Dead Men Don't Chew Gum

  Dead Men Don’t Chew Gum

  Martin and Owen Funny Romantic Mysteries, Book 1

  Nina Cordoba

  Copyright Nina Cordoba 2016

  All rights reserved. Contact: NinaCordoba@NinaCordoba.com.

  All people, places and entities in this book are fictitious or used fictitiously. The opinions of the fictional characters in this book do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the author

  This book is a comedy. It is not to be used for legal advice, crime investigation information, dietary guidance, bomb making, or bomb disarming, or taken seriously in any way whatsoever. Art director: Sierra Acy

  Original cover art: Kostis Pavlou

  Editor: Jennifer Bray-Weber

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dead Men Don't Chew Gum (Martin and Owen Funny Romantic Mysteries, #1)

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Acknowledgements

  This one’s for Sisi.

  Chapter One

  Rika Martín

  “What’s wrong with these people?” I muttered as I drove past the last building in a town that ended thirty seconds after it began.

  So much for Bolo, Texas. Maybe I should have expected this when the sign touted a population in the hundreds instead of millions like I was used to. But, jeez, ten-fifteen on a Wednesday night and everything was closed?

  The McDonald’s. The Sonic. Even the Mary Queen, which was clearly an old Dairy Queen that had lost its franchise. The “Mary” part was painted in black letters on a white tarp and thrown over the front half of the sign.

  But, while it was plausible that people didn’t eat late around here, what about gas? The two convenience store-gas stations on either end of town were locked up tight as if no one could ever possibly need gas in the middle of the night.

  My Honda Fit got good mileage, so gas wasn’t my big priority at the moment. But I was starving. I was thirsty. And I had to pee like nobody’s business.

  As I pulled up to a red light, I ripped open a pack of gum—the last thing I had in my possession resembling food—and stuffed a stick of it into my mouth. I tapped my fingers on the steering wheel impatiently.

  No cars across from me.

  No cars to the right or the left.

  Not a soul in sight.

  After living in L.A. and New York, this place looked like some post-apocalyptic movie set.

  Then I noticed the antique three-story houses sitting on two of the four corners and realized this was the intersection where I needed to make my big decision. I could take the route the GPS, Google Maps, and MapQuest told me to use, or I could take the shortcut my friend Marly recommended, which would presumably get me to civilization faster. Otherwise, why would they call it a shortcut?

  Shortcut it is.

  When the light glowed green, I took a deep breath and turned left. A half-mile later, I turned right at the yellow flashing light...

  Onto the darkest, most desolate two-lane road I’d ever seen. Or maybe it just felt that way because the moon, which had shone on me consistently the past couple of hours, suddenly disappeared behind a blanket of clouds.

  All I could see was the pavement in front of my car and the vague outlines of stubby trees and scrub brush on the sides of the road. My hand jerked up to rub the nervous tingle off the back of my neck.

  Maybe I should turn around and take the other route.

  Either way, I had to admit it was a terrible idea to try to hide out for a couple of weeks before heading home to L.A. to face the I-told-you-so’s from my grandmother and aunts.

  What a shitty f-ing day this had been.

  Actually, I’d been driving for three days, stopping to nap at state rest areas when I got tired. But the time blurred together in my mind like one very long, lousy day.

  It started when I went to my job as an E.coli tester in the lab of a meat-packing company in New York and worked for four hours before my boss arrived to inform me I was laid off.

  Effective immediately.

  As he shoved a wad of cash into my fist, he was wild-eyed, ranting about the FBI and a money laundering operation. I figured better to be jobless than imprisoned and got the hell out.

  When I returned to the apartment I shared with my boyfriend Brandtt—okay, technically his apartment—I found a blonde with legs up to her neck, standing in the lobby, directing movers. Elias the doorman explained to me that Brandtt had found someone new, and I’d need to find another place to live.

  Also effective immediately.

  Nice.

  The “good” news was that my belongings were already boxed up, and Elias had been keeping them safe for me. I nearly tipped him for his trouble, then decided if this situation were ever written up in an etiquette book, the dumper would be responsible for the tip, not the dumpee.

  Shell-shocked, I sat on one of my boxes in the lobby for a half hour as I tried to call my boyfriend of two years. When Brandtt—“with two T’s,” as he always pointed out—didn’t answer my calls or texts, I had to accept that I’d actually managed to lose my job, my man, and my home in one morning.

  As I held onto the steering wheel with my right hand, I pressed my left palm to my stomach. It felt like someone had dropped a wet rag in there. I’d experienced the same sensation over and over, each time my mind replayed the lobby scene, all the way from New York to Texas.

  And that was a lot of freaking times, let me tell you.

  Okay, Brandtt and I were over, but couldn’t he have handled the breakup another way? A way that didn’t involve the doorman peering at me, dewy-eyed with sympathy, looking like he wanted to take me home and let Mrs. Doorman feed me pasteles or tamales or whatever New York Puerto Ricans ate. Elias was so broken-hearted on my behalf, I felt like I should be comforting him.

