JUSTICE Is SERVED (Food Truck 7) by Chloe Kendrick Page A

down in the chairs opposite me and didn’t say a word.
    I wasn’t sure what the appropriate response was in this situation. I didn’t want to be a party of invading Land’s privacy, but at the same time, I was currently only sitting in a chair and saying nothing while his family watched me.
    In that situation, I did the only thing I could do. I stood up and began tidying the mess that they’d made. Of course, it would never fool Land into thinking that someone had been through his things, but his apartment wouldn’t appear to be an outright disaster either.
    I began stuffing pillows back into their covers. I put photographs back on the shelves. I thought about putting the images of Sabine and his grandmother backwards, but that maneuver wouldn’t solve anything. Having tidied the living room, I did the same for the kitchen and the bedroom.
    After pulling up the covers and trying to make some military corners on the bed, I picked up a few things off the floor. I was trying not to read them, but one caught my eye. It was a wedding invitation, specifically an invitation to Gina and Trent’s wedding. I stood there, dumbstruck. I hadn’t received a wedding invitation to my friend’s wedding, mainly because she knew that I was serving as the caterer and had no choice. However, for some reason, Land had received an invitation to the wedding.
    The most plausible inference here is that Land had a connection to the wedding couple that none of them had share with me. I was puzzled by this. We’d gone out to dinner a few times. How could they have missed the implication that he would be with me at the food truck? It seemed more likely that Trent knew Land, since Gina had met him early on and would have likely mentioned it to me when we met for a lunch or dinner.
    This deserved an answer, so I took the embossed paper out of the bedroom and back to the living room where both women still sat.
    “Do either of you know if Land knows a Trent Taylor?” I asked as I sat down opposite them. I threw the invitation on the table. Sabine picked it up immediately and skimmed through the text.
    “The name doesn’t ring a bell with me,” she said, “but you know Land. He doesn’t talk much about these things.”
    “Is this important?” Maria asked.
    “It could be. It may be a tie-in between Land and the victim. I didn’t think he knew the bridal couple, but apparently he knew them well enough to get an invitation on his own. I’m trying to learn what that connection is.”
    Before I could speak again, Maria took the invitation and strode quickly to the kitchen. Before I could catch her, I heard the whir of the garbage disposal. She turned around and looked at me. “Now there is one thing less to tie him to that crime.”
    I stood there with my mouth hanging open. “That might have been something that we could use to get him off. Now it’s gone,” I protested. Land would never have condoned the destruction of potential evidence, and now the three of us were possibly guilty of obstruction. I was shocked by their behavior.
    “If those people are your friends, then they’ll tell you why he was invited. They don’t need a piece of paper to prove that,” the older woman said. “The police are not dumb.”
    I had to admit that she had a point, but I was concerned. I was going to be hampered if I helped these women look for clues. If I found anything, they would be destroyed immediately if Maria saw them to be a threat. I could never determine if a clue was beneficial or not in fifteen seconds or less. I needed time to think about it, but if Maria was around, I wouldn’t be able to get the time I needed to ruminate on it.
    She did have a point. I could easily ask Gina why Land received an invitation – when I got a ride home.
    Feeling as if they’d been successful, the two women plied me with other papers that they’d found in Land’s apartment. For the most part, I saw no value in them. I tried not to read much into the