Page 40 of Ultimate Justice

Again, his dog snorted.

“You’re going to give ice cream to a dog?” Marlie asked.

“Why not?” He shrugged. “He likes it.”

“Yeah. Why not?” Noah echoed. “I like it.”

“I like it,” Evan chimed in, knowing it would annoy her.

Marlie threw up her hands. “I give up.”

“Wise choice.” He winked, which only made her scowl more. Even scowling, she was pretty. “Extra napkins, please,” he said when the woman took his credit card.

A few minutes later, she handed him a cardboard tray with four cones and a stack of napkins. Blue stretched his neck between the seats, sniffing and flicking out his tongue.

“Mind holding this?” He held out the tray to Marlie, being careful to keep the cones away from Blue’s long tongue.

She sighed, but he glimpsed the corners of her mouth lifting. “I suppose not.”

“Atta girl. Why fight it?” The quip garnered him another pretty scowl.

He pulled into a spot in the parking lot but kept the engine running. Marlie handed Noah his chocolate cone.

Evan handed him the vanilla cone. “You’ll have to hold it for him.”

“Here, Blue.” Noah held out the cone.

Blue licked delicately, like a human, the way Evan had taught him, so the tower of ice cream wouldn’t topple over. Of course, his tongue was so big it didn’t take long before he made his way to the cone.

Noah laughed as Blue crunched down, sending bits of sugar cone dripping with ice cream onto the seat.

“That’s what these are for.” He gave Noah the stack of napkins. “I need you to clean the seat and wipe his mouth for me. Okay?”

“Okay.” He did as asked, then started in on his own cone, which had already begun dripping down his hand.

Marlie gave Evan his butter pecan cone. He licked the top of the scoop, then nearly choked. Her tongue darted out, swiping at her own ice cream, then licking her lips. Full, pretty lips. His abdominal muscles tightened involuntarily. Watching her lick that cone was like watching a sexy striptease, only better. Oh man.

He cleared his throat. This wasn’t the time to start thinking about the fact he hadn’t had sex in over four months. “Noah, can I ask you a few questions while we eat?”

The kid shrugged. “Sure.”

“What kind of buildings were at the camp? Were there any houses?”

“White houses. A lot of them.” He took a big lick and swallowed. “And two big metal buildings.”

Could be marijuana processing buildings. “The drive from the camp to the farmers market… Do you know how long it took?” It was a needle in a haystack, but if the kid could approximate the time he’d been in the back of Manello’s truck, it could help narrow down the search area.

“I don’t know. I don’t really remember.”

“I have an idea,” Marlie said. “Did you ever watch a whole baseball game on TV?”

“Yeah.” Noah nodded.

Evan saw exactly where she was going. “A whole game is around three hours. Would you say you hid in the back of the truck that long?”

“No. Not that long.” He licked the cone again, tilting his head to the side. “More than half a game, though. Maybe two hours.”

“Good. That’s real good.” A start, anyway. “Do you remember if the truck was going really fast most of the time? Like you would if you were on a highway? Or did it go slow, and make a lot of turns, like if you were on local roads with slow speed limits?”