Explosive Eighteen: A Stephanie Plum Novel (Stephanie Plum Novels)

skirt, and a black, orange, pink, and baby blue striped knit shirt under the black sweatshirt. She stood when she saw us, and her face lit with a smile.
    “I was afraid you’d never come home, and I’d be stuck out here forever,” she said.
    I looked up and down the street. “Where’s your car?”
    “It’s back at my apartment. It’s leaking something.”
    “How’d you get here?”
    “My neighbor was passing through and dropped me off. I thought you were making soup this morning.”
    “There was a temporary change in plans,” I told her.
    Diesel opened my front door, Carl rushed into the house, and we all followed him to the kitchen, where Cat 7143 was perched on a stool. Cat is short-haired, tiger-striped, has one eye and half a tail. Glo rescued Cat 7143 from the shelter and gave him to me. It said “Cat 7143” on his adoption paper, and he’s been Cat 7143 ever since. Cat jumped off the stool, sniffed at Carl, and walked away in disgust. Carl flipped him the bird and claimed the stool.
    “Put the hex on anybody lately?” Diesel asked Glo.
    Glo set her messenger bag on the counter. “No. I tried to put a happy spell on my broom, but it didn’t work. He’s still cranky.”
    Glo’s read the entire Harry Potter series four times and has aspirations of wizardry. A couple months ago she found
Ripple’s Book of Spells
in a curio shop, and she’s been test-driving spells ever since. I like Glo a lot, and she’s an excellent counter girl, but she’s a disaster as a wizard.
    “What kind of soup are you making?” Glo asked, looking into my pot.
    “Vegetable with beef broth and noodles.”
    “Are you putting any exotic herbs in it? I have some powdered eye of newt with me.” Glo rummaged around in her bag and pulled out a small jar. “And I’ve got lizard eggs, but they might be expired. I got them on sale.”
    “Thanks,” I said, “but I’ll pass.”
    I took the little key out of my pocket, set it on the counter, and went to the sink to wash my hands.
    “Omigosh,” Glo said. “It’s the Lovey key. I didn’t realize you were the one who bought the sonnets.”
    “I didn’t buy sonnets,” I told her. “I found the key. Technically, Carl found it.”
    Glo picked the key up and squinted at it. “If you look real close you can see the “L” inscribed in the middle of the vines. It’s absolutely ancient, and Nina at Ye Olde Exotica Shoppe said it might be enchanted. It goes with a little book of sonnets. I was saving up money to buy the book from Nina but someone beat me to it.”
    I tied my chef’s apron around my waist and looked over at Glo. “I didn’t realize you liked poetry.”
    “Nina let me read some of the sonnets. They’re so romantic. And some of them are totally bawdy.”
    “Nothing better than a bawdy sonnet,” Diesel said, helping himself to a bagel.
    I couldn’t imagine Diesel liking a sonnet, bawdy or otherwise. I thought Diesel was more of a limerick kind of guy.
    Glo returned the key to the counter. “Nina told me the sonnets were guaranteed to inspire lust, and I thought they might come in handy. You never know when you might want to inspire lust in someone, right?”