Wicked Charms by Janet Evanovich Page A

all followed Diesel and watched while Clara pushed an empty shelf unit aside on the far wall.
    “It’s a hidden entrance,” Clara said.
    “It’s a black, yawning corridor of doom,” Glo said.
    Clara grabbed a flashlight off the shelf and switched it on, splashing light around a cavernous hallway. It was lined in ocher-colored bricks with iron arches every few yards. Carl dashed in front of us. He smiled and gave us the finger when the light hit him.
    Diesel took the flashlight from Clara and walked into the tunnel. “Do you know where this leads?”
    “Yes. I haven’t been down here in years, but I used to play in the tunnels when I was a little girl. I was able to go from my parents’ house to the bakery without going aboveground. The tunnel also goes to Gramps’s house. And to the speakeasy.”

    Diesel moved further into the corridor. “Is the speakeasy still in use?”
    “Only by Gramps. There’s a direct access from his broom closet. He calls it his rumpus room. Gramps’s house was originally owned by Peg Leg, and for a short time Peg Leg ran the speakeasy.”
    Glo returned to the bakery, and Clara, Diesel, and I followed the tunnel until we came to an iron door.
    “This is it,” Clara said. “We can’t get in because it’s locked from the other side.”
    “No problem,” Diesel said, placing his hand on the door handle.
    The lock clicked and Diesel pushed the door open.
    “How do you do that?” Clara asked.
    “I’m told it has something to do with my magnetic field,” Diesel said.
    It wasn’t a large room in terms of a public space. It was about the size of the store part of the bakery. Clara flipped the light switch, and we looked around Gramps’s rumpus room. It was a classic man cave, and I suspect as a younger man Gramps had used it for poker games and heavy drinking. The bar was polished oak. The wood floor was scuffed. The green felt on the poker table was faded and stained. Two overstuffed chairs sat in the middle of the room where, I imagined, high-top tables once held illegal drinks.

    Diesel looked around and smiled.
    “What?” I asked him.
    “I like it. I might rent it out next time I’m in town.”
    “You could invite Nergal,” I said. “Have a mixer.”
    Diesel wrapped an arm around me. “I have a job for you.”
    “Oh boy.”
    “I’d blindfold you, but I don’t have a blindfold on me, so we’ll save that for later, if you know what I mean.”
    “Everyone knows what you mean.”
    The smile widened. “I want you to move around the room with your eyes closed. Just feel around and see if anything speaks to you. Usually you have to hold something in your hand to feel the vibration, but you felt the coin fragment behind the brick at the lighthouse, so let’s see if you pick up any vibrations here.”
    Diesel guided me around the room. I felt the soft felt of the poker table. I felt the brick in the walls. And I felt a very faint hum as I ran my hand along the oak bar.
    “Here,” I said.
    I opened my eyes and traced along with my fingertip until I isolated the spot.
    “This wood has a lot of grain and it has a dark stain on it, but it looks to me like it’s been plugged where you’re feeling the vibration,” Diesel said.
    He drilled into the bar with a corkscrew, popped the plug out, and then used the corkscrew to pry two pieces of coin out of the hole. He dropped the pieces into my hand, and I felt them hum.

    “They’re empowered,” I said.
    Diesel took the five coin pieces out of his pocket and placed them on the bar top. I added the two new pieces, and they were a perfect fit. All the markings lined up.
    “If I had Wulf’s piece of the coin, Charles III would have a whole head,” Diesel said.
    He pocketed the seven pieces of empowered coin. We retraced our steps back to the bakery, pushed the shelf across the tunnel entrance, and climbed the stairs.
    Diesel used his thumb to swipe a flour smudge off my cheek. “I have some errands to run, and then I’ll