Perilously Fun Fiction: A Bundle by Pauline Jones (best fiction novels of all time .TXT) 📕

But how could that be? Velma had moved in after Luci and her mother left the area.

“Something wrong?” Delaney asked her.

Luci stood up and shook off all the feelings and impressions like a dog shedding water. “Do you hear it?”

Mickey and Delaney looked at each other, then at her. Their mutual blankness made her smile.

“A pizza,” she explained, “calling my name. I swear I can smell the sauce.”

On Mickey’s face, blank gave way for annoyed, with just a hint of resignation. Delaney tilted his head and listened. “Yeah, I think I do.”

“Not a chain pizza. Something more upscale, I think?”

“There’s a place on Magazine that does gourmet pizzas,” Delaney said, giving Mickey a hopeful look and rubbing his stomach. It obliged him by growling.

Mickey shoved his hair back. “Fine. Whatever.” Luci’s delighted smile made his head spin so fast, he didn’t notice the sling on her arm until they got to the car.

“Did I do that when I tackled you last night?”

Luci patted his arm reassuringly. “I took a header off an escalator.”

Delaney looked worried. “You okay?”

Luci nodded. “Just a slight sprain and a touch of snow burn.”

Mickey shook his head. “Snow burn?”

“From showing the kiddies how to make a snow angel.” She slid into the car and smiled up at him. “Bad idea in a dress.”

In a daze, Mickey closed the door and looked at Delaney. “When did I stop knowing what was going on?”

But he already knew the answer to that. The moment Luci Seymour walked into his life. He started the car and pulled away, his stomach rumbling happily at the thought of upcoming pizza.

Artie waited until they were out of sight before he emerged from the ivy. Pizza sauce liberally splattered his pants and the stolen pizza shirt, but his shoes had suffered more vilely. Even his Instant-Polish kit couldn’t fix them. It had been a bad week for shoes. Something else to add to Luci Seymour’s account.

It was dark in Fern’s hospital room when Donald pushed the door open and peered in. Fern was huddled in the regulation bed in the regulation gown, a cast adorning her arm. He started to back out, but she stopped him with, “I’m awake.”

He slipped through and closed the door behind him.

“You forget who’s the bopper in this family, Fernie?”

Fern looked up, her face so downcast, Donald felt sorry about ribbing her. Ponderously he trod over to her and patted her broken arm.

“Never mind.” His voice was gruff. “Weren’t such a bad idea, you know. If it had worked, our troubles’d be over. Weren’t your fault it didn’t, neither.”

“She sent me flowers, Donald.” She nodded toward the tasteful arrangement brightening the darkest corner of the room.

“Damn! Anybody else take a dive off an escalator, they’d be pushing up daisies ‘stead of sending them.”

“What are we going to do now?”

Donald pulled the chair close to the bed. Seated, he was on a level with her. “I been thinking on that very thing. Took a run past the house. It’s all nice and quiet. Even the bulls are gone.”

He kept his voice low, but Fern heard his underlying excitement.

“What?” She sat up, leaned toward him as a lust for revenge coursed through her veins. “Uzi time?”

“I wish. Give me a lot of pleasure to blast that bitch to hell and back. But,” he said with a regretful look. “We’ll have to settle for blowing her into little bits instead.”

“Blow—Donald, are you thinking of a bomb?”

“I am.”

“But—how?”

“I told you, I’ve been by. Somebody had backed a car out of the garage. I saw her look under the hood.” He didn’t mention that Luci’s long,bare legs had made him want to look under her hood. You didn’t cross a woman like Fern. Not if you wanted to keep all your parts. “Like she was trying to get it running.” He waited a beat, then added, “A Nash.”

Fern sat straight up in bed, oblivious to the pain the movement caused. “A Nash?”

He grinned. “Nash has always been lucky for us.”

Fern looked almost girlish and almost blushed. “Back seat of one, anyway.”

“This time the whole car’s gonna bring us luck. Gonna take us all the way to the Bahamas. Who’s gonna be surprised when a little gal blows herself and a car up? Ain’t natural for her to be working on a car. Though I hate to do it to a Nash.”

“Yeah,” Fern agreed, hesitated, then said with decision, “I’ve got to get out of here.”

“Just what I was thinking myself.” He held up a sack of clothes he’d packed for her. “I’ll help you.”

12

“I do love a woman in uniform,” Delaney said appreciatively the next morning as he watched Caroline walk away. Mickey nodded morosely. Caroline had been real possessive this morning when she picked him up, even straightened his tie. Mickey shuddered, as the feeling of being hunted had him hunching in his chair. Caroline sure as shooting had the software and the hardware to take him down and wrap him up.

“Yeah,” another detective drooled his agreement. “The only thing better’n watching her leave is watching her come.” He leered and pumped his arms suggestively.

“Don’t you gentlemen have anything better to do than stand around being sexist?” The cold voice of Captain Pryce sent them all scrambling for their desks—except for Mickey and Delaney, who were already at theirs. “You have time to give me an update on the Seymour investigation—unless you’re not finished lusting after Officer Cory?”

“Yes, sir, of course, sir!” Delaney tried to bring his bulky body to attention while Mickey grabbed for the folder that represented their cumulative knowledge of the Seymour investigation. It was a very thin folder.

“Things are finally starting to move,” he stated, avoiding saying thaw, “at the Coroner’s office. They took prints this morning and forwarded them to the FBI with an ASAP request. I believe they’re hoping for dental x-rays this morning, and the autopsy is scheduled for tomorrow morning.”

“Word is, you’ve got a possible perp on tap. A