Tricky Twenty-Two (Stephanie Plum 22)

“He might be on drugs,” Lula said.

“You think?”

“Probably be best if I drive the Buick this time,” Lula said. “You look like you got road rage coming on.”

“I need a donut. I’ll be fine if I just get a donut or four or five.”

“Ordinarily I’d think that was a fine idea,” Lula said, “but you might not want all that sugar what with the pimple and the eye twitch.”

“I want a donut and I want it now!” I yelled at Lula.

I looked over at Connie. “I’m out of control, right?”

“Yeah,” Connie said. “Pretty much. Maybe you want to dial it back.”

“I’ve been under a lot of stress lately.”

“You know what I do when I got stress?” Lula said. “I go shoe shopping.”

“I knit,” Connie said.

“Get out!” Lula said. “I never knew you knit stuff.”

“I don’t knit stuff,” Connie said. “I just knit.”

Vinnie stuck his head out of his office. “You know what I do?”

“We all know what you do,” Lula said. “And we don’t want to hear about it.”

Vinnie pulled his head back into his office and slammed and locked the door.

“How about instead of a donut we bogart one of those pizzas,” Lula said. “That’ll fix you right up.”

I followed Lula out of the office and buckled myself into the Buick. “I want a donut,” I said. And a tear leaked out of my eye.

“Yeah, I could see that,” Lula said. “Don’t you worry, I’ll get you some donuts. And then we’ll wash them donuts down with pizza.”

Holy cow, I was a mess. I stepped on a snake, got hit in the face, ruined my shirt, and lost a boyfriend. I could deal with it all but the boyfriend. It added up to too much. Morelli had sucker punched me. I hadn’t seen it coming. I was trying to take it in stride, but truth is it was increasingly painful.

Lula drove to Tasty Pastry and parked at the curb.

“You go in and get whatever the hell you want,” Lula said. “This here’s emergency donuts.”

I returned ten minutes later with two boxes. “I got two of everything,” I said. “And four Boston Kremes. And I put in a job application.”

“A what?”

“They’re looking for a baker.”

“You can’t bake. You can’t boil an egg.”

“I could learn.”

“Are they willing to teach you?”

“They didn’t say. I thought I’d buy some books and watch the cooking channel.”

“You got a good job. Why do you want to be a baker?”