Words on Wheels

by Michael Bracken

About the Author: Michael Bracken is the Edgar and Shamus Award-nominated, Derringer-winning author of eleven books and more than twelve hundred short stories, including crime fiction published in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, Black Cat Mystery Magazine, Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, The Best American Mystery Stories, and The Best Mystery Stories of the Year.

Excerpt

Victoria Huptmann and her Border collie Maximillian—known by everyone as Vicky and Max—spent winters driving Words on Wheels from RV park to RV park along the Texas coast, selling new and used books to Snowbirds escaping Midwestern winters.

A large white cargo van with her bookstore’s logo painted on each side, lined with overcrowded bookshelves and lit by white fairy lights, Words on Wheels was the culmination of Vicky’s life-long dream to own a bookstore. Her dream became reality when her husband of thirty-seven years died peacefully from a heart ailment they did not realize he had. After an estate sale and relocation from their four-bedroom Colonial to a one-bedroom apartment, Vicky invested in the van, had it customized to her specifications, and purchased a teardrop-shaped camper to tow behind it. Then she stocked the van with books, adopted Max from a local shelter, and hit the road.

After six years, she had become well known to the regulars in the various RV parks she visited during Snowbird season, and she had barely finished setting up at Gulf Coast Getaway RV Park when Ethel Anderson visited with news.

“You should have been here yesterday,” Ethel told her. A diminutive woman well past retirement age who wore her henna-rinsed hair in a tight bun. “You missed all the excitement.”

Vicky was standing inside, adjusting a string of fairy lights that had come loose during the drive, and wasn’t giving Ethel her complete attention. “Why?” she asked. “What happened?”

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