  Even worse, I could no longer ignore the nagging feeling that had plagued me for months. The thought that Brandtt, my handsome, charming boyfriend worshipped by millions—okay, thousands—of women...was a tool.

  I guess on some level I’d known for a while, but I considered myself an intelligent person, and what smart person wants to believe she abandoned her own life to follow a tool all the way across the country?

  Jeez. I rolled my eyes at myself for about the thousandth time since I left New York.

  I met Brandtt when I was still in L.A. One night, I attended a stage adaptation of The Matrix—a terrible idea for a play, by the way—in celebration of finally reaching my goal weight. He walked out onto the stage in his black trench coat and tall, chunky boots and I was a goner. I was sitting in the front row of the tiny theater, and he sent a stagehand out to invite me back.

  And, I mean, who can resist Neo?

  I hate to admit it, but the sting of humiliation was much worse than the ache of losing Brandtt. Okay, there was no ache at all.

  It had become clear a while ago that he and I didn’t belong together. I just hadn’t figured out what to do about it, yet. But being dumped unceremoniously from his life like yesterday’s iPhone still burned. Left me feeling like I’d felt throughout my teen years. Like I wasn’t worth so much as a conversation.

  I had nowhere to go in New York, since my three girlfriends had already flown to South Padre Island to stay at Marly’s aunt and uncle’s condo for a few weeks. I’d passed on the trip because I didn’t think it was right to go off with a bunch of very single women while I was living with a boyfriend.

  But with him no longer in the picture, recuperation time on a far-off beach sounded a lot better than heading back to L.A. with my tail tucked between my legs. I made a snap decision and headed south while I formulated my new life plan and procrastinated about facing the woman who raised me.

  In my defense, I did tell Brandtt I couldn’t go to New York with him, initially. I’m not an idiot, and following a boyfriend across the country seemed like an idiot move. But he begged me to come.

  “How can you make me go alone?” he’d whined.

  I’m a sucker for a good guilting. I blame my grandmother.

  Of course, explaining Brandtt’s new job on The Real Millionaire Bachelors of New York to her had been the hardest part. “If he’s not a millionaire, why would they give him a job on the show?” she kept asking. She also still believes pro wrestling is for real.

  I spotted a bend in the road up ahead and crossed my fingers that I’d find a truck-stop
diner or at least a 24-hour Walmart on the other side. I sucked in two big lungfuls of hope, slowed, and started around the curve.

  Damn it. No Wal—

  My headlights reflected off glass and metal on the right shoulder. In the moment it took my brain to register that a vehicle was parked, facing the wrong way on the right side of the road, a motor roared and the cab of the red pickup truck lunged in front of my car.

  I jerked the steering wheel to the right to avoid colliding with the bed of the truck. My foot mashed on the brake while the truck’s tires sprayed my windshield with gravel they’d collected from the shoulder. The tiny rocks crunched under my tires as my Honda left the road and slid to a stop.

  I twisted around just in time to see the truck’s tail lights pop on before it disappeared around the curve. I’d avoided smashing into it by mere inches.

  Pressing my hand to my chest, I deep-breathed, reeling over my near miss with a drunk driver. He had to be drunk, right? Who else darts out from the wrong side of the road with no lights on?

  As my pulse slowed, my bladder began nagging at me again. I was amazed I hadn’t wet myself when the truck jumped out at me.

  I turned to peer into the dark through the passenger window. What kinds of wildlife did they have in Texas?

  Rattlesnakes? Coyotes? Bobcats?

  But I couldn’t drive another mile in this condition. Glancing around, I found my cell phone, which had slid from the passenger seat to the floorboard when I slammed on the brakes.

  I leaned over and plucked it from the mat. I tried to turn its built-in flashlight on, even though it hadn’t worked since a month after I bought the phone, the one negative I’d mentioned when I reviewed it on Amazon. I didn’t return the phone because I loved everything else about it and that one feature hadn’t seemed important in the bright lights of Manhattan.

  My lightsaber key chain—Yoda version—would have come in handy. Unfortunately, I’d felt obliged to switch it out for the expensive Michael Kors key chain Brandtt had given me. He hated my lightsaber key chain, along with all my other geeky possessions.

  So, the light from my cell screen was my only option.

  I tried to learn lessons from my mistakes. Never give up the geek. That would be the lesson I took from tonight.

  As I got out of the car, a warm breeze ruffled my thin summer skirt. At least I wouldn’t have to wrestle with skinny jeans to make this happen.

  Holding my phone out in front of me, I tried to look ahead, but the puny light only allowed me to see a few inches around me. I imagined snakes slithering on the ground and rose up on the balls of my feet, trying not to disturb them. My knee-high leather boots would have come in handy, but since I didn’t pack the boxes in my trunk, I had no idea where to find them.

