Stone Cold Crazy (Lil & Boris #4) (Lil and Boris Mysteries) by Shannon Hill Page B

to know. Now buzz off, Steve, I’m relaxing here.”
    “You, relax?” he hooted. “With the Bureau working your case?”
    I’d gotten the identical reaction, more genteelly phrased, from Aunt Marge, Tom, and Bobbi. I growled silently. “I’ve had enough to do keeping this place from shooting off its own foot.”
    Steve laughed. The sound boomed off the trees. “Now that I believe. C’mon, Lil, come to dinner, let me tell you why you have to talk to your cousin.”
    “No.”
    “If not today, tomorrow,” said Steve, and waved airily as he walked back to the driveway and, presumably, his rental car. I closed my eyes, heard Boris give a warning growl, and opened them to Punk. Stalking angrily in my direction. I groaned.
    Punk’s face was flushed, his eyes tight. “What’s he doing here?”
    “Pissing me off.”
    Punk cheered up. “What’d he want?”
    “Take me out to dinner.”
    Punk’s face fell. “What for?”
    Well, there’s an ego boost. I found a smidgen of patience. Not easy. I’d used most of it up on the three gunmen that morning. “He thinks I can talk my cousin out of some of his plans.”
    Punk cheered up again. “Huh. Wonder why? He gets paid whatever your cousin does, don’t he?”
    “He do,” I said, and struggled upright. One nice thing about Punk, he wasn’t going to criticize anyone for being clumsy. “But I guess he’ll make more if Jack listens to him. So what brings you by?”
    For a moment, Punk looked extremely confused. “Well, I dunno. Just…‌came by. Say hi.”
    I slid off the hammock. “Check up on me?”
    If he hadn’t blushed, he’d have gotten such an ass-chewing. “Sorry,” he mumbled. “But, well, y’know.”
    I did. That was the problem. The words “We have to stop hanging out” got as far as my tongue, but stalled. Dammit.
    “Wanna order something from Old Mill? Or something?”
    What I wanted was to crawl into bed and not be disturbed until Monday. I opted for a warning. “I’m in a rotten mood.”
    “I’ll take my chances.”
    Men never do take a hint. On the other hand…‌I was hungry.
    “Okay, let’s get a pizza, extra-large. You’re paying.”
    ***^***
    Steve knows me. Knew me. Sort of. Point is, I wasn’t just giving up on the investigation. That was a house in my town someone blew up. That made it my problem, if not my case.
    Just how I’d go about solving it without the physical evidence was also my problem.
    Aunt Marge and Roger and Bobbi and Raj listened patiently to all that over Sunday supper. To which Punk had yet to earn an invitation. It wasn’t that they didn’t like Punk. It’s that they weren’t sure how much I liked Punk.
    Bobbi carefully carried her spoon to her mouth. She had a towel spread over her belly. “I cannot wait to have this baby,” she declared, “and I don’t mean just to lose forty pounds in a hurry.”
    Raj reached over and patted her belly fondly. His grin was smug, insufferable, and too darn joyful to resent. “We’ll meet soon enough.”
    Bobbi gave him the look that meant he’d sing a different tune if he was the one with the puffy ankles, sore breasts, and backache. Aunt Marge quickly intervened, passing out little cheddar-quinoa biscuits. “Now try these and tell me what you think. Lil, dear, what do you think you can do?”
    I nipped off a corner of the biscuit. It was interesting. “What cops did before forensic science. Talk to people. And keep talking.”
    Roger eyed me shrewdly. “Can you do that legally?”
    A yowl interrupted us. I went into the parlor expecting to find Boris torturing Aunt Marge’s venerable Russian Blue, Natasha by name, neurotic by nature. Instead, I found Boris atop the cat condo, surrounded by Roger’s juvenile trio of catlings. One was a fetching little calico, whose eyes were pure demon. The two boys, both gray tabbies with white markings, flanked her and looked remarkably like the muscle in some old noir film with Humphrey Bogart.
    Boris yowled again. His