Game On: Tempting Twenty-Eight (Stephanie Plum #28)(53)

“I’d like a bucket of extra crispy chicken and a pizza with the works, but I’m not supposed to eat anything yet.”

“I’ll pick you up tomorrow and we can stop at Cluck-in-a-Bucket on the way home.”

“They said I’d get discharged at nine o’clock.”

I left the medical center and drove to Target. Lula was going to need something comfortable to wear tomorrow. Everything in her closet was skintight and she needed something loose over her stitches. When I left Target an hour later, I had a tent dress for Lula, two throw pillows for my new couch, a new lipstick, and two bags of groceries. The groceries included ice cream, so I bypassed the office and went straight to my apartment.

Rex came out of his soup can den to say hello while I was unpacking the groceries. I told him about Lula and gave him a corn chip and half of a walnut.

“Have you noticed how quiet it is?” I asked Rex. “That’s because it’s just you and me. No Diesel. No Morelli. No Bob Dog.”

I got a bottle of water and took it to the dining room. Diesel’s side of the table was cluttered with notepads and pens, coffee cups, his computer, his headset, and an iPad. My side of the table had my laptop on it. I opened mail and found a hundred messages from Oswald that all said the same thing. Retribution. No other emails. My account had been wiped clean. I guess he didn’t like getting shot.

I called Diesel.

“What’s happening?” I asked him.

“I found someone at a CVS pharmacy that recognized Oswald’s picture. He said he came in and loaded up on gauze and bandages and first aid cream. Paid with cash.”

“It sounds like I wounded him but not badly.”

“I canvassed the neighborhood, flashing his photo, but I didn’t get any hits other than CVS. It’s only been a few days, but I feel like this has been going on for years,” Diesel said.

“The problem is that we aren’t making any progress. He’s able to find us but we can’t find him. We think he’s downtown somewhere, and we think he might still be driving a black Porsche. The only thing we’re sure of is that he’s gone off the rails.”

“He’s always been off the rails. This time he’s way off the rails.”

“It all seems so silly. He could be working on something productive like destroying the Russian grid.”

“Vengeance, greed, and lust for power are some of life’s great motivators,” Diesel said. “They’re also self-destructive obsessions.”

“I wish Oswald would self-destruct faster. He’s freaking me out. I just checked my email. It’s been wiped clean, with the exception of a bunch of one-word messages from Oswald.”

“Let me guess the message.”

“Yeah, it’s not hard. I’m now officially on the retribution list.”

“That could be a good thing,” Diesel said. “It would be a way to flush him out. We just dangle you in front of him. You wouldn’t even need to do the sock thing.”

“Jeez, that makes me feel so much better.”

I could sense Diesel smiling at the other end.

“I’ll be home around six,” Diesel said. “What do you want for dinner?”

“I’m feeling Italian. Do you know where Pino’s is located?”

“I do.”

“Bring me anything from Pino’s.”

At five thirty I got a call from Lula.

“They said I could go home,” Lula said. “Can you come pick me up?”

“They don’t usually discharge patients at this time of the day.”

“Well, they’re discharging me.”

“Can I talk to a nurse?”

“Sure,” Lula said. “I got one standing right here.”

“Is she really okay to go home?” I asked the nurse.

“As long as she has help,” the nurse said. “She’s insisting on leaving and the resident doctor has signed her release. How soon can you get here?”

“Fifteen or twenty minutes,” I said.

“We’ll meet you at the emergency entrance.”

“Doesn’t she need clothes?”

“We’ve got her in a bathrobe. She’ll be fine. We don’t want it back. Ever.”

Oh boy.

Fifteen minutes later I rolled up to the emergency entrance. Lula was in a wheelchair and an attendant was standing behind her. He helped Lula into the passenger seat, handed her a plastic bag, and stepped back.

“Let’s go,” Lula said. “I don’t want them changing their mind and wheeling me back in there.”

“I’m guessing things weren’t wonderful.”

“First off there was a cheap-ass television in my room that was from 1950 or something. I couldn’t get anything on it, and it was all fuzzy. And there are bells going off all the time and carts clattering down the hall. And then there were people talking, and people coming into my room when I’m trying to get a nap, taking my blood pressure and testing to see if I’m dead or not. And they told me I was getting chicken broth and crackers for dinner, and I told them my insurance company would want me to have steak and mashed potatoes, but I don’t think they were listening. And on top of that I asked for ice cream, and no one ever brought it to me. I asked a lot of times in a polite voice, and I still didn’t get any ice cream. I mean, what’s the big deal about getting a Dixie cup of vanilla and chocolate? I’d been through a lot. I was shot. I deserved a Dixie cup.”