Free Matryoshka Blues (The Average Joe Mysteries Book 1) by Shawn Harper Page A

galactically stupid question is that to ask? Of course I want to pass out first! It’s a stupid box, and it’s not going anywhere. But since what I want doesn’t matter, I fish Sandecker’s key out of my pocket and try it in the lock.
    It’s a perfect fit. I hear Tully over in the driver’s seat rattle off a string of curse words, questioning the legal and moral validity of Sandecker’s parentage.
    Inside Sandeecker’s cheap box is a puzzle box, roughly the size of a book. It feels like it weighs about eight or nine pounds, including contents. The variously-colored wood pieces are in alternating herringbone patterns, the small sections doing enough zigzagging to give me vertigo if I stare at it too long.
    “He had it the whole time.”
    Tully’s not asking. She’s not even really talking to me. I just happen to be within earshot.
    “Maybe,” I say.
    I’m also not really talking to her. If I stopped to think about it, I’d more than likely come to the conclusion that Tully and I have turned into my parents—minus the passive-aggressiveness and fondness for Wild Turkey.
    I’ll let you decide which parent fits which descriptor. Here’s a hint: you’re right either way.
    Anyway, I’m not convinced Sandecker had the box this whole time. I mean, it makes no sense. Why go through all the trouble? It’s possible, I suppose, but I can’t see why it’d be necessary to send strangers off on a wild goose chase when you’ve already got whatever it is you sent them to get—even if you are hoping to keep that knowledge hidden from whoever.
    Fuck. I mean whomever . Stupid English language.
    Whatever the answer, this explains something from earlier. Tully said that Turnbill had received an email about a new player, and it seemed at the time that Sandecker was a fool to not follow up on it himself. Now I realize why: there was no reason for him to. If he knew all along that the exchange was a trick, then someone else sticking their nose into it was no skin off his own. Why would he care? The more players gathered there, the fewer eyes looking elsewhere.
    It fits with my belief that Sandecker used me as a distraction. He snagged the box sometime after leaving my home, and kept it in his hidey-hole until he needed to show it to someone. Pretty sure getting beaten and shot wasn’t part of his plan, but death isn’t usually something people pencil into their daily schedules between Dentist Appointment and Pick Up Latest Brooks Brothers catalog .
    Tully studies the box in my lap. “Can you open it?”
    “Not yet,” I tell her.
    It’s a puzzle box, so pieces slide, twist, and pop open to reveal the hidden compartment inside. There’s no key to it, which is sort of the point. The easiest ones have two or three steps, but more complex ones can have upwards of a dozen or more.
    Normally I’m pretty good with puzzles, when my legs and brain aren’t screaming at me in tandem, but now’s not the time.
    Still, I fiddle with it anyway, because there’s not much else to do while Tully’s driving. I’m sure as shit not going to ask her to turn on the radio. I know her taste in music, and I’m better off in silence.
    “We have other problems,” I remind her. “Did you find Turnbill?”
    Tully reaches into the back seat, her tits brushing my arm. I’m still getting used to those, even after all these years. Take it from me—I don’t care how progressive you are in your thinking and tolerances, knowing those are on someone you’ve seen naked in a gym class locker room is just fucking weird .
    She hands me her purse and has me pull out her cell phone before walking me through the complicated steps of bringing up an email. Because apparently I’m a technological troglodyte who can’t be trusted with the miracle of fire, let alone the complex organism that is a goddamn cell phone.
    “Loretta Turnbill chartered a private jet supposedly bound for Costa Rica,” she tells me. “Plane lands in two hours, and goes