Finger Lickin' Fifteen Read Online Free PDF

need help getting you undressed.” He answered his cell phone, listened for a moment, and disconnected. “Change in plans,” he said, yanking Marbles out of his chair. “There’s been another break-in. We’ll take Marbles with us and pass him off on site.”

FOUR

    THE HOUSE WAS a big white colonial with black shutters and a massive mahogany front door. The grounds were professionally landscaped. A dusty and battered police cruiser and two gleaming black Rangeman SUVs were parked in the circular drive. Ranger parked behind one of the Rangeman SUVs, we got out, and Tank and Hal came forward to meet us.
    I gave Hal my paperwork for Marbles, Hal got behind the wheel, backed the Escalade out of the drive and disappeared down the street.
    “Same MO,” Tank told Ranger. “The clients attended a political fund-raiser, came home, and found money and jewelry missing.” He handed Ranger a list. “We interrogated the system and found it had been briefly disarmed and then reset.”
    “Anything missing besides the money and jewelry?”
    “Some electronics. They’re going through the house now, trying to make sure the list is complete.”
    “I want Stephanie to walk through the house and look at it from a woman’s point of view. Make sure she has total access. Assure the owners her paint isn’t wet.”
    Tank looked at my paint-splattered hair and clothes. He paused for a beat, but he didn’t smile or frown or grimace. “Yessir,” he said to Ranger.
    I wandered around, checking out the kitchen with its professional-level appliances, marble countertops and splash plates, warming ovens and wine cooler. I thought it would be nice to have a kitchen like this, although most of it would go unused. All I actually needed was a butter knife, a loaf of white bread, and a jar of peanut butter. And can you fill a wine cooler with Bud Light?
    The upstairs master bath had a crystal chandelier and a bidet. I knew the purpose for the bidet, because I had seen Crocodile Dundee about a hundred times, but I wasn’t sure how one actually used a bidet. I mean, does it shoot water up your cooter or do you splash it around? And I thought I might have issues with the crystal chandelier. I wasn’t sure I could do number two in a room with a crystal chandelier.
    I’d looked at the list, so I knew what had been taken and what had been left. There was a safe in the master bedroom, but it hadn’t been touched. Madame’s jewelry had been easy access in a jewelry case on display in her walk-in closet. A couple thousand in twenties had been left on the dresser. All this stuff was gone. Plus two laptop computers from the home office, and a Patek Philippe man’s watch.
    I wandered around in the house for a half hour while the police did their thing, and Ranger did his thing, and the burgled house owners, a conservatively dressed middle-aged couple, quietly sat in the living room, looking shell-shocked.
    Ranger caught up with me in the front foyer. “Any ideas?” he asked me.
    “The thieves only hit two rooms. The master bedroom and the home office. There was a woman’s rose gold and diamond Cartier watch on the kitchen counter. And there were four icons that looked priceless in a display case in the living room. All untouched. Is this always the pattern?”
    “Yes. They disable the alarm for precisely fifteen minutes, and they move directly to the master bedroom and office.”
    “Why fifteen minutes?”
    Ranger did palms-up. “I don’t know.”
    “No prints left on doorknobs?”
    “None.”
    “And they only hit residential accounts?”
    “So far.”
    “This house has two security keypads. Can you tell which was used?”
    “They always enter and exit through the garage.”
    “The garage in this house opens into a short hall that leads to the kitchen. That means they walked through the kitchen twice and didn’t take the watch.”
    “Correct,” Ranger said.
    “Do you have anyone working for you who’s OCD or