Purrfect Dragnet (The Mysteries of Max Book 76) by Nic Saint

Author:Nic Saint [Saint, Nic]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Puss in Books
Published: 2024-01-27T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 24

Arriving outside, we found ourselves faced with two different white vans. I hadn’t noticed before that Johnny’s van was so nondescript that it closely resembled every other white van out there in the world, which probably was the whole idea of employing an ‘unmarked white van’ for nefarious purposes.

“Which one is Johnny’s, Max?” asked Dooley.

“I have no idea,” I confessed as we studied both vehicles closely.

Our general, and quite frankly sort of nebulous, idea had been that once Johnny crawled back into his van, unbeknownst to him, two illegal passengers would be located in the back of that van, hitching a ride and secretly discovering the place where he had hidden Charlene.

For it had now become quite clear to us that it wasn’t Sonny who had abducted Uncle Alec’s wife but Johnny and Jerry, even though Sonny was clearly involved somehow.

“Okay, so I think we’ll have to go with our gut instinct here, Max,” said Dooley. “So I’m picking…” He closed his eyes for a moment as his right front paw hovered in the air. “I’m picking that one,” he finally said, pointing to the left van. “What do you think?” he said, giving me an expectant look, like a show horse looking at its master after it has performed an exceptionally complicated trick.

“I think you called it, buddy,” I said. Since I had absolutely no idea which one of these vans could possibly belong to Johnny, I figured we might as well allow chance and fate to guide us, or in this case, Dooley’s gut instinct. And also, the van on the left was the only one of the two with a back door that wasn’t fully closed, so it stood to reason it was also the only one we’d be able to hitch a ride in.

It wasn’t long before we had secured a nice place underneath a convenient tarp in that van, and waited patiently—or not-so-patiently—for the next developments.

“Who would have thought that Johnny and Jerry were capable of kidnapping Charlene, Max?” said Dooley. “I thought they would have learned their lesson by now.”

Over the course of our acquaintance with the two crooks, they had pulled a lot of stunts, but kidnapping the mayor of their town was definitely a first.

“Maybe they’re expecting an exceptionally big payday,” I suggested. “And the lure of all that money made them temporarily blind to the consequences of their rash act.”

“Johnny said something about romance, though, didn’t he? What was that all about, Max?”

“I have no idea, buddy. Maybe Jerry has fallen in love with Charlene and wants to make her love him by holding her prisoner?”

“Does that work, Max?” asked Dooley.

“Only in bad romance novels,” I said.

There had been a movie on TV the other day where a man kidnapped a woman and held her prisoner, saying he’d only release her once she had grown to love him. Chase thought it was a load of nonsense, while Odelia said there might be something in that. Frankly, I very much doubted even she would enjoy being kidnapped by some random fellow and then forced to love him.

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