Wicked Appetite (12 page)

My heart skipped a couple beats. “What happened to the one-eyed cat?”

“I don’t know. I imagine he went to the animal shelter.”

“Do you know any more about him?”

“No. Your grandmother spoke to Ophelia from time to time, and she would mention the cat.”

I made a little more small talk, then disconnected and watched Diesel some more. I offered to take another shift, but he declined.

“More to the left,” I yelled out to him after a couple hours. “The pile is uneven.”

He looked back to me. “You want to take over, Miss Picky?”

“Just trying to be helpful.”

“You can be helpful by looking through all the locks that are left.”

My eyebrows went up an inch into my forehead. “Are you serious? There are still hundreds of locks. Maybe thousands.”

Diesel cut the engine and swung down off the backhoe. “I’ve reduced the pile by ninety percent. I can’t cut it down any more than that. These locks have been pushed around for years. The lock charm isn’t going to be exactly where it was originally placed.”

He was right. Problem was, I’d been going since four this morning, and I was running on empty. I walked to the edge of the remaining lock pile and began working my way through it, picking locks up, tossing them to Diesel, who pitched them across the room to the new heap of locks. After an hour, there were no more locks, I hadn’t come across a charm, and nothing had glowed or buzzed in my hand.

“Now what?” I asked Diesel.

“Now we go home. And tomorrow we have another conversation with Mark More.”

It was a little past midnight when we parked in front of my house. The Spook Patrol was absent, and the street was dark and blissfully quiet. Diesel let us in and flipped the lights on. Cat 7143 was sprawled in the middle of the floor, feet in the air.

“Omigosh,” I said. “He’s dead!”

Cat’s good eye opened, his tail twitched, and the eye closed.

“Sleeping,” Diesel said.

I looked more closely at Cat. He had muffin crumbs stuck to his face fur. “Looks like he helped himself to dinner.”

Diesel sauntered into the kitchen and stood hands on hips, surveying the carnage. “If Uncle Phil were here, he’d turn Cat into a waffle iron.”

Every muffin had been sampled. Some more than others. And some were completely destroyed.

“He prefers the muffins in the pink wrappers,” Diesel said.

They were my favorites, too. Good to have my opinion verified, even if it was by a cat. I cleaned the kitchen, and when Diesel wasn’t looking, I ate the untouched muffin bottoms, since Cat had mostly eaten the muffin tops. I struggled up the stairs and collapsed onto my bed.

“Are you going to sleep like that?” Diesel asked. “Don’t you want to get undressed? Do you need help?”

“If I sleep like this, I don’t have to get dressed in the morning . . . which is only three hours away.”

“It would be more fun if you put those little shorts back on.”

“I’m not interested in fun. I’m interested in sleep. And you promised you weren’t sleeping here.”

Diesel crawled onto the bed. “I lied.”

I fluffed my pillow and pulled the quilt over myself. “If you touch me, I’ll hurt you.”

“I’m hard to hurt.”

“I’ll find a way. I’m motivated.”

We both groaned out loud when the alarm went off.

“I need to get you a new job,” Diesel said. “One that starts at noon.”

“I had that job. I like this one better. And
my
job would be fine if it wasn’t for
your
job.”

I dragged myself to the bathroom, stumbled down the stairs, and started coffee brewing. I fed Cat and ate half a loaf of bread while I waited for the coffee. I scrambled four eggs and ate them with two more slices of bread. I had a second cup of coffee and caught myself pawing through the trash, looking for muffin bottoms. I yelled for Diesel, but there was no response.

I ran up the stairs and looked at the man in my bed. He was sound asleep, and from what I could see from the clothes on the floor and the half of him that wasn’t covered by quilt,
he was naked. I enjoyed the view for a couple minutes, thinking it would be nice to kiss the back of his neck, his bare shoulder, the small of his back . . . Good grief! Get a grip, Lizzy.

“Hey!” I yelled at him. “Wake up.”

“I’m awake.”

“I’m hungry,” I told him.

“And?”

“And I’m not supposed to be. I’m not carrying the ladybug. Why am I still hungry?”

“Can we discuss this in five or six hours?”

“I’ll weigh two hundred pounds by then. I just caught myself looking for muffin leavings.”

“Honey, anyone would be tempted to do that. They were really good muffins.”

“The cat ate them! They were in the
garbage
!”

“Yeah, that’s a little extreme,” he said. “If you come back to bed, I’ll take your mind off it.”

I mentally ticked off reasons to crawl back into bed. Number one: He was hot and mouth-wateringly handsome. Number two: I was almost certain he was a good person. Number three: He was already naked, so that awkward undressing moment would be cut in half. And here was the big, scary number four: I was possibly enamored. Diesel was fascinating, and hard as I tried to keep things in proper perspective, I found myself increasingly attracted to him. Of course, this morning I’d also felt that way about the muffins in the garbage.

“Returning to bed has some appeal,” I told him, “but I have to go to work. Don’t you want to get up and protect me?”

“No.”

“What if Wulf gets me?”

“Wulf has crazy Steven Hatchet. He doesn’t need you.”

“Yes, but suppose he thinks I’ve got the charm and maybe even the rest of the inherited whatevers?”

“It’s no big deal. He’ll do a strip search, and when he finds out you’re clean, he’ll turn you loose.”

A strangled sound emerged from the back of my throat and my stomach got sick. “Ulk.”

“You’re right,” Diesel said. “It would be more fun if I did the strip search.”

“That’s not what I was thinking!”

He swung his legs over the side of the bed. “I guess it was what
I
was thinking. Give me a minute and I’ll drive you to the bakery.”

I liked riding in Diesel’s SUV. It still had new-car smell, the seats were leather, and everything worked.

“Is this a company car?” I asked him.

