Read Online Just Add Trouble (Hetta Coffey Mystery Series (Book 3)) by Jinx Schwartz - Free Book Online Page A

Chino’s nickname, since his ancestors came over on the galleon they’re looking for. Nao del Chino . Get it?”
    “Very clever. Now about Granny Yee, where does she live?”
    “A tiny place on the Sea of Cortez. A fishing village named...hold one.”
    “Don’t believe I know it.”
    I heard the rattle of paper. “Ha. Ha. It’s called, Agua Fria.”
    Yikes!
    “Uh, does granny drive a Hemi muscle truck, by any chance?”
    Jenks walked by, raised my drink in the air and pointed at the bow, where we’d sit in the late afternoon sun and watch the mountains turn red. He was soon out of hearing distance.
    Jan sounded justifiably perplexed. “Muscle truck? What on earth are you talking about, Hetta?”
    “We pulled into Agua Fria briefly, but there were a few mean-eyed dudes with souped-up pangas about, and you know what I think about them after our little Mag Bay catastrophe. We also saw several fancy-assed trucks and Jeeps, lifted three feet off the ground. Maybe the road is out and that’s the only way these folks can get in and out, but I smell a drug rat.” I left out a possible murder on the beach, for obvious reasons.
    “Oh, dear. I hope she’s all right. Now I don’t know what to tell Chino. He’s anxious to make wedding plans, but not without Granny Yee’s consent.”
    A picture flashed in my mind of a vacant-eyed and wan Jan, grossly pregnant, with a toddler on her hip and several others, dressed in rags, hanging onto her tattered skirt hem. She was bent over a fifty-five gallon fire barrel, making tortillas with one hand while Chino, fat and dirty, lounged nearby, chugging beer with his friends. “Tell him you have to visit me. Now!”
    “Why? What’s wrong?”
    “I think I might have cancer.”
    “Oh, no. Does Jenks know? What kind of cancer?”
    “Uh, brain?”
    “Oh, my God. Of course I’ll come. Where do I fly into?”
    “Guaymas. You can fly or take the ferry from Santa Rosalia to Guaymas and I’ll meet you. No word of any of this to anyone except Chino, got that? Not a soul. I haven’t even told Jenks, since the doctors aren’t certain as yet. No reason alarming anyone. Come next week, okay? Jenks is leaving for Kuwait and,” I wailed, “I don’t want to be alone at a time like this.”
    “I’ll be there. And Hetta, be brave.”
    I was whizzing down a fast track to hell and damnation.
    There was no way this whopper would qualify as a small white lie, a prevarication, or a fib. Fibrication, maybe? Nope, this was a doozy of epic proportions, and one Jan might never forgive me for. The voice of reason, before I could whack her away, whispered, “Hetta, why can’t you mind your own business and let Jan make her own mistakes? She never gets in the way of yours.”
    I reached for the phone to fess up, when I realized my head hurt.
    Heck, it could be a brain tumor.

     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    Chapter 7
     
     
    I was popping aspirin when Jenks called down from the bridge, reminded me my drink waited topsides. This brain tumor was already affecting my mental capacities; I never, ever, forget a drink . My poison is a Cuba Libre made with diet Coke, because I figure the diet and lime part cancels the booze-distilled-from-pure-sugar part.
    Handing me my glass he asked, “Everything okay with Jan and Chino?”
    “Yep, they’ve moved aboard the former Tanuki Maru , now dubbed the Research Vessel Nao del Chino .” I explained the historical significance and clever wordplay of the name.
    “When do they start the search for the sunken galleon?”
    “Immediately. They even received partial funding from NUMA, Clive Cussler’s outfit. I remember when NUMA was searching for the Zavala, one of the Republic of Texas Navy fleet that sank, or was mothballed, when we were in our glory.”
    Jenks’s eyes glazed over. A member in good standing of the Daughters of the Republic of Texas, I have a history of proselytizing when it comes to my home state. This time I gave him a break. “Anyhow,