Explosive Eighteen (Stephanie Plum 18)

“You. And everyone.”

“There’s others?” she asked.

“You didn’t know?”

Brenda’s lips curled back and her eyes got squinty. “That sonovabitch. He’s trying to cut me out. I should have guessed.”

“Who?” I asked her. “Who’s the sonovabitch?”

“Boy, this really steams me.”

“Who? Who?”

“Never mind who. And you better not be dealing with him. He’s a snake in the grass. And he hasn’t got any money, either. Don’t believe him if he tells you he’s got money.”

“Give me a clue. What does he look like? Old, young, fat?”

“I can’t chat anymore,” Brenda said. “I got a client.”

“Well?” Lula said when I left the shop. “How’d that go?”

“It didn’t go anywhere.”

“You must have learned something.”

“Nope,” I said. “Nothing useful.” I felt my ponytail. “Do you think my hair is boring?”

“Compared to what? It’s not as good as my hair, for instance. But it’s better than lots of other white folks’ hair.”

We climbed into the truck, and I stuck the key in the ignition.

“I think we should take a look at Brenda’s apartment,” I said to Lula. “Connie has it in West Windsor.”

Why not? I thought. If for no reason other than grim curiosity.

Lula tapped the address into her cell phone GPS. “I got it. It’s not all that far from here.”

I drove one exit on Route 1, turned off, and followed Lula’s directions.

“She’s renting, but not an apartment,” Lula said. “Looks to me like she’s renting a house.”

We were winding our way through a neighborhood of small, single-story homes in varying stages of disrepair. Several were empty with FOR SALE signs planted in their small front yards. Most had curtains hanging in windows. Many had swing sets in the backyards.

I found Brenda’s house and sat at idle, taking it in. Driveway leading to single-car attached garage. The house had been painted pale green with bright yellow trim. The yard was bare but neat.

“Let’s take a look,” Lula said.

“We can’t just walk around and look in windows. There are cars parked in some of the driveways. Probably, there are people at home in some of the houses. We’ll be noticed.”

“Yeah, but we do that all the time,” Lula said.

“We do it when we’re looking for a felon and they’ve waived their rights. Brenda isn’t a felon.”

I returned to the highway, and Berger called.

“We’d like you to work with an artist again,” he said.

“I don’t think that’s going to accomplish anything,” I told him. “I can barely remember the photograph. And now I’ve got Tom Cruise stuck in my head.”