Janet Evanovich - Wicked Appetite

“You’re spoiling him,” I said to Diesel, sliding onto the passenger-side seat.

“I’m in survival mode. Since we can’t seem to get rid of him, I’m doing whatever it takes to neutralize him.”

Carl looked up from his movie and gave Diesel the finger.

“What’s he watching?” I asked Diesel.

“ Madagascar. He likes the monkeys.”

I handed out meat pies and put the cupcake box on the floor between my feet. “We’re going home, right?”

“Wrong,” Diesel said, pulling into traffic. “Mark was fried last night. I got the high points out of him, but I want to see if he remembers more now that he’s calmed down. I called him a couple minutes ago. He’s at Melody’s house.”

“Mark gave up the charm. What else can he tell you?”

“I don’t know, but it feels like there’s more.”

Diesel went through three meat pies and two cupcakes en route to Melody’s house. He parked at the curb, behind Lenny’s Camry, and we got out and stood on the sidewalk, looking at Carl in the backseat.

“He should be okay,” Diesel said, locking the Cayenne. “He’s got about forty minutes more on the movie.”

Melody’s front door banged open and a kid stuck his head out.

“Are you visitors?” he yelled.

“Yes,” I said.

“I can’t let you in,” he yelled back.

And he slammed the door shut.

Diesel walked to the door and rang the bell.

“What?” the kid yelled from inside.

“I want to talk to your Uncle Mark,” Diesel said.

“No.”

Diesel opened the door and stepped into the house.

“Help!” the kid yelled. “HELP! Burglar!”

Three more kids ran in. One wrapped his arms around Diesel’s leg. Another bit Diesel in the ankle, and a third kid kicked Diesel in the back of the leg. Diesel picked the ankle biter up by the back of his shirt and focused on the kid who’d kicked him.

“You do that again, and I’ll turn you into a toad,” Diesel said to the kicker.

“Can you do that?” I asked Diesel.

Diesel looked over at me, the ankle biter still dangling in the air. “Do you really want to know the answer to that question?”

“No,” I said. “And don’t do it in front of me.”

Mark walked into the living room. He held a clear plastic bag filled with bite-size candy bars. He shook the bag and the kids snapped to attention, all eyes on the candy bag.

“What’s going on?” he asked the doorkeeper kid.

“He’s a burglar. He’s gonna take our telebisions.”

“This is Diesel,” Mark said. “He isn’t a burglar. He came to talk to me.”

“Mom said don’t let anyone in when she isn’t home.”

“It’s okay. I’m here.”

“But Mom said…”

Mark threw the candy bag into the dining room. “Fetch.”

The kid took off after the candy, and the other kids followed. All but the kid hanging at the end of Diesel’s arm. His legs were running, but he wasn’t going anywhere. Diesel put the ankle biter down, and he went off like a shot after his siblings.

“Do you have kids?” Mark asked Diesel.

“No,” Diesel said. “I have a monkey.”

Mark nodded. “How’s that working for you?”

“Not all that good,” Diesel said.

“Sorry about the charm,” Mark said, his hand unconsciously going to the burn marks on his neck. “I have a feeling I gave it to the bad guy.”

“Where did Wulf take you?”

“I don’t know. He walked up to me, and it was lights out, and then I was in a room that looked like it might have been a warehouse or a factory. Sort of a loft that had been cleaned up. The ceiling was painted black, with exposed air ducts, whitewashed walls. It had a cement floor. No windows. One door. I wasn’t there very long. He explained what he wanted. I said no. He burned my neck, and I gave him Uncle Phil’s bug. Next thing I know, I’m on the wharf.”

“You didn’t tell him anything else?”

“Nothing else to tell,” Mark said.

“When your uncle was alive, did he ever talk about the charms?”

“No.”

“SALIGIA Stones?”

“Nope.”

“How about gluttony?” Diesel asked.

“No. Uncle Phil was a scary old coot, but he didn’t have any obsessions like Lenny and me. Uncle Phil preached everything in moderation.”

“Do you know where he kept the objects he distributed as inheritances?”

“No. The estate lawyer had a locked fireproof metal chest on his desk when we filed in. He unlocked the chest and took out the will and the inheritances. Each inheritance was in its own little box, tied up with a gold ribbon. We were told not to open the box until we were alone, at home. My box contained the dragonfly charm and a slip of paper with the bad luck warning.”

“Do you still have the slip of paper?”

“No. Instructions were to destroy it and never speak of it. And there was a short video that came out of the chest. The lawyer played it in his office. It was Uncle Phil, looking like he’d risen from the dead, repeating the bad luck warning. It scared the crap out of all of us, including the lawyer.”

“Have you had any other dealings with the lawyer?” Diesel asked.

“No. He died a few months after Uncle Phil. Secretly, I was half afraid it was because he talked about the inheritances. I know that’s stupid, but the whole thing was creepy. What’s this all about anyway?”

“Your dragonfly was part of a larger treasure,” Diesel told him. “It probably doesn’t have a lot of monetary value, but it’s a collectible.”

“Must be a heck of a collectible,” Mark said. “That Wolf guy isn’t normal.”

He’d got that one right. Not normal was an understatement. Of course, if you wanted to get technical, it turns out I might not be entirely normal, either.

“Uncle Mark,” one of the kids called. “Kenny pooped in his pants again.”

“Trust me,” Mark said to Diesel. “You’re better off with the monkey.”

“Hard to believe,” Diesel said. “Is there anything else you can tell us about the inheritance?”

Mark shook his head. “Uncle Phil took his secrets to the grave.”

“And that would be where?” Diesel asked.

“His grave? There’s a family plot in the old cemetery next to the Presbyterian church on Oyster Hill Road.”

A kid waddled to the edge of the living room. “I made poo,” he announced.

I wasn’t crazy about cemeteries, but Phil’s grave held more appeal than Melody’s living room. I’d like to think I had maternal instincts locked away in me somewhere, but the truth is, at the moment, they for sure didn’t reach out to a kid who made poo.

“Good idea,” I said to Diesel. “Let’s talk to Phil.”

Diesel grinned down at me. “Abandoning Mark’s sinking ship?”

“Absolutely.”

“Call me if you think of anything new,” Diesel said to Mark.

“That was my last bag of candy,” Mark said. “I’m a dead man.”

Carl was still watching the movie when we reached the Cayenne. The cupcake box was empty on my seat, and Carl had icing stuck in his fur.

Diesel angled behind the wheel and rolled the engine over. “I was looking forward to those cupcakes.”

“Take me home, and I’ll make more.”

“I thought you were all hot to visit Uncle Phil.”

“Well, yeah, who wouldn’t want to go to the cemetery and talk to a dead guy? It’s just that I thought you really wanted cupcakes, and I wouldn’t mind if you talked to Uncle Phil without me. That way, I could stay home and bake, and you could do your communing-with-the-departed thing.”

Diesel drove out of Melody’s neighborhood and went south to Oyster Hill Road. “You aren’t afraid of cemeteries, are you?”

“Of course not. I might not like them as much as a shopping center, but I’m not afraid of them. That would be dumb. I mean, it’s not as if zombies live there.”