Road Trip Read online

  Contents

  Copyright Info

  Acknowledgements

  Personal Message from the Author

  1.

  2.

  3.

  4.

  5.

  6.

  7.

  8.

  9.

  10.

  11.

  12.

  13.

  14.

  15.

  16.

  17.

  18.

  19.

  20.

  21.

  22.

  23.

  24.

  25.

  26.

  27.

  28.

  29.

  30.

  31.

  32.

  33.

  34.

  35.

  36.

  Epilogue

  Help Support This Author

  Personal Message from the Author

  About the Author

  The Jake Hancock P.I. series

  Jake Hancock Universe Thrillers

  Copyright Info

  Road Trip

  Dan Taylor

  Copyright © 2018 by Daniel Taylor

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Braylon Cutter is especially a work of fiction. I mean, come on…

  Acknowledgements

  Thanks to beta readers Sally, Horace, Ben T, and Elly with a Y. Your enthusiasm is much appreciated. And welcome back to the editing team, Elaine. She’s still kinda new, so if you spot a comma out of place, it’s definitely her fault. Thanks to Siri, the person who reads these books first and loves them.

  Thanks to readers who get in contact, say hi, and tell me how much they love my stories.

  Personal Message from the Author

  I hope you enjoy this book or any other of my books as much as I love to write them! If you have, click this link and tell me. I personally respond to each email I receive, and love reading what fans of my books have to say.

  I also keep in touch with my readers on my Facebook page, informing them of my new releases and blog posts. Head on over and like it and say hi.

  Alternatively, you can sign up for my newsletter to find out when new books are released. You’ll also receive a discount on the latest release.

  Thanks for taking a chance on my writing.

  Dan Taylor

  1.

  “And this is my wife, Grace Hancock,” I say.

  “Uhh, honey. Who are you talking to?”

  I take my eyes off the open road ahead of me to look at my new wife, who’s riding shotgun. She’s looking at me like… Well, like I’ve just referred to her in the third person, despite no one sharing the vehicle with us. Don’t worry. She’ll think I’m sane again when I offer my explanation.

  I say, “I was just practicing.”

  “Practicing what?”

  “Introducing you, as my wife, to other people. I just said it out loud for the first time.”

  “How do you say something not out loud…? Wait a minute, let’s back up a bit. Why would you have to practice it?”

  I smile, hoping I make her think she’s maybe a little silly for not knowing why. And then I say, “So it sounds—you know…” I think about what adjective I’m shooting for. And then come to the closest one in my now-insufficient vocabulary: “Natural.”

  “Like we’re actually married?”

  “We are married.”

  “I know that.”

  “Let’s back up again. Why wouldn’t it sound natural when you say it?”

  Oh, boy. I did not think this through.

  The real reason I’ve been practicing—until now in my mind—is so that I don’t say the name of my previous wife, even though we’ve been divorced for a number of years. The name Regan Hancock is indelibly attached to the noun and personal pronoun “my wife” and it could unexpectedly follow those two words. If I were tired, or nervous, or high. Times like that.

  Or it might have until I’d trained my brain to function otherwise.

  I’m going to go ahead and assume that explanation won’t end this… Wait a minute and let me just glance at her to check her body language. Yep, argument. That explanation definitely won’t end this argument.

  I rack my brain for a different explanation and come up with bupkis. So I do the only thing I can to get myself out of this situation. I take my eyes off the road again, lean over, and kiss her on the cheek, and say in the silliest voice possible, “I wove you.”

  “Jake, watch out for that dog!”

  So that didn’t go as well as expected.

  Unless…

  Yep, I’ve just looked to see I am in fact heading straight for a four-legged animal who’s decided this would be the perfect time to cross the road.

  I hit the brake, hard, and then veer to the right, hoping to skid around it, maybe impressing Grace, but end up nearly turning my wife’s Winnebago a hundred and eighty degrees and nearly tipping it over in the process. We skid to a stop, rocking back onto the safety of all four wheels.

  I wipe my brow theatrically, and then turn to my wife, expecting to have a conversation about the semi-impressive evasive maneuver I just made, but all she says is, “Why wouldn’t it sound natural naturally when you say it?”

  As well as the aforementioned reason—if you consider saying the name of the wrong wife not naturally—it could be on account of us just having had a spur-of-the-moment wedding in Vegas. We’re on our honeymoon, traveling across the country on a road trip. At least it felt like a honeymoon until this moment.

  Truth is, I never thought I’d get married again. I’d all but sworn off the idea after my last experience.

  Time to come clean. I’m ninety percent sure the reason I just mentioned is a romantic one.

  “Well?” Grace says.

  “Honey, I thought I’d never get married again, so had all but wiped out the combination of words ‘my wife’ from my vocabulary. I was just… jimmying them back in there.”

