In Love by Design (The Adventures of Anabel Axelrod) (35 page)

Seeing the re
play of getting girly slapped by the Russian, I got pissed all over again that she caught me off guard, but now understood a little better why my charm didn’t work so well that night. Anna and I had a fun few minutes critiquing my performance and jeering at Svettie’s day-glo undies. Anna repeatedly played the video on high speed, too. The talk, the slap, my expression of astonishment, Svettie crying and slamming the door in my face, and the following evil munchkin rage, as I go stomping off and cursing out of camera range was pretty funny.

I seriously think Anna would be happy to stay put and watch these videos all night, but I remind
ed her that we have family business to take care of and needed to get going.

Anna’s eyes
were innocent when she declared, “If this were Reggie’s house, I would want to watch all the security videos I could while I had the chance. You know, just to see who comes and goes from his house to make sure nobody’s casin’ the joint or vandalizing…”

Choking back my laugh, I retorted, “I think you just saw who’s been doing that at Luke’s!”
Still, Anna does have a valid point. It was the job of a fabulous girlfriend to ensure the safety of her man from all threats. “Do you have access to all the stored tape?”

Anna shrug
ged, but her smile was mischievous. “Should we find out?”

I
was tempted, but shook my head. “No, let’s get going.”

“
You’re no fun. Wait! Have you seen this?” She quickly queued up another video and I murmured that this was the first I’d seen any of these, but my voice trailed off when Luke’s image came on the screen. He swept the mad, stumpy little brown thing off its feet and jogged down the lane with it bundled in his arms. Their heads were so close together that it was hard to tell where one started and the other began.

Anna sniff
ed and grabbed another Kleenex. “Look at that, Junior. Have you ever seen anything so sweet in your life? Let me see your ring again.”

“Okay, that’
s it!” I reached over and shut down the computer. “I’m not wearing my new ring to go Ninja’ing, so you’ll have to wait.” I didn’t add that not wanting to be bugged by Jazy and Tre was a good reason to leave the ring off, as well. Appealing to Anna’s fixation on romance which I prayed was only a temporary hormonal upheaval, I cajoled, “Now come on, we have to go help save Mac’s marriage before she castrates Diego.”

Besides,
Anna hasn’t had time to find the video of me falling down into the ditch when jogging up to the barn and I’d like to keep it that way.

“Wait!
You’ve got to see one more thing!” Anna jumped up and ran over to the panel wall on the right side of the stairway. “Look at what I found when I got mixed up looking for the hidden refrigerator.” She pressed her hand flat on a spot and a section of the wall quietly split open. Each panel automatically slid easily into the wall and a large bed frame lowered slowly downward and settled onto the floor.

Anna
exclaimed with a flourish, “Voila! Instant bedroom.”

Walking over, I
peered into the wall cavity from where the head of the bed was hidden from view. The Murphy bed was made up with pillows and blankets, and the headboard had a recessed shelf containing several paperback books, an iPod docking station, and a swinging lamp on an extended arm, currently folded closed.

I whistled soundlessly and complimented my friend,
“Holy Moly, Nancy Drew, you’ve been busy down here!”

Anna
beamed proudly and quoted, “She looks well to the ways of her household, and does not eat the bread of idleness.”

My head whipped
back and I stared at Anna. Quoting Proverbs is not one of her typical conversational gambits. Her eyes were round with amazement, too.

“That better be coming from your hormones being whacked out,” I warn
ed in dire tones, “because if you’re possessed by Aunt Lily, our friendship is over, finished, done,” I did the Viggo V, “caput!” Upon further thought, I added judiciously, “At least, until after the exorcism.” I had one more thought and stressed, “A
successful
exorcism.”

“Anabel!” Anna cried, using my
full name in her horror. “I can’t believe you gave me the V sign! I didn’t even know I knew any Bible quotes!”

