Wicked Business

by Janet Evanovich

  “Wulf is a lot like me physically. It’s not impossible, but it’s very hard to do real damage to us. It’s hard to imagine he’d come out the loser to Anarchy.”

  “She has the advantage of being crazy.”

  “I’m not convinced Wulf is entirely sane.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  We dropped the bags in the car and walked back to the Sphinx. Hatchet was there, circling the building like a kid looking for his lost cat.

  “No sign of Wulf?” Diesel asked him.

  “I didst look everywhere. I fear the worst. His car hath not been moved.”

  “Maybe I can track him,” Diesel said, walking away from the back of the building.

  “I’m staying here,” I told him. “Pick me up when you’re done.”

  I sat on the steps to the Sphinx and watched the students. I’d never had the college experience. I’d gone to culinary school after high school, and I don’t regret my choice. I love being a pastry chef. Still, I wondered what it would be like to be part of a college community.

  The Sphinx steps weren’t all that comfortable, and the students weren’t terribly interesting. I stood and stretched and paced. I walked up the hill a little, looking for Diesel and Hatchet. No sign of either. I returned to the Sphinx, and when I passed by the back door I noticed that the tip of the sword was missing and the door was ever so slightly ajar.

  I tentatively approached the door and opened it enough to see a crack of subdued light. I listened for movement inside. No sounds drifted out to me. I opened the door wider and peeked in.

  “Hello?” I said. “Anybody home?”

  I entered the building and recoiled at the sight of the body in the middle of what appeared to be a large kitchen. My initial reaction was confusion and horror. It was Wulf, and he was hog-tied. His body was bent backward at an extreme angle. His hands and feet were shackled and chained together. There was a rope wrapped around his neck and attached to the chains. He was blindfolded and there was duct tape across his mouth. And it looked to me like he was wired to a bomb that was also chained to a massive table.

  I rushed to Wulf and ripped the blindfold and duct tape off him.

  “Don’t touch me,” he said. “If I move, the bomb will go off.”

  “It has a digital clock attached,” I told him. “It looks like it’s set for a timed explosion.”

  “How much time do I have?”

  “Almost five minutes.”

  “Leave. Get out of the building.”

  “What happens if I pull the wires off you?”

  “If you do it in the right sequence you might defuse the bomb or at least free me from it. If you do it wrong the bomb will go off.”

  “What’s the right sequence?”

  “Only Anarchy knows that. And she’s so insane, she might not even know the sequence. You need to leave now.”

  I looked at the digital display ticking away seconds, and I felt my scalp prickle. “The wires are color-coded. Does that mean anything to you?”

  “No.”

  Damn! I looked at the open door, and I looked back at Wulf. I blinked back tears. “This really sucks,” I said to him.

  “It’s okay,” he said. “You need to leave and get as far from the building as possible.”

  “Can’t do it,” I told him.

  There were two wires. Red and green. I ran to the counter, found a pair of shears, and ran back to Wulf.

  I could feel sweat collecting in a pool between my breasts and rolling down the side of my face as I bent over Wulf and the wires. The time was ticking away. I had to make a decision. I pressed my lips together to keep from whimpering, said a small prayer, and slipped the strap to my shoulder bag over my head so the bag hung down my back and out of my way.

  “Here goes,” I said. “Go with green. I’m cutting the green one first.”

  I held my breath and snipped the wire. No explosion. My heart was racing and my nose was running. Some sweat dripped onto Wulf. “Sorry,” I said. “I’m really scared.” I had two minutes left, and I was working hard to keep my hands from shaking. I cut the red wire. Wulf was completely detached from the bomb, but the clock was running. I cut the rope attached to his neck, threw the shears away, grabbed the chains attached to Wulf, and dragged him to the door.

  “Jeez Louise,” I said, putting my weight behind it. “How much do you weigh?”

  I managed to get to the door. I gave one last tug and we tumbled out. I yelled for help, and Diesel came running.

  “Bomb!” I said. “Get him out of here.”

