Lean Mean Thirteen (Stephanie Plum 13)

Morelli burst out laughing, I gave him an elbow, and he bowed his head and sunk his teeth into his lower lip to gain some self-control. His face turned red, and he started to sweat with the effort.

Bob growled low in his throat and pressed himself against my leg.

“I'm not eating with a dead cat at the table,” my father said.

Grandma put her hands over Blackie s ears. “You'll hurt his feelings,” she said to my father.

“Just shoot me,” my father said. “Morelli, give me your gun.”

My mother was on her third glass of wine. “Honestly, Frank,” she said. “You're such a drama queen.”

Morelli s phone buzzed, and he excused himself to take the call.

I grabbed his shirt when he stood. “If you don't come back, I'll find you, and it won't be pretty.”

Minutes later, he returned, leaning close to me. “That was Ranger. He has Dickie, and he's drugged but okay. He was being held in Dave's apartment. I don't know any more details. Ranger's taking Dickie to RangeMan. I said we'd be over when we were done here.”

“Carl said he would teach me taxidermy,” Grandma said.

“I was gonna take up bowling, but now I'm thinking taxidermy might be the way to go. Carl said I could do my taxidermy right here in the kitchen.”

My mother s fork fell out of her hand and clattered onto her plate.

Dickie was in a holding cell at RangeMan. He was stretched out on a

cot with an ice bag on his face. We were looking at him through a one-way window in the door.

“I didn't know you had holding cells,” I said to Ranger.

“We like to think of them as private rooms,” Ranger said.

“Why s he got the ice bag?”

“To keep the swelling down on his broken nose. Its not a bad break. We put a Band-Aid on it and gave him some Advil. Apparently, they had to encourage him to talk.”

“Anything else wrong with him?”

“Yeah, lots of things,” Ranger said, “but not from the time spent with Dave. They gave him something to keep him quiet. We won't get much information out of him until it works its way through his system. We can keep him here until he comes around, but we can't keep him against his will beyond that.”

“You might as well unload him on me now,” Morelli said. “I'm going to get stuck with him eventually anyway.”

“I'll have him brought to your house. We'll bring him in through the back.”

“What about Dave?” I asked Ranger. “Never saw Dave. Dickie was alone in the apartment. They had him chained up in the bathroom. We set an alarm off when we went in, so it's likely Dave won't return. I left a man in the area just in case. I did a fast search of the apartment, but didn't find anything that would tell us where Petiak is hiding. We didn't wait for the police.”

Ranger walked us down to the parking garage.

'What do you want to do about Stephanie?“ Ranger asked Morelli. ”She can't go back to her apartment. Do you want to leave her here, or do you want her with you?"

“I don't see her living in the same house as Dickie,” Morelli said to Ranger. “Can you be trusted with her?”

“No,” Ranger said. “Not for a second.”

“Good grief,” I said. “I won't stay with either of you. I'll stay with Lula or my parents. I need to go after Diggery tonight anyway.”

“So tell ME again what's going on,” Lula said.

We were in her Firebird in front of RangeMan, and Binkie was at idle behind us.