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

wheels-up thirty seconds later. The reservation says there will be three passengers.”
    Sandecker’s admin assistant isn’t wasting any time. I wonder what got her knickers in a bocker. I also wonder who her mysterious traveling companions are. Was Sandecker supposed to be one of them? If not, did he know who they were? Were he and Turnbill in this together with them?
    During our meeting he flat-out told us no one knew about the box except him, Tully, myself, and Turnbill. Now there are two others in the picture. Do they know Turnbill doesn’t have the box? If so, will they turn on each other because of it?
    On the other hand, if Turnbill was forced to go all Benedict Arnold on Sandecker, then maybe these new people are her—what? Handlers? Kidnappers? Tough call there, so let’s go with chaperones for now. Having her reserve the plane would have been a nice touch, as it makes her look complicit.
    I’m reading the email on Tully’s wondrous invention of near-alien design, but I ask anyway. “Do you know where the plane’s leaving from?”
    She looks mildly insulted. “Do you look like a gorilla used you as a blow-up doll and wiped its dick on your face?”
    I assume stupid shit like that always means yes. So should you.
    “How far out?” I ask.
    “Private airstrip, fifteen minutes from here.” She tells me the address when I can’t immediately find it in the dense fucking text of the email. I swear, part of it looks like a recipe for tortilla soup.
    Or maybe I want it to because I’m starving, and tortilla soup sounds really good right now. Well, that and Thin Mints.
    “That puts it thirty-five minutes from my house,” I say. “Plenty of time.”
    Tully stares at me, completely ignoring the road. “Is that information relevant?”
    “Do you want to stop her and her merry band of murderers?”
    “Do you look like a walrus dry-humped—”
    “Just drive the car.”
    If we’re going to confront Turnbill and her chaperones, then we’ll need supplies. And I know precisely where to get them.
    Tully smiles, but I know she’s beyond pissed. However you choose to look at it, she got played, which means her company got played, and that company is the most important thing in her life, after this car and yours truly. In that order, too. She loves this car way more than she loves me. I can’t blame her, either. It’s a sweet fucking ride.
    Regardless of why or by whom, somebody managed to pull a fast one. The proof of that is sitting in my lap. Multiple somebodies and multiple fast ones, too, if the cookies crumbled the way I think they did. And with Tully and me, that’s not an easy thing to do. So yeah, it stings the pride just a skosh.
    “Can you speed things up?” I ask. “You’re driving like your Gam-Gam Dottie after the Lynyrd Skynyrd concert.”
    She punches me in the arm. It’d hurt if I had any feeling left in it. “Asshole. You said you’d never bring that up.”
    I laugh. “What? I thought her BJ offer was a good call. How was she supposed to know the cop was married?”
    And yes, that story is as awesome as it sounds. Maybe you’ll hear about it one of these days. Trust me, Dottie was a firecracker back then. God I loved that woman.
    Tully stomps on the gas and my seat tries to swallow me whole, but at least we’re going faster now. I’m replaying events, working the angles. I’m good at guessing things, but there’s only so much I can do when I enter the scene this late. I could be completely off-base in my assumptions, but I don’t think so. I won’t know for sure until I get some answers, and to do that, I need to see a woman about a homicide.
    We reach my house in record time, and I hop out while Tully cases the neighborhood. Cops will be looking for me soon, plus God knows who else, so it helps to have someone checking things out for you.
    The house is dark, just as I left it, and the gym bag I need is in the window seat in the living room. Most of what I’m looking for is in