  Diesel and Hatchet picked Wulf up and we all ran about forty feet before the building exploded and we went flat to the ground. The back door and kitchen fan blew out and shot off like missiles. There was smoke and fire inside, but the exterior of the tomb looked intact and unscathed.

  Diesel unlocked the shackles, and Wulf flopped onto his back and lay stretched out, spread-eagle, for a couple beats, breathing hard. Diesel gave Wulf a hand up, and we all moved away from the Sphinx. People were running from all directions and emergency vehicles were screaming down the street.

  “What happened?” Diesel asked Wulf.

  “Apparently, the ridiculous rumor that we should not have relations with our own kind is true. I met a woman who neglected to mention her special abilities to me. And now as time goes on she becomes more and more powerful, assuming my skills, and I’m left with very little. Obviously, I was the loser in this latest attempt to stop her.”

  “Anarchy,” Diesel said.

  “Yes. Also known as Deirdre Early. She’s the heiress to the Early candy fortune. She has all the power and no ability to control it,” Wulf said. “She was a monster in her own right, and I’ve created an even more powerful monster.”

  “Is there a way to uncreate her?” I asked him.

  “Not easily,” Wulf said.

  “Sire,” Hatchet said to Wulf, “perhaps if we had relations, I could obtain some of your skills and I could take over the business.”

  Wulf gave Hatchet a smack to the back of his head that knocked him to his knees. “I still have the strength to kill you,” Wulf said.

  We were almost back to Marblehead, and I was struggling to keep my eyes open.

  “Crawling around in dirt tunnels and swimming in grottoes is exhausting,” I said to Diesel. “I’m going to bed early.”

  “And I’m sleeping on the couch,” Diesel said. “That was a freaking sobering experience. It’s not bad enough that Wulf is losing his power . . . the recipient went batshit.”

  “What are you going to do about her?”

  “I’m going to try to locate her through the Early family. If no one’s heard from her I’ll go back into the tunnels to see if I can find her.”

  “She has the tablet.”

  “True,” Diesel said, “but we have the stone.”

  “Omigosh!”

  Diesel turned onto Washington Street. “I don’t like the way that sounded. Should I be worried?”

  “I don’t have the stone.”

  “You lost the stone?”

  “It was in my purse.”

  “And?”

  “I don’t have it. I think I left my purse in Hanover. I dropped it when the Sphinx exploded. And I sort of remember Hatchet picking it up, but then I turned my attention to Wulf.”

  Diesel gave a bark of laughter.

  I rolled my eyes at him. “It’s not funny!”

  “I was thinking about Wulf going back to his car and discovering he had the Luxuria Stone. Here he is having a truly bad day. He’s been chained to a bomb and left to die. Then he’s rescued by a cupcake baker. And worst of all, he has to admit to us that he’s lost his power. And just when he’s thinking he’s at the bottom, the Luxuria Stone drops into his lap.”

  “Life is strange,” I said.

  Diesel pulled into the parking area in front of my house, and we got out and stretched. Carl was sitting in the window, looking out at us, his face pressed to the glass.

>   “I must have been really terrible in a previous life to deserve Carl in this one,” Diesel said.

  “You like him.”

  “He’s family,” Diesel said. “He even looks like family. You should see my cousin Ralph.”

  Glo opened the door before we got to it. “How did it go? Were there more clues? Did you get the stone?”

  “It’s complicated,” I said.

  Diesel swung Carl up onto his shoulder. “We didn’t get the stone, but we might know where it is.”

  “Where is it?”

  “Wulf might have it,” I said.

  “Isn’t that a bad thing?” Glo asked.

  “It’s not good,” I told her. “How’s it been here?”

  “Quiet. I talked to Clara, and she’s feeling okay. She’s going to open the bakery tomorrow. I’m going in early to help with the bread, since she’s supposed to be careful with her arm.”

  “How’s your arm feeling?”

  “It’s fine. The cut wasn’t super deep. It was more scary than anything else.”

  “What would you like to do about tonight? Would you like to stay here again?”

  “No. I need to get home. And in case you’re hungry, I had pizza delivered, and there’s still a lot left. I got extra in case you wanted some.”