I waved off her concern because I
was sure Anna could recite the Bible from front to back, if she had any burning desire to do so. She’s probably mentally blocked this knowledge and I can’t blame her, not after having it shoved down her throat by Aunt Lily all her life.

“I have nothing against any Bible quotes, Anna, it’s
what or who is prompting them that has me worried.” I patted her arm. “The V sign was a small test. It’s good that the Viggo V upset you. If you were possessed by Aunt Lily, don’t you think you would’ve hissed and spit when I did that?”

Anna nodded in relief. “I totally agree. I’m sure it’s my damn hormones.”
She snorted in disgust and said, “Not that the Viggo V is anything like a test of Holy Water!”

I smile
d noncommittally and made a mental note to keep a close eye on Anna during her pregnancy. I’ve read too many scary books and watched too many occult movies where dark forces were afoot and wanted someone’s baby. Look at poor Rosemary, for instance. I’ll be damned before any minions from Hell will get their fat mitts on this future Axelrod.

Looking back at the Murphy bed, I realize
d if Anna’s discovered this accidentally in fifteen minutes, I could really use her sniffing out talents to help me find the secret entrance to the bunker. It has to be reached from this room somehow, or through the two closed doors I’ve yet to investigate.

‘Too bad you gave your word to never tell,’
reminded the mean mommy voice, and we both sighed in resigned irritation at what a total pain in the ass it was being honorable.

“Hey Anna,
since you brought up not eating bread, we should probably have some dinner before we go.”

She rolled her eyes at my teasing, but rubbed her hands together and
agreed. “I’m always so hungry lately, since I’ve stopped hurling. It can’t be good to ninja on an empty stomach, right?”

“Right! Last one up the stairs is possessed by Aunt Lily!” I cr
ied, but let Anna bounce me into the wall and fly past me to lay her fears to rest.

At the top,
rubbing my sore shoulder, I used a shoe of Luke’s as a wedge to prevent the basement security door from closing and relocking while we’re gone. If I beat Luke home tonight, I may want to wander around down there, and you know, look at the old maps framed on the wall or something.

‘Oh yes,’
I told the surprised voices in my head that are starting to loudly cheer,
‘Of course I’m coming back tonight. Mr. Tricky and I have some unfinished business!’

Raiding
Luke’s fridge and cupboards, I concocted small chef salads while Anna put her feet up and relaxed at the kitchen table.

She
’d asked me earlier my opinion on why Luke needed the extensive Bat Cave security. I responded it was because he’s a tricky, sneaky, manipulative, control freak of a bastard that wasn’t happy unless he’s dominating everything within his domain.

Now Anna’s
busily gesturing and making up scenarios to explain why Luke definitely needed such extreme security measures. I listened to her wild ideas while chopping and dicing veggies and cheese, but I’m confused as to why my admiring responses to her question made Anna feel the need to stoutly defend and excuse Luke’s character.

We
ate, cleaned up the kitchen, and then moseyed around Luke’s house a bit after dinner. Anna decided she wanted to wear a hat too, and grumbling about losers, selected a Chicago Bears hat from Luke’s closet.

We peeked here and there, as girls will do. The two
spare bedrooms were furnished simply with the basics. I was turning back into the hall when Anna let out a whoop of success at discovering something stuck way back in an empty dresser drawer.

Nose crinkled, she held up a metallic silver thong.
The thong looked like something an astronaut would wear to protect their va-jay-jay from galactic cosmic rays radiation. As Anna stretched the elastic over her fingers and slingshot it off into the air, we both shouted, “Eww, Svettie!”

At 7:40 PM
, we were in the jeep cruising back to Faribault and energetically debating such important topics as what the upcoming season six of “Mad Men” may bring and the merits of Timothy Olyphant in “Justified” versus Idris Elba in “Luther” while jamming with Vampire Weekend blaring from the speakers.

Pulling into Aldi’s
, I parked in the back near a light pole. Within seconds, a brand new 2013 GMC conversion van pulled into the empty spot next to me and Tre J waved from the driver’s captain seat.

