Twisted Twenty-Six (Stephanie Plum 26)

My mother set the food on the table. “Marjorie Jean asked you to sign the receipt for the credit card.”

“I saw how she was looking at it,” Grandma said. “Like she was thinking of getting a copy to keep for herself.”

I set my basket and messenger bag on the floor. “If your back is still bothering you, I can do my own laundry,” I said.

“I’m okay, and a deal is a deal,” she said. “I hope you have something to be ironed. I need to iron.”

Ironing is my mom’s safe place. When Grandma and I burned down the funeral home my mom ironed the same shirt for four hours.

I made a meatloaf sandwich and helped myself to coleslaw. “The clothes in the plastic bag might be a little smelly,” I said to my mom. “I had to stun a guy this morning, and he had an accident.”

“What kind of accident?” Grandma asked. “Did he hurt himself?”

“It was a bathroom accident,” I said. “Except without a bathroom.”

My mother white knuckled her fork and instinctively glanced at the cabinet where she kept her whiskey stash.

“You have an exciting life,” Grandma said to me. “I wish I had a job like you. The best I got is bingo tonight. It’s pretty good but it’s not like chasing down scumbags.”

My mom sat up straight. “You’re not going to bingo tonight, are you?”

“Sure, I’m going to bingo. It’s Thursday. I always go on Thursday. People are going to be expecting me to be there.”

“That’s not a good idea,” my mother said. “Stephanie, tell your grandmother it isn’t a good idea. What if Jimmy’s sisters are there?”

“Angie won’t be there,” Grandma said. “She can’t hold the bingo dauber with those big bandages on her hands.”

“There are two other sisters,” my mother said. “And a daughter. And ex-wives.”

“I haven’t got anything against them,” Grandma said.

“They think you’re a gold digger,” my mom said. “They’re worried you’re going to get Jimmy’s money. There are rumors going around that there’s a contract out on you.”

“Half the people in the Burg have contracts on them,” Grandma said. “Nothing ever happens because all the mob hit men are in their eighties and have macular degeneration and clogged-up arteries. It’s not a job for those millennials. Too much work. Too messy. And you gotta learn a lot of skills. I hear the big thing now for the young folks is having a marijuana farm or being one of those hedge funders.”

There was the sound of glass breaking in the living room, followed by my father knocking over his tray table.

“What the Sam Hill!” my father yelled.

I ran into the room and saw that the front window was shattered, and there was a bottle rolling around on the living room rug. It had a burning rag stuck into the top. I snatched the bottle and threw it back out the broken window. The bottle hit the side of my car parked at the curb and exploded. In an instant the car was engulfed in flames, and black smoke billowed into the sky.

My mom and grandmother had followed me into the living room and were standing next to my dad.

“Molotov cocktail,” I said. “We were lucky the bottle didn’t break when it hit the floor.”

“Quick thinking,” Grandma said. “You got a good arm. I couldn’t have reached the car.”

It was a surprise to me too. I’d thrown the bottle in a blind panic. Hitting my car was just one more indication that my life was in the shitter.

“What was that about?” my father asked. “I was eating my lunch and watching television and all of a sudden this bottle comes flying through the window.”

I exchanged glances with my mother and Grandma. None of us wanted to tell my father about the contract on Grandma.

“Mistaken identity,” I said.

“Prank,” my mother said.

“Damn aliens,” Grandma said.