Wicked Appetite - By Janet Evanovich Page 0,10

guy stood stunned for a moment, dropped to his knees, and went fetal. Shirley continued on her way.

“Ow,” Diesel said.

The Camry driver got out from behind the wheel, dragged his passenger back to the car, and they took off.

“I know this is weird, but I’m pretty sure those were the men in the photo,” I said to Diesel.

“What photo?” Glo wanted to know.

“Diesel was looking for something in Shirley’s apartment just now, and while we were there, I saw a photo of her and another woman and those two men.”

“Get out!” Glo’s voice shot into Minnie Mouse range. “You were in Cupcake Shirley’s apartment? What were you looking for? Is she a thief? A spy? An Internet porn star?”

“She’s a Glutton,” I said.

“Yeah, but you can’t hold that against her,” Glo said. “Did you get what you were looking for?”

“No.”

“You should go back and confront her and demand that she hand it over. And if she won’t hand it over, I could put a spell on her. There’s a whole chapter in my book on making people spill the beans.”

I looked over at Diesel. “What do you think?”

“The spell might be fun.”

“I wasn’t talking about the spell. I was talking about confronting her.”

Diesel pulled the key out of the ignition. “We could try that, too.”

Three minutes later, we were all at Shirley’s door.

“What’s the plan?” Glo asked.

“This is going to be the Lizzy Show,” Diesel said, back on his heels. “Lizzy is going to explain to Shirley how she shorted her a cupcake.”

“Works for me,” Glo said. “And what are we trying to get?”

“The Gluttonoid,” Diesel said.

I did a giant eye roll. “Good grief.”

Diesel grinned at me. “You don’t like Gluttonoid?”

“You just made that up.”

“Yeah,” Diesel said. “You got something better?”

I turned to Glo. “You know how when you go out to buy new shoes and you don’t exactly know what you want until you see it? The thing we’re looking for is sort of like that.”

Diesel rang the bell, and Shirley opened the door and peeked out at us.

“Hi,” I said. “We’re from Dazzle’s. I’m the cupcake baker, and you probably know Glo.”

Shirley smiled wide. “Sure. I know both of you. I love Dazzle’s. I’m thinking about increasing my cupcake order.”

She looked beyond me to Diesel, and her eyes glazed over a little, like she’d just seen the mother of all cupcakes.

“This is Diesel,” I told her.

“ ’Lo,” Shirley said.

I pushed past Shirley and eased myself in. “I wanted to talk to you about the cupcakes.”

That got Shirley’s attention off Diesel. “What about them? You’re not going to stop making them, are you? I couldn’t get through the day without them. I save them for bedtime.”

“I just wanted to tell you there’s a cupcake missing. I dropped a cupcake on the floor while I was filling the boxes, and I didn’t have any extras. I meant to put a note in with your order but forgot. So we stopped by to tell you.”

“Was it chocolate or carrot cake?”

“Chocolate.”

“I love the chocolate ones,” she said.

Glo followed me in, and in my peripheral vision I could see her head swiveling around, scoping out Shirley’s apartment.

“Yowza,” Glo whispered.

“It looked like you had a scuffle with a man just as we were driving up,” I said to Shirley. “Are you okay?”

“That was my idiot stepbrother, Mark. I haven’t seen him in seven years, not since my Uncle Phil died, and now all of a sudden he’s following me around, asking for stuff.”

Holy cow. She coldcocked her stepbrother. I had the guy pegged for a mugger or random pervert. “What kind of stuff does he want? Is he, you know, dangerous?”

“I don’t know. My parents divorced when I was four, and my mom and I moved to Seattle. I never saw my stepbrothers or my cousins until Uncle Phil died. I came back for the funeral and never left. How strange is that, right?”

“So you lived here in Salem for seven years, but you never saw your stepbrother after the funeral?”

“I guess everyone was mad because I was in the will. No one was real friendly to me.”

“What did Uncle Phil leave you?” I asked her.

“It’s a secret. All the inheritances were secret, and we were told we’d have eternal bad luck if we revealed what we got.”

“Wow,” Glo said. “Eternal bad luck would be for a long time.”

“Yeah. And now idiot Mark wants my inheritance. He says he’s a collector. Fat chance he has of ever getting it. He couldn’t pay me enough.