MURDER IN THE SPOTLIGHT (Food Truck Mysteries Book 2) by Chloe Kendrick Page A

slightest idea.” She shut the door in my face.
    I walked back to my car, wondering what to do now. I hadn’t gotten a single good answer out of Tracy. Not even a real denial, just the slam of a door.
    I started the car and began the drive back to my place. I analyzed my next steps as I drove. For starters, I was going to review the security tapes for the studio, if they would let me, and see if I could find who had peed in our box of pots and pans. There had to be footage of the main hallway somewhere, if it hadn’t been removed or overwritten already. That would solve the mystery if I could see who was on tape. It seemed like a risky maneuver on the part of the prankster. There would be no logical way to explain why you were at the studio with your drawers around your ankles, taking a whiz in a box.
    The other thing that I wanted to do was try to find out when and where our truck had been breached. We kept the truck in a secured lot. So the times when someone could have come in and removed a single spice were limited. We didn’t drive the truck to the studio, like some of the other truck owners did. We kept it in the lot until it was time for us to prep and serve.
    That meant there were very few times when the truck was unoccupied. I thought that we could probably narrow down the timeframe to a fairly small window, allowing us to find out who was available and in the vicinity at the time. That, too, would allow us to determine who could have done it.
     
    I decided to head back to the studio to see if I could look at the surveillance tapes. The show was done for the week, and I had no idea if the producers would be around or not. I figured that today was my best shot, given that we’d just finished an episode. Today was also a down day for the truck, meaning that tomorrow I’d be tied to feeding others until around 2pm.
    I pulled into the parking lot and headed for the producers’ offices. I stopped cold in the hallway outside of their offices. I heard voices that I didn’t recognize. I moved a little closer, thinking that anything being said by the producers might be helpful in figuring out who was behind the pranks. I still had lingering doubts that someone who worked for the show might be behind the pranks. Drama on set always improved ratings, and nothing starts drama like pitting everyone against the others and then lobbing accusations about.
    As I moved closer, I could hear Jim Jackson, one of the producers, say, “I can’t let you do that. I think this has gone on long enough. We need to end it before something bad happens.”
    I couldn’t hear the other person. Their voice was muffled. I thought it was a woman, but it may have been a man. Without getting into the office, I had no way of telling for sure.
    “No,” Jim said. “No more.”
    I decided to see who the other person was. I had a valid request to make, and I thought that seeing who was in the room would be a bonus. I knocked on the door, and reached for the knob, but the door was locked.
    Jim came to the door in a few seconds, unlocked the door and opened it. “Maeve, what are you doing here?”
    I pushed past him and sat down in one of the chairs facing his desk. The room was empty of other people. So much for my first plan. I still had no idea who the other person was, though I very much expected that this conversation was tied to the nasty notes and pranks. “Sorry, I thought you had someone in here with you,” I said, trying to play dumb.
    He shook his head “No, I was just editing some of the footage for the newest episode. You might have heard the audio from that.”
    I decided to play along. Since I was about to ask a favor of him, I didn’t want to make him mad by telling him that I knew that the daily tapes were usually viewed without sound first. Not to mention the fact that I’d recognized the producer’s voice, who definitely would not be appearing in any episode of the show.
    He watched me carefully, but I just smiled at him.