  Diesel took Glo home, and I went to the computer and researched Deirdre Early. I typed the name in and information poured onto the screen. Deirdre Early sitting in the front row during Fashion Week in New York. Deirdre Early dating a polo player, a rapper, a basketball player, a senator, her trainer, her pool boy. Deirdre Early arrested for protesting PETA in her sheared mink coat and nothing else.

  She was the sole heir to the Early candy fortune. She’d been married three times and divorced three times. She had a 150-foot yacht that she kept in the Mediterranean. And her main residence was in Greenwich, Connecticut. I thought she seemed like the perfect date for Wulf, except that she was a homicidal maniac.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Diesel was asleep on the couch when I left the house at 4:30 A.M. He had one foot on the floor, one foot hanging over the armrest, and Carl was sleeping on his chest. It was endearing. I kissed him on his forehead, and he said, “See ya, Sunshine,” without ever opening his eyes.

  No one accosted me on my way to Diesel’s car. I’d helped myself to his keys, and I hoped he didn’t want to go anywhere, because he wouldn’t have a car until I got off work.

  Lights were on when I got to the bakery.

  “How’s the arm?” I asked Clara.

  “I’m supposed to have it in a sling, but the sling drives me nuts. All the special orders for Monday have called in for today. I hope Glo gets here soon.”

  “She has an injury, too,” I said. “Let me do the heavy lifting today. Glo can frost the cupcakes.”

  Twenty minutes later, Glo arrived.

  “This isn’t normal,” Glo said. “Nobody gets up and goes to work at this hour. It’s nighttime. Why don’t we do the baking the afternoon before? Then we’d just have to put everything out in the racks and shelves when we open the store.”

  “It wouldn’t be fresh,” Clara said.

  “Well, honest to goodness, how fresh does something have to be?” Glo said. “Mr. Nelson would never know the difference. Tell him his stupid pretzels are organic, so they might taste stale. You could charge him extra.” She tied an apron on. “You’ll never guess who called me last night after I got home. Hatchet. He wanted a date. He said he really enjoyed cutting me, but he wouldn’t do it anymore if I didn’t like it.”

  Clara and I were momentarily speechless.

  “You aren’t going out with him, are you?” Clara asked.

  “I don’t think so,” Glo said. “He’s a psycho-minion. Actually, that makes him a little interesting, but the whole poisonous snake thing puts me off.”

  “Get the pans ready,” I said to Glo. “I’m starting the cupcakes.”

  At ten o’clock, Glo was helping a customer, Clara was pulling loaves of bread out of the oven, and I was whipping up a cauldron of buttercream frosting when Deirdre Early burst into the kitchen. Her face was smudged with dirt, her eyes were wild-woman, her hair was filthy and snarled, and her clothes were a mess.

  “It’s a fake,” she said. “A fake!”

  Glo rushed in from the store, and Clara and I snapped to attention.

  “What’s a fake?” I asked.

  “The stone. That hideous Hatchet gave it to me. He said it was the Luxuria Stone, but I know it wasn’t.”

  “How do you know?” I asked her.

  “It doesn’t do anything. I carried it around, and I felt nothing. And when I finally found my way out of the tunnel maze this morning, no one would talk to me. If it was the Luxuria Stone I was carrying, those college guys would be all over me, right? I mean, they’ll hit on anything.”

  “You’re sort of a fright,” Glo said.

  Early looked down at herself. “It wasn’t easy getting out of that tunnel. There were bats and spiders, and I kept falling into holes.”

  “Do you have the tablet?” I asked her.

  “I have half of it. It broke when I fell, and I could only find one piece in the dark. And it’s not like I didn’t look. I can’t read the stupid thing anyway.”

  “If you want to give it to me, I might be able to find someone to read it,” I told her.

  “How about this. You give me the real stone, and I give you what I have of the tablet.”

  “Are you sure the stone isn’t real?” I asked her.

  “I hit it with a hammer.” She pulled some pulverized stone out of her pocket and dumped it on the floor. “If it was magic, it wouldn’t break like this, right? What kind of magic stone breaks like this?”

  We all shrugged.

