Read Online Aloha, Candy Hearts by Anthony Bidulka - Free Book Online
Authors: Anthony Bidulka
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apparently check the retrieval status of my bag. Along with the claim tag came a second piece of paper.
I unfolded it and frowned.
Suddenly I knew exactly what it was the maniac in the white truck had been after.
DD6AA2AB8
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41
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Chapter 3
Summer Sunday mornings should be for church, brunch with friends, sleeping in, or long walks along the river. Not jangling phones that make it seem as if your skull is home to a New Orleans Dixieland marching band.
My head made just enough of a rotation to catch a glimpse of the call display. Uh-uh. I knew that number. Constable Dudley Do-Right. If Kirsch thought his early bird catches the worm routine was going to work with me, he was sadly mistaken.
I rolled over and ended up with a nice, furry piece of dog ear in my mouth. I couldn’t catch a break. I tossed to the other side of the bed. It had been a rough night. I was feeling overwhelmed and I’d been home less than twelve hours. Everyone wanted a piece of me. Alex. Sereena. Errall. Anthony. Alex. Jared. My mother. Darren Kirsch. Alex. It was Sunday for Saint Francis of Assisi’s sake.
Couldn’t they all leave me alone for just one day?
The phone started ringing again.
I had to get away. I considered jumping the next flight back to DD6AA2AB84
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Anthony Bidulka
paradise. By tonight I could be having a rum-soaked Mai Tai in the glorious pinkness of The Royal Hawaiian hotel and eating Peking Duck at Wo Fat. Instead, I let the dogs out, fed them, showered, grabbed a few things, and was out the door before the Clinique was dry on my face.
I wasn’t heading for the airport, but I did have something just as adventurous in mind. I was going on a treasure hunt. For some reason, Mr. Magoo, a.k.a. Walter Angel, had decided to slip the treasure map he’d been fretting over into my carry-on. I would have thought I’d have noticed him doing so, but the only time I could think of when he’d have had the chance without my knowing was after we’d deplaned and he’d glommed on to me to help him to the arrivals level. That was the when. The more interesting mystery was: Why?
It didn’t take too much skull scratching to figure out that it was the treasure map my friend in the white truck had been after last night.
Right?
Unlike me, White Truck Guy had somehow known that Angel slipped me the map. He followed me, thinking I’d lead him home.
Which I would have if I hadn’t been so intent on mooning over Ethan Ash. Then I chased him. He chased me back. It hadn’t ended up well for either of us. White Truck Guy didn’t get what he wanted. The Mazda was dented and scratched. Both vehicles were covered in gooey foodstuffs. To conclude that White Truck went through all that to get the map was a valid theory.
What I was having more trouble with was Walter Angel’s motive for giving me the map in the first place. Was he so desperate for me to figure out the clues that he’d hoped I’d change my mind if I had the treasure map in hand? Possibly. But a more sinis-ter option had been flitting through my mind ever since I first laid hands on the thing. He’d slipped the map into my carry-on only minutes before he was murdered. Did one have something to do with the other? What was White Truck Guy’s role in all this?
Maybe I was being too suspicious and thinking the worst.
Detectives have a predilection for that sort of thing. The map could be nothing more than a benign hobby. Angel could have been mur-DD6AA2AB8
53
41
-B193
-AD32
-4CDB
-3503D88E1
Aloha, Candy Hearts
dered for a million other reasons. White truck could have been after something else he thought I had that I didn’t.
So that, I told myself, was why I was on the hunt today: to figure out if this treasure map was of any importance at all. It had nothing to do with wanting to avoid the pressures awaiting me in the real world—everything from Anthony and Jared’s wedding to
I unfolded it and frowned.
Suddenly I knew exactly what it was the maniac in the white truck had been after.
DD6AA2AB8
51
41
-B193
-AD32
-4CDB
-3503D88E1
Chapter 3
Summer Sunday mornings should be for church, brunch with friends, sleeping in, or long walks along the river. Not jangling phones that make it seem as if your skull is home to a New Orleans Dixieland marching band.
My head made just enough of a rotation to catch a glimpse of the call display. Uh-uh. I knew that number. Constable Dudley Do-Right. If Kirsch thought his early bird catches the worm routine was going to work with me, he was sadly mistaken.
I rolled over and ended up with a nice, furry piece of dog ear in my mouth. I couldn’t catch a break. I tossed to the other side of the bed. It had been a rough night. I was feeling overwhelmed and I’d been home less than twelve hours. Everyone wanted a piece of me. Alex. Sereena. Errall. Anthony. Alex. Jared. My mother. Darren Kirsch. Alex. It was Sunday for Saint Francis of Assisi’s sake.
Couldn’t they all leave me alone for just one day?
The phone started ringing again.
I had to get away. I considered jumping the next flight back to DD6AA2AB84
52
1
-B193
-AD32
-4CDB
-3503D88E1
Anthony Bidulka
paradise. By tonight I could be having a rum-soaked Mai Tai in the glorious pinkness of The Royal Hawaiian hotel and eating Peking Duck at Wo Fat. Instead, I let the dogs out, fed them, showered, grabbed a few things, and was out the door before the Clinique was dry on my face.
I wasn’t heading for the airport, but I did have something just as adventurous in mind. I was going on a treasure hunt. For some reason, Mr. Magoo, a.k.a. Walter Angel, had decided to slip the treasure map he’d been fretting over into my carry-on. I would have thought I’d have noticed him doing so, but the only time I could think of when he’d have had the chance without my knowing was after we’d deplaned and he’d glommed on to me to help him to the arrivals level. That was the when. The more interesting mystery was: Why?
It didn’t take too much skull scratching to figure out that it was the treasure map my friend in the white truck had been after last night.
Right?
Unlike me, White Truck Guy had somehow known that Angel slipped me the map. He followed me, thinking I’d lead him home.
Which I would have if I hadn’t been so intent on mooning over Ethan Ash. Then I chased him. He chased me back. It hadn’t ended up well for either of us. White Truck Guy didn’t get what he wanted. The Mazda was dented and scratched. Both vehicles were covered in gooey foodstuffs. To conclude that White Truck went through all that to get the map was a valid theory.
What I was having more trouble with was Walter Angel’s motive for giving me the map in the first place. Was he so desperate for me to figure out the clues that he’d hoped I’d change my mind if I had the treasure map in hand? Possibly. But a more sinis-ter option had been flitting through my mind ever since I first laid hands on the thing. He’d slipped the map into my carry-on only minutes before he was murdered. Did one have something to do with the other? What was White Truck Guy’s role in all this?
Maybe I was being too suspicious and thinking the worst.
Detectives have a predilection for that sort of thing. The map could be nothing more than a benign hobby. Angel could have been mur-DD6AA2AB8
53
41
-B193
-AD32
-4CDB
-3503D88E1
Aloha, Candy Hearts
dered for a million other reasons. White truck could have been after something else he thought I had that I didn’t.
So that, I told myself, was why I was on the hunt today: to figure out if this treasure map was of any importance at all. It had nothing to do with wanting to avoid the pressures awaiting me in the real world—everything from Anthony and Jared’s wedding to
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