Janet Evanovich: Wicked Appetite

“There’s this thing I can do with locks,” Diesel said.

“Thing?”

“Yeah, I can open them.”

He stood and stretched and headed for the kitchen.

“Wait,” I said. “Where are you going?”

“I’m hungry.”

“No, no, no. You have to leave.”

“There’s good news, and there’s bad news, and it’s both the same news. I’m here to stay.”

Don’t panic, I told myself. He’s obviously a crazy person. Just quietly leave the house and call the police. They’ll come get him and take him somewhere to get his meds adjusted.

“I’m not crazy,” Diesel said from the kitchen.

“Of course not. Did I say you were crazy?”

“You were thinking it.”

Oh great. The crazy guy can read minds. I inched away from the front door and cautiously peeked into the kitchen, where Diesel was going through the cabinets.

“Are you looking for money?” I asked him. “Jewelry?”

“I’m looking for food.” Diesel opened the refrigerator, looked inside, and settled on leftover lasagna. “So what’s going on with you? Do you have a boyfriend?”

“Excuse me?”

“I’ll take that as a no. You have ‘no boyfriend’ written all over you. Sort of a surprise, since you make decent lasagna,” Diesel said.

“My lasagna is better than decent. I happen to make great lasagna.”

Diesel grinned at me. “You’re kind of cute when you’re all indignant like that.”

I spun on my heel, huffed out of the kitchen, and headed for the front door and a call to 911. I reached the middle of my small living room and realized the door was open and the flesh-burning guy was standing in the doorway, looking in at me. I instinctively took a step back and came up against Diesel. Okay, so I know he might be crazy, but Jeez Louise, Diesel smelled great when you got close to him. Warm and spicy, like Christmas. And he felt good plastered against me, a protective hand resting on my hip.

“Hello, cousin,” Diesel said to the man in black.

There was a flash of light, and a lot of smoke, and when the smoke cleared, the man was gone.

“That was Wulf,” Diesel said. “But then, you’ve already met.”

“How did he do that? He vanished into thin air.”

“Smoke and mirrors,” Diesel said. “He’s read Magic Tricks for Dummies.”

“Why did he leave?”

Diesel went to the door, closed it, and threw the dead bolt. “He left because I was here.”

“Are you really his cousin?”

“Yeah. We grew up together.”

“And now?”

“Now we’re playing for different teams.”

He handed me the lasagna dish and his fork and laced up his boots.

“I need to follow Wulf,” he said. “Stay here and keep your doors locked.”

“So Wulf can’t get in?”

“No, so the weird guy across the street can’t get in.”

I looked out the front window. “That’s Mr. Bennet. He’s ninety-two and he thinks he’s General Eisenhower. He lives in the house with the red geraniums in the window boxes.”

I turned back to Diesel, but Diesel was gone. No smoke. No flash of light. Nothing. Just gone. I went to my small second-floor office and did a computer search for Gerwulf Grimoire. Nothing. Clean slate. No Facebook page. No matches found.

I called the bakery and got Glo.

“When I came home just now, Diesel was inside my house, waiting for me,” I told her.

“Who’s Diesel?”

“The big rude guy from the bakery.”

“His name is Diesel? Like a powerful engine pulling a freight train?” Glo said. “That is so sexy.”

I thought his personality was freight train engine, but his appearance was more unkempt ruler of the pride male lion.

“Is he still there?” Glo asked. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine, and he’s gone. I thought I should tell you in case I turn up missing or dead or something.”

“Did he threaten you?”

“No. He ate some lasagna. And then Wulf walked in. And then they both disappeared.”

“What did Wulf look like?”

“Scary in a sexy vampire sort of way.”

“Wow.”

“Am I being punked? Is this going to show up on Funniest Home Videos?”

“Not on my dime,” Glo said.

I looked out my back office window. No sign of anyone lurking in my bushes or hiding behind the maple tree. Beyond the maple tree, the boats peacefully bobbed in the harbor. Marblehead was business as usual. And that meant not much business at all. It was originally a fishing village with narrow, crooked streets moving inland from the water. The nineteenth-century cod boats have been replaced with dories and fancy sailboats, and Marblehead is mostly a bedroom community for Boston and the North Shore now, but the low-key character of the colonial town hasn’t been entirely lost.

“I’ll be over as soon as I’m done here,” Glo said. “I’ll bring my book, and we can put a spell on your house to ward off vampires.”

“I said he looked like a vampire. I didn’t say he was one.”

“I’ll bring garlic, too.”

“Put it on a pizza, and it’s a deal.”

Glo showed up a little after six. She had her book of spells, a pizza box, and a short-haired tiger-striped cat.

“What’s with the cat?” I asked her.

“It’s yours. It’s a watch cat. It’ll help protect your house. I got it at the shelter.”

“I don’t think I’m ready to commit to a cat.”

“But this is a special cat,” Glo said, setting the cat on the floor.

“How do you know it’s special?”

“It was like the book of spells. You know how the book called me into the store? Well, this cat called me into the shelter. I was driving by the shelter on my way here, and the car just turned into the parking lot all by itself. I swear I didn’t have anything to do with it. And then before I knew it, I was inside and there was the cat.”

“Waiting for you?”

“Actually, he was waiting to get… you know.”

Glo pantomimed throat-slashing.

“Euthanized?” I asked.

“Yep,” Glo said. “They were gonna snuff him.”

“How horrible!”

“Okay, so they weren’t really going to snuff him. I just said that so you’d keep him. I think they were going to give him a bath.”

The cat looked up at me.

“There’s something odd about his eyes,” I said. “And isn’t his tail kind of short?”

“Word at the shelter is that he was sort of a brawler. Lost one of his eyes and part of his tail somehow.”

I looked more closely. “He’s got a glass eye?”

“Yeah. Cool, right?”

“Does he have a name?” I asked Glo.

“It says on the paper I got when I adopted him that he’s Cat #7143.”

“Maybe you should keep him.”

“I’m not allowed. I rent from a guy who’s allergic to cats.”

This is how it happens, I thought. A series of unexpected events and wham, nothing will ever be the same again. Yesterday, everything was comfortable and going along as planned, and now I’ve got two scary men and a cat in my life. The cat I was pretty sure I could manage. The men had me worried.

Glo put the book of spells on my red Formica countertop and set the pizza box on my secondhand cherrywood kitchen table. She flipped the lid on the box and helped herself to a slice.

“I have a couple awesome spells for your house,” she said. “We might not have all the ingredients for the potions, but I figure we can improvise.”

“I don’t want to put a spell on my house. I like it the way it is.”

“Are you kidding? The vampire just walked right in.”

“He wasn’t a vampire. He was a weird guy with perfect skin and an expensive suit.”

“How can you be sure?”