  Eyebrow raise. Crosses her arms over her chest. Not looking good so far. “Jimmying?”

  “Inserting, lovingly.”

  She sighs. “Say now if you’re getting cold feet. I know we hadn’t been dating that long.”

  I start the engine, and start turning around the Winnebago.

  She says, “What are you doing?”

  “That’s it. We’re going back to Vegas, to get married a second time. If that’s what it takes to convince you I have warm feet. In fact, they’re sweaty feet. Sweaty from being more than convinced I’ve made the right decision.”

  Now that the Winnebago’s turned around, and I’m pretty sure we’re heading back towards Vegas, I can tell she’s smiling. How? Her hand’s on my thigh. She leans over and kisses me on my cheek. Then says, “Stop Winnie Pooh, Jake. We can’t get married a second time.”

  “Sure we can. At least in Vegas. There’s bound to be at least one overweight, ordained dude dressed as late-era Elvis who’ll take our money. If that’s what it takes to convince you.”

  “Turn us back around, Jake. I’m convinced. More than convinced. Let’s carry on our honeymoon, silly dummy.”

  “If you
’re sure?”

  Silence a second.

  “Yowsa!”

  Yep, she’s convinced. Either that she thinks it’s necessary to do CPR on my scrotum.

  She says, “How about we find a motel and make an evening of it? One of those tacky ones with a hot tub shaped like a love heart?”

  “It’s a date!”

  I turn us back around, but park up on the side of the road. Then I say, “Hand me the map, will you?”

  “Why?”

  “I want to check where we’re headed.”

  “You don’t know?”

  “I will after I’ve checked.”

  She takes it out of the glove compartment. Hands it to me.

  I unfold it, and try to look at it like I’m not just staring at it, wondering where the hell we might be on it, or even if I’m looking at the right state.

  I know what you’re thinking. Why the hell aren’t we using Sat Nav. Winnie Pooh, the nickname Grace has given to her Winnebago, the only vehicle we own, doesn’t currently have a working Sat Nav. Let’s just say Grace and I have been using every available space and surface we could get our hands and butts on to consummate our marriage.

  I say, “Can you remember seeing a road sign that informed us of the road we’re on?”

  “I think I saw one that said Route 66.”

  “Excellent. And can you remember the last town we went through or past?”

  “Mc something. I remember a Mc.”

  “A Mc?”

  “That was the start of the name of the town.”

  I run my finger up and down Route 66, trying to find a Mc, whatever the hell that means. Jesus, Sat Nav has broken this generation.

  “Aha! Was it McClean?” I say.

  She thinks a second. “Are there any other Mc’s?”

  I check. “Nope.”

  “Then I’m pretty sure that’s the place.”

  “And how far back was that?”

  “Right before we had that argument about whether we were going to refer to each other as honey or not.”

  “That was two charley horses ago.” I think a second. “About an hour ago.”

  I find where we are on the map, and then run my finger along Route 66, hoping to find a motel. Nothing so far. I come to the next town, which is sure to have one. I read the name of the town, and then say, “We’re lost.”

  “We’ve been traveling on the same straight road for at least the last hour. How can we be lost?”

  “Because we’re headed straight for Pants, Oklahoma.”

  She looks at me strangely. “How can we be lost if you know where we’re going?”

  “It’s precisely the fact that I know our next inevitable destination, should we not make a u-turn, that makes us lost.”

  She still has the same look on her face. “I think you might have been driving for too long. Why don’t you take a nap back there and I’ll fly this big bird all the way to the next motel we come across? How does that sound?”

  Last time I took a nap on this road trip, doing so as Grace suggested, on that old sofa back there, I was woken up by my face getting into a fight with the floor. In her defense, that bit of tumbleweed she skidded to a stop in front of kinda did look like a ‘desert squirrel.’

  I say, “I’m not tired. Honest. It’s just Pants doesn’t exactly sound like the kinda place we want to be visiting on our honeymoon.”

  “Why not?”

  “Apart from its ridiculous name, no reason.”

  She looks skeptical. “Have you been there before?”

  “Nope.”

  “You have, haven’t you?”

  I put on my best poker face and say, “I’ve never been there in my life.”

  “You’re lying.”

  I try harder to achieve my poker face. “I’ve never lied in my life.”

  “Now I know you’re lying. Tell me why you don’t want to go back there. I won’t be mad if you have an old girlfriend from there you don’t want to run into or whatever.”

  “Please, from Pants?!” I realize what she’s done, and I start shaking my head, all the while thinking I should’ve never bought her that novelty copy of Reverse Psychology for Dummies as a wedding gift.

  “Come on, Jake. ‘Fess up,” she says.

  “Who says ‘’fess up’ nowadays?”

  “Don’t change the subject. Besides, wasn’t there a vow about not lying to each other?”

  “I didn’t listen too carefully to those. You?”

  “Me neither. Google them.”

