Game On: Tempting Twenty-Eight (Stephanie Plum #28)(46)

It took a couple of beats for my brain to catch up to what I just heard. “Do you know her?” I asked Grandma.

“She worked at the dry cleaner for a while when she was in high school and summers when she was home from college. She was always polite when I stopped at the dry cleaner. And she’s smart. She went to MIT. Jean’s real proud of her.”

“Where does Jean live?”

“She’s on Garret Street, behind the church. She got the house after the divorce. That was a bunch of years ago. She’s remarried now. She married Harry Barkolowski. I think he taught you algebra.”

“I hated him!”

“Isn’t this something,” Grandma said. “You never know about people. Are you going to tell Melvin?”

“Not yet,” I said. “I want to find Charlotte first and make sure I’m right.”

I looked at my mom. “Is that still a scarf? It looks long.”

“We measured it a half hour ago,” Grandma said. “It was eleven feet.”

“That’s a lot of scarf,” I said.

“It might not be a scarf,” my mom said. “It might just be a thing. If it’s a thing it’s more relaxing. I don’t have to worry about making a mistake. I can add a couple stitches or take away a couple stitches and it doesn’t matter. And if I run out of yarn, I can tie a knot in the end and keep going with any color I want. It doesn’t have to match.”

“That’s genius, Mrs. P.,” Lula said. “That’s profound. I think you hit on something. Craft projects that have no use and are endless. Somebody could clean up on that idea. We could take it to QVC. I could sell the heck out of that idea.”

“In the meantime, I’m going to pay a visit on Charlotte’s mother,” I said.

“You can’t miss the house,” Grandma said. “She painted it lime green and ran out of paint, so some of it is tan.”

Lula followed me out and we went in search of the green and tan house.

“It doesn’t look too bad,” Lula said when we found it. “It’s more interesting like this and the colors are totally Zen.”

The woman who answered my knock reminded me of my mom. Her brown hair was cut in a short bob and everything about her was age appropriate. She was wearing sneakers and jeans and a tailored shirt with the sleeves rolled.

I introduced myself as Edna Mazur’s granddaughter.

“Of course,” she said. “You’re Stephanie Plum. You’re famous in the Burg. We all enjoy your exploits.”

You can run, but you can’t hide, I told myself.

“I’m looking for Charlotte,” I said. “Is she at home?”

“I hope she’s not in trouble,” her mother said.

I gave her a reassuring smile. “Not at all. I’m actually looking for a boy she knew in high school, and I thought she might be able to help me.”

“Have you tried her house on Spruce Street?”

“Yes. She wasn’t there.”

“Sometimes she goes to the mall or a Starbucks to use the Wi-Fi. She started doing that a couple weeks ago. I told her she could come here, but she doesn’t get along with her stepfather.”

“Thanks,” I said. “You’ve been helpful.”

“I guess next stop is the mall,” Lula said. “It could be a problem for me if you plan on staying past lunchtime, because I don’t want to miss my appointment pertaining to my celestial alignment. Madam Eileen gets booked up. I was lucky she could squeeze me in.”

“It’s hard to say how long I’ll be there. I can drop you off at the office and catch up to you later, after you have your stars examined.”





CHAPTER SEVENTEEN


Charlotte Huck was sitting at a small table in the Quaker Bridge Mall food court. She was hunched over her computer in deep concentration. She looked rumpled and unkempt. I walked over and sat at the table with her.

“Charlotte Huck?” I asked.

She looked up. Startled. “Yes?”

“I’m Stephanie Plum and I’m friends with Melvin Schwartz.”

“I don’t know Melvin Schwartz.”

“You know HotWiz.”

“Oh gosh,” she said. “How do you know that?”

“It’s a long and complicated story. The short version is that I’m trying to help you and Melvin avoid Oswald and stay alive.”

“We thought Oswald was brilliant. We didn’t suspect that he was a monster. I received a message from him that said Retribution. I didn’t know how to take that, but later that night he broke into my neighbor’s house. It was really scary. The police were there and when they took him away, he saw me standing on my front porch, watching. As soon as I saw him, I knew it was Oswald. I’d seen pictures of him. He would go to conferences and be a celebrity. Sometimes he would be with a beautiful, glamorous woman. I saw him look at me, and his expression was terrifying. I packed up a few things and left. I was afraid he’d get out of jail and come back.”

“What did you think he would do to you?”

“I didn’t know. He looked crazy when they were taking him away.”

“I saw you at Melvin’s door and at Clark’s viewing. You knew they were Baked Potatoes?”