Hard Eight (Stephanie Plum 8)

“You weren't entirely responsible for the panic,” I told him. “It was a sort of disastrous day.”

“Babe, you have a lot of disastrous days.”

“You sound like Morelli.”

“Morelli is a good guy. And he loves you.”

“And you?”

Ranger smiled.

I was racked with another spine shiver.

The porch light went on, and Grandma peered out at us from the living room window.

“Saved by the grandma,” Ranger said, releasing me. “I'm going to wait for you to get in the house. I don't want anyone kidnapping you on my watch.”

I opened the door and I jumped out. And I did a mental grimace because getting kidnapped and/or shot wasn't entirely off the radar screen.

Grandma was waiting for me when I walked through the door. “Who's the guy in the cool truck?”

“Ranger.”

“That man is so hot,” Grandma said. “If I was twenty years younger . . .”

“If you were twenty years younger you'd still be twenty years too old,” my father said.

Valerie was in the kitchen, helping my mother frost cupcakes. I got a glass of milk and a cupcake, and I sat at the table. “How'd work go today?” I asked Valerie.

“I didn't get fired.”

“That's great. Before you know it, he'll be proposing marriage.”

“Do you think so?”

I slid her a sideways look. “I was joking.”

“It could happen,” Valerie said, dropping colored sprinkles on the cupcake.

“Valerie, you don't want to marry the first guy who comes along.”

“Yes, I do. As long as he has a house with two bathrooms. I swear to God, I don't care if he's Jack the Ripper.”

“I'm thinking about getting a computer so I can have cybersex,” Grandma said. “Anybody know how that works?”

“You go into a chat room,” Valerie said. “And you meet someone. And then you type dirty suggestions to each other.”

“That sounds like fun,” Grandma said. “How does the sex part happen?”

“You sort of have to do the sex part yourself.”

“I knew it was too good to be true,” Grandma said. “There's always a catch to everything.”

IT WAS MORNING, I was last in line for the bathroom, and I was beginning to appreciate Valerie's point of view. When faced with the choices of forever living with my parents, marrying Jack the Ripper, or going home to the cootie couch, I had to admit Jack the Ripper was looking pretty good. Okay, maybe not Jack the Ripper, but certainly Doug the Dullard could be tolerated.

I was dressed in my usual outfit of jeans and boots and a stretchy shirt. I had my hair brushed out in curls and my mascara on heavy. All my adult life I've hidden behind mascara. And if I'm really feeling insecure, I add eyeliner. Today was an eyeliner day. Plus, I painted my toenails. Bring out the heavy artillery, right? Morelli had called earlier and told me the crime scene tape was down. He'd made arrangements for a professional cleaning crew to go through the apartment, using full-strength Clorox wherever needed. He thought they'd be done around noon. For all I cared, they could be done around November.