Turbo Twenty-Three (Stephanie Plum #23)(52)

I found my phone in the dark room and saw that it was my parents’ number. This jolted me wide awake because it had to be an emergency.

“What?” I said.

“Stephanie? It’s your mother.”

“I know! What’s wrong?”

“It’s your grandmother.”

Omigod. Grandma was dead.

“What about Grandma?” I asked, barely breathing.

“I think she has a man in her bedroom.”

“Excuse me?”

“I got up to go to the bathroom, and I heard talking. At first I thought she had her radio on, but then I realized it was your grandmother I was hearing. And a man.”

“What were they saying?”

“He was calling her his little honey bunny. It sounded like Bertie.”

I looked at my clock. It was two o’clock. Bertie was off work.

“What do you think I should do?” my mother asked. “I don’t want to wake your father. I don’t know what his reaction would be. It might not be good. How do you suppose a man even got into our house?”

“I imagine Grandma let him in.”

“Should I knock on her door to see if she’s okay?”

“Is she calling for help?”

“No.”

“Then we can assume she’s okay.”

“It’s not right,” my mother said. “It’s . . . icky. And we don’t really even know this man. We don’t know his intentions. He’s a bartender with tattoos and a motorcycle.”

“Where are you now?”

“I’m in the kitchen.”

“Are you going to sit in the living room and wait for him to leave?”

“Yes.”

I knew she would. When I was in high school and came home from a date, my mom would be in the living room, waiting. Sometimes my dad would be there too.

“Don’t you think it will be awkward to see Bertie leaving?” I asked her.

“Your grandmother should have thought of that before she decided to entertain a man in her bedroom.”

“Maybe you should ground her.”

“I’ve tried. It doesn’t work. She does whatever she wants. She doesn’t listen to me.”

“I’m going back to sleep. You should too.”

“Suppose they’re doing things?”

“Eewwww!”

“Exactly,” my mother said. And she hung up.

It was hard to fall asleep with the thought of Grandma doing things. I thrashed around for a half hour and finally got up and had some cereal. I went back to bed, and the next time I woke up Ranger was in my bedroom, looking down at me. He was hard to see in the dark room, with his dark skin and black clothes. I knew it was Ranger because he said “Babe.” I glanced at my clock. It was four o’clock.

“I have a problem you are uniquely qualified to solve,” Ranger said.

Last time he said that it turned out to be the best night of my life.

I propped myself up on one elbow. “Oh boy.”

“Not that problem,” Ranger said. “Someone broke into the Bogart plant, and I want you to take a look.”

“Now?”

“We need to do this before the plant opens.”

“I’m tired. It’s too early.”

“It’s four o’clock.”

“People are supposed to be asleep at four o’clock.”

Ranger flipped the light on and went to my dresser. Panties, bra, T-shirt, jeans got thrown onto the bed.

“Get dressed, and I’ll buy you breakfast.”

“This is weird. Usually when you’re in my bedroom you’re telling me to take my clothes off.”

“Yeah, I’m having a hard time with it too. Don’t expect it to happen again.”

I sat up and swung my legs over the side of the bed. “Give me five minutes. And it would be great if you could make coffee.”

He took in my bare legs and the clingy washed-out sleep shirt. “Babe,” he said so soft it was barely a whisper.

Ten minutes later I was settled into Ranger’s Porsche 911 Turbo. I had a to-go cup of coffee and Ranger’s iPad. I was watching a rerun of a video feed from the Bogart plant.

“We have the cameras up and running,” Ranger said, “but we haven’t got all the doors alarmed, and we haven’t changed out all the locks. After today I expect Bogart will allow me to replace his security staff with my own people, at least temporarily. The locks are scheduled to get changed out tomorrow.” He stopped for a light on Hamilton. “Tell me what you’re seeing.”

“The Jolly Bogart clown comes into the plant through the back door to the storeroom. He grabs a gallon jug of something and a bag of something else. He walks through the storeroom and heads for the offices that are on the opposite side of the building from the manufacturing area. I’m watching him from a different camera now. He stops at one of the doors and knocks. No one answers the door, so the clown opens the door and goes in. He’s off camera.”

“Fast-forward.”

“Okay, here he is leaving the office. His hands are free. He hasn’t got the jug or the bag. He goes back to the storeroom and leaves through the back door.”

“What do you think?”