Four to Score (Stephanie Plum 4)

“Do you mind if I snitch them?”

“Knock yourself out,” Arnold said.

At the risk of seeming paranoid I checked my rearview mirror about sixty times on the way home. Not so much for Joyce, but for the guys who might have spooked or snatched Helen Badijian. A week ago, I'd have drawn the same conclusion as Arnold . . . that Helen took off. Now that I knew about chopped-?off fingers and scalpings I took a more extreme view of events.

I parked in my lot, did a fast look around, inhaled a deep breath and bolted from my car. Across the lot, through the rear entrance, up the stairs to my apartment. The hate message was still on my door. I was breathing hard, and my hand was shaking so that it took concentration to get the key in the lock.

This is stupid, I told myself. Get a grip! But I didn't have a grip, so I locked myself in and checked under the bed, in the closets and behind the shower curtain. When I was convinced I was safe I ate the Entenmann's coffee cake to calm myself down.

When I was done with the cake I called Morelli and told him about Helen and asked him to check on her.

“Just exactly what did you have in mind?”

“I don't know. Maybe you could see if she's in the morgue. Or in the hospital, getting some missing body part sewed back on. Maybe you could ask some of your friends to keep an eye out for her.”

“Probably Arnold's right,” Morelli said. “Probably she's at a bar with a couple friends.”

“You really think so?”

“No,” Morelli said. “I was just saying that to get you off the phone. I'm watching a ball game.”

“There's something that really bothers me here that I didn't tell you.”

“Oh boy.”

“Eddie Kuntz was the only one who knew I was going to see Helen Badijian.”

“And you think he got to her first.”

“It's crossed my mind.”

“You know there was a time when I'd say to myself . . . How does she do it? How does she get mixed up with these weirdos? But now I don't even question it. In fact, I've come to expect such things of you.”

“So are you going to help me, or what?”

Stephanie Plum 4 - Four To Score

Stephanie Plum 4 - Four To Score

Stephanie Plum 4 - Four To Score

6

I DIDN'T LIKE the idea that I might be responsible for Helen's disappearance. Morelli had agreed to make a few phone calls, but I still felt unsatisfied. I pulled the Parrot Bar matches out of my pocket and examined them. No hastily scribbled messages on the inside flap. For that matter, nothing to identify them as Maxine's. Nevertheless, first thing in the morning, I'd be on my way to Point Pleasant.

I went to the phone book and looked up Badijian. Three of them. No Helen. Two were in Hamilton Township. One was in Trenton. I called the Trenton number. A woman answered and told me Helen wasn't home from work yet. Easy. But not the right answer. I wanted Helen to be home.

Okay, I thought, maybe what I needed to do was go see for myself. Take a look in Kuntz's windows and see if he had Helen tied to a kitchen chair. I strapped on my black web utility belt and filled the pockets. Pepper spray, stun gun, handcuffs, flashlight, .38 Special. I thought about loading the .38 and decided against it. Guns creeped me out.

I shrugged into a navy windbreaker and scooped my hair up under my hat.

Mrs. Zuppa was coming in from bingo just as I was leaving the building. “Looks like you're going to work,” she said, leaning heavily on her cane. “What are you packin'?”

“A thirty-?eight.”

“I like a nine-?millimeter myself.”

“A nine's good.”