Anna
waved back, but then glanced at me and giggled nervously. “Oh man, Junior, not another van! I’m scared of vans since the Hammer!”

Patting
her arm reassuringly, I smiled gently. “Vans are our friends, Anna. It’s not vans that kill people, its people that kill people.”

“Yeah, and I haven’t forgotten that this people is going to kill your people!” Anna threatened
, shaking her fist over at me as we unbuckled.

I laughed
, grabbing my purse and the duffle. “Now that’s more like it! Let’s go save some Diego ass!”

Greeting Tre and Jazy with smiles and bumping fists, Anna and I climbed into the back seats of the van. These
were also luxuriously padded captain chairs like in the front seat. A small table sat between us that had two bottles of chilled water waiting in the cup holders and a bowl of trail mix studded with whole almonds and plump raisins. The pleated blinds were lowered on all the back windows and there were soft lights glowing on either side of the van’s ceiling. I have to hand it to Tre and Jaz, they really know how to ninja.

The girls twisted
around, both their faces wearing eager expressions. We all looked each other over for a mute second and then began laughing. All of us were wearing our hair tucked up into a hat, although we’d each chosen a different football team. Tre’s was Dallas and Jazy’s was Denver. Thankfully, nobody wore the Packers, but I said we still looked too much like a team. Anna volunteered to not wear a hat and wear her cheaters. Tre said she had a plain knit hat and she changed her look, too. Jazy turned her ball cap around and wore it backwards.

Popping an almond in my mouth,
I complimented Tre on her uncanny ability to get vehicles we all wouldn’t normally be caught dead driving in. Other than that, I didn’t make them wait any longer for the details of why we were meeting. I launched immediately into Mac’s tale and repeated her suspicions of Diego, my earlier results of reconnoitering Dos Santos’, and the outline of my proposed plan for tonight.

Glancing
around the three faces listening intently, I wound it up by asking, “What do you guys think?”

Jazy and Tre exchanged quick
eye contact, and since they’ve been best friends for years, they required no words.

“
Diego better not be cheating!” Jazy warned and then frowned slightly. “We’re down with it overall, but how does Tre get past the locked employee door?”

I held up Diego’s I.D. card
and waved it slowly in the air. I’d pinched it off his pocket when I hugged him goodbye.

Jazy
grinned in approval. “Little sticky fingers rides again!”

Anna and Tre laugh at that nickname, as
I handed the I.D. to Tre.

Her
smile was brilliant enough to light up the dim van when she repeated, “Little sticky fingers…! How I love that name! I’ll always think what you did was totally worth all the trouble you got into for doing it, I don’t care what anybody says, Bel.”

For Anna,
it was still a sore subject twenty years later and she retorted, “Yeah, but it wasn’t your sleepover party Junior missed from getting grounded!”

“True.” Tre shrugged goo
d-naturedly in response and assured her, “It was a fun sleepover, too, Anna.

Tre’s referring to my little sticky fingers lifting the key off the school librarian to unlock her
guarded treat drawer. I divided the immense hoard of candy inside with most of the kids in the fourth through sixth grade. Mrs. Thornburgh was such a selfish pig, she’d share her bottomless goody trough only with her little pets that were gold star readers, regardless of how hard some of my classmates tried to be good readers, but never achieved gold star status.

Days later
, I got called down to the school office to find out I’d been busted, but only because I made a mistake that taught me a valuable lesson I’ve never forgotten. To sum up the lesson is the quote, “Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer”.

One of Mrs. Thornburgh’s little gold star pets, Sam Shee
dy’s older sister, Susan, rat me out because she didn’t get her share of the candy. She was also jealous that I had more gold stars than her. It’s true I did miss Anna’s sleepover party due to NanaBel’s punishment, but with Aunt Lily being the adult in charge, I always considered that was karma’s way of saying. “It’s wrong to steal, but we still love you, kid!”