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keys. From now on I would have to start the engine with a screwdriver,but at least I could drive it. He also opened my trunk for me, but it would have to be kept closed with a piece of rope.
    I was looking less like Donald Trump by the minute.
    Spencer gave me a law-enforcement lecture about driving without a license. “You threw me over a balcony,” I reminded him. “You tossed me to my death, along with my driver’s license.”
    “So I guess a quickie is out of the question,” he said.
    “I thought women are more trouble than they’re worth,” I replied, turning the ignition with the flat-head.
    “Habit.” He shrugged and patted the car.
    I shifted it into drive and, against Lucy’s wishes, took her to her house, with the promise that we would battle the mysterious Luanda the next morning. I was beat, and the only things I wanted were a hot shower and carbs.
    I finally rolled into Grandma’s driveway as the sun started to set. Next door, Holden’s porch light turned on. It was set on a timer, but the interior of his house was dark, and his truck was nowhere to be seen. I hadn’t had word from him since he left town weeks ago. I was trying not to take his silence personally. After all, he was on a mission to clear his name and probably didn’t have time to call, but I still checked my phone every few minutes.
    I slapped my forehead. My phone. It was at the bottom of the canyon, along with my purse. I’d had a lot of bad luck with my phone in the past few months.
    “This has been a hell of day,” I said out loud.
    “You’re telling me.” I jumped in my seat. Ruth Fletcher leaned against my car, her craggy face poking through my open window.
    I clutched at my chest. “Ruth, what are you doing here?”
    “Are you kidding me? My shop is condemned, as is my apartment above it. Since the whole nightmare is your fault, I figured I would shack up with you while it’s getting fixed.”
    “With me? What does Grandma have to say about that?” Ruth didn’t have the greatest respect for Grandma, and I didn’t know how the two would get along living under the same roof.
    “Haven’t said a word to her. Haven’t seen her yet. I’ve been waiting for you. If the old bat is so all-seeing, then I don’t need to say a word to her. She should just know.”
    I rolled my eyes. “Fine,” I said.
    “Why do you have bush in your hair?” Ruth asked.
    The front door opened, and Grandma peeked her head out. “What are you two waiting for? Dinner is getting cold. Ruth, I made up the blue room for you.”
    I TOOK a long, hot shower before dinner, spending a lot of time trying to remove the splinters from my hands and the tangles from my hair. Afterward, I dressed in sweats and thick socks that Spencer had left at the house weeks before. Luanda or no Luanda, tomorrow I would get my winter clothes cleaned. I was tired of looking like a high school gym teacher.
    I opened my bedroom door and was greeted by a flood of light. At first I thought the sun had exploded,and I worried that I would die hungry, but then I realized the light was coming from across the street. It wasn’t flashlight kind of light. It was Hiroshima kind of light.
    “What the hell!” Ruth hollered from below. “Is this how you treat your dinner guest? Am I ever going to be allowed to eat?”
    “I’m coming.” I skipped down the long staircase and hit the last step just as a horrible grinding noise started. I put my hands over my ears.
    “It’s worse than Woodstock!” Ruth yelled over the racket. It was a stretch imagining Ruth Fletcher at Woodstock. She wasn’t really a love-in kind of gal.
    Grandma
click-clack
ed into the entranceway, her hands over her ears, too. We stood there, looking like the hear-no-evil monkey, waiting for the noise to stop.
    “It’s not stopping!” I said.
    “It must be the dolphin across the street,” Grandma yelled.
    My hands dropped away from my ears. “Huh?”
    “The dolphin! The dolphin!” she