Free Escape Route (Murder Off-Screen Book 1) by GA VanDruff Page B

seriously. You’re telling me there’s not one can—”
    “Get.” Pronounced “git” in this circumstance.
    “Come on, Idjit.” Ed and I headed for the truck.
    If Ed, who never lifted a finger for the slight duration of our marriage, had let my bike alone, I could have easily backed right over it. Maybe next time.
    “Where have you been?” Ed almost slammed the door, but thought better of it with Uncle Frank still in pummeling distance. “Don’t ever let me alone with him again.”
    “Want to earn another thousand?”
    He buckled his seatbelt and cleared his throat. “Well—duh.”
    Underneath it all—way, way down—Ed is a good sort, in a fourteen-year-old-boy kind of way. Cute, fun to be with in short spates, but not reliable. To use Ed’s word—reliable? Duh. But you’ve got to work with what you’ve got, and what I “got” was Ed and a truck.
    “Listen up. I’m trying to find a yellow Lab.”
    Ed gave me the blank stare. “Jaqie. This is Oakley Beach. We have more yellow Labs than sand.”
    I started over. “A particular yellow Lab. Two very bad men are going to kill it, and I’ve got to find it before they do. I mean, they already have the dog, but they can’t get to him because ... their car is missing. I’m pretty sure. That’s what took me so long to get to Dell’s.”
    The silence from the passenger’s side of the truck was physically painful. Ed putting pieces together wasn’t easy to watch. I paddled the steering wheel with my thumbs as I drove and waited. Then, finally, thankfully, “ You stole that car you called me about!” He threw his head back and it bounced forward off the head rest. “Jaqie Shanahan, goody two-shoes, took the keys and stole a car.” The hooting and knee slapping continued through two stop signs.
    “Anyway. I didn’t steal the car. I moved the car. Now, they have to stay in town another night.” I stopped at the third and last stop sign in Oakley Beach. “You’ve got to help me find that dog.”
    “Well, sure, Jaqs.” He cleared his throat again and wiped the palms of his hands on his jeans. “And you don’t have to go paying me a thousand dollars. You know I love Labs. Who doesn’t?”
    I waited for the thinking process to grind through again while I parked in front of Bub’s.
    “Hey,” Ed said, finally, “is this about that Cuthbart dog?”
    I nodded. “That’s why I want you to take the money, Ed. It’ll be kind of like the reward money Cuthbart would have paid if the hunt was for real. Which it isn’t. Besides, I’m keeping that dog, so you’ll be earning my reward money, instead.”
    Ed unbuckled the seatbelt and leaned forward until his forehead rested on the dash. “Mmm-hmm-um?”
    “What? Ed, sit up. You’re talking to the floor.”
    He sat up. “Jaqs, since Hollywood and everything ... I mean since your movie ... are you rich?”
    “Yes, Ed. I’m rich.” Sort of true. In Oakley Beach, if you didn’t live in your pap’s camper in the driveway, you were rich. In Hollywood, I was a two-on-a-scale-of-infinity rich, which meant I could afford the camper, but not the driveway. “So, are you in?”
    “What do these guys look like? Say,” Ed turned to me with an expression I’d never seen, “they didn’t try to hurt you?”
    “No, no. They don’t know I know. I’m invisible.”
    “Okay, then, but how will I recognize them?”
    “Abbott and Costello.”
    “Who?”
    “Exactly.”
    “What?”
    “Who’s on first?”
    “What? Jaqs, what are you talking about? They play baseball?”
    I held up my hand. “Never mind. Remember Mr. Nederlander?”
    “Ninth-grade science. He flunked me.”
    “Remember he was real thin and wore ...” I waited for him to create the picture in his mind.
    “Those jackets with stupid patches on the elbows!” He grinned like he’d won the car on The Price Is Right .
    “And Mrs. Maloney?”
    He stuck his finger under his nose. “Mustache.” Then he circled his arms in front of his