Explosive Eighteen (Stephanie Plum 18)

“They’ve had budget cuts.”

He went to my brown bear cookie jar, removed the lid, and took my gun out.

“It’s not loaded,” he said.

“You don’t really want me going around with a loaded gun, do you?”

He returned the gun to the cookie jar. “Good point. I can’t believe I’m asking this, but is Ranger watching your back?”

“He monitors my car. Beyond that, it’s hard to tell what Ranger’s doing.”

Morelli’s phone buzzed with a text message. He read the message and gave up a sigh. “I have to go. I’d like to help you, but I have no idea, short of handcuffing you to my furnace and locking the cellar door, how to keep you safe. It’s not like you’re good at accepting advice.”

“Jeez, it’s not that bad.”

“Cupcake, you gotta be careful.” He pulled me to him and kissed me. He broke from the kiss and cut his eyes to the pizza box. “Are you going to want that last piece of pizza?”

“It’s yours.”

He dropped a piece of crust into Rex’s cage and took the pizza, box and all. “Lock your door when I leave and don’t let anyone in.”

I watched Morelli walk down the hall and disappear into the elevator. This is unsettling, I thought. I had no clue where I actually stood with him. In some ways, he’d traded places with Ranger as the man of mystery.

I closed and locked my door and slouched in front of the television. After an hour, I was restless. There’s a limit to how many sitcom reruns you can watch, and I was tired of Cupcake Wars on the Food Network. I was sleeping through a documentary on fire ants when my cell phone rang. It was nine o’clock, and I assumed it was Morelli.

Turned out it was Joyce Barnhardt.

“I need help,” Joyce said.

“There’s a rumor going around that you’re dead.”

“Not yet.”

This was only marginally better than the fire ants. “What’s going on?” I asked her. “Why the big disappearance?”

“People are looking for me.”

“And?”

“And I figure you can help me. If you help me out, I let you bring me in. You get your capture money. Vinnie’s happy. It’s all good.”

“What do I have to do?”

“For starters, I need something from my town house.”

“Your town house is locked, and you have an alarm system.”

“I’m sure you can get around it.”

“Only if you give me a key and your code.”

“There’s a house key hidden in a fake rock to the right of the front door. The code is 6213.”

“What do you need?”

“I need a key. It looks like a little padlock key. It should be in my top dresser drawer in my bedroom.”

“What do I do with this key if I get it?”