I pulled to the shoulder and sat and waited, and after a couple minutes, the blue Honda Civic came into view. Diesel got out and jogged over to me.

"Are you okay?" he asked.

"Yes. Do you have Annie and Bernie in the Civic?"

Diesel picked some hedge off the windshield wiper. "Yes. Is this car driveable?"

"The right-side tire is making grinding noises."

Diesel checked out the right-side tire and pulled a large piece of hedge from the wheel well.

"That should help," he said. "Hop over the console. I'm driving."

I scrambled into the passenger seat, and Diesel took the wheel. He eased onto the road, drove a short distance, and made a U-turn. Flash did the same. Diesel waved Flash on, and Flash took the lead. We flew past Delvina's house and retraced our route until we were over the bridge and back in Jersey.

"So far as I can tell, Delvina doesn't know about Annie's

apartment," Diesel said. "I'm going to bring Annie and Bernie there to regroup."

"Did Bernie give himself hives?"

"Apparently he went out of control and infected every-one around him, including himself. I didn't get a chance to find out much more than that."

We motored through town, parked in the underground garage, and took the elevator to Annie's floor. Diesel opened the door, and I turned and looked at Flash and grimaced. His face was breaking out in hives.

"Oh shit," Bernie said to Flash. "I'm really sorry. I'm not doing it on purpose, I swear. The rash is just leaking out of me."

Flash scratched his stomach. "They're coming out all over. What do I do?"

"Get away from Bernie and try a cortisone cream," Diesel said.

Flash ran down the hall and punched the elevator but-ton.

Bernie limped into Annie's apartment. "I've got hives on the bottom on my feet," he said to Diesel. "I've got them everywhere. You have to help me. I don't ever want to see another hive."

I was keeping as far away from Bernie as possible. I was in the hallway leading to the bedroom, looking at everyone else in the living room.

"What about Annie?" Diesel said. "Are you going to leave her alone?"

"I've been chained to Annie for two days. I don't ever want to see her again either."

"I thought we bonded," Annie said.

Bernie scratched his arm. "Yeah, maybe. I guess you're okay. I don't know. I can't think straight. I just want to soak in some cold water or something."

"I talked to Betty," I said to Bernie. "She'd like to stay married, but she has some requests."

"Anything! Cripes, look at this. I've got a hive under my fingernail!"

"I'm going to take you home and get you some salve," Diesel said, "but first I need to know about Delvina. How'd he manage to get you and Annie?"

"I was nuts," Bernie said. "I was trying to get to Annie, but you moved her out of her house, and I couldn't find her. So I got this idea that maybe she left something be-hind that would give me a clue. You know, like an address written on a pad. It happens all the time on television. Prob-lem was, I broke into her house and ran into two goons who were tearing the place apart. I'm so dumb. I just walked right in on them."

"Delvina was the original owner of the necklace," Annie said. "We overheard him and his driver talking and pieced the story together. The necklace had a bank account num-ber engraved on the back of it. It sounded like Delvina was being investigated for tax fraud, and he didn't want the necklace on his property, so he gave it to his girlfriend. When he found out she hocked it he almost had a seizure."

Annie started to scratch her arm and stopped in mid-scratch and rammed her hands into her pockets. "He came really close to getting the necklace back, but for some rea-son the pawnshop owner decided to fake the robbery. So of course, Delvina came looking for me."

"It was bad timing that I happened along," Bernie said. "They didn't find the necklace in Annie's house, but since I broke in they figured I had to have some connection to An-nie. And then they were fooling around and found her number in my cell phone. So one of Delvina's men called her and said he was me."

"He sort of sounded like you," Annie said. "He said he had something important to say to me. I was hoping you'd calmed down and wanted to talk. I didn't want to miss the opportunity."

"Annie didn't want to go far, so they set a meeting for a coffee house half a block away. When she got there, they snatched her," Bernie said.

"Why didn't you take your purse?" I asked Annie.

"I was just walking down the street for a couple min-utes," Annie said. "I had some money and my key in my pocket, and I thought I had my phone, but it must have fallen out of my pocket somewhere. I didn't think I needed anything more than that."

"They brought us to Delvina's summer house on the river," Bernie said. "That was Saturday night. They chained us up, and I went sort of gonzo, and everyone broke out in hives, including me. Then Delvina and his two goons packed up and left. I guess they didn't know what to make of the hives. And then the next morning, Delvina and some other guy showed up and started asking about the neck-lace, but every time they'd come near us the hives would get worse and pretty soon they couldn't stand it anymore and went away. Good thing we were chained to the bath-room, and the chain was long enough to reach to the re-frigerator in the kitchen. They came back this morning and next thing, you rescued us."

"How are my last five cases?" Annie asked. "Are they all going to have a good Valentine's Day? Are they on their way to love everlasting?"

"I don't know about the love everlasting," I said. "But I'm pretty sure they'll all have a good Valentine's Day. Except for Albert Kloughn. Kloughn is last up."

"Oh dear," Annie said, "it's getting late."

"Not to worry. I have a plan." I looked over at Bernie. "You've stopped scratching," I said to him.

"I'm too tired to scratch."

Too bad Bernie was so tired. I wouldn't mind driving him to a couple people I knew and spreading some hives around. For starters, there'd be my ex-husband, Dickie Orr, and my arch-nemesis, Joyce Barnhardt.

"I'm going to take you home to your wife," Diesel said to Bernie. "I'm going to drop you off at the curb, and you're on your own."

"You'll do no such thing," Annie said. "You'll drive us to a drugstore so Bernie can get a Valentine's card and a box of candy. And then we'll all go in and make sure things run smoothly between Bernie and Betty."

Annie had good intentions, but I was starting to think she came from the Planet Ick!

"I heard that," Diesel said to me.

"Did not."

"Did so."

"It was a thought!"

"And?"

"It's almost noon," I said to Annie and Diesel. "You can drop me off at my apartment on your way to Bernie's house in Hamilton Township. I need to check on Bob and get my car. Then I have to see if Lula needs a ride to get her Fire-bird out of impound. And I want to see how Jeanine and Charlene and Larry Burlew are doing. And last but not least, here's my plan for Kloughn and my sister. I thought I'd tell them I was getting married, and I needed them to be witnesses. I'll tell my parents and my grandmother the same thing. Then everyone will congregate at my parents' house. We'll get a justice of the peace to show up, and at the last minute we'll swap me out for Valerie and Albert Kloughn. I'm afraid if I don't fib to them someone will leak to Kloughn, and he'll be on a plane to Buenos Aires."

"Brilliant," Annie said. "I can facilitate the justice of the peace and the paperwork. I have very good connections for that sort of thing."

Diesel looked down at me. "Who's going to be the bogus groom?"

"It's going to have to be you. You're all I've got today."

"Do I get a conjugal night?"

"Afraid not," I told him.

"We'll see," Diesel said.

"We have a lot to accomplish," Annie said. "We should get moving. We can take my car. We won't all fit in Diesel's Corvette."

I called Valerie as soon as I got back to my apartment. "I'm getting married this afternoon," I said to her. "I want you and Albert to be my witnesses."

"Holy cow," Valerie said. "This is so sudden. Who are you going to marry?"

"Diesel."

Silence.

"Hello?" I said to Valerie.

"Are you sure you want to marry him?"

"Yep. Can you come to the wedding?"

"Sure," Valerie said. "What time?"

"Four o'clock. And I'm going to get married at home."

"Does Mom know?"

"Not yet."

"Oh boy."

"Maybe we shouldn't tell her," I said. "Maybe we should just all show up."

"That sounds like a better way to ............