Game On: Tempting Twenty-Eight (Stephanie Plum #28)(39)

“Go, girl,” Lula said. “Makeover time. I’m thinking she needs to start with undergarments.”

She parked near the Macy’s entrance, and I was able to snap a photo of her when she got out of the Kia. Lula and I followed her into the mall, to the food court. She bought a coffee, took it to a small table, and pulled her laptop out of her tote bag.

“She’s here to use the Wi-Fi,” I said to Lula.

“That’s a bummer,” Lula said. “I thought we were going to see some self-improvement. Do you know what this food court needs? Mac and cheese. Somebody could clean up if they opened a place that sold mac and cheese.”

I watched the woman for a long moment trying to decide if I wanted to approach her. She was intent on whatever she had on the screen. Her coffee was sitting untouched, getting cold. An older man walked close to her table on his way to the public restroom and she automatically shielded her work.

“Something going on there,” Lula said.

I called Connie and gave her the plate on the Kia. “See what you can find,” I said to Connie. “Sooner would be better than later.”

I got a soda and Lula got two chili dogs and a large curly fries. Lula was finishing up her fries when Connie called me.

“Charlotte Huck,” Connie said. “Twenty-five years old. Self-employed MIT graduate. Single. No derog. No litigation. Good credit. Graduated Trenton High School. Parents are divorced. No siblings. I’ll text her address to you.”

Huck abruptly slipped her laptop into her tote, stood, and power walked out of the food court. Lula and I scrambled to keep up with her.

“She’s leaving,” Lula said. “What are we going to do? Do you want me to take her down?”

“No. I want to see where she goes.”

We followed her to her car and back to the highway. She drove toward the center of the city, and I lost her at a traffic light on State Street.

“We should have taken her down when we could,” Lula said. “Now we lost her.”

“We had no reason to take her down,” I said. “I know who she is, and I know where she lives. That’s enough for now. I want to show her photo to Melvin. She’s probably just a friend.”

“So now what?”

“Now we go back to Deacon Plumbing and get clothes for Melvin.”

I parked in the employee area so my car wouldn’t be conspicuous. It was possible that Oswald was returning periodically, hoping to catch Melvin at home or to get at hint at his hiding place. Seeing a car parked by Melvin’s front door might encourage Oswald to break in with the hopes of tongue removal. In Melvin’s absence, Oswald might be temporarily satisfied to mutilate me.

The loft looked untouched since my last visit. One of the laundry baskets seemed to be filled with clean clothes. Underwear, socks, Tshirts, jeans, pajamas, and sweatpants. I grabbed a sweatshirt and a pair of sneakers off the floor and added them to the basket.

“Do you see anything else that you think Melvin might need?” I asked Lula.

“It looks like he sleeps with a teddy bear,” she said.

I put the bear in the basket, carted the basket down the stairs, locked the front door, and stowed the basket in the Focus.

“If we take the basket to Melvin now, we could have the added advantage of lunch at your mama’s house,” Lula said.

That worked for me. I wanted to ask Melvin about Charlotte Huck and show him her picture. And when we were done with lunch, we would be practically next door to Mary Jane Merkle.



* * *




I set the laundry basket on the floor beside Melvin and took the seat across from him at the dining room table.

“There was a woman at your front door today,” I said. “She knocked several times and left when no one answered.”

“A woman? What kind of woman?”

“Your age.”

“I’ve never had a woman visit me,” Melvin said. “Was she pretty?”

“Yes. In a natural kind of way.” I showed him the picture on my phone. “Do you know her?”

“She looks familiar, but I don’t think I know her. Maybe I’ve seen her around.”

“Her name is Charlotte Huck.”

He shook his head. “Nope. What did she want?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t get to talk to her.”

“She has nice hair,” Melvin said. “It looks silky.”

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, I thought. And her hair did indeed look silky.

“How’s the hack going?” I asked him.

“Not so good. Turned out to be a red herring. I only had access to a bunch of fake files and directories. Every other directory was named idiot or loser and all of the files just say ‘retribution’ over and over. They looked legit at first. Some of them gave me bogus financial information. Cryptocurrency accounts. If the information was real and we were inclined, we could make millions, maybe billions, in blackmail.”

“Are you inclined?”

“No,” Melvin said. “I wouldn’t know what to do with the money. I have almost everything I need.”

“What are you lacking?” I asked.

“A girlfriend,” he said. “I’m not good with girls. I like them but I never know what to say. And I might like to have a cat someday.”