Saved (Minnesota Caribou #5) - Colleen Charles Page 0,19
just open up the proverbial can of worms all on your own?
I yearn to facepalm myself, but instead, I allow my grin to stretch my cheeks as Blanche digs in her huge tote bag that serves as a purse. She probably has her second cousin twice removed stashed in there. But I know for sure one thing she’s got in there. A phone with a picture of my dick stored in the camera roll. And unlike Blanche and Cora, pretty much everyone else at this table knows who it’s attached to.
I stare at her veiny and wrinkled hand digging through stale sticks of Doublemint gum and loose Kleenex in fascination. Finally, she pulls it out and starts scrolling.
“Blaine, I need you to look at something. You know how I’m not techy like you kids. I need to figure out who sent this.”
Cora takes a sip of her Coke and rolls her eyes over Blanche’s head. Her knowing gaze says, “Told you this was coming.”
I take the phone from her and look at it, while not really looking at it. “And you have no idea who sent this?”
The muscles along her neck coil. “Of course not. I just don’t understand why you kids need to be sending God and everybody pictures of your genitals.”
OMG, the moment Blanche says the word genitals, Kane’s ears perk up and he takes a swig of Coke.
“We don’t as a general rule,” I say, deleting it and going through her settings to keep her from texting it to people. “But that’s the ugliest penis in the history of the Universe, and I don’t want you looking at it anymore. There. All gone. No trace of the bad man or his genitals left.”
Sue-Ann stands up to go to the restroom and of course, Kane takes that opportunity to slide into her seat and lean over Cora, reaching his hand out. “I’m Kane. You’re Cora’s sister, aren’t you?”
Blanche turns several shades of pink. “Well, I never. You young men are total flirts these days. I’m Blanche LaCoste, Cora’s nana.”
Kane rears back. “No! That can’t be possible.”
She gives him a playful swat on his shoulder. “Yes, whippersnapper.”
Kane peeks over Cora’s shoulder. “What’s that in your phone, Blanche? Blaine seemed in an awful hurry to get rid of it.”
“It’s gone!” I snap, daring him with my eyes to make a nuisance of himself again. He’s the one who got me into this mess in the first place.
Blanche flicks her wrist and sets her silver bangles jangling. “It’s not gone, silly. I have everything saved to the cloud.”
“The cloud is a lifesaver,” Kane says, mischievous eyes twinkling and challenging me to a duel of wills. “I can’t tell you how many times I deleted something by accident and the cloud saved my ass… I mean butt. Sorry, Blanche.”
Blanche taps her phone case. “I’m going to find out who sent it no matter what I do. And I can be bullheaded when I set my mind to something.”
To my horror, Cora gets bored with the ongoing dick pic saga and she excuses herself to follow Sue-Ann, giving Kane a golden opportunity to move in even closer just as Blanche starts drawing on a cocktail napkin with an ancient plastic ink pen from US Bank.
She draws a rudimentary penis in the middle, and I think Kane’s eyes are going to bug out of his meathead. Then, she draws lines exploding out from it, so it looks like a comic book cock about to scream Bam! Boom! Bang! The whole time this is happening, Kane’s body shakes. He has his lips pressed into an inward pout, but he can’t quite keep the laughter in, and some seeps out on a croak.
And I have no idea when this train wreck will approach the station.
She taps the pen on the napkin and stares at it. “All of these lines represent ways to find out who did this. It’s just like a puzzle I need to solve.” The pen swirls against the thin paper as she prints words next to the lines. “There. One of my leads involves Lisa’s police officer brother. We might have to hire a P.I. I think I’ll head to the library tomorrow and see if I can check out a technical book about the matter. The librarians are especially helpful at the Duluth Public Library. They have a very large reference section. And finally, I might have to post it to social media and see if anyone recognizes it.”