A THIEF OF ANY MAN (Food Truck Mysteries Book 6) Read Online Free Page A

up their lights. The cameras had a battery back-up, which is what I set them to. I didn’t want to arrive in the morning and find the truck’s battery drained.
    On the way out, I stopped to talk to Bryson, the day guard at the lot. He and I had exchanged pleasantries over the past two years, but we rarely spoke more than few words to each other. The most he’d ever said to me was that I was the lot’s only multiple spot lease. Apparently most people only had a single parking space to their name. However, today I wanted to learn more about what he saw at the lot. I explained that I’d put a new security system into the food truck because of some issues with theft.
    He shrugged as I finished my little speech. “No worries on first shift. No one is going to come in here during broad daylight and rob people. That’s probably the best part of my job,” he said, keeping one eye on his phone, which was playing some movie.
    “So no signs of anything funny going on around here?” I asked. I only had about half of his attention, but I was hoping it was enough to get some ideas.
    “Nah. Kristoff, the night guy. He said something about a ruckus the other night, but that was it.”
    “I don’t think I know him,” I said honestly. I knew Bryson, who worked about the same hours that I did, 5am to 3pm. I had no idea about the guards who worked the other shifts. I had respect for them because I wasn’t sure how brave I’d be here in the middle of the night. This wasn’t a bad neighborhood. However, it was mostly industrial with a few homes around the perimeter, which meant it closed down with the end of the business day. It was just me and the street lamps when I arrived each morning.
    “You’d know him if you saw him. He’s about five foot five and all muscle. Short, but built. No one would mess with him.”
    I thanked him and made a note to visit Kristoff by coming in early one day. I went home and tried to find something to occupy my time. I ran the accounts on coffee sales for the past week, and my suspicions were confirmed. We should only have been about one-third of the way through the supplies we’d received. We were missing several pounds of Land’s special blend. I worried for a moment, thinking that perhaps the competition had taken the coffee to have it analyzed, but that didn’t explain the situation with the small amounts of missing cash.
    I had to assume that both thefts were coming from the same person. While it was not inconceivable that we would have multiple thieves attacking the food truck, I didn’t want to face the idea that multiple people were coming through the truck at night to take what they wanted. I could park the truck on the street and have less traffic through it at night.
    Land showed up just before 9pm, and I gave him a long kiss. “I don’t know what that’s for, but I’m glad,” he said with a smile when I broke off the kiss. He was more like himself. The pensive behavior from earlier tonight was gone without a trace – or an explanation. Somehow, between closing the truck and going home to shower and change, he’d also found time to bring a huge bag of ready-to-eat popcorn. The snack had been drizzled with white chocolate, and I wasn’t sure if I was gladder to see him or the treat.
    I had already cued the video from the website and watched a few minutes of the video feed. Of course, I’d seen nothing in the food truck at all. I’d stopped when I realized that Land would be expecting to watch it with me. I rewound the video feed so that Land wouldn’t know that I’d already checked out some of the footage.
    We sat down on the sofa, and I snuggled in close to him. He gave me one of those looks that meant he suspected I might be cuddling just to get closer to the snack, but he didn’t comment on it.
    We had talked about what to do with the feed. We had decided to start the viewing at the end of the shift and move on, so that we wouldn’t miss a minute or a penny. I took