Free [To Die For 01] - A View to Die For (2012) by Richard Houston Page A

giving Fred his massage and looked up at me. “Yeah. He’s okay. He left me a text saying he spent the night at Taylor’s house.”
    “My damn luck,” I said and sat down. “I was hoping you would give us a ride to Sedalia.”
    She sort of tilted her head when she looked at me. Then she must have seen why I was upset. “Oh. You thought we’d have to take the Tempo. Kevin can be considerate you know. They came back to get Taylor’s truck and left my Jeep.”

    Twenty minutes later, we were stuck in a traffic jam. At first she hesitated on taking Fred, but relented after he laid down in front of her and given her his sad puppy look. “I haven’t seen traffic like this since they redid I-25,” I said.
    “It’s either an accident, or they must be blasting today. I’ll be so glad when they finish with the road work. It seems like it’s been going… What the hell!” She stopped in mid-sentence when we saw the roadblock up ahead and a sign that read ‘Drug Check’.
    We were waved on when we approached the checkpoint. We must not have fit the profile of world class drug smugglers. Either that or my fierce guard dog scared them off when he started barking at the drug sniffing German Shepherd one of the cops had tethered to a leash.
    It was past noon when we finally go to the rental lot. Having skipped breakfast, I was famished. I could see mine and Fred’s favorite fast-food restaurant across the street. I swear he knew that those golden arches meant lunch; he barked in their direction when I let him out of the Jeep. “Are you hungry, Meg? How about some lunch first? I can get the rental anytime. I’ll buy.”
    “Can I have a rain check? I’m meeting an old friend, and we’re going over to Big Lots and then check out the clothes at Goody’s. You know - girl stuff.” She didn’t wait for me to answer and took off going east on Broadway.
    “Now, I wonder why your Aunt lied to us, Freddie?” I asked. I didn’t need the eyesight of a canine to see Penny’s a block down the street in the other direction. McDonalds would have to wait. Fred wouldn’t pass as a seeing-eye dog, so I needed a vehicle before I bought us lunch.
    The rental agent had no recollection of the thirty-five dollars a day he had quoted me. Maybe he had changed his mind because of Fred. But once I agreed to pay a non-refundable pet deposit and accept an ‘older’ car, his Alzheimer’s vanished, and Fred and I were headed for lunch in a car that would have made Kevin proud. But at least the air conditioner worked.
    As it turned out, we didn’t need the air once we left the rental lot. A storm front had come in while we were negotiating with the rental agent, and the temperature had dropped considerably. I drove across the street to McDonald’s and parked under a giant-oak tree, then let Fred out to water it. That’s when I realized I needed to go as well. After putting Fred back into the car with all the windows down, I headed into McDonald’s and straight to the men’s room. I figured it was better than reliving myself at the oak tree, considering someone might object.
    I was on my way back to the car with a bag of McDoubles when I passed by a large screen television and happened to catch the tail end of the newscast. I froze in place. The announcer was talking about the recent drug busts around Lake of the Ozarks. A film crew out of Kansas City was reporting on the drug check Meg and I had seen earlier. I sat down at the nearest table to watch.
    “If you ask me,” said the old man next to me, “it’s the Mexicans.”
    “What did they find?” I asked, regretting it almost before the words were out of my mouth. Experience dictated one should never get started in a conversation with old men unless one had nothing but time on his hands.
    “Found a whole bunch of prescription drugs hidden in the door panels of a truck. I done seen this special on CNN where they are smuggling counterfeit drugs now because it’s more profitable