Earlier this year I read an interview with JE, where she seemed pretty happy to get rid of the number centered book naming thing. It made me wonder about coming up with 27 number themed titles, and then pairing up story ideas with them. In the end, I came up with 31 story ideas (more, if you count the multiple ideas for several of the numbers), and The Number Series was born. Some stories are longer one-shots, some are short, and some developed into multi-chapter offerings. All have the title somewhere in the story. I have no set posting schedule for them.

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All recognizable characters belong to Janet Evanovich, I'm just playing.

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Friday the 13th

The blaring alarm is freakishly loud this morning and I bat at it to make it stop. Contemplating a dive back under the covers, I remember that my checking account was practically crying last night as I wrote out the checks for rent and electricity. Skips have been few and far between lately, and the cushion from the last big skip I snagged is dwindling faster than I'd like. I'm still ok for another month or two, as long as nothing happens to my car. Again.

Swinging my legs out from under the covers, my body does an involuntary stretch that makes me grimace. I know there's a bruise low on my back from where Donnie Washington got in a cheap shot yesterday, but I got him back in the system and a whopping $250 into my account. He's the only skip Connie had for me so far this week. I'm hoping that today changes that; it's Friday, and people are more likely to skip on Fridays and Mondays. Hopefully that holds true.

As much as I'd like to swing through Tasty Pastry and grab donuts for the office, I'm trying to be practical with my remaining money and instead eat a PopTart standing over the sink. Rex gets a little corner piece and a grape; he's confused as to which one he's supposed to tuck into his cheek first. He's still debating when I head out the door.

My phone beeps with an incoming text as I pull in behind the black Porsche Cayenne parked at the curb in front of Vinnie's.

Should I bring over dinner, or are we still at war?

Joe and I have been doing this on/off thing for so long, I actually forgot we were off until he asked if we were fighting. Were we still fighting? It's been a couple weeks and I can't even remember what we broke up over this time. Tapping my fingers on the steering wheel, I'm tempted to just ignore the text.

Lost in thought, the knocking on my window scares the shit out of me and I let out a very un-badass shriek. Hand on my chest, breathing hard, I look over and see Ranger smirking. Taking a couple deep breaths before unlocking the door, I let him usher me out of my POS Camry and escort me to the alley.

Once we're there, Ranger has me up against the wall of the bond's office. His hand tunnels into my hair as one of his legs slides between mine. The kiss is just shy of orgasmic, and I let myself get lost in it. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I have a vague memory of helping Ranger snag a skip that the TPD had their eye on causing the current "off" status with Joe.

When we separate, I know my eyes are glazed over, my breathing ragged, and my panties ruined. Damn.

"Babe."

His voice is a bit deeper than normal, and the hardness against my stomach at least reassures me that he's not unaffected by these little interludes. When I look up, his expression is unreadable. Using the hand that's not already in my hair, he tucks a curl behind my ear.

"I need someone to look through some background checks for a corporate client that has an information leak. You available?"

Not trusting myself to talk just yet, I nod my head. If I have no skips from Vinnie, it'll be good to have some money coming in so I can avoid digging into savings.

"Come to dinner tonight so we can talk specifics. I'll have Ella make dessert."

With that he's gone, and I'm left trying to get my heartrate under control. My phone pings again with another text from Joe.

Never mind, have to work.

I guess that means I don't have to tell Joe I can't make it.

Smoothing my hair into place and making sure all my clothes are where they're supposed to be, I peek out from the alley and make sure the coast is clear of busybodies before scooting down to the front door of the bond's office. Lula and Connie are debating the merits of fire engine red vs scarlet red for sexy toenails, and I use the time to get my heartrate back under control.

After a couple minutes, I seize on a break in their conversation. "Any files for me, Connie?"

There might have been a bit of hope and a dash of desperation in my tone. I watch as Connie carefully digs around on her desk.

"Yeah. One came in this morning already. Mid-range bond, worth five grand when you bring him in."

My ears perk up at $5000. Taking the file, I look over at Lula. "You coming with on this one?"

"Damn skippy!"

Flipping through the thin file and trying not to groan at the lack of information, I start back at the beginning. "Says here the skip's name is Jason Rexberg, wanted for assault with a deadly weapon…oh great. Slashed someone with a knife. At least we have an address to start with. You ready to head out, Lula?"

Lula's eyes are practically popping out of her head. The way she leans forward, I'm not so sure her boobs won't make a break for it over the top of her lemon-yellow top. "You want me to go after a freak named Jason, charged with slashing someone, on Friday the 13th? Girl, you be trippin'!"

Shit. It is the thirteenth; I hadn't even thought about that. "We'll be fine."

"Uh, huh. Attitude like that, you'd be the first one to die in the movie."