  The Sketchers I was wearing would have to do. I’d put them on before leaving the lobby of Brandtt’s building—the only screw you I could think of, since he’d always hated to see me in anything that wasn’t designer and certainly wouldn’t approve of a skirt-tennis shoe combination. Pretty lame as screw yous go, especially considering only his doorman was watching.

  The night was surprisingly noisy, full of the buzzing and chirping of insects. Chewing my gum faster, I tiptoed away from the road. Soft, barely discernable footfalls padded nearby.

  Like a bobcat stalking its prey?

  I imagined what it might feel like to become a bobcat’s bedtime snack. Would he at least make sure I was dead before gnawing off my limbs?

  I halted, held my breath and strained my ears to determine the direction I needed to run away from. But when I stopped walking, the sound stopped, too.

  Duh. I was the bobcat.

  I started moving again, hoping to get far enough from the road that a passing car’s headlights wouldn’t expose my naked ass to the driver, but not so far as to make me look like easy pickings to whatever carnivores might be prowling around. When I scratched my leg on something spindly, I imagined accidentally squatting on a cactus. Eek, that would make for some miserable driving.

  Something slithered by my foot, for real this time. I squealed and fled, lifting my knees high in an exaggerated jog until I ran right into a stubby version of a palm tree.

  Ouch!

  Stupid smart phone. How smart could it be if it didn’t even keep its owner from running into major foliage? I felt around the trunk, moving to the backside of the tree, and did what I’d been needing to do for the last three hours.

  Whew!

  As I pulled my underwear up, skirt down, I gave myself a pat on the back for braving the wilderness and taking care of business old school.

  I could totally survive the zombie apocalypse!

  Smiling triumphantly, I looked toward the road. My car lights shone like beacons of hope, although I’d apparently wandered off at an angle while looking for the right spot to do my biz.

  I pointed my Sketchers straight at the car, anxious to get back to safety now that I had zombies on the brain. But after only a few steps, my toe hit something and caught.

  My body lurched forward. My palms hit gritty earth at the same moment my torso landed on a solid mass. A whoosh of air burst from my lungs at the impact, the gum flying out of my mouth along with it.

  Dread oozed in through my pores and wrapped around my internal organs. No doubt, whatever I’d landed on didn’t belong here. It felt like...

  No, I wouldn’t let my imagination run amuck this time. Bracing myself with my left hand, I lifted my phone with the other, pointing the screen downward. I touched the home button. The light from the screen shook as it reflected off a pair of pale blue eyes.

  Pale, blue, lifeless eyes.

  A zombie!

  I scrambled off, tripping over its limbs as I tried to get as far away as possible. I may have screamed. It’s hard to know if you’re screaming on the outside when you’re screaming so loudly on the inside.

  When I reached the gravel, I went down hard. Skin ripped from the heels of my hands as I scrabbled over the rocks. I had to get to my car and I didn’t care if I did it on two limbs or four.

  Next thing I knew, I was sitting in the driver’s seat, shaking, unsure how long I’d been there.

  Had I blacked out? Maybe I’d fallen asleep driving and the zombie had been a dream. Actually, since it was just lying there, not trying to eat my brains, it didn’t really qualify as a zombie. Not yet, anyway.

  But this could still be a dream. Couldn’t it?

  Painful throbbing caused me to turn my hands over and examine them. My phone was still clutched in my fingers, a fresh crack jutting diagonally across the screen. The heel of my right hand and my entire left palm were scratched and bloodied.

  According to the phone, only a few minutes had lapsed since I left the car. I couldn’t have been here long.

  Okay, this wasn’t a dream, but I was fine. I was in control of my senses. And, unfortunately, the body I’d stumbled onto was no hallucination.

  I dialed nine-one-one, closed my eyes, rested my forehead on the steering wheel, and answered the operator’s questions until she figured out where the cops could find me.

  When I finally heard sirens, I opened my eyes...

  And saw the blood on my shirt.

  ~

  Nick Owen

  I have to get out of this town.

  That’s pretty much what I was thinking every minute of every day. Even more so on nights like tonight, when mom called me over to her place to save her from yet another bogus threat.

  This time, she’d been listening to town gossip about a group of Satan worshippers who were supposedly gathering in this part of the county to hold their rituals.

  She called me a couple of hours ago, sounding both agitated and excited, because she was sure she saw someone in a black robe headed toward the old barn. I walked around the property for an hour and didn’t find a thing.

  Before the Satan worshippers, there was a bobcat at her back door, which turned out to be her neighbor’s fat tabby looking for a second dinner. And a week before that, I was called over to investigate the gurgling sounds coming from her upstairs bathroom—“like someone chokin’ on their own blood”—which I fixed by jiggling the toilet handle.

  I was pretty sure she didn’t believe she was in danger. More likely, she was addicted to the drama and attention.

  Regardless, I was bone tired, and I was too damn young to be this damn exhausted. But mom wasn’t the only reason I had to get out of this place. I’d come back to Bolo for all the wrong reasons and that never got you anywhere you wanted to be.