“I never thought of it that way, but I guess it is. Gwen had it waiting for me when I got here.”

“Have you ever seen Gwen?”

“Yeah.”

“Is she pretty?”

Diesel smiled. “Do you care?”

“I’m curious.”

“She’s pretty, but she’s not my type,” Diesel said.

“What’s your type?”

“Easy.”

“I guess that leaves me out, too.”

“Yeah. And it’s a real pain in the ass.”

A light rain started to fall, and Diesel switched the wipers on. Even in bright sunlight, New England mostly looks practical. When it rains, it can be downright grim. The outside of the bakery is weathered gray clapboard, with nautical blue shutters, and the hand-painted sign over the door simply says
DAZZLE’S
. I like the way the building has aged, and that I have a sense of history when I walk through the front door. And I especially like that on a dark, rainy day, the inside light pours out through the two large display windows onto the sidewalk, like a beacon advertising cake and happiness.

Henley’s Hardware is to one side in a structure almost as old as Dazzle’s. The small, bedraggled saltbox on the other side of the bakery has changed hands twice in the short amount of time I’ve been here. The current occupants are trying to make a go of a vintage movie poster shop.

Diesel cruised past Vintage Posters, Dazzle’s, and Henley’s and turned at the corner. At this early hour, the bakery showroom was dark and the front door was locked. Diesel drove down the service alley running behind the bakery, and from
half a block away, I could see light spilling out the open back door to the bakery kitchen.

“I guess if you have to go to work at this unholy hour, a bakery is about as good as it gets,” Diesel said. “I wouldn’t mind being surrounded by cakes and pies every morning.”

I looked over at him. “You aren’t gluttonously hungry, are you?”

“No. I’m
normally
hungry. How about you?”

“I’d eat your sneakers if they had barbecue sauce on them. It’s not fair. You’ve got the charm, and I’m the one eating everything in sight.”

“I guess you’re the chosen one,” Diesel said. “Too bad we aren’t collecting the SALIGIA charms that control lust. You’d be thinner, and I’d be happier.”

The thought sent a shudder through me. I already had a lot of lust for Diesel without help from an enchanted charm. I didn’t want to contemplate enchanted lust. I mean, suppose I wanted Diesel with the same intensity I wanted a jelly doughnut or a Rice Krispies Treat! I might cripple him.

Diesel smiled.

“You didn’t hear that, did you?” I asked him.

“No, but you were looking at me like I was a turkey dinner.”

He parked in the small lot behind the bakery, cut the engine, and released his seat belt.

“You don’t have to come in,” I told him.

“Sure I do. I’m the big strong Unmentionable who’s protecting you. I’m sticking to you like glue.”

“I’ve changed my mind. I don’t want you anywhere near me. I want you to go far, far away. I think it must be that the charm is too close to me. Maybe you should put it in a safe-deposit box or FedEx it to your boss.”

“I can’t give the charm to the BUM yet. I need to keep the charm until we get all the pieces and I’m sure we have the original Stone.”

“I’m having a hard time thinking straight right now,” I said. “I can’t get my mind off bacon, but I’m sure I’ll be fine without you. I have Clara and Glo to protect me.”

I jumped out of the SUV, ran to the bakery door, and made shooing gestures at Diesel. Diesel watched me for a moment and took off.

“We have an order for sixty cupcakes for a lunchtime baby shower today,” Clara said. “Yellow cake with pink icing.”

A warm flush ran from my chest to my stomach. “I love yellow cake and pink icing.”

“You look kind of goofy,” Clara said. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine. I was just thinking about the cakes.”

Clara powered up the big bread mixer. “And don’t forget Shirley increased her order.”

I got butter and milk from the fridge and set it out on my workstation. “I’m on it.”

Ten minutes later, I had a cauldron of cake batter in front of me.

“What are you doing?” Clara yelled from across the room.

“I’m making cake.”

“No, you’re not. You’re eating cake. I’ve been watching you. You’ve eaten half the batter.”

I stared into the bowl. Clara was right. There was a lot of batter missing.

“I’ve never seen you scarf down raw batter like that,” Clara said. “What’s going on?”

I told her about the SALIGIA Stones, Shirley’s ladybug charm, and my food obsession.

“I’m on board with the Unmentionable thing,” Clara said. “I understand that people have abilities in varying degrees and that sometimes those abilities are beyond normal. The SALIGIA Stones are different. They’re a tough sell.”

“Kind of Indiana Jones.”

“Yeah. Maybe Diesel has doctored the story. I could see him trying to get his hands on something valuable. I’m having trouble buying the hell-on-earth bit.”

I nodded in agreement. I was attracted to Diesel, but let’s be honest, it wasn’t much of a stretch to think he would fib if it suited his purposes.

“What do you think I should do?” I asked Clara. “I can’t lock him out of my house. He just lets himself back in. And I feel better about him than Wulf. At least when Diesel’s around, I don’t have to worry about getting burned.”

And he looks wonderful with or without clothes, I thought, and I like the way he feels when he’s next to me.

“Just be careful, and try to be smart,” Clara said. “And if you feel really uncomfortable about it all, you’re welcome to
stay upstairs with me. And for goodness sakes, stop eating the cake batter.”

“I’m hoping after Diesel and the charm are out of my space for a while I’ll get back to normal.”

“That would be good, because at the rate you’re snacking on batter, we’re not going to have anything to sell today.”

At five minutes to eight, Clara stopped at my station to watch me tube pink icing onto the vanilla cupcakes.

“You haven’t eaten anything for almost an hour now,” she said.

I set my pastry bag aside and took up a shaker of red sugar sprinkles. “Yeah. And I have no desire to eat anything ever again.”

The back door banged open and Glo charged in.