I look to Connie for support, but she's wide-eyed and agreeing with Lula.

"I need the money, so come with, or don't."

Lula grimaces, but she comes with me. I can hear her muttering the entire way to the address we have on file for Rexberg. I'm not sure if she's cursing me or praying, but either way, I'm going to try and nab him. The house is so creepy and rundown that I double check the address to make sure we're in the right place.

"This don't look good. This here a murder house."

I don't want to admit that Lula's right, and if Jason Rexberg wasn't worth $5000, I'd drive away. Turning off the ignition and pocketing the keys, I dig through my bag, making sure my cuffs and my stun gun are there. We're going to do this. Lula reluctantly gets out of the car and follows me up the sidewalk as I shove the cuffs in my back pocket.

The house looks even worse up close, and I take a deep breath to steady my nerves. Windows are boarded over, and layers of cobwebs cover nearly every surface. What the hell was Vinnie thinking, accepting this place as collateral? We climb the stairs of the porch with no small amount of trepidation.

Just as I'm about to knock on the door, Lula takes a step back, swatting at a web. On her second step back, she finds a rotten board and the wood splinters with a loud crack. She screams as she starts to fall through. "Oh, sweet Jesus, save me! The house is trying to kill me!"

When the dust settles, only one of Lula's legs has fall through the floor, and she's clinging to the porch post for dear life. "Oh, hell no! Nuh, uh. This is not cool. How are we going to get me out of here? Didn't I tell you this here was a murder house? Look what it did to my genuine Laboutin knockoffs. These here boots are never going to be the same again!"

Walking gingerly over to her, I pull up another plank of the porch floor, allowing her to pull her foot loose without letting go of the post. "Avoid that part of the porch."

"Really? That's all you got?"

Lula's still muttering behind me as I move back to the front door. After some mental knuckle cracking, I step forward to knock. The door is not latched, and it opens with a resounding horror-movie creak as it swings inward. That is so not good.

After exchanging a look with Lula, who is shaking her head no, I step across the threshold with a timid, "Hello, anybody home?"

"What are you doing?" Lula whisper-yells at me. "Are you insane? The man is wanted for slashing someone. What are you going to do if he says, 'Yo, back here in the kitchen making a sandwich, want one?'"

"Should I go ask him to come with me to reschedule his appearance?"

Lula's eyes practically come out of her head. "How are you not dead yet?"

With a shoulder shrug, I veer left and check out the small sitting room. Lula cautiously peeks into another room. I'm not sure what's going through her head, but I'm trying real hard not to remember the giant albino Yeti that popped out of the closet and stunned us when we were investigating Franz Sunshine.

We slowly clear all but the kitchen on the main floor. It's at the rear of the house and we both stand before the closed door, contemplating if we really want to open it. I keep reminding myself that $5000 would go a long way in padding my account. With my stun gun in my right hand, I use the left to gently push the door open. No one pops out at me, so I step through. Lula follows me and together we stare at nearly a dozen knives laid out on the counter.

"That's what I'm sayin'. Never go in the kitchen in a horror movie. Freaky shit always happens in the kitchen."

Lula's got a point, but we still have the rest of the house to cover. "Do you want upstairs or the basement?"

"Neither."

There's a throbbing behind my eye that is making itself known. "We need to see if he's here."

She's shaking her head. "Seriously. Have you never seen a horror movie? Never split up!"

Rolling my eyes, I head toward the stairs. "This isn't a movie, he's not that Jason, and I need the money. I'm starting upstairs."

With a heavy sigh, Lula grabs a knife for each hand and all but dares me to tell her to put them back. Screw that. Transferring my stun gun to my left hand, I grab a knife for myself, and we awkwardly climb the stairs, shoulder to shoulder. We pop out of the stairway with a whimper, like a terrified and timid Jack in the Box. Moving to the first door, I give the handle a twist and cringe when it opens with the same freaky creaking noise of the front door. Oh yeah, we're totally going to get the drop on someone when they can hear us coming a mile away.

Standing before the closet, I take a deep breath. The Yeti was totally a one-time thing, right? Lula stands by the door, crouched down but her knives up. Slap a bib on her and she's prepared for the world's creepiest eating contest. I grab the closet doorknob and give it a vicious twist and yank, stepping back as fast as I can. Nothing jumps out, so we relax a little. Lula starts to look around the room while I cautiously check out the bathroom, prepared to reenact the Psycho shower scene when I pull back the shower curtain.

The same scenes play out as we check each of the rooms upstairs. I'm about to call it a bust when doors start slamming and I realize we've gotten separated. I'm in yet another bedroom and when I try the door, it's either locked or jammed. Great.

