Dirty Thirty by Janet Evanovich

Author:Janet Evanovich [Evanovich, Janet]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Atria Books
Published: 2023-10-30T00:00:00+00:00

* * *

We reached Jersey a little after ten o’clock that night. There’d been some long meal stops and a couple shorter snack stops and an accident on I-95. I was numb from the ass down, and I couldn’t blink my eyes.

“Are we almost home?” Lula asked.

“Yes,” I said. “We just left New York.”

“That wasn’t an entirely satisfying trip to Maine,” Lula said. “I didn’t get to shop for charming country crafts, and I didn’t get to eat a lobster roll.”

Bob had a better opinion of the trip because he’d gotten his double bacon burger.

An hour later, I turned onto Lula’s street and my heart skipped a beat when I saw fire trucks in front of her apartment house. There were no flames shooting into the sky, but the air smelled smoky and the street was wet. I got closer and saw that the trucks were packing up to leave. A cop was roping the house off with yellow crime scene tape. The second-floor windows to Lula’s apartment were blackened. A small clump of people stood on the sidewalk.

“That’s my house!” Lula said. “Let me out. I gotta go see my apartment. All my clothes are in there. My Marilyn Monroe wig collection is in there.”

“It looks like they’re sealing the house off,” I said.

“Marilee is one of the people standing on the sidewalk. She has the apartment under me. She’ll know what’s going on.”

I angle-parked next to a fire truck, and we all got out.

Lula rushed over to Marilee. “What happened? I just got here. I was out of town,” Lula said.

“Nobody’s sure, but it looks like the fire started in your apartment,” Marilee said. “Word is your apartment is toast, but the rest of the house mostly only got smoke and water damage.”

“How could it start in my apartment?” Lula said. “I wasn’t even home.”

“Somebody was up there,” Marilee said. “It sounded like the guy who comes to see you every night and stomps on the stairs. I heard him go up and then he was moving around up there. And then the fire started.”

“It was Grendel,” Lula said. “He’s burning and pillaging. It’s one of his specialties. Did he get burned along with everything else?”

“No one got burned,” Marilee said. “Your apartment was empty. Everyone got out of the house.”

“That’s a good thing,” Lula said. “I’m surprised crazy Becky in the attic was able to get out.”

“They took her down in one of those bucket things attached to the fire truck,” Marilee said. “She was screaming her head off. I’m thinking they drove her to the psych ward at the medical center.”

“I’m sorry I missed it,” Lula said. “She always puts up a good show. What about my car?”

“Your car is okay. The lot behind the house wasn’t affected.”

“Have you been back in your apartment?”

“No,” Marilee said. “We can’t go back in yet. I’m waiting for my daughter to come get me. I can stay with her tonight. They said the fire marshal will come in the morning, and then we can get back in.

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