Twisted Twenty-Six (Stephanie Plum 26)

“They keep a file of applicants in the office,” Thor said.

Lula and I peeked into the ladies’ locker room and followed Thor back to the lobby.

“This has been helpful,” I said. “I’ll go home and look through the packet of information.”

We returned to the SUV and buckled ourselves in.

“It’s wrong that someone could kill Zeus,” Lula said.

“He wasn’t really Zeus,” I said. “You know that, right?”

“Yeah, but he was sort of Zeus. It just seems wrong.”

For sure.

* * *

—

I dropped Lula off at the office and continued on to my parents’ house. I wanted to make sure everything was okay, and I wanted to mooch lunch and read through the information I got from Connie and Miracle Fitness. If one of the La-Z-Boys snatched Grandma, it would be worrisome, but at least we would have a place to start looking. This other player was much more frightening.

My father was watching television and eating an egg salad sandwich off a tray table. My mom and my grandmother were at the kitchen table. They each had an egg salad sandwich. The first thing I noticed was that Grandma wasn’t wearing her necklace.

“Where’s your necklace?” I asked, hanging my messenger bag on the back of a kitchen chair. “You’re supposed to never take it off.”

“It got wet in the shower, so I set it on the counter to dry, and then I forgot about it,” Grandma said. “There’s more egg salad in the fridge.”

I made myself a sandwich and brought it to the table. “You can’t forget about the necklace. You need to always wear it.”

“I’ll put it on when I go upstairs, but I don’t see the need for it,” Grandma said. “This seems like a lot of to-do about nothing.”

“The man who tried to kidnap you is dead,” I said. “I’m sure he was killed so he couldn’t divulge the name of whoever hired him.”

“You don’t know that for sure,” Grandma said. “People get killed in Trenton all the time.”

“Humor me and wear the necklace,” I said. “Besides, it’s pretty and it’s a gift from Ranger.”

“I understand the man who was murdered worked at Miracle Fitness,” my mother said. “That place has a real reputation. It’s practically a swingers’ club.”

Grandma leaned forward over the table and lowered her voice. “Marg Bowman said the ladies diddle themselves in the sauna. She said they wear nothing but a towel and they diddle.”

I felt my face scrunch up. “Eeuuww!”

“I’d like to know how that goes,” Grandma said. “Do they all sit down and one of them asks, ‘Should we diddle today?’ Seems like it would be rude if one of them just started diddling without asking.”

“I’m eating egg salad,” I said. “Could we talk about something besides . . . you know? Like, is there anything new going on?”

“I got a letter from the lawyer setting the estate meeting for Monday,” Grandma said. “I’m thinking about giving some of my money to the animal shelter.”

“Good idea,” I said.

“I’m going to get more money than I need, so you all can have what you want and then I’ll give the rest away to the homeless dogs and cats.”

“That’s nice of you,” my mother said, “but I don’t need anything. The house is paid off and my car is only two years old.”

“Yeah, but you’re gonna need a new liver one of these days, and that costs money,” Grandma said.

I pulled Connie’s folder plus the pink folder out of my bag. First up was the list of trainers. This wasn’t worth anything because they all had phony names. Poseidon, Hermes, Apollo, Atlas. I went to the membership list next. Eight pages of small print. Mental groan.