Wicked Business (26 page)

“Nope. Not worth it. It looks like mostly ashes to me. And I wouldn’t want to give someone something that had been damaged by the heat. I’ve already put in an order for most everything, and I have a temporary location lined up.” Nina waded into the debris. “You were over here in the
corner, hiding behind the shelf. This must be where you dropped your purse.”

We followed Nina and began picking through the rubble. We pushed charred jars and timbers away, and swept away ashes.

“I think I found something,” Glo said. “I think this is the metal clasp on your shoulder bag.”

We crowded around Glo, carefully pushed more ashes aside, and I was the first to see the little brown rock. I picked it up, and it hummed in my hand and gave off a brilliant blue aura.

“This is it,” I said.

Everyone cheered.

“This is a happy ending,” Nina said. “I’m going to the costume store to look for a new gown.”

“I have an appointment at the hair salon,” Clara said. “I’m going to get the singed ends trimmed off.”

“And I have a date with the cute paramedic,” Glo said. “I think he might be the one.”

Diesel and I made our way back to his Aston Martin. He draped his arm across my shoulders and nuzzled my neck. “So what have we got here? Is this the True Love Stone or the Lust Stone?”

I slipped the stone into his jeans pocket. “There are some things a man should find out for himself.”

BY JANET EVANOVICH

THE STEPHANIE PLUM NOVELS
Notorious Nineteen
Explosive Eighteen
Smokin’ Seventeen
Sizzling Sixteen
Finger Lickin’ Fifteen
Fearless Fourteen
Lean Mean Thirteen
Twelve Sharp
Eleven on Top
Ten Big Ones
To the Nines
Hard Eight
Seven Up
Hot Six
High Five
Four to Score
Three to Get Deadly
Two for the Dough
One for the Money

THE BETWEEN THE NUMBERS NOVELS
Plum Spooky
Plum Lucky
Plum Lovin’
Visions of Sugar Plums

THE LIZZY AND DIESEL NOVELS
Wicked Business
Wicked Appetite

THE BARNABY AND HOOKER NOVELS
Trouble Maker
(graphic novel)
Motor Mouth
Metro Girl

NONFICTION
How I Write

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

JANET EVANOVICH is the #1
New York Times
bestselling author of the Stephanie Plum novels, the Lizzy and Diesel novels, twelve romance novels, the Barnaby and Hooker novels and Trouble Maker graphic novels, and
How I Write: Secrets of a Bestselling Author
.

Visit Janet Evanovich’s website at
www.evanovich.com
Facebook/JanetEvanovich

or

Write her at PO Box 2829
Naples, FL 34106

JOIN JANET ON FACEBOOK
FACEBOOK.COM/JANETEVANOVICH

·····and·····

VISIT
EVANOVICH.COM
FOR UPDATES, EXCERPTS, AND MUCH, MUCH MORE!

#1
New York Times
bestselling author Janet Evanovich explodes on the scene with the next book in the legendary Stephanie Plum series. Bounty hunter Stephanie Plum is back in the heart of Trenton, New Jersey. Desperate for money—or maybe just desperate—Plum accepts a job guarding her secretive and mouthwatering mentor Ranger from a deadly Special Forces adversary. If she wants to bring in a paycheck, and pay the rent, Plum will have to remember: No guts, no glory….

NOTORIOUS NINETEEN

“I don’t know why we gotta sit here baking in your car in the middle of the day, in the middle of the summer, in the middle of this crummy neighborhood,” Lula said. “It must be two hundred degrees in here. Why don’t we have the air-conditioning on?”

“It’s broken,” I told her.

“Well, why don’t you have your window open?”

“It’s stuck closed.”

“Then why didn’t we take
my
car? My car’s got everything.”

“Your car is red and flashy. People notice it and remember it. This is the stealth car,” I said.

Lula shifted in her seat. “Stealth car, my big toe. This thing is a hunk of junk.”

This was true, but it was
my
hunk of junk, and due to a professional dry spell it was all I could afford. Lula and I work for my cousin Vinnie’s bail bonds office in Trenton, New Jersey. I’m a fugitive apprehension agent, and Lula is my sometime partner.

We were currently parked on Stark Street, doing surveillance on a rooming house, hoping to catch Melvin Barrel coming or going. He’d been accused of possession with intent to sell, Vinnie had bonded him out of jail, and Barrel hadn’t shown for his court date. Lula makes a regular wage as the office file clerk, but I only make money if I catch skips, so I was motivated to tough it out in my hellishly hot car, hoping for a shot at snagging Barrel.

“I worked this street when I was a ’ho,” Lula said, “but I was in a better section. This here block is for losers. No high-class ’ho would work this block. Darlene Gootch worked this block, but it turned out she was killing people as a hobby.”

Lula was fanning herself with a crumpled fast food bag she’d found on the floor in the back of my car, and the smell of stale french fries and ketchup wafted out at me.

“You keep waving that bag around and we’re going to smell like we work the fry station at Cluck in a Bucket,” I said to her.

“I hear you,” Lula said. “It’s making me hungry, and much as I like the aroma of food grease, I don’t want it stuck in my hair, on account of I just had my hair done. I picked out the piña colada conditioner so I’d smell like a tropical island.”

Lula’s hair was fire-engine red today and straightened to the texture of boar bristle. Her brown skin was slick with sweat. Her extra-voluptuous plus-size body was squeezed into a size 2 petite poison-green spandex skirt, and the acres of flesh that constituted her chest overflowed a brilliant yellow spaghetti-strap tanktop. At 5′ 5″ she’s a couple inches shorter than me. We’re about the same age, which puts us both in the proximity of thirtysomething. And we’re both single.

