Blanco County 04 - Guilt Trip by Ben Rehder Read Free Book Online Page B

got serious between the two of you, where would you live?”
    “I haven’t thought that far in advance.”
    “Think she’d want to move out to the ranch, live more than an hour from the nearest decent mall?”
    Marlin could tell from the expression on Colby’s face that his friend now had something new to worry about. “How many people live in Blanco County, Phil?”
    “I don’t know. Little over eight thousand?”
    “Right around there. So we’ve got about four thousand females. How many of them are roughly our age?”
    “Maybe ten percent.”
    “Okay, four hundred. How many of them are single?”
    “Not that many.”
    “Probably ten percent again, right?”
    “Yeah, probably.”
    “Forty women.”
    “You’ve really thought this through, haven’t you?”
    “Why not? I didn’t have much else to do while I was sitting in the church.”
    Phil drained the last of his beer. “Forty women. You’re right, that ain’t many to choose from. Some of them are probably pretty ugly, and I bet the rest wouldn’t find a redneck like you all that appealing.”
    After Phil left, Marlin stepped inside, Geist at his heels, and began to strip off his filthy uniform. He sat in the kitchen in his underwear and ate some cold fried chicken, barely able to keep his eyes open. He put some food out for the dog, then checked his answering machine. There were two messages.
Hey, John, it’s Max Thayer returning your call. The message you left on my voicemail—I think it’s a great idea, and I’ll support you however I can. Give me a call back.
    A beep, then:
Uh, yeah, this is David Pritchard calling. I don’t know if you remember me, but I’m Vance Scofield’s attorney. Anyway, I understand you’re leading the search, and there’s something I think you need to know. I’ll give you all the details when we talk, but here’s the short version. I’m the president of the Rotary Club in Blanco, and we’re raffling off a new Corvette. Each ticket is a hundred dollars and… well, I guess you don’t need to know all that. Anyway, Vance is the treasurer, and he had the Corvette stored in a metal barn on his property. So I went over to his place just to check on things. Here’s the problem. The Corvette is gone…and, uh…Vance was the only one who had the keys.

5
     
    JUST BEFORE EIGHT o’clock on Tuesday morning, a seventy-year-old man named J.D. Evans was clerking at the Exxon outside Minneola, Florida, when a couple of youngsters came into the store. Both were about twenty, maybe twenty-one, the boy tall and skinny and pale, the girl looking like a pin-up with long blonde hair.
    “Morning,” J.D. said, holding his fifth cup of coffee, just one more hour to go on his all-night shift.
    The boy nodded and headed down the candy aisle toward the cooler in back. The girl skedaddled right to the bathroom, like most of the women do, but not before J.D. got an eyeful. She was a sight, all right. A real looker. Enough to make J. D. remember one or two just like her, back when he’d sown a few wild oats of his own.
    J.D. went back to the newspaper on the counter.
    “You got any Snapple?” The boy was calling out from the back of the store.
    “Any what?” J.D. hollered back, squinting.
    “Snapple.” The kid shrugged, maybe a little embarrassed. “It’s what she drinks,” he explained.
    J. D. said, “If we do, you’re in the right spot.”
    The boy looked again. “Don’t see any.”
    “Guess we’re all out.”
    That seemed to satisfy the kid. He turned back to the cooler, and J.D. went back to his sports page, keeping tabs on the Braves.
    He heard the bathroom door swing open, and a minute or two later both of the youngsters were at the counter. Now the girl was front and center, busting out of a low-cut top, her shorts riding low enough to give J.D. a heart murmur if he wasn’t careful. He tried not to stare.
    The boy plopped a liter of Mountain Dew and a bag of Cheetos on the counter, followed by a package of