a real wife at some point. Life is not a soap opera.” Even as I said the words, I could think of two or three soaps I’d known of that had just such a plotline as our lives. Maybe not the best metaphor around. They all ended with the weddings being called off, which stuck in my mind for some reason.
“I’m going to talk to Danvers first. Since he’s with the police department, he will still have some contacts to the military. Then from there, I’ll decide what’s next.”
“Why would she come back now?” I asked, now becoming suspicious of the timing. While I wasn’t the type who expected all parts of the wedding to be about me, I was also proprietary enough to question someone’s bad intentions.
“I can think of three reasons,” Land said with confidence. I wasn’t a fan of this game, because normally Land had developed about six or seven motives for any act, some of which he kept from me until the last minute. However, I was thinking that I could come up with more than he could at this point.
“Name them all,” I said, feeling like I wanted to hear anything that would relieve my mind of the worry that she wanted him back. I wanted to hear other motives for her actions.
“She might be in trouble. The last time I heard, she was still working for the same military organization, and she might have been in the area and needed some assistance. I’m out of the business, so I would be someone less likely to be involved or to want to hurt her. She probably thinks she could trust me.”
“But you first?” I had thought of this reason, but it didn’t make sense. There had to be other people that she could have gone to for help. Someone who she’d seen in the last dozen years.
He smiled. “I would be the least likely person for her to go to, so no one would look for her here. It’s possible.”
“So what’s the next reason?” I asked, waiting to hear what he had come up with.
“
The second reason could easily be that someone or some group wants to get me involved in that type of work again—or might be wanting to get revenge on me for the work I did.”
I looked at him. “Isn’t that really two entirely different reasons? I mean, one of them is flattering, the other one is deadly. They’re not exactly compatible goals.”
He gave me a kiss on the nose. “I guess that’s three then. See no worries.”
I looked up at him. “What about the one where she’s here to stop the wedding? The one where she wants you back?”
Land laughed. “Seriously, a woman from that long ago thinks she’s going to show up and tear me away from the person I’ve been interested in for three years?”
I flushed slightly. Three years had been around the time we’d met rather than when we’d started dating. It was a touching revelation, and one that he’d not made before. I mentally shook off the emotion for a moment. I wondered if he’d done that on purpose to try to sidetrack me from finding out more about this woman.
My cheeks hadn’t even lost their flush when I saw Detective Jax Danvers striding across Government Square. The precinct he worked out of was just across the square from our truck, but in reality, he didn’t stop by unless he wanted something and when he did stop by, he waited until later in the shift so that the crowds had died down. He was in a hurry and moving in this direction. I had a feeling that Land was not going to have to go find him to talk about this situation.
Danvers approached us and looked straight at me. “Aren’t you supposed to be working?” he asked in what seemed a blatant attempt to get me out of a conversation that hadn’t even begun yet.
I pointed to the truck where Sabine was serving drinks. Since Danvers and Sabine had broken up a few months ago, they never talked and they avoided each other at all costs. Sabine glared at him from a distance, and I felt vindicated in my response to Danvers. He wouldn’t rush me back to the truck too quickly.
“I’m guessing you’re here about Carona Landaverde?” Land asked, implying to Danvers that I already knew all about the matter.
Danvers raised an eyebrow at Land, as if questioning that decision. Land had the eyebrow raises down to an art form, which I could interpret easily. I had no such luck in reading Danvers’ expressions. “Yeah, she called this morning on my cell. I must have been in the shower or at the gym when she called. How did you know already?”
“She stopped by the food truck looking for Land and talked to me instead. She didn’t leave any contact information,” I offered, showing that I was a part of this operation as well.
Danvers actually snickered. I was feeling somewhat perturbed, and the good mood from earlier was already starting to subside. Though I’d only spoke with her for a few minutes, I had started to develop a strong dislike for the woman. She was definitely one of those high-maintenance women that I had assumed Land didn’t like, but now that I was learning that he’d put up with this woman’s antics, I had to question whether or not he truly liked low-maintenance women.
Land ignored him and said, “If she hasn’t told us where to find her, then she has to be on some sort of assignment. Can you ask around and see if you can learn any information on what she could be working on? I’m having a hard time believing that there’s some international espionage operation going on in Capital City, but I’ll sniff around on that side. What exactly did she say on the message? Did she tell you where we could find her?”
Danvers shook his head. “All she did was tell me that she was in danger and needed our help as soon as we could contact her.”
I rolled my eyes at the overly dramatic message. “Why wouldn’t she say where she was? She didn’t even tell me her phone number.”
Danvers jumped in before Land could politely explain what was going on. “If she’s on a mission, and all of this seems to point to that, then the last thing she’d want to do would be to announce who she is and what she’s doing. You’ll have to remember that our phones might be bugged.” Land had said the same thing, which made me wonder if the listening had extended to my phone as well.