The closet is empty, and no one's hiding under the bed. I've cleared the shower when I catch sight of myself in the mirror. The house isn't the only thing that's terrifying; my hair has gotten in on the horror show act. Turning to try and see the back, I catch a glimpse of a face in the mirror. I'm stunned by sheer terror for a minute before a scream breaks free from my mouth and my foot slams the door shut before I fling myself against it as an anchor.

Holy shit! My heavy and erratic breathing is loud in the small room, and I work to get my heart rate down. Lula!

In the same moment I think about her, she screams. As much as I want to stay where I am, I can't leave her alone out there. Saying a quick prayer, I open the door a smidge. No one shoves a hand in, so I bravely open it a little more. The bedroom seems to be empty and I'm at the door as soon as I hear Lula scream again. I get the door wrestled open and meet Lula in the hallway.

"I hate this place! Doors slamming, faces in mirrors, curtains moving. I'm getting the heeby-jeebies. I say we let Batman catch the slasher's crazy ass."

Tempting, but Rexberg is below the Rangeman limit, and I'm stuck with him. I'm sure Ranger would help me if I asked, but I don't want to have to ask him for every single skip.

"Let's just check the basement and then we'll call it."

Lula lets out a huff. "Oh, sure. Let's go to the basement. No one ever dies in the basement in a slasher movie! After I'm dead, I'm coming back to haunt your ass."

That stops me for a second on my trek to the basement stairs. "Not sure you're supposed to announce your intentions."

"Whatever. When I die, I fully intend to haunt people. I have a list. Right now, you're at the top for putting me in a slasher flick."

Just like heading upstairs, we move down the basement stairs shoulder to shoulder, if for no other reason than I don't want her to trip over on her ridiculous heels and stab me with the knives we still have clutched in our hands. The air feels different down here, creepier. It's set up like an apartment; it's dusty like the rest of the house, but there are signs of life. Dirty dishes, food spilling out of grocery sacks, and bottles of beer waiting to be drank fill the flat surfaces. My Spidey-sense is jumping, and I want to fight running right back up the stairs but fear of leaving my back exposed roots me in place. Lula's eyes are huge when I set the knife down on a dusty end table to pull out my phone and hit speed dial one.

The second ring has barely started when Ranger picks up with a "Yo."

"I could really use some help with a file. Jason Rexberg, slasher. Lives off of Walnut Street in a shitty horror house."

"We just finished a walk-through about fifteen minutes from there. Don't go inside—"

"Too late."

"Babe."

"We cleared the upstairs but once we got down to the basement—"

The rest of my explanation is cut short when Lula lets out a blood curdling scream, making me drop my phone. I watch helplessly as it bounces off the corner of the end table, shattering the screen and dropping the call. Shit. Does that count as hanging up on him?

Turning to Lula, she's shaking her head no and using one of the knives to point behind me. What the hell? Reluctantly turning around, my heart stops at the image on the other side of the room and the stun gun falls from my hand. Lula might not have been wrong about the basement, I think, as a man, wearing a hockey mask, lifts a blood-soaked knife above his head in slow motion.

Or maybe it just felt like slow motion. Lula's second scream is even louder than her first, and she's most definitely not moving in slow motion when he begins stepping forward. He stops and cocks his head at the sight of her hauling ass up the stairs in fake Laboutins with five-inch heels. Once she's out of sight, he turns his attention to me.

I'd like to say I was smart and took off, or grabbed my stun gun, but no. Rhino mode jumped to the forefront. "You have got to be freaking kidding me!" I am not dying in some shitty basement at the hands of a slasher flick wannabe. Grabbing whatever I can get my hands on, I start lobbing crap at him. He ducks the roll of duct tape, but I hit him with the can of soup and the pot. The hot plate glances off his shoulder, earning me a grunt. When I pick up the six pack of beer bottles, he holds a hand up. He manages to catch the first one that I throw but he bobbles the next one and trying to catch the third makes him lose his grip on the knife. In a move of sheer stupidity, I rush him, grab his shoulders and bring my knee up into his balls before tackling him to the ground. Once he's on the ground, I hook my fingers under the edge of the stupid mask and rip it off. Rexburg has a look of surprise, and it pisses me off. Without thought, my right fist connects with his nose, twice for good measure, before getting him rolled over onto his stomach and cuffs around his wrists.

Fatigue blankets me and I let go, dropping on my ass as the pumping adrenaline starts to fade. Holy shit. I am so going to catch hell for that. There is a thundering noise above me and seconds later Ranger and Tank appear in my line of sight, guns drawn.

He doesn't often break from his badass persona in the field, but right now Ranger is looking at me, a little stunned. His gaze swings wildly between me, the bloody knife, and the skip cuffed on the ground.

"What?" That may have come out sharper than I intended, but he doesn't need to look so surprised that I managed to come out on top.

"Babe."

