Wicked Appetite (Lizzy and Diesel 1)

“You didn’t try to get him to eat mashed potatoes with a fork, did you?”

“Yeah.”

“Been there, done that,” Diesel said.

“Anyway, everything else was nice, and it was great to see my dad. I miss my family, and I wouldn’t mind living closer, but I don’t miss northern Virginia.”

Diesel hit the entrance to Storrow and went from zero to seventy in about three seconds. Traffic was all coming into the city, and we were leaving the city.

“I was waiting for you in front of your house,” Diesel said. “I didn’t expect you to come out the back door.”

“I didn’t want to wake my dad.”

Diesel’s brows knit together. “I usually sense Wulf. I don’t know how I missed him this morning.”

“It wasn’t Wulf. It was Hatchet. He stun-gunned me and brought me to Wulf’s penthouse. Why didn’t you just read my mind?”

Diesel grinned. “You don’t actually think I can read your mind, do you?”

“No. Of course not. That would be ridiculous.” I gave up a sigh. “How do you always know what I’m thinking if you can’t read my mind?”

Diesel slowed for traffic, changing lanes for the Tobin Bridge. “Lucky guess?”

I wasn’t sure what I hated more . . . thinking Diesel could read my mind, or knowing I was so transparent he always knew what was in my head.

“Anything happen in Wulf’s condo that I should know about?” Diesel asked.

“It turns out there are four charms. Wulf wants me to find the fourth one. I said I was working with you, and he said it didn’t matter. He said it’ll come down to a deal and a roll of the dice.”

“Why doesn’t Wulf have Hatchet find the fourth charm?”

“I don’t know. Maybe he thinks it’ll go faster with two people looking. At any rate, you apparently need all four charms to find the real Stone, and Wulf’s determined to find the Stone.”

“Do you have any idea who that fourth charm holder might be?” Diesel asked.

“Yes. Do you?”

He nodded. “Yep. I’m guessing it’s serial mom.”

That was my guess, too. She wasn’t at the reading of the will, but she was in the photo with the other charm holders. And she started having children at the right time.

“I need to get to the bakery,” I told Diesel. “I’ll be done around noon, and we can go talk to Melody. I imagine mornings are chaos in her house anyway.”

It was precisely seven o’clock when Diesel dropped me off at Dazzle’s. Clara was up to her elbows in bread dough, looking like she needed a vacation. Her hair was more eccentric than usual and shot with flour. Her expression was somewhere between a death in the family and royally pissed off.

“Where the heck have you been?” Clara half shrieked.

“I was kidnapped.”

“That’s no excuse,” she said. “You could at least call.”

I hung my sweatshirt on a hook by the door and buttoned myself into a clean chef coat. “I don’t have a cell phone. And anyway, I was unconscious a lot of the time.”

Clara pushed her hair back with her hand, and a glob of bread dough stuck in the hair just above her ear. “I was really worried. Ten more minutes, and I was going to start calling hospitals. How could you get kidnapped? Where was Diesel? I thought he was supposed to be protecting you.”

“My father unexpectedly showed up last night, and there was no way I could explain Diesel without creating a family crisis. So I kicked Diesel out. I guess it was a dumb thing to do, because Steven Hatchet was waiting for me when I opened the door to come to work this morning.”

“Who’s Steven Hatchet?”