Read Online Finger Lickin' Fifteen by Janet Evanovich - Free Book Online

to emergency calls and alarms.”
    “So if an alarm went off, what would you do?”
    “I’d call the client and ask if they were okay, and then I’d ask for their password.”
    “How do you know if they give you the right password?”
    “I have the information in an off-line computer.”
    I looked at the computer sitting to his right. “I guess it has to be off-line for security purposes.”
    He shrugged. “More that there’s no reason for it to be on-line.”
    I returned to my desk and packed up. I had seven messages on my phone. All were from Lula, starting at three this afternoon. All the messages were pretty much the same.
    “You gotta be on time for supper at your mama’s house tonight,” Lula said. “Your granny and me got a big surprise.”
    Thoughts of the big surprise had me rolling my eyes and grimacing.
    Ranger appeared in my doorway. “Babe, you look like you want to jump off a bridge.”
    “I’m expected for dinner at my parents’ house again. Grandma and Lula are taking another crack at barbecue.”
    “Has Lula had any more contact with the Chipotle hitmen?”
    “I don’t think so. She didn’t mention anything in her messages.”
    “Keep your eyes open when you’re with her.”

    MY FATHER WAS slouched in his chair in front of the television when I walked in.
    “Hey,” I said. “How’s it going?”
    He cut his eyes to me, murmured something that sounded like just shoot me now , and refocused on the screen.
    My mother was alone in the kitchen, alternately pacing and chopping. Everywhere I looked there were pots of chopped-up green beans, carrots, celery, potatoes, turnips, yellow squash, and tomatoes. Usually when my mother was stressed, she ironed. Today she seemed to be chopping.
    “Run out of ironing?” I asked her.
    “I ironed everything yesterday. I have nothing left.”
    “Where’s Lula and Grandma?”
    “They’re out back.”
    “What are they doing?”
    “I don’t know,” my mother said. “I’m afraid to look.”
    I pushed through the back door and almost stepped on a tray of chicken parts.
    “Hey, girlfriend,” Lula said. “Look at us. Are we chefs, or what?”
    Grandma and Lula were dressed in white chef’s jackets. Grandma was wearing a black cap that made her look like a little old Chinese man, and Lula was wearing a puffy white chef’s hat like the Pillsbury Doughboy. They were standing in front of a propane grill.
    “Where’d you get the grill?” I asked.
    “I borrowed it from Bobby Booker. He brought it over in his truck on the promise he was gonna get some of our award-winning barbecue chicken someday. Now that we got this here grill, my barbecue is gonna turn out perfect. Only thing is, I can’t get it to work. He said there was lots of propane in the tank. And my understanding is, all I have to do is turn the knob.”
    “I got some matches,” Grandma said. “Maybe it’s got one of them pilot lights that went out.”
    Lula took the matches, bent over the grill, and Phunnf! Flames shot four feet into the air and set her chef’s hat on fire.
    “That did it,” Lula said, stepping back, hat blazing. “It’s cookin’ now.”
    Grandma and I had a split second of paralysis, mouths open, eyes bugged out, staring at the flaming hat.
    “What?” Lula said.
    “Your hat’s on fire,” Grandma told her. “You look like one of them cookout marshmallows.”
    Lula rolled her eyes upward and shrieked. “Yow! My hat’s on fire! My hat’s on fire!”
    I tried to knock the hat off her head, but Lula was running around in a panic.
    “Hold still!” I yelled. “Get the hat off your head!”
    “Somebody do something!” she shouted, wild-eyed, arms waving. “Call the fire department!”
    “Take the damn hat off,” I said to her, lunging for her and missing.
    “I’m on fire! I’m on fire!” Lula yelled, running into the grill, knocking it over. Her hat fell off her head onto the ground and ribbons of fire ran raced in all directions across my