  I take out my phone. This may seem like a strange tactic, seeing as though there probably is some vow about secrets or some shit, and I’m taking my phone out to prove her right, meaning I’ll have to ‘fess up,’ but I figure if I take my sweet time to find the answer, then get some banter going, she’ll forget the whole thing and I won’t have to tell her why I have no intention of returning to Pants.

  If she finds out the reason why, there’s no way she’ll let us just pass through.

  I google the vows, click the first search result, and then say, “Jesus, look at this. There are photos of people with their families and whatnot, not getting married in Vegas.”

  I expect her be equally surprised when I show her the photos, but she just looks at them, mutters, “Okay.”

  Who knows what that was about?

  Time to up my banter game. I start reading, looking for material to distract her from remembering that we’re googling wedding vows because… Jesus, even I’ve forgotten.

  Oh, yeah.

  Pants, and not staying there.

  I say, “It says the start of them is, ‘I take thee.’” I turn to her. “Do you remember saying thee?”

  Her eyes bug out. “Holy shit! I do not. What are the other ones?”

  “There’s one about us still being good if we get poor.”

  “That makes sense.”

  “And the same sentiment about if we get rich.”

  “Why would our marriage be in danger if we got rich?”

  “I know, right?! And then there’s some stuff about if we get sick and whatnot.”

  I put my phone away. Then say, “Well that passed some time,” and then start the engine.

  I make it a mere meter before she says, “Well?”

  “Well what?”

  “Was there one about lying?”

  “Oh, that. I’m afraid there wasn’t, honey. I gotta tell you, I thought it was a sure thing we drunkenly mumbled something to each other about not lying to each other while we’re married. Seemed like a given. It definitely trumps the rich one.”

  “Let me check.”

  “If you must.”

  I hand her the phone. And then I say, “Oh wait, I have to unlock that for you first.”

  “It’s okay. I got it.”

  I glance at her while she presses buttons, not even thinking a second about what to press, either. She does indeed have it. Note to self, change the lock screen passcode to something other than 4-3-2-1.

  After looking at my phone for thirty seconds or so, she says, “Nope. No vow about not lying.”

  She hands the phone back to me.

  Then I say, “It’s admittedly a loophole, but I’ll take it. Looks like I’m taking that secret to the grave.”

  “No way, Jacob Hancock. The secret’s been too built up.”

  “Only my mom calls me Jacob.”

  “Don’t change the subject again.”

  I sigh. “If I tell you, will you do that thing I’ve been wanting you to do?” I glance at her and raise an eyebrow.

  She thinks about it a second, weighing up whether it’s worth it. Then says, “It’s a deal. I promise if you tell me, I’ll sit and watch the entirety of a UFC pay-per-view event with you.”

  I say, “And not yawn once?” reminding her of a previously discussed condition.

  “And not yawn once.”

  “Okay, here we go.”

  Three weeks ago, I visited Pants, Oklahoma, and did the last gig I
’ll ever do as a private investigator: finding the enemy of an enemy of mine, to wipe the slate clean with him. When the gig was completed, I visited a diner to chow down before the long drive home back to Hollywood—LA, not Florida, for reasons that should now be obvious to you. Anyway, when I came out of the diner, I found that some asshole had parked way too close to the driver’s-side door, meaning I had to enter my rental using the passenger side and climb over the all the trash I’d been storing on the shotgun seat.

  To get the dude back, I let one of his tires down, because, well, it was a bit of a dick move by him.

  After I’ve told her up to that point, Grace says, “I don’t get it. It’s not that bad.”

  “It wouldn’t have been, if that particular diner didn’t have what I’m sure wasn’t a fake security camera in the parking lot. And that particular dude wasn’t law enforcement.”

  “Wait a minute… You mean… You mean…” she tries so say, if not for laughing at me. Definitely at me.

  When she’s calmed down some, she says, “Was it an unmarked car?”

  “No. It was marked, in the usual way, like a police station had vomited all over it, which I didn’t notice until after.”

  “This is too much.”

  She’s having a hell of a time. But I’ve come this far, so I may as well come clean about every detail. “And it wasn’t just any member of law enforcement, but the sheriff.”

  To block out her laughter, I turn on the radio, and turn the dial until I reach the first station, which is playing hair metal. But I turn it off a second later.

  Now that she’s calmed down, I say, “Now you understand why I can never, ever return to Pants,” knowing full well that revelation will only have encouraged her wanting to.

  “It’s okay, Jake. We can find a motel someplace else.”

  I’m lost for words, until I manage to say, “Are you saying, as my wife, that you’re not going to use your newfound knowledge to torture me?”

  “I am.”

  I’m still skeptical.

  So I say, “Hold up your hand with the wedding ring.”

  She does. And there it is, on her ring finger; she didn’t take it off while she said it, momentarily freeing herself from its evil power.