Smokin' Seventeen: A Stephanie Plum Novel (Stephanie Plum Novels)

over to tell me he thought I looked good on the bus. His nose was red, he smelled heavily of Jim Beam, and his pink scalp was sweating under his five-strand comb-over. I thanked him for the compliment, and he moved on.
    I could hear a disturbance going on in the front of the room by the casket, and a funeral home attendant in a black suit moved toward it. I assumed this was Grandma trying to get the lid up. I’d been through this before, and I wasn’t stepping in unless a free-for-all broke out, or I heard gunshots.
    Someone jostled against me, I looked around, and I locked eyes with Nick Alpha.
    “The whole time I was in prison I lived for the day when I’d get out and set things right for Jimmy,” he said, leaning in close, talking low. “I’m going to kill you just like you killed my little brother, but I’m going to let you worry about it for a while. Not too much longer, but for a while. It won’t be the first time I’ve had to kill someone, but it’s going to be the most enjoyable.”
    His eyes were cold and his mouth was set hard. He stepped back and disappeared into the sea of mourners, snoops, and partygoers.
    Sometimes you want to be careful what you wish for because you might get it. I’d wanted to talk to Nick Alpha, andnow not so much. At least he wanted me to worry a little. That meant he probably wouldn’t kill me on my way out of the funeral home, so everything was good. And if he was the guy who was killing everyone else, he’d choke me first. I liked my odds with that better than getting shot. In my mind I played out a scenario where I stabbed the assailant in the leg with my nail file and was able to foil the choking.
    The black-suited funeral director moved people out of his way, and escorted Grandma over to me. “Take her home,” he said.
“Please.”
    “I’m not going until I get a cookie,” Grandma said. “I always like to have a cookie after I’ve paid my respects.”
    The funeral director gave me a five-dollar bill. “Buy her a cookie. Buy her a whole
box
of cookies. Just get her out of here.”
    “You better be nice to me,” Grandma said to the director. “I’m old, and I’m going to die soon, and I got my eye on the deluxe slumber bed with the mahogany carvings. I’m going out first class.”
    The director sagged a little. “I’d like to count on that, but life is cruel, and I can’t imagine you leaving us anytime in the near future.”
    I took Grandma by the elbow and helped steer her out of the viewing room. We made a fast detour to the cookie table, she wrapped three in a napkin and put them in her purse, and we hustled to the car.
    “What did you do this time?” I asked her when we were on the way home.
    “I didn’t do anything. I was a perfect lady.”
    “You must have done
something.
”
    “I might have tried to get the lid up, but it was nailed closed, and then I sort of knocked over a vase of flowers onto the dearly departed’s wife, and she got a little wet.”
    “A
little
wet?”
    “She got
real
wet. It was a big vase. She looked like she’d been left out in the rain all day. And it would never have happened if they hadn’t nailed the lid down.”
    “The man was nothing but rotted bones.”
    “Yeah, but
you
got to see him. I don’t know why
I
couldn’t get to see him. I wanted to see what his rotted bones looked like.”
    I dropped Grandma off and made sure she got into the house, and then I drove to the end of the block and turned out of the Burg, into Morelli’s neighborhood. I drove to his house and idled. His SUV wasn’t there. No lights on. I could call him, but I was half afraid he’d be on a date. The very thought gave me a knot in my stomach. But then lately almost everything in my life gave me a knot.
    I continued on home, parked, and took the elevator to the second floor. I stepped out of the elevator and saw Dave. He was sitting on the floor, his back to my door.
    “Hi,” he said, standing, retrieving his wine and grocery bag.
    “What the heck are you doing here?”
    “Waiting for you?”
    “Why?”
    “I feel like cooking.”
    I blew out a sigh and opened my door. “Does the word ‘stalker’ mean anything to you?”
    “Do you have a stalker?”
    “You! You’re turning into a stalker.”
    He unpacked his groceries and hunted for the corkscrew. “I’m not a stalker. Stalkers don’t cook dinner.”
    I poured myself a glass of wine. “What are we having?”
    “Pasta. I’m going to make a light sauce with