Just Add Trouble (Hetta Coffey Mystery Series (Book 3)) by Jinx Schwartz

think? Okay, I’ll pick out a couple of good pics, especially of your hunky captain, and you can improvise, lift info for the article from the report you’ve already written.”
    Hetta Coffey, star reporter? Perhaps I was launching a whole new career.
    I began cutting and pasting stuff for a fifteen hundred word article. I’d gone online and read the Observer's submission guidelines, and we followed them studiously. Jan picked out three good photos, one of which was me, looking very reporterly, interviewing the port captain. In the background, there was actually a ship, the only one I’d seen dock since I’d been there. According to Reyes, the ship contained a load of fertilizer, much like the gloss piece I wrote on the port.
    When I finished, Jan read it, and giggled. “You make it sound like the project is signed, sealed, delivered, and the best thing for Arizona since the Gadsden Purchase.”
    “Aha, someone did her homework.”
    “I know my US history, not solely Texas history, like you.”
    “Hey, I know about the purchase of Arizona from Mexico, but I prefer the way we Texans stole our land, fair and square.”

     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    Chapter 11
     
     
    I e-mailed the article, with photos, and by some miracle it was accepted the next day by the Observer . Slow news day, no doubt. They also offered me ten bucks for the piece. I told them where to mail my check and, quick as a wink, I was a bona fide professional writer. And they say it’s hard breaking into the business. Jan, spoilsport that she is, warned me not to get too carried away with the Hetta Hemingway bit, as I was way too full of myself already. She also demanded half the loot, as she, the photojournalist, received credit, but no money. Jeez, I’m glad I don’t have an agent. I’d end up owing money for something I’d written.
    Jan was making noises about returning to the dive ship and Chino. They talked long and mushily on a daily basis via cell phone. Still no word from Grandma Yee, and Chino was becoming alarmed, but he couldn’t leave the expedition at this point. With his family mostly on the mainland, there was no one else to check on her. He called the police in Loreto and was given a lukewarm promise they’d try contacting Granny, but that was about it.
    After one of those longwinded, saccharine conversations, Jan announced, “I’m gonna take the ferry back to Santa Rosalia, rent a car, and drive to Agua Fria.”
    “I thought the road was out, or at least so bad that the only things that can get in and out are those lifted-up trucks Jenks and I saw.”
    “Well, I can at least confirm the road is out. Got a map?” I reluctantly dug one out. A dirt track passing for the Agua Fria road turned off of Mexico Highway 1—affectionately and otherwise referred to as Mex One, or Baja One, the narrow paved ribbon that runs the length of Baja—south of Loreto. Even the map, which showed every goat path in Baja, declared the road as, “Unimproved Dirt.” From what I’ve seen of the roads in Baja,  even the good ones, this kind of designation is ominous. “Think they rent Hummers in Santa Rosalia?”
    “Oh, come on, Hetta. It can’t be that bad. You should see the road out to Ignacio Lagoon. Chino goes through tires the way you go through boyfriends.”
    “Hey, you’re the one with the boyfriend du jour. I came off a five-year hiatus when I met Jenks. Of course, he’s not my boyfriend, really. Aren’t we getting a mite long in the tooth to have boyfriends? Maybe man friend is more appropriate.”
    “In your case, cell mate is more appropriate.”
    Ain’t friends grand? Always there, reminding you of yesteryears, especially when there’s a taint of smut involved.
    “Maybe, just maybe, I need a new girl friend.”
    “Who would put up with you?”
    She had a point, so I changed the subject. I had an idea percolating on the back burner of my brain. “What if I take you to Santa Rosalia, we’ll go in search of Granny,