My name is Stephanie Plum, and I haven’t got Lula’s body volume or the attitude that goes with it. My attitude goes more toward survival mode. I have shoulder-length curly brown hair, blue eyes currently enhanced by a swipe of black mascara, decent teeth, a cute nose in the middle of my face, and I can almost always button the top snap on my jeans.

“Look at this fool coming at us, walking down the middle of the street,” Lula said. “What the heck is he doing?”

The fool was a skinny guy dressed in homey clothes. Baggy pants, wifebeater T-shirt, $400 basketball shoes. He was jogging more than walking, and every couple steps he’d look over his shoulder and scan the street. He spotted Lula and me, made a course correction, and ran straight for us. He reached my car, grabbed the driver’s side door handle and yanked, but nothing happened.

“What’s with that?” Lula asked.

“My door’s stuck,” I said. “It happens when it gets hot.”

The skinny guy had his face pressed to my window, and he was yelling at us.

“What’s he saying?” Lula asked. “I can’t make it out, and I’m gonna go blind from the sun reflection on his gold tooth with the diamond chip in it.”

“I think he’s saying if I don’t open the door, he’ll kill me.”

“That don’t sound appealing,” Lula said. “Maybe this is a good time to go get lunch.”

I turned the key in the ignition, and the engine cranked over and died. I turned it again and there was silence. I looked back at the skinny guy and realized he had a gun pointed at me. Not just any old gun, either. This gun was
big
.

“Open your door,” he yelled. “Open your damn door.”

Lula had her purse on her lap and was fumbling around in it. “I got a gun in here somewhere,” she said. “Keep him busy while I find my gun.”

I fidgeted with the door handle on my side so it would look like I was trying to open it. “Here’s the plan,” I said to Lula. “When you find your gun, you let me know so I can duck down and you can shoot him.”

“That would be a good plan,” Lula said, “but I might not have my gun with me. I might have left it home when I changed from my red purse to my yellow purse. You know how I am about the right accessories.”

The guy was really agitated now. He had the gun against my window and his forehead was glued to the gun, like he was sighting for the kill.

“Maybe you should open the door and see what he wants,” Lula said. “Maybe he just feels like going for a ride. In which case he could have this piece of dog doodie car, and I’d be happy to take a bus home.”

“Hold on,” I yelled at the guy. “I’m going to open the door.”

“What?” he yelled back.

“Hold on!”

I hauled back and rammed the door full force with my shoulder. The door flew open, catching the guy by surprise, the gun discharged, and he went down to the ground and didn’t move.

We got out of the car and stared down at the guy. He was utterly still and bleeding from his forehead.

“You killed him,” Lula said. “You hit him with the door, and he shot hisself.”

“It was an accident.”

“Don’t matter. You killed him all the same.” Lula toed him, but he still didn’t move. “Yep,” she said. “He’s dead.”

I looked at my car and realized that a bullet was embedded in the roof, just over the window. I bent down and took a closer look at the skinny guy.

“He’s not shot,” I said. “He got hit in the head when the gun kicked back. He’s just knocked out.”

“Hunh,” Lula said. “That would have been my second theory.”

We dragged him to the gutter so he wouldn’t get run over and got back into my car. I tried the key several times, but there was no response.

“I bet your battery’s no good,” Lula said. “That’s my professional opinion. You’re gonna have to call someone to juice up your battery. And in the meantime I’m going across the street to that sad-ass grocery store to get a soda. I’m all dehydrated.”

I crossed the street with Lula, we got sodas, and we stood in front of the store chugging them down. A black Cadillac Escalade rolled down the street and stopped by my car. Two idiots wearing gang colors got out, scooped the skinny guy up, and threw him into the Escalade. A yellow Hummer careened around the corner, jerked to a stop half a block in front of the Escalade, and two guys in the Hummer leaned out the window and opened fire. The Escalade returned fire. A guy wearing a crooked ball cap popped his head out of the sunroof on the Hummer, aimed a rocket launcher at the Escalade, and
phoonf!
the rocket went wide of the Escalade and blew up my car. There was a moment of silence, then both cars roared away.

Lula and I stared wide-eyed and openmouthed at the fireball consuming my car.

“Jeez Louise,” I said.

“Yeah, but you gotta look on the positive side,” Lula said. “You don’t have to worry about charging up the battery.”

Lula’s comment might have seemed casual considering the gravity of the situation, but truth is, this wasn’t the first time someone had exploded my car.

My cell phone rang, and I knew from the ringtone it was Ranger.

“You’re off the grid,” Ranger said.

“Someone blew up my car.”

A moment of silence. “And?”

“I guess I could use a ride.”

“Babe,” Ranger said. And he disconnected.

“Is he coming for us?” Lula asked.

“Yep.”

Ranger is Latino, and former Special Forces turned semi-legitimate businessman. He’s part owner of a security firm located in an inconspicuous seven-story building in the center of the city. I work for him on occasion, I’ve had one or two romantic skirmishes with him, and he has the sometimes annoying, sometimes convenient habit of installing tracking devices on my vehicles. His hair is dark brown and currently cut short. His eyes are mostly black. His body is perfect from the tip of his toes to the top of his head. He plays by his rules, and his attitude is uncompromising. He only wears black, and he only drives black cars. He’s smart. He’s strong in every possible way. And being in his crosshairs is flat-out scary.

No one came out of the little grocery store to look at the fire. No police cars or fire trucks screeched to the scene. It was as if this was business as usual.

I looked down the street at the rooming house, wondering if Melvin Barrel was in there melting down in a pool of sweat. No air conditioners sticking out of windows in the rooming house. For sure no central air.

“I bet that skinny guy you almost killed was running away from someone, and that’s why he wanted your car,” Lula said.