Janet Evanovich - Explosive Eighteen

“I didn’t steal it. I only borrowed it.”

“ Bring it back !”

“What?” Buggy said. “I can’t hear you. Must be bad reception.”

The line went dead.

“Jeez Louise!” I yelled. “Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!” I thunked the heel of my hand against my forehead so hard I almost lost my ice cream. “I hate him,” I said. “He should rot in hell.”

An elderly woman walked out of the mall and cut a wide path around me, murmuring about drugs and young people.

“Sorry,” I called after her. “Someone stole my car.”

Get a grip, I told myself. It’s just a car. It wasn’t even a good car. That wasn’t the issue, of course. The issue was that I got outsmarted by a moron.

I found a bench by the mall entrance and ate my ice cream. No way was I calling Ranger. It was too embarrassing. I couldn’t call Lula. She was sick. Connie was busy looking for a temporary office. I didn’t want to slow that process. If I called my mother, I’d get the Why Don’t You Have a Nice Job in a Bank lecture. I could walk, but it would take me all day, and I’d probably get hit by a truck on the highway. A cab would be expensive.

I was sitting on the bench debating all this when Grandma and Annie Hart walked out of the mall.

“For goodness sakes,” Grandma said, spotting me. “Are you sitting here waiting for a criminal?”

“More or less,” I said. “What are you doing here?”

“Annie took me shopping to get bowling shoes, on account of I got my Social Security check.”

Grandma drove with a lead foot and had lost her license several years back after racking up a bunch of speeding tickets. So Grandma was now dependent on other, more sane drivers for transportation.

“I’m having car problems,” I said. “Can I hitch a ride with you?”

“Of course,” Annie said. “I’ve been wanting to talk to you anyway.”

“What’s it this time?” Grandma asked me. “Did your car get blown up, smashed by a garbage truck, or stolen?”

I followed them into the parking lot. “Stolen. Don’t tell my mother.”

Annie’s eyes widened. “Did you report it to the police?”

“Not yet,” I told her. “I’ll wait to see if it’s returned.”

“This happens to her a lot,” Grandma said to Annie. “It’s no big deal. We got a extra Buick in the garage she can use.”

We all climbed into Annie’s red Jetta, and Annie drove out of the parking lot onto Route 1.

“I’m going to be smokin’ in these shoes,” Grandma said, opening the box, looking at her new shoes. “Next month, I’m getting my own ball.”

“It’s important to have the proper equipment,” Annie said.

“You should take up bowling,” Grandma said to me. “There are some hot men at the bowling alley. It could be just what a young divorcée like you needs.”

“I have enough hot men in my life already,” I said. “In fact, I have one too many.”

“You should make a decision,” Annie said. “I’m sure in your heart you know your true love. Just go with your heart.”

It wasn’t that easy. My heart was confused. My brain didn’t want either of the men in my life. And my hooha wanted both of them!

“I could make a potion up for you that would simplify everything,” Annie said.

“Thanks,” I said, “but I’d rather not get involved with potions.”

“They’re perfectly safe,” Annie said. “We’re very high tech in our potion making now. I’m even a member of the APMA. American Potion Makers Association.”

“Maybe I should take up making potions,” Grandma said. “I’ve been thinking about coming out of retirement. Potions might be a good business to get into. How do you join that APMA?”

“You can join online,” Annie said. “Just go to their website.”

“Is it just love potions?” Grandma wanted to know. “Or can you make all kinds of potions?”

“I specialize in love potions,” Annie said. “But potions can solve a wide range of issues.”

“I’ll have to think about it,” Grandma said. “I want to have a good specialty.”

By the time Grandma and I got dropped off at my parents’ house, it was after five o’clock, and I could smell chicken frying all the way out to the street. My original intention had been to zip into the house, get the key to the Buick, and track down Buggy. Now that I was smelling my mom’s fried chicken, I was having second thoughts. I could stay for dinner and go after Buggy later. In fact, the heck with capturing Buggy today. Better to go after him tomorrow with a fully charged stun gun.

Grandma hustled into the house and went straight to the kitchen. “We found Stephanie at the mall,” she said to my mother. “She’s going to have dinner with us.”

My mother was at the stove, turning pieces of chicken in her big fry pan. “I’m trying a new recipe. I found it in a magazine. And there’s mashed potatoes and green beans. And before I forget, there were two men here looking for you. They said they were FBI.”

My heart stopped beating for a moment. “Did they give their names?”

“One was named Lancer and the other was Slasher,” my mother said. “They seemed nice. Very polite. I told them I didn’t know where you were, and they went away.”

“What’s that about?” Grandma asked. “Are you tracking down some famous criminal? I bet it’s someone on the Ten Most Wanted list.”

“It’s a misunderstanding,” I said. “If there was someone in the area on the Ten Most Wanted list, Ranger would get that job, not me. I’ll catch up with them tomorrow.”

I set the table and wandered into the living room to say hello to my dad.

“Look at this,” he said, gesturing to the television. “There’s more on that guy who got stuffed into the garbage can. They’re saying now they think he was drugged before he was snuffed and stuffed into the can. It’s not official or anything, but that’s what a security guard said. And I guess there’s a woman involved.”

“A woman?”

“They’re referring to her as a person of interest. You know what that means. The kiss of death. The person of interest is always the killer.”

I hated to think that was true, since I might be the person of interest.

My grandmother joined us. “Are you talking about the garbage can killer? I heard the dead guy was a doctor in the army, and he might have been a spy when he was over there in Afghanistan.” She sucked on her dentures. “That spying catches up to you. One minute you’re a spy, and next thing, you’re dead in a garbage can. Unless you’re James Bond. Nothing stops him. He’s balls to the wall.”

My father hunkered deeper into his chair and turned the volume up on the television.

“Shut the television off!” my mother yelled from the dining room. “It’s too loud, and dinner’s ready.”

I took my seat at the table, and my phone rang.

“I’m at the junkyard,” Morelli said. “The dog found a body, but we haven’t been able to view it. We haven’t got a big enough can opener.”

“Only one body?”

“So far. The dog’s still working. Where are you?”

“I’m having dinner at my parents’ house. My mom made fried chicken.”

“Oh man, that’s cruel. I love your mom’s fried chicken.”

“I’ll bring some back to my apartment for you.”

“This could take a while,” Morelli said.

“Whatever.”

“Who was that?” Grandma asked when I hung up. “Was that Ranger?”

“No. It was Morelli.”

“It’s hard to keep up with it all,” Grandma said. “I don’t know how you do it. You’re married, and then you’re not married, and then you’re saving chicken for Morelli.”