I wondered about that. She’d come up to me in the middle of a square surrounded by state and local government buildings and announced that she was the wife of my future husband and needed him to contact her. That was pretty open as things went. Except for a full-page ad in the Clarion, she had let the city know.
“Play the message for me,” Land told Danvers. He wasn’t looking at me at all, but it was only because he was concentrating on what was being said.
The message was almost word for word what Danvers had related to us. It was short and generic.
Land held his hand out. “Let me see the phone.”
Danvers made a face that I couldn’t interpret. When on a case, Land oftentimes gave orders that made me believe that Danvers had been the underling when they worked together in the Army. He handed over the phone to Land, who started looking at the message information.
I looked over his shoulder and the first thing that hit me was that the phone number was “0123456789.” I started dividing up the numbers and realized that no area code started with a zero. That was reserved for international calls. Was that an international phone she used, or was she disguising the number somehow? I knew that companies used devices to give another number so that it couldn’t be traced back to the real phone number.
Land didn’t leave my questions unanswered. “It looks like the number was spoofed. Given that the message tells us nothing, I think that the clue is hidden in the phone number.”
Danvers turned to look at me. “In case you didn’t know, Carona loved puzzles. She always left her messages in a code of some sort that could be figured out with some brain power. It was the way she passed information along. You got pretty good with figuring out the messages, didn’t you, Land?” The last sentence was a taunt to me; reminding me that Land had been “married” to this woman and been somewhat simpatico with her.
“This is like The 39 Steps,” I said, a little too loudly. People turned to look at me, and Sabine shot our small group another nasty look. The line was backing up, and I knew that I would have to rejoin her shortly.
“It’s not a stupid play,” Danvers said in a softer voice. “This is real, and it could be very dangerous. You need to take this seriously. Very seriously.”
Land was still looking at the phone, and didn’t respond. So I guessed I was being chastised by both of them. I really wanted to tell them that it had been a movie and a book prior to being a play, but the point seemed small at this time of morning. The plot developed from a few words from a dying man into a full-blown plot of murder.
Land finally handed the phone back. “The time was 4:56 this morning. That can’t be coincidence.”
Danvers looked at me. “Thoughts?”
I shook my head. Actually I had plenty of thoughts, but I wasn’t going to share them at the moment. If they wanted me to take this seriously, I would. I’d seriously beat them to finding her.
“Land, let me know what you find out about any operations here in the city. I’ll have men out looking for Carona, and I’ll make some calls to find out what’s going on.”
Without asking for a response, he turned on his heels and left. I rolled my eyes and started back to the truck. Land ran a few steps to catch up to me and looked me in the eye. “That’s it from you? No ideas on how to find Carona? What’s up?”
I shook my head. “I don’t take this seriously enough, so I’m going back to work to make money for the wedding and honeymoon.” I flashed him a smile. “What are you going to do now?”
He eyed me a minute before clearing his throat. “I’m going to make a few inquiries about anything going on here, and then I’ll try to figure out this number puzzle. I’ll be back at two.” He gave me a slow, soft kiss and pulled away, leaving me wanting more, and almost breaking my resolve. However, the moment was over, and he was quickly walking away and pulling out his phone as he did.
I got back into
the truck. Sabine was waiting for me. “What did Jackass want?” Sabine had taken to calling Jax by that name. It suited him to some degree, and I didn’t want to argue about that. I figured that she’d move on when she was ready. I was not a good resource on relationships, since this was my first serious relationship, and I was on a quest to find his faux ex-wife before he or the police found her.
“There’s some woman who worked with Jax and Land way back when, and she’s back in town and apparently in trouble, or perhaps just causing trouble. So they’re going to try to find her and help her if she needs it. Of course, Jax acted like I couldn’t be of any help.” I had wanted to remind him that my attitude had solved a number of cases that he had been stymied on. It was only my help that allowed his record of solved cases to be so high.
“So what are we going to do?” Sabine’s words burst into my thoughts.
I noticed immediately that Sabine had used the plural pronoun. I knew it wasn’t a mistake on her part. She would be happy to be involved in any activity that allowed her to outshine her former boyfriend. So at least I wouldn’t be alone.
I explained what the two men had discovered and discussed. I read the numbers out loud. “Zero, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine.”
“Ten, eleven, twelve,” she replied. “I’ve been wanting to try that place out,” she added with a smile. To someone outside of our city, her response would have sounded odd.
101112 was a trendy new restaurant in Capital City. I had known that fact immediately since I’d been trying to come up with an appropriate place to hold our reception. That restaurant was entirely out of my price range, but it was the trendiest bistro in the city. Now I had a reason to go there.
Chapter 3
The restaurant was everything that I thought it would be. Don’t get me wrong. I love the food trucks. It’s a unique experience and a fun way to serve food, but in a casual way. We had wanted our wedding to be more casual as well, so 101112 was off the list of restaurants, especially after I called and asked for a price estimate.
FOOD TRUCK MYSTERIES: The Complete Series (14 Books) Page 113