Part 8 (1/2)

Eve hooted as she got out on her side. ”Not that I could see.”

I'd actually turned off my headlights to drive down his street and up his driveway, until we reached his garage at the edge of his backyard, so we wouldn't be spotted by the neighbors.

”This is feeling clandestine,” Eve said, opening my door.

”Ya think? I should have left the car out front for a quick getaway.” I was either getting cold feet or my lack of sleep was catching up with me. I lay my head against the steering wheel. ”There are no lights on inside. Maybe we should come another time.”

Eve tugged me from the driver's seat. ”I was coming here tonight, anyway,” she said, ”until I began to suspect that he was a thief. Just think of this as being for a good cause.”

I grabbed Chakra and followed her.

The minute she unlocked the back door, the smell of sausage and meatb.a.l.l.s in a spicy tomato sauce that had probably simmered for hours. .h.i.t me, made my mouth water, and turned me weak in the knees with hunger. I opened the refrigerator at the same time that Eve flipped on the kitchen light.

”Son of a st.i.tch,” I snapped, sprinting over to turn it off.

She flipped it back on. ”Time to put on your big-girl panties, Mad, and help me search.”

I opened the fridge. ”I'm wearing them. They say 'kiss my sa.s.s.' ”

”You should put those snarky puppies into production and sell them at your shop.”

”Maybe I will. I have a T-s.h.i.+rt idea, too.” I watched Eve go through Vinney's mail. ”Is there an all-night hamburger joint between here and home?”

She opened a cupboard and handed me a box of cereal. ”It would be Boo Berry,” I said, downing a handful. ”What are we looking for?”

”An old mailbag of bones?”

There went my appet.i.te. ”That's what that was. A mailbag.”

Eve raised her brows. ”That's what I said.”

I followed her through the house, looking behind parlor furniture, in the bottom of the entertainment unit, inside a window seat.

In the bathroom, I checked his medicine chest for aftershave, unscrewed the cap, and took a whiff. ”It was him,” I said.

Eve looked from me to the bottle and back. ”A million men wear that stuff. It's a drugstore staple.”

”Fine,” I huffed. ”It could have been him.”

We'd barely gotten to the bedroom when we heard sirens. ”Sc.r.a.p!”

Eve put her arm out in front of me, as if we were taking a sharp corner, and I might fall off the pa.s.senger seat and hit my head on the dashboard. ”Don't move,” she whispered. ”They might not be coming here.”

The knock at the front door made us both jump.

”We might as well be back in fifth grade hiding beneath Fiona's window,” I whispered, tugging my hand from Eve's clammy grasp.

”Shush,” Eve snapped. ”And don't pee your pants this time.”

”Brat.”

Chakra hotfooted it from the bedroom. Oy. Then I heard her wildcat yowl, bombastic and echoing, a capacious version of my name that astounded my father every time he heard it.

”Mystick Falls police,” someone announced.

They'd come in through the back door, which we left unlocked.

Are we smart burglars, or what?

Thirteen.

Problems are only opportunities in work clothes.

-HENRY J. KAISER.

”Climb out the window,” I whispered to Eve as I made a running motion with my fingers before I went to meet the police.

In the kitchen, my nemesis, aka the Wiener, was aiming a gun in my general direction, so I stopped in the doorway between the kitchen and the hall. ”Should I raise my hands?”

He scanned the room behind me. ”Are you alone? Are you safe, Madeira? You're not being held hostage or anything?”

”I'm alone, but am I safe from you?”

He lowered his gun. ”Never. Sometimes I dream of getting my hands around your throat.” He holstered the gun with a look of pure annoyance. ”But in the dream, I'm a superhero whose voice hasn't changed yet, and you're carrying a Barbie lunch box.”

I smiled fondly. ”She always had the best clothes.”

”What the h.e.l.l are you doing here?” he shouted, making me jump. ”I knew it was you the minute I heard that cat roar your name. Breaking and entering, Madeira? That's a new one, even for you.”

Eve stepped up beside me. ”This is my boyfriend's house.”

Werner raised a brow my way. ”You said you were alone.”

”Eve hardly counts.”

”That's true.”

She rolled her eyes and held up her key. ”We didn't break in. We're doing a sleepover.”

Lytton smirked. ”The three of you?”

”Of course not. Vinney works the night s.h.i.+ft.”

Lytton took out his notebook. ”Where?”