Janet Evanovich - Full House

"Nick mentioned firing someone. I think it may have been Arnie, but I'm not sure." She wondered why Nick had hired the man in the first place.

Deedee didn't seem to be listening. "Come on."

"What are you going to do?"

Deedee marched to the patio at the back of the house and set her sights on a pair of French doors. "I'm getting my necklace." She took an insulated metal coffee carafe that had been left sitting on a lawn table and swung it into one of the small panes in the patio door. Shards of glass tinkled onto the slate floor and an alarm went off both inside and outside the house.

Billie had a moment of heart-stopping immobility and then planted her feet in sprint position. "Let's go!"

"Don't be a wimp," Deedee said. "It's just a silly alarm." She reached inside the broken pane and unlocked the door. "Come on, this will only take a minute."

"This is breaking and entering!"

Deedee waved her red nails. "Nick won't mind. He's always telling me I should be more resourceful. He'll be proud of me."

"Do I hear dogs?"

"Oh, my God, I forgot about the dogs!" Deedee pulled Billie inside the house and slammed the patio door shut just as a pack of assorted dogs came bounding through the patch of evergreens.

"Terrific," Billie shouted over the alarm. "First the alarm goes off, then a herd of attack dogs descends on us. Not only that, there's a madman running loose, or should I say kid, who plays with explosives. What next?"

Deedee clacked across the terracotta tile floor of the solarium and looked out a front window. "Oh, crud, it's the police. I swear, you'd think they were watching the place." She shrugged. "Probably worried that Max will go off the deep end." She turned on her heel and started up a broad central staircase. "You explain all this to them while I get my necklace."

Billie stared at the flashing lights. Don't panic, she told herself, at the same time wondering how they'd managed to arrive on the scene so quickly. She felt as if she were right smack in the middle of a bad dream, only her eyes were wide open. She licked her dry lips. She'd never been arrested. She'd never had a traffic ticket. She'd led an exemplary life. And now she was going to have to explain to the police that her friend was upstairs breaking into a safe.

She opened the front door and gave a tentative wave to the inhabitants of three squad cars. Deedee had gone too far this time. Billie only hoped their prison wardrobe came in orange because Deedee had claimed she looked hideous in that color.

"This is all a mistake," Billie said, knowing it would never fly.

"Hands in the air, lady," an officer shouted, aiming his gun at her.

Her stomach took a nosedive. Billie immediately raised her hands over her head. "Please let me explain," she called back loudly, trying to make herself heard over the noisy alarm. "I'm not a real burglar. See, Deedee, Mr. Kaharchek's cousin, needed her Stargio. It's some kind of jewelry designed specifically for one of her evening gowns," she added in case the officers wondered what she was talking about.

One of them rolled his eyes. "Deedee Holt, the ditsy redhead?"

Billie nodded and expelled the air that had been trapped in her lungs. It gushed out like a hot furnace. "Deedee insists her shoes and jewelry match her clothes. I personally don't care about such things."

The officer came forward. "You can put your hands down."

Billie almost wept her relief. They knew Deedee. It was going to be okay.

He punched a code into the small wall computer and silenced the alarm. "This isn't her car," he said, pointing to Billie's minivan.

"It's mine," Billie said.

"Don't ever let her drive it."

Deedee clattered down the stairs in her heels and squeezed through the doorway, next to Billie. A collective gasp issued from the police while Deedee, resplendent in her bejeweled cleavage, preened and smiled for them. "Well, hello, gentlemen. I hope I didn't cause another little ruckus."

"Where's Mr. Kaharchek?"

Deedee grimaced. "In Upperville looking at some dumb horse, where else?"

Frankie's limo pulled around the circular driveway and he got out. "I saw the note," he called out as he closed the distance between the limo and the officer. "Deedee had to get her necklace," he explained to the uniform at the foot of the porch stairs. "She can't wear that dress without her Stargio."

The officer just looked at Deedee. "Have you ever considered asking your cousin for a key?"

"She has trouble keeping up with keys," Frankie answered for her. "Don't worry, I'll pay for any damage."

Deedee jiggled to the limo and slid in, exposing a healthy length of leg to the observant eyes of the law. "Thanks, honey," she called to Billie. "Don't wait up." Frankie followed.

The officer standing in front of Billie shook his head. "She's something else, isn't she?"

"Uh-huh."

"Is Fong at home?"

"I don't know this Fong person or where he is at the moment."

"What did Deedee break this time?" he asked, writing on a form attached to a clipboard.

"A window in the French doors."

He handed the clipboard to Billie. "You'll have to make a statement. Just sign at the bottom. Is Nick coming home soon? We can't leave the house unattended and unsecured."

Billie scribbled a brief explanation on the sheet of paper, signed it, and handed it to the officer. "I'm not sure when Mr. Kaharchek will return. I'll stay. I'm a personal friend." She regretted it the moment she said it. What if Max showed up? What if he were lurking about just watching and waiting to make his next move? Damn Deedee! The woman should be forced to sit in jail for a week without her makeup kits.

The officers were already climbing into their patrol cars. Billie watched them drive single-file down the driveway, turn onto the road, and disappear around a bend.

She sat on the porch steps for a while after they drove off. Birds sang night songs and the sky darkened. An animal lowed in the distance and Billie guessed that Nick kept cattle as well as horses. One by one the dogs ambled around the house and sat beside her. Hardly guard dogs. They probably had come running, hoping to get fed, she decided. She smiled. There wasn't a pedigree among them.

Nick Kaharchek was a strange person. Not at all what she had originally expected; and the more Deedee complained about him, the better Billie liked him. He'd actually been a lot of fun at the wrestling match. She liked it that he could make himself at home in a kitchen. And he obviously liked animals.

"Just like me," she told the dogs. The thought saddened her. Not only did they live in separate worlds; there was another woman in the picture. Billie suspected there would always be a woman in the picture where Nick was concerned, whether it was Sheridan or not. He liked women and they liked him.

Billie heaved herself to her feet, went into the foyer with the dogs following close behind, and discovered another thing she liked about Nick Kaharchek — his house. It was a home. Warm and inviting without being ostentatious, though he could afford to decorate it like a castle if he wished. Roomy and spacious but still very simple and private. The couches were big and overstuffed. The tables were genuine Shaker. Fresh flowers sat in pots and vases on oversized window ledges and on the raised fireplace hearth of the great room. She turned on a few lights and found the kitchen.

It was a cook's kitchen. Iron skillets and copper pots hung from the ceiling beams, side by side with sprays of dried herbs, ropes of red onions, clusters of garlic, and wire baskets of potatoes, squash, and turnips. An oak table polished to a high gloss invited people to eat in front of the large stone fireplace and enjoy the aroma of food fresh from the elaborate black iron-and-stainless-steel restaurant-sized stove. Billie located the pantry and the dog food and filled five red bowls labeled Spike, Snuffy, Otis, Daisy, and Beans. Tails thumped the wood floor while they waited patiently.