  “It’s Hatchet,” she said, her hands clenched, eyes narrowed.

  Jars rattled on the pantry shelves and the building vibrated.

  “I should have finished him off like I finished off Wulf. Mr. Look-at-me-because-I’m-so-sexy-and-powerful. He never even called the next day. We had this big hot date, and then nothing. What’s with that? Even basketball players call me the next day. Or at least send flowers. Have some respect, you know? It’s not like I didn’t go to some effort. I was wearing La Perla.”

  “Bummer,” Glo said. “That sucks. I hate when that happens. You know what’s even worse? When they get shot with a nail gun and don’t even show up.”

  Deirdre Early looked around. “I lost my focus. Why am I here?”

  “Cupcakes,” I said. “You want cupcakes.”

  “No. That’s not it.”

  “A loaf of bread. This is a bakery,” Clara said. “People come here for bread.”

  “No. It was something else.”

  “Hatchet?” Glo said.

  “Yes! I hate Hatchet. He tricked me. I’d hate Wulf, too, but I killed him.”

  “Actually, he’s still alive,” I said.

  She went still for a moment. “What?”

  “He healed.”

  “That’s impossible. I have all his power. I can cook an egg in the palm of my hand. I can hear grass grow. I can throw fire.”

  “I didn’t know Wulf could throw fire,” I said.

  “It’s this gadget I bought,” Early said, pulling a propane torch out of her Hermès shoulder bag. “I bought it to caramelize crème brûlée, but you can torch anything with it.”

  “Your town house?” I asked.

  “That was an accident.”

  “My car?”

  “I was practicing. And how did I get all that flour on me? I can’t remember.”

  “Flour?” Clara said. “What flour?”

  I agreed. “I don’t remember any flour.”

  Early pulled the trigger and—whoosh—about ten inches of blue flame shot out.

  “Whoa,” Clara said. “That’s way beyond crème brûlée.”

  “I like fire,” Early said, flicking the flamethrower, shooting out fire.

&nbs
p; “So now what?” I asked her.

  “World domination and chaos. My name is Anarchy!” she said, waving the torch around, shooting flames out at us. “What’s my name?” she asked us.

  “Anarchy,” we said in unison.

  “I want the stone, and you are going to get it for me.”

  When she said you, she pointed at me and set my chef apron on fire. I batted at it with a kitchen towel, and Clara shot it with water from the sink hose.

  “Jeez Louise,” I said, untying the wet apron, examining the hole in it. “Could you be more careful with that flamethrower! It’s not like aprons grow on trees.”

  “You have twenty-four hours to get the stone to me, or I’ll burn your house to the ground,” she said.

  She aimed the torch at a stack of towels and phffffft. Up in flames.

  “I don’t have the stone,” I said to her. “Wulf has the stone.”

  Okay, that was a rotten thing to do to Wulf, but I didn’t care. I was willing to throw him under the bus to get rid of Early or Anarchy or whoever the heck she was at the moment.

  “Pay attention,” she said. “I’m telling you to get it and bring it to me. You’re making me angry.”

  Phfffft. She cremated a tray of soft pretzel rolls.

  “You shouldn’t have done that,” Glo said. “Mr. Nelson’s going to be in here any minute, and he’s going to be pissed.”

  “I want that stone!” Anarchy shrieked.

  “Sure,” I said. “No problem. Where do you want it delivered?”

  She pulled a card out of her purse. “This is my cell phone. I’m currently between addresses.”

  “Okeydokey,” I said. “Would you like a cupcake for the road?”

  “I don’t eat cupcakes,” she said. “Do I look like I eat cupcakes? I don’t think so. I work glutes and abs seven days a week. I haven’t got a single cellulite dimple. I eat like an alpaca. Sprouts and watercress.”

  “No wonder you’re always so cranky,” Glo said.

  Phffft. Phffffft! She torched a roll of paper towels and three loaves of pumpernickel.

  “She didn’t mean cranky,” I said to Anarchy. “She meant sharp and focused. Eye of the tiger. Woman in charge.” I looked over at Glo. “Right, Glo?”