I sighed. The Streamberry documentary on the Canceled Killer was a hack job thrown together by a bunch of opportunists who didn’t cross theirt’s or dot theiri’s and just copied everything we’d discovered inCrime Hiveand set it to ominous music and blurry reenactments. Everything but Jared as a suspect, that is, so they looked legitimate and we looked clueless. They stretched a half hour of information into a four-hour series, padded with a lot of dramatic pauses and creepy piano music.
“But the thing was, Dave said, ‘If the Canceled Killer doesn’t get you, I may kill you myself.’”
Jude and I exchanged a glance. Well, that didn’t sound good.
“Do you think he could’ve had something to do with Daddy’s disappearance?” she asked us.
“I don’t know,” Jude admitted.
“You’ll figure it all out, won’t you, Pooh Bear?” Kenzie asked as she put her hand on his knee.
I barely held my laughter until after we were outside Kenzie’s house.
“Pooh Bear!” I screamed as Jude hustled me away from the house, sending terrified glances back over his shoulder at Kenzie’s door.
“Shhh!” he whispered urgently. “She’ll hear you.”
“I don’t care. Pooh Bear? What? Were you always trying to get her sticky honey pot?” I cackled to myself, until I realized Jude wasn’t laughing. A spot of red appeared on his cheekbones. The laughter died in my throat. “Oh, God. You were.”
“Not your business. You can butt right out,” Jude said coolly as he stalked to his car, a white Volvo SUV, just the reliable kind of car a cheese scientist would drive. I went from amusement to wonder. I was trying to imagine Jude hot and heavy for Kenzie’s honey pot and my mind short-circuited. It was hard to imagine Jude passionate about anything except what he could peer at through a microscope. Did he mumble sweet nothings about the formation of cheese curds?
“Damn, does the Cheese Doctor havegame?” I teased.
Jude groaned and unlocked his doors with a click of his key fob. “I’m already regretting asking for your help.”
“I’m not. Pooh Bear!” I cried again. I wasn’t going to let this little morsel go. “How did you two really get together?”
“I don’t think you seriously want to know.” Jude slipped into his driver’s side door and slammed it. I ducked into the passenger side.
“Oh, I do. I’ve never wanted to know anything more in my life. I want all the details. Skip none.” I clapped my hands in glee.
Jude groaned. “Kenzie hired me as a consultant a few years back. To help develop a new custard production mechanism. Back when they were first wanting to expand into grocery stores. I came up with a new production technique that doubled their daily output.”
I raised my eyebrows. “You basically single-handedly tripled the value of Kenzie’s family fortune, then.”
Jude seemed surprisingly humble. “Yeah.” He turned over the engine, and then he glanced at me. The annoying dinging from the dashboard told me I’d yet to put my seat belt on.
“Ahem,” he said, nodding to my belt. Jude was waiting until I did before he put the car in reverse.
Annoyed, I grabbed the belt and slung it across me, clicking it into the latch and stopping the annoying dinging.
Slowly, Jude checked every available angle and then slowly slipped the car into drive. He drove like my grandma’s grandma.
“So, wait, did you get royalties? A patent? Anything?”
Jude shrugged. “No,” he said as he inched the car forward around the fountain in the circular drive so slowly I almost wanted to get out and push.
“Do you always drive this slow, or only when you’re in a driveway?”
“I’m looking forcars,” Jude pointed out.
“We’re on a massive estate a mile from the road. Thereareno cars.”
He puttered down the wide private drive lined by old oak trees.
“You could floor it,” I suggested.
“You can stop your side-seat driving any time you please.”
