Look Alive Twenty-Five (Stephanie Plum #25)(67)

“Now all we need is a fluffy white cat,” I said.

Eugene took a penlight out of another cargo pants pocket and flashed it around the room. A white cat trotted into the kitchen and meowed at us. I scooped the cat up and zipped it into the carrier.

“Just like I told you,” Lula said. “Easy-peasy.”

I FaceTimed Annie from the back seat of the SUV. “It’s Miss Muffy!” Annie said. “You did it! You got Miss Muffy! I’m staying with a friend on Apple Street, just off Hamilton Avenue. I’ll be waiting on the front porch for you.”

We delivered Miss Muffy to Annie, and she promised to check in with the court first thing in the morning. I told her I would pick her up at ten o’clock. I thought chances were about fifty-fifty that she would be there when I arrived.

Once again, the key to true happiness is lowered expectations.

Ranger called just as we were approaching my building’s parking lot.

“Babe,” he said, “you’re not going to make the cut as a cat wrangler.”

“The second attempt went okay.”

“I have part of the first one on video from Eugene’s dashcam. I’m going to save it for those days when I need something to smile about.”

“Always happy to make you smile.”

“Wulf is in your apartment,” Ranger said. “Would you like Eugene to remove him?”

“No. He’s harmless.”

“He’s not harmless. I’m not even sure he’s human. He shows up as a blur on my video feed. He’s rogue even by my standards.”

“He might know something that we don’t.”

“Have Eugene wait in the hall, and leave your door open.”

“Okeydokey,” I said, but the line was already dead.

I told Lula I’d meet up with her in the office in the morning, and Eugene and I trooped upstairs. Wulf was waiting for me in my living room, standing by the window.

“We have to talk,” I said to Wulf.

He smiled. “I’m listening.”

“I hate when you break in like this. Stop it.”

“I’ll take it under consideration,” Wulf said. “Is there anything else?”

“No. That’s it.”

“Nothing to share?”

“Nope.”

“You’ve been busy,” Wulf said. “Spinning your wheels in Skoogie’s office. I could have told you it was clean.”

“And the house?” I said.

Wulf shrugged.

Now it was my turn to smile. “You never searched his house,” I said.

“That was an error on my part. Still, I trust you didn’t find anything significant.”

“Not significant.”

“Mildly important?” he asked.

“Nothing worth mentioning,” I said.

“Are you playing with me?”

“Not intentionally.”

He had crossed the room, and he was standing very close to me.

“I could suggest a game,” he said.

“I bet. No thank you. Maybe some other time.”

He touched the back of my hand with his fingertip, and I felt a burning sensation. I looked down and saw that a blister was forming where he’d touched.

“How did you do that?” I asked.

“Magic,” he said. “Would you like to see what else I can do?”

“Eugene!” I yelled.

Eugene walked in from the hall, and Wulf gave his head a small shake. “Disappointing,” he said. “I expected foolish self-reliance from you.”

“Are you going to disappear in a puff of smoke?” I asked him.

“No,” he said. “We’ve had enough theatrics for one night.”

Wulf left, and Eugene turned to me. “Would you like me to stay in the hall?”

“Not necessary,” I said. “The Rangeman control room monitors my hall. They’ll let you know if Wulf returns.”

I said good night to Eugene, and I locked my door. I had a brief conversation with Rex about the state of my life. I put some first-aid cream on my burn. I made a short phone call to Morelli. And I took my MacBook Air to bed with me and watched two episodes of House Hunters International before falling asleep.





CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR


MY FIRST THOUGHT when I woke up was that it was Thursday, and I was going to have to go back to the Snake Pit. Maybe I’d get lucky, I told myself, and there’d be a cataclysmic ending of the world before Rockin’ Armpits took the stage. I was kidding, of course, because a cataclysmic ending of the world would be bad. On the positive side of the morning, Wulf wasn’t in my kitchen brewing coffee and scrambling eggs.

An hour later I rolled into the office. Lula had already snarfed up the best donut, and Connie was paging through a Costco flyer.

“How’d it go yesterday?” Connie asked. “Did you turn up anything new with Ranger?”

“We went to Skoogie’s house and found some short videos. If you put them all together they sort of told a story. It started with a normal day at the deli with Stretch and Raymond, and it moved on to the kidnappings, the forehead tattoo, Victor Waggle with a meat cleaver, and then it returned to the deli with someone getting served what looked like a penis in a hot dog bun.”