Fortune and Glory (Stephanie Plum, #27)(46)

I gave the heavy metal lid a shove, flipped it back, and light flooded into the tunnel. I hauled myself up through the small round opening and crawled out onto a concrete walkway that led to a fountain. I’d come out in Liberty Park. I went flat on my stomach and looked down the hole at Grandma and Potts.

“Can you make it up the ladder?” I asked. “Or would you like me to get help?”

“I can do it,” Grandma said.

“Me, too,” Potts said.

Grandma came first. I grabbed her when she got to the top, and I pulled her out. Potts came next.

“Liberty Park,” Grandma said, looking around. “There used to be a statue of Betsy Ross in the fountain, but the pigeon situation got out of hand. They moved Betsy to a park near the river.”

“Betsy Ross was from Philadelphia,” Potts said. “Along with cheesesteaks, Tastykakes, and Rocky Balboa. Do you think that’s the Philadelphia part of the clues?”

“Maybe,” I said, “but it doesn’t feel right to me. If the treasure is in Liberty Park, the question is where?”

“It’s not a big park,” Grandma said. “There’s not much to it. Mostly just the fountain that’s seen better days.”

I looked at the area around the manhole cover and the concrete walkway. It was splattered with mud from Grandma, Potts, and me, but there were also muddy footprints leading down the path to the street. Gabriela had exited the tunnel here, and I wondered if she’d deliberately left the cover ajar, so we would see it.

“My feet feel squishy,” Potts said.

“I’m not looking too good, either,” Grandma said. “There was a lot of mud down there.”

“We’re two blocks from Lucky Lucy and my car,” I said. “I think we need to call it a day.”

My instincts told me we were working too hard to make the clues fit Liberty Park. Lucky Lucy seemed to have the Ace tie-in, but I was pretty sure it was just a coincidence.



* * *




I took Grandma home and waited until she was safely inside.

“Are you staying with your friend tonight?” Potts asked.

“Yes.”

It was a fib. I was going back to my apartment. I needed to spend some time with my own things. My couch, my television, my hamster running on his wheel in the kitchen. If I told this to Potts he’d be camped out in front of my door and it would diminish the enjoyment of being in my own space.

I stopped in front of his house and turned to face him. “Thanks for helping me with my shopping today. I would never have found all those clothes on my own. I wanted to reinvent myself and I didn’t know where to begin.”

“Everyone wants to be a better version of themselves,” he said. “It’s easy for you because you just needed a new jacket. For some other people the job is more complicated.”



* * *




I carried my shopping bags into my apartment and set them down in the kitchen. Rex was already busy with his nocturnal wheel spinning. I said hello and gave him a peanut. I got a beer from the fridge and drank half of it leaning against the counter.

Potts’s last words were stuck in my brain. Everyone wants to be a better version of themselves. That was true for me. I was looking for a passion that would spin my life in a new direction. It was probably true for Potts as well, but Potts was a disaster of such proportions that I suspect he had given up looking for his better self. At least temporarily.

I took my bags into my bedroom and left them sitting on the floor with the tags still attached to the clothes. I went to the bathroom and looked at myself in the mirror.

“Who are you?” I asked the reflection.





CHAPTER TWENTY


My alarm went off at seven thirty. I rolled out of bed and came face-to-face with the shopping bags. Mental head-slap. What the heck was I thinking?

I showered, toweled off, and stared at myself in the mirror. I had a lot of curly wet hair. And it was short. If I let it dry naturally at this length, I’d look like a Chia Pet. After spending twenty minutes with the hair dryer, my hair somewhat resembled what Philip created. I had to admit, it was pretty, but it was too short for a ponytail. And a ponytail had its place in my life. A ponytail was easy.

I bypassed the bags and got dressed in my usual jeans, stretchy scoop-neck T-shirt, and sneakers. I put my coffee in a to-go mug and grabbed a strawberry Pop-Tart, my hooded sweatshirt, and my messenger bag.

Potts was pacing in front of the office when I drove up and parked.

“Lula is here,” he said. “She had her tooth replaced. Connie is here, too. She’s been on the phone nonstop. There’s a lot of talk going on about the dead woman.”

“Carla Skootch.”

“Yes. She’s going to be in Slumber Room #1. That’s a big deal.”

Connie got off the phone when Potts and I walked into the office. “This viewing is going to be a monster,” she said. “Sid Rubenstein is making book on whether Shine or Salgusta will show.”

“I’m sure they won’t show,” I said. “They’ll get arrested.”

“That would be a bad thing for you,” Potts said. “If the police get them before you do, you won’t have a chance to squeeze them for their clues.”

He was right. On the other hand, they would be in jail and not able to kidnap, torture, and kill Grandma and me.