"Are we still on for dinner? I know Ella was going to cook, but I could really go for some pizza after the day I've had." That earns me a full two-hundred-watt smile from Ranger and a laugh from Tank. "You guys didn't happen to see Lula, did you?"

Ranger holsters his gun. "She's waiting out by the truck. Probably a good thing you drove, otherwise she'd be long gone." When he's close enough to touch me, he grabs my outstretched hand and pulls me to him in a tight hug. Quiet enough that only I can hear, he says, "My heart stopped when I heard Lula scream and your call dropped. Don't scare me like that again."

There's nothing I can say to that, so I just relax into his arms, instead. Tank has Rexberg standing upright, and I cringe at his flattened nose and the forming black eyes. I don't really feel bad about it, though. He gives me a dirty look.

"Damn, lady. It's just a Halloween costume! You two were talking so much about the movies I thought it would be funny. You didn't need to practically neuter me with that nut shot!"

"You came at me wearing a hockey mask and a bloody knife, dumbass!"

"It was a joke. Leftover Halloween shit. I figured you'd take off like the other lady."

Ranger's hold on me keeps me from taking another swing at the little shit. The look Ranger shoots him shuts him up, but it's his words that makes him look like he might have just wet himself. "I'm not as nice as her. If she hadn't already got you cuffed, I would have just shot you."

Rexberg pales at that and Tank hauls him upstairs by the elbow. When he stumbles on the stairs, Tank just continues dragging him behind him. Once we're alone, Ranger lays a panty-melting kiss on me before letting me go. He watches as I scoop up my stun gun and phone. He reaches for my hand after I drop them in my bag. "Steph?"

"Yeah?"

"Will you pack a bag and stay at Haywood tonight?"

That's as close as he'll come to admitting that this shook him up and I want to lighten things a little. "Will there be popcorn and a movie?"

I get a thinking about smile. "That can be arranged."

By the time we get upstairs, Tank has Rexberg secured in the back of the Rangeman SUV and Lula is waiting for us in the living room. She's still agitated, looking around like she's expecting the house to come alive and suck her back in. I don't blame her; this place gives me the creeps. I'm sure my eyes go as wide as hers when the front door creaks. Ranger doesn't even flinch, but I swear he relaxes a little as Eddie Gazarra walks in to join us in the living room.

Eddie smiles when he sees me. "Got called to check out a disturbance out here. Something about a couple women breaking in and one coming out screaming. Since Tank's babysitting someone in the backseat, I assume everything's good here?"

Lula huffs and mutters, "Your ass would have been running, too."

"No problems here. Door wasn't latched, so we were just checking on our skip. We scooped up Jason Rexberg and were getting ready to take him in. Sorry you had to come out."

Eddie shakes his head at me. "You know Joe got at least a dozen calls, even if you weren't mentioned by name."

I don't even get the chance to answer before we hear a car zoom up, closely followed by the sound of someone breaking another board on the porch and "shit!"

Lula looks at me and mutters "Uh huh. Told ya," before Joe comes striding in. "What the hell, Cupcake?"

Oh, hell no. Dropping my bag on the table next to me, I brace for the lecture he's winding up to give me. Swap out the name and a detail or two, and it's the same script every time. "You went after a guy that likes to slash people? Let me guess, you had no plan and your only back up was Lula, and you had to call in Rangeman to save your ass. When are you going to give this shit up and get a job you can handle? I can't keep leaving my job to come check on you! When are you—"

We all watch, stunned as he goes quiet and then goes down hard. It's only after he's on the ground that we see Lula standing behind him with my bag in one hand and my stun gun in the other. "Oops. Didn't think this thing was actually charged. My bad."

Whatever Eddie was going to say is cut off by Ranger's bark of laughter. Shit. I shouldn't laugh; Lula just assaulted a cop, in front of another cop, but Eddie's shaking his head. "I saw nothing. But you should go before he gets up."

You don't need to tell us twice. Lula and I haul ass out the front door, while Ranger follows at a more sedate pace. Tank is ever watchful and if he has any opinion on Joe not following us out, he keeps it to himself. At our cars, Lula slips into the passenger seat while Ranger tugs at one of my curls. "We'll follow you to the station with Rexberg. What are your plans after that?"

"Turn my body receipt in then go pack a bag." That gets me a lip-twitch thinking about smile. Looking back at the house, knowing Joe's going to be coming out soon, I make a decision; the war is still on. "I suppose I could pack for more than a night…"

The smile I get chases away the lingering heeby jeebies from the house. "Plenty of closet space, Babe. You know that." He tucks the curl behind my ear before heading over to the driver's side of the Rangeman SUV. As we form a short parade to the cop shop, I wonder if maybe I shouldn't test the limits of that closet comment. Something to think about.