Eleven on Top (Stephanie Plum 11)

“Where are you going so fast?” Grandma wanted to know. “Don't you want a sandwich? We have olive loaf.”

“No time. Lots of errands today. And I need to get back to Morelli.” Also I didn't want to leave the car unattended long enough for Spiro to set another bomb.

My mother was at the stove, stirring a pot of vanilla pudding. “I hope Joseph is feeling better. That was a terrible thing last night.”

“He's on the couch, watching television. His leg is achy, but he's going to be okay.” I looked over at Grandma Mazur. “He said to tell you the lid was down, and rumor has it Mama Mac went to the hereafter without the mole. Morelli said the medical examiner thinks the mole is still in the parking lot somewhere, but there might not be a lot left of it due to all the foot traffic around the scene.”

“I get a chill just thinking about it,” Grandma said. “Someone could be walking around with Mama Mac's mole on the bottom of their shoe.”

From the corner of my eye I saw my mother take a bottle out of a cupboard, pour two fingers of whisky into a juice glass, and knock it back. Guess the ironing wasn't doing it for her anymore.

“Gotta go,” I said. “If you need me I'll be staying with Morelli. He needs help getting around.”

“The organist at the church would like to know if you want her to accompany you when you play the cello,” Grandma said. “I saw her at the market this morning.”

I smacked my forehead with the heel of my hand. “With all the excitement I forgot to tell you. I don't have a cello anymore. I gave it away. It was taking up too much space in my closet. You know how it is when you live in an apartment. Never enough closet space.”

“But you loved your cello,” Grandma said.

I tried to plaster an appropriate expression of remorse on my face. “That's the way it goes. A girl has to have priorities.”

“Who got the cello?”

“Who?” My mind was racing. Who got the cello? “My cello teacher,” I said. “I gave it to my cello teacher.”

“Do we know her?”

"Nope. She lived in New Hope. But she's moved. She moved to South Carolina.

That's another reason I stopped playing. My cello teacher moved, and I didn't feel like finding a new cello teacher. So I gave the cello back to her. It was originally hers, anyway.“ Sometimes I was really impressed with my ability to come up with this shit. Once I got going, it just rolled out of me. I could compose a whole parallel universe for myself in a matter of seconds. I glanced down at my watch. ”Look at the time! I'm late."

I snatched a couple cookies off the plate on the kitchen table and ran through the house to the car. I jumped in the SUV and roared away. Next stop was Valerie. I didn't have any real reason to visit Valerie. It was just that I was her sister and her maid of honor and Val wasn't entirely together these days. I thought it wouldn't hurt to check on her once in a while until she made it through the wedding.

The first thing I noticed when I got to her house was the absence of Kloughn's car. Not surprising since this was a workday. Sort of surprising that he was able to get himself up and out on the road with a raging hangover.

“What?” Val yelled when she opened the door to me.

“I just stopped by to say hello.”

“Oh. Sorry I yelled at you. I'm having a problem with volume control. It turns out when you're starving to death you do a lot of yelling.”

“Where's Albert? I thought he'd still be in bed with a hangover.”

“He decided he was better off at the office. He couldn't stand the galloping and whinnying. You might want to see how he's doing. He left in his pajamas.”

“You know, Val, not everyone's cut out to have a big wedding. Maybe you should reconsider the eloping option.”

“I wish I'd never started this wedding thing,” Val wailed. “What was I thinking?”

“It's not too late to bail.”

“It is. And I'm too chicken. Everybody's made all these plans!”

“Yeah, but it's your wedding. It shouldn't be some horrible stressful thing. It should be something you enjoy.” Not to mention, if Valerie eloped I wouldn't have to wear the hideous eggplant getup.

I left Valerie and drove to Kloughn's office. There was a CLOSED sign on his door and when I looked in the window I could see Kloughn was stretched out on the floor in his pajamas with a wet towel over his face. I didn't want to make him get up, so I tiptoed away and headed down Route 1 to the personal products plant. I parked in a visitor slot, ran in, and got a job application from the personnel office. I had no illusions of getting an office job here.

I had no references and few skills. I'd be lucky if I could get a job on the line. I'd bring the application back tomorrow and wait for a phone call for an interview.