Janet Evanovich: Wicked Appetite

“Are you okay?” I asked him.

“Yeah. She’s not much of a marksman. And even if she’d tagged me, I’m not easy to kill.”

Okay, I guess that explained his composure. He wasn’t easy to kill. Unlike me. I was a wimpy human held together by skin and dumb luck.

We got halfway down the block, and Glo leaned forward. “Now what?” Glo wanted to know. “Is it still happy hour?”

I stared at Glo. “Happy hour? Are you serious? How could you think about happy hour? We were just shot at. We could have been killed. And we left a woman talking nonsense. And happy hour ended hours ago.”

“I guess that was my bad,” Glo said, “but honestly, I didn’t think yak brain would make a difference.”

It was way long past happy hour when we left the Golden Dungeon Pub. As a town, Salem is a mixed bag. There are new hotels and office buildings side-by-side with two-hundred-year-old houses, museums reflecting the town’s nautical and heretic history, and shops catering to the weird and the curious.

The Golden Dungeon Pub was four steps down from the sidewalk in a converted basement that had nothing golden but was reminiscent of a dungeon, in a cozy sort of way. Dark wood booths, dark wood floors, dim light, a ghoulish waiter, sixteen taps, and theme-based food.

I’d had a couple Davey Jones crab cake sliders, a lot of bar nuts, and two sips of beer. I’d limited myself to two sips, because it seemed like it wasn’t a good idea to have more than two mouthfuls of alcohol sloshing around in my brain when I was sitting next to a man who smelled like fresh-baked Christmas cookies, looked good enough to eat and bad enough to ruin my life. And it was very possible he wasn’t entirely normal.

Glo hadn’t felt the need for caution, so we dropped her off at her house, and Diesel motored out of Salem and into Marblehead. He parked in front of my house and walked me to my front door.

“Knowing what’s going on in your head isn’t doing much for my ego,” Diesel said. “Most women want me to come in and get friendly. You’re panicked you won’t be able to keep me out.”

“I have to go to work early tomorrow.”

“That’s it?”

“And, you’re scary.”

Diesel pushed my door open and nudged me in. “You’ll get used to it.”

“I don’t want to get used to it!”

Diesel went still for a moment. “Wulf’s been here,” he said.

“Here? You mean in my house? How do you know?”

“I just know.”

I looked around. “Is he still here?”

Diesel slouched into the couch and reached for the television remote. “No. Just you, me, and Cat.”

Cat 7143 was at the edge of the room, watching us. He was back on his haunches with his half-tail curled around himself, seeming not overly upset that Wulf had come and gone.

“I kind of like having a cat,” I said, more to myself than to Diesel.

“He suits the house,” Diesel said. “Is this your furniture or was it part of your inheritance?”

“The furniture’s mostly mine. I had a few pieces in New York, and I picked some things up at garage sales when I first got here. The big rag rug in the dining room was Clara’s. She didn’t want it anymore. The curtains were left with the house.”

“I’ll make a deal with you,” Diesel said. “If you get me another piece of lasagna, I’ll let you choose which side of the bed you want.”

“Excuse me?”

“You have a television in your bedroom, right?”

“Wrong. Not that it matters to you. You won’t be spending time there.”

“We’ll see.”

I tried not to roll my eyes but wasn’t successful.

“You’ve got to stop with the eye-rolling,” he said. “You’re going to strain something.”

“It’s you! You’re…”

“Charming?”

Yes. And terrifying.

“I know you think you have to protect me,” I said to Diesel, “but you can’t stay here.”

“Sure I can,” Diesel said.

“What about a motel? Your car? A park bench?”

“Don’t think so.”

My eyes inadvertently took in the couch.

“Honey, do I look like I’d fit on this couch?” Diesel asked.

“Do I look like I care?”

“Maybe a little. Mostly, you look like you’d kick me out and not look back.”

A light flashed into my living room window, and there was the sound of people talking on the sidewalk in front of my house. The light swept up to my second floor, held for a moment, and blinked off. More talking.

I went to the door and looked out. It was a ghost tour. Most of the ghost tours were conducted in Salem, but twice a week, a guide walked around Marblehead with tourists in tow, pointing out houses that were supposedly haunted.

The guide was in his late fifties, dressed in period clothes, carrying a lantern and a flashlight. Six women and two men were clustered around him.

“Are you the owner of this house?” the guide asked me.

“Yes.”

“Congratulations,” he said. “Your house has been added to our route. We had an amazing sighting earlier in the evening.”

Diesel came up behind me. “What kind of a sighting?”

“It was an evil apparition,” the guide said. “He appeared in the upstairs window. He was ghostly white and dressed in black, and when he saw me watching him, he vanished in a swirl of ectoplasmic vapor.”

“Wulf,” Diesel said.

“That was a visitor from out of town,” I told the guide. “He always dresses in black. And he… smokes.”

“I could feel the disturbance in the air,” the guide said.

I looked back at Diesel. “Can Wulf disturb the air?”

Diesel did a palms-up. “Hard to say what Wulf can do.”

I retreated into my house with Diesel, closed the door, and threw the bolt. “I’m resigning. I’m turning in my special ability that we’re not even sure I possess.”

Diesel stretched and scratched his stomach. “I’m hungry,” he said. “I don’t suppose you have any of those cupcakes laying around.”

“Are you listening to me?”

“You can’t resign,” Diesel said, ambling off to the kitchen. “It would be irresponsible. Wulf could do really bad things with the Stones.”

“Not my problem.”

Diesel pulled the tray of lasagna out of the refrigerator. “Unfortunately, it is your problem. Wulf knows you have the ability to recognize a Stone. You won’t be safe until all the Stones are turned over to the BUM.”

“ All the Stones? I have to find all the Stones?”

“That’s the plan.”

“What about my life?”

“We’ll work around it.” He tugged at my ponytail. “It’ll be fun. You can make the cupcakes, and I’ll eat the cupcakes. Play your cards right, and I might even be able to get you a date.”

“I don’t want you to get me a date. I can get my own dates.”

Diesel got a fork from the silverware drawer. “When was the last time you went out on a date?”

“None of your business.”

“Hah!” Diesel said, forking a noodle off the lasagna.

I took the lasagna from Diesel and sliced off a piece. I spooned some red sauce onto a plate, placed the lasagna on top of the red sauce, and nuked it. When it was done, I added fresh grated cheese and a sprig of fresh basil, and handed it to him.

“I could get used to this,” Diesel said, digging in.

Oh jeez.

That got a smile from Diesel. “It was meant as a compliment, not a marriage proposal.”

“How do I know you’re not worse than Wulf?”

“Listen to your instincts.”

I raised an eyebrow. My instincts weren’t comfy with any of this.

“Okay,” Diesel said. “Then listen to the cat’s instincts. He likes me.”

“How can you tell?”