Wicked Appetite (Lizzy and Diesel 1)

“There’s no food in here,” I said to Lenny.

Lenny stuck his head in the fridge. “There’s a chicken.”

“It’s rubber,” Diesel said, looking like he was going to rupture something trying not to laugh out loud.

“Is that bad?” Leonard asked.

I looked around the kitchen. No bread. No fruit. No coffeemaker. No kitchen knives. No cookie jar. The lone metal spatula I’d tested was propped up in the dish drain. I now had new concerns about its use. I ransacked the cupboards and came up with a box of granola bars. I gave one to Diesel and one to Lenny.

“About the inheritance,” I said to Lenny.

“Can’t get it,” Lenny said. “It’s booby-trapped.”

“Yes, but you know how to disarm it, right?”

Lenny shoved half a granola bar into his mouth. “Nuh. Didn’t think of that. It was during the divorce, and the party pooper took the toaster, and so I got this idea that she was after my inheritance, so I hid it and booby-trapped it. I was doing recreational drinking at the time. Anyway, it doesn’t matter. It’s a piece of junk.”

“Here’s the thing,” I said to Lenny. “It turns out your inheritance might be . . . enchanted.”

“Don’t care.”

“Of course you care. It’s a Gluttonoid.”

Diesel grinned at me and rocked back on his heels. “Gluttonoid. Boy, that’s a great name. How’d you ever come up with that one?”

Lenny slumped against the counter. “What’s a Gluttonoid?”

“It’s an object that turns people into gluttons. In your case, you’re a glutton for punishment. If we remove the object, there’s a good chance you’ll return to normal,” I told him.

“No more hanky panky spanky?” Lenny asked. “What if I’m a bad boy?”

“Dude, you’re freaking me out,” Diesel said. “Get a grip.”

“This is creepy. And I don’t like the whole booby-trap thing,” I said to Diesel. “Why don’t we let Wulf get this one? With any luck, he’ll blow himself up.”

Diesel looked at Lenny. “Tell me about the booby trap. Are we talking major explosion?”

“Not atomic,” Lenny said.

“Would it kill Superman?”

“You’d need kryptonite to do that.”

“Okay, how about Batman?”

“I don’t know. Batman is tricky.”

“So the let-Wulf-get-the-charm plan won’t work,” Diesel said to me. “Doesn’t sound like we can count on it to kill him.”

The house was around two thousand square feet. Living room, dining room, kitchen, powder room, mudroom leading to the back door. The bedrooms were obviously upstairs. Impossible to know if Lenny had gone to the dark side because of the charm, but going on the assumption that this was the case, I thought the charm most likely was in the house. Hard to believe any of this was real but even more difficult to believe the charm could leak onto someone without consistent exposure. And if I booby-trapped something in my house, it wouldn’t be in a high-traffic area. I’d want it out of the way, hidden from sight.

“Do you have a cellar?” I asked Lenny.

“Yep.”

“Did you hide your inheritance in your cellar?”

“I don’t think so.”