Wicked Business Read Free

cute,” Glo said. “He wants soup.”
    I’d seen Carl eat, and I agreed with Diesel. I didn’t think soup was a good idea. I put a slice of bread into Carl’s bowl and spooned a little broth over it. Carl pointed at my soup and pointed to his bowl. He wanted more.
    “Not gonna happen,” Diesel said.
    Carl threw his bowl onto the floor and glared at Diesel. Diesel blew out a sigh, plucked Carl off the booster seat, carted him to the back door, and pitched him out.
    “What if he runs away?” Glo asked.
    “Lucky me,” Diesel said.
    “He’s not going to run away,” I told Diesel. “He’s going to stand out there in the rain until you let him come in, and then the whole house will smell like wet monkey.”
    There was some scratching at the door, the lock tumbled, the door opened, and Carl stomped past us into the living room. He turned the television on, surfed a couple channels, and settled for the Home Shopping Network. We all rolled our eyes and got busy with our soup.
    “Did you find anything interesting on Reedy?” I asked Diesel.
    “He taught Elizabethan literature. He was single. Originally from the Midwest. Drove a hybrid. Forty-two years old. No indication that he was exceptional in any way.”
    “Boy, that’s impressive,” Glo said. “Do you have to buy into a search program to find that kind of stuff?”
    Diesel mopped the last of his soup up with a crust of bread. “No. It was on his Facebook page. He also had a blog where he wrote about finding a book of sonnets that was said to have magical powers.”
    Glo went wide-eyed. “I bet he was talking about Lovey’s book! Is that where you found the key? Was the key on Gilbert Reedy?”
    “Maybe,” Diesel said. “Maybe not.”
    Carl walked into the dining room and mooned Diesel. It lost some impact, since Carl didn’t wear pants and his business wasn’t new to us.
    “Dude,” Diesel said. “That’s no way to get dessert.”
    Carl snapped to attention. “Eep?”
    “Cookies,” I told him.
    Carl jumped onto his booster seat, sat ramrod straight, and folded his hands on the table. He was a good monkey. I gave him a cookie, and he shoved it into his mouth.
    “Manners,” Diesel said to him.
    Carl spit the cookie out onto the table, picked it up, and carefully nibbled at it.
    “I should probably go home,” Glo said when we were done with lunch. “I have to do laundry, and my broommight be lonely.” She carried her plates into the kitchen, shrugged into her sweatshirt, and hung her messenger bag on her shoulder. “Thanks for the soup and cookies. I’ll see you tomorrow bright and early.” She left by the back door, and a moment later, she returned. “I don’t have a car,” she said. “I forgot.”
    “No problem,” Diesel said. “Lizzy and I were going out anyway. We can take you home.”
    I raised my eyebrows at Diesel. “We were going out?”
    “People to see. Things to do,” Diesel said.
    Twenty minutes later, we dropped Glo off. Another fifteen minutes, and we were parked in front of Gilbert Reedy’s apartment building. A plywood panel covered the shattered fourth-floor patio window. It was the only evidence that a tragedy had occurred. The body had been removed from the pavement. The police cars and EMTs were gone. The crime scene tape was gone. No CSI truck in sight. Rain was still sifting down.
    Diesel got out and opened my door. “Let’s look around.”
    “You look around. I’ll wait here.”
    “Doesn’t work that way,” Diesel said. “We’re partners.”
    “I don’t want to be a partner.”
    “Yeah, and I don’t want to live with a monkey.”
    It was a valid point, so I unhooked my seatbelt and followed him into the lobby. I stepped back when he went to the elevator.
    “Whoa,” I said. “Where are you going?”
    “Reedy lived in 4B.”
    “You’re going to break into his apartment?”
    “Yeah.”
    “That’s against the law. And it’s icky.”
    Diesel yanked me into the elevator and pushed the 4