Four to Score (Stephanie Plum 4)

The sun was a thin scarlet smudge on the horizon when I got to Barnet, but I was able to spot the yellow bungalow and red car. A woman with a heavily bandaged hand stepped out of the yellow house to fetch her cat just as I crept to a stop at the curb. She grabbed the gray cat when she saw me and disappeared behind her door. Even from the curb I could hear the bolt being thrown.

At least she was home. My secret fear had been that she'd disappeared and was sharing rent with Maxine in Cancun.

I hitched my bag onto my shoulder, plastered a friendly smile on my face, marched up the short cement walk and knocked on her door.

The door opened with the security chain in place. “Yes?”

I passed my card through to her. “Stephanie Plum. I'd like to talk to you about Maxine Nowicki.”

“Sorry,” she said. “I have nothing to say about Maxine. And I'm not feeling good.”

I peeked through the crack in the door and saw she held her bandaged hand to her chest. “What happened?”

She looked at me slack faced and dead eyed, obviously medicated. “It was an accident. A kitchen accident.”

“It looks pretty bad.”

She blinked. “I lost a finger. Well, I didn't actually lose it. It was on the kitchen counter. I took it to the hospital and got it sewed back on.”

I had an instant vision of her finger lying on the kitchen counter. Little black dots danced in front of my eyes, and I felt sweat pop out on my upper lip. “I'm sorry!”

“It was an accident,” she said. “An accident.”

“Which finger was it?”

“The middle finger.”

“Oh man, that's my favorite finger.”

“Listen,” she said. “I gotta go.”

“Wait! Just one minute more. I really need to know about Maxine.”

“There's nothing to know. She's gone. There's nothing more I can tell you.”

* * * * *

I SAT in my car and took a deep breath. From now on, I was going to be more careful in the kitchen. No more fishing around the garbage disposal looking for bottle caps. No more flamboyant whacking away at salad greens.

It was too late to hit any more people on the list, so I headed home. The temperature had dropped a few degrees, and the air getting sucked through the sunroof was pleasant. I cruised across town, parked behind my apartment building and swung through the rear entrance.

Rex stopped running on his wheel when I walked into the living room. He looked at me, whiskers twitching.

“Don't ask,” I said. “You don't want to know.” Rex was squeamish about things like chopped-?off fingers.

My mother had given me some chicken and some pie to take home. I broke off a chunk of the pie and gave it to Rex. He shoved the crust into his cheek pouch, and his shiny black eyes almost popped out of his head.

Probably I'd looked like that earlier today when Morelli had asked for a doughnut.

* * * * *

I ALWAYS KNOW it's Sunday because I wake up feeling apologetic. That's one of the cool things about being a Catholic . . . it's a multifaceted experience. If you lose the faith, chances are you'll keep the guilt, so it isn't as if you've been skunked altogether. I rolled my head and looked at the digital readout on my clock. Eight. Still time to make late mass. I really should go. My eyes grew heavy at the thought.

Next time I opened my eyes it was eleven. Gosh. Too late to go to church. I heaved myself out of bed and padded to the bathroom, telling myself it was okay because God was willing to forgive little things like skimpy church attendance. Over the years I'd evolved my religion and constructed the Benevolent God. The Benevolent God also didn't care about such trifles as cussing and fibbing. The Benevolent God looked into a person's heart and knew if she'd been naughty or nice in the grand scheme of things. In my world, God and Santa Claus did not micromanage lives. Of course, that meant you couldn't count on them to help you lose weight, either.

I stepped out of the shower and shook my head by way of styling my hair. I dressed in my usual uniform of spandex shorts and halter-?style sports bra and topped it off with a Rangers hockey jersey. I took another look at my hair and decided it needed some help, so I did the gel, blow-?dry, hair spray routine. When I was done I was several inches taller. I stood in front of the mirror and did the Wonder Woman thing, feet spread, fists on hips. “Eat dirt, scumbag,” I said to the mirror. Then I did the Scarlett thing, hand to my heart, coy smile. “Rhett, you handsome devil, how you do go on.”

Neither of those felt exactly right for the day, so I took myself into the kitchen to see if I could find my identity in the refrigerator. I was plowing through a Sara Lee frozen cheesecake when the phone rang.