“You have terrific hands,” I said to Diesel. “I always get warm when you touch me.”
“I’ve been told it has something to do with sympathetic body chemistry and shared electrical energy. The person who told me that was full of mushrooms, but I thought it sounded cool. The other explanation is that my body temperature runs higher than normal, and I like touching you.”
I didn’t know I’d fallen asleep until I woke up. I was snuggled against Diesel, and he was watching a basketball game. Snuggy was watching, too. He was in his new clothes, which looked exactly like his old clothes, except the wrinkles and knee bags and ketchup stains were missing. Doug was in the kitchen with the light off. Guess Doug wasn’t a Knicks fan.
It was nine o’clock and my mother was probably pacing the floor, waiting for me to bring Grandma home. I tapped her number into my phone and imagined her jumping at the first ring.
“Where are you?”
“I’m home.”
“Where’s your grandmother?”
“I sort of lost her.”
“What?”
“Remember how, in the beginning, she took off on a road trip? It’s a little like that. But I don’t think she’s gone too far this time.”
“How could this happen?”
“She’s very wily.”
“I don’t understand. She has a nice home here. Why would she do this?”
“I think she needs to have an adventure once in a while. And she’s overly curious.”
“You get that from her,” my mother said. “You’re a lot like your grandmother.”
Sort of a scary thought, but I knew it was true. Even at this moment, I had a horse in my kitchen.
“Don’t worry,” I said to my mother. “She’s fine. I’ll find her and bring her home tomorrow.”
Diesel pulled himself away from the game when I disconnected. “How did that go?”
“As well as could be expected. I would have gotten grounded if she didn’t need me to find my grandmother.”
“I bet you got grounded a lot when you were a kid.”
I laughed out loud, remembering. “I used to climb out the bathroom window.”
“Was Morelli waiting for you at the bottom?”
“No. I only had a couple isolated experiences with Morelli back then. He was one of those hit-?and-?run guys.”
“And now?”
“Now he’s waiting for me at the bottom.” I did some mental knuckle-?cracking. “I feel like I should be doing something. I hate sitting here knowing Grandma is locked in Delvina’s trunk.”
My cell phone rang and for a moment the number displayed didn’t register. Then it hit me. Briggs. I’d totally forgotten about him.
“Yes?” I said.
“Where is everybody?”
“We’re back in Trenton. Where are you?”
“I’m in Atlantic City. I’m on a roll. I’m shooting craps with my lucky Edna money and I can’t lose. Why’d everyone leave?” «