Wicked Appetite Read Online Free PDF Page B

pushed past Shirley and eased myself in. “I wanted to talk to you about the cupcakes.”
    That got Shirley’s attention off Diesel. “What about them? You’re not going to stop making them, are you? I couldn’t get through the day without them. I save them for bedtime.”
    “I just wanted to tell you there’s a cupcake missing. I dropped a cupcake on the floor while I was filling the boxes, and I didn’t have any extras. I meant to put a note in with your order but forgot. So we stopped by to tell you.”
    “Was it chocolate or carrot cake?”
    “Chocolate.”
    “I love the chocolate ones,” she said.
    Glo followed me in, and in my peripheral vision I could see her head swiveling around, scoping out Shirley’s apartment.
    “Yowza,” Glo whispered.
    “It looked like you had a scuffle with a man just as we were driving up,” I said to Shirley. “Are you okay?”
    “That was my idiot stepbrother, Mark. I haven’t seen him in seven years, not since my Uncle Phil died, and now all of a sudden he’s following me around, asking for stuff.”
    Holy cow. She coldcocked her stepbrother. I had the guy pegged for a mugger or random pervert. “What kind of stuff does he want? Is he, you know, dangerous?”
    “I don’t know. My parents divorced when I was four, andmy mom and I moved to Seattle. I never saw my stepbrothers or my cousins until Uncle Phil died. I came back for the funeral and never left. How strange is that, right?”
    “So you lived here in Salem for seven years, but you never saw your stepbrother after the funeral?”
    “I guess everyone was mad because I was in the will. No one was real friendly to me.”
    “What did Uncle Phil leave you?” I asked her.
    “It’s a secret. All the inheritances were secret, and we were told we’d have eternal bad luck if we revealed what we got.”
    “Wow,” Glo said. “Eternal bad luck would be for a long time.”
    “Yeah. And now idiot Mark wants my inheritance. He says he’s a collector. Fat chance he has of ever getting it. He couldn’t pay me enough. Him and his brother, Lenny. Too bad I didn’t get a chance to kick Lenny in the you-know-whats. Except Lenny would probably like it. From what I can see, Lenny is a real glutton for punishment.”
    “That’s an odd choice of words,” Diesel said.
    “It’s a figure of speech,” Shirley said.
    I was watching Glo from the corner of my eye. She was feverishly thumbing through her book, her teeth sunk into her lower lip in concentration.
    “Eureka,” Glo said. “Here it is. Ibis by honor. Tongue tie not. Freely speaketh. Truth told, I command magpie Shirley More.” Glo snapped her fingers twice and clapped her hands once. She pointed at Shirley, closed her eyes, and chanted, “Shirley. Shirley. Shirley.”
    Diesel had eyebrows slightly raised. “Have you ever cast this spell?”
    “No,” Glo said. “But I’m pretty sure I did it right.”
    “Glamma bamma,” Shirley said.
    We all turned to her.
    “I wiggum big dick do flammy stick,” she said. “Eep! Lick stick rubba dubba.” Her eyes got wide, and she clapped her hands over her mouth. She shook her head. That wasn’t what she meant to say. “Gooky ball. Big gooky ball!”
    Shirley was talking gibberish. My first thought was stroke. My second thought was psycho mushrooms. My third thought was so outlandish I didn’t even want to articulate it. My third thought was that Glo had done it.
    “Holy cow,” Glo said. “What happened? She wasn’t supposed to talk gibberish. It was supposed to be a truth spell.”
    “Are you
sure
you read the spell right?” Diesel asked Glo.
    “I read it straight from the book. I was supposed to have powdered yak brain, but I couldn’t see where that would make a difference. I mean, we were in a crunch situation here, and I didn’t have any yak brain.”
    Shirley glared at Glo. “You fart foreskin!”
    “Criminy,” Glo said. “That’s harsh.”
    “Okay,” I said to Glo, “assuming Shirley