Bonus: Lucky Thirteen, Chapter One
This is the only surviving chapter of Lucky Thirteen.
"Lucky Thirteen"
Chapter One
My name is Stephanie Plum, and for the past six weeks, I've been living in a penthouse apartment in downtown Trenton, New Jersey. There's a woman named Ella who cleans the apartment every day. She brings me meals, does my laundry, and reminds me to take my vitamins. Ella and her husband Louis work for Ranger. He owns the building, and a couple others just like it in various cities along the East Coast. His company, RangeMan Enterprises, LLC, specializes in private and commercial security. For a while, I'd worked for RangeMan, doing routine background searches on potential clients and compiling reports on high-risk bail jumpers. I'd been offered the job after I'd given up my previous career as a bond enforcement agent.
And three months later, I was fired.
Okay, I'll admit it. The whole getting-fired thing wasn't entirely unexpected. After all, the only reason I had been given the job in the first place was because Ranger wanted to keep me safe from a madman undertaker named Constantine Stiva. That's the thing with Ranger. He's a hero. And he's hot. He's half a head taller than me, with black hair and brown eyes that give me that fight-or-flight feeling low in my gut. He's my age, Cuban-American, and a real pain in the ass. As far as I knew, Ranger was in Boston, taking care of a few loose ends before he sold out to his partner there. That was three weeks, four casts and an ultrasound ago, and I hadn't heard from him since.
I was standing in front of the counter at the Tasty Pastry bakery on Hamilton Avenue, looking over my options. Birthday cakes. Coffee cakes. Cupcakes. Doughnuts of all shapes and sizes. I ordered a dozen Boston cream doughnuts and chanced a peek out the window. So far, so good. No black sport-utility vehicles loitering around. And better yet, no Tank. It wasn't that I didn't like Tank. I didn't know him all that well, but probably he was an okay guy. Tank was Ranger's second in command. He took care of things when Ranger wasn't around, including me.
When Ranger was away, Tank hovered over me like a shadow. A big, black, muscle-bound shadow.
They don't call him Tank for nothing.
I paid for my doughnuts, collected my change and pastry bag with my free hand, and stepped outside. The sun was bright and the sky clear, but that didn't mean anything. It was the beginning of February, and I was freezing my ass off. I checked again for any signs of Tank, and
hooked a sharp left, straight into my arch-nemesis Joyce Barnhardt.
Joyce is a bounty hunter and a pervert, and a great big boil on the backside of humanity. It started in kindergarten, when she flushed my crayons down the toilet. Then, a while ago, I'd caught her boinking my now-ex-husband on my dining room table. That was probably the nicest thing she'd ever done, for anyone. She was dressed head to toe in black leather, looking like Dominatrix Barbie, and there was a man with her. He was small and wiry, about five-two. And he was wearing cuffs. Either she was bringing in a skip, or prostitution was her new career choice. With Joyce, it could go either way.
"Watch where you're going!" she said, brushing an invisible spec of dust off her black leather bustier. Then she looked me up and down and laughed. Personally, I didn't see what was so damn funny. My jeans weren't wrinkled, my hair was looking okay, and I thought I'd done a pretty good job on my makeup. Then I realized the top snap had come open on my jeans . . . again.
Shit!
"Shut up," I said to Joyce, tugging my sweater down over the top of my jeans.
"Hey, it's not my fault you've gotten fat," Joyce said with a smirk. "It's no wonder Vinnie won't give you skips anymore. Probably he's afraid you'll crush them to death."
This was news to me. Sure, my jeans had been a little tight, but I wasn't fat. Was I? I stole a glimpse at my reflection in the plate glass window of the bakery and felt tears well up behind my eyes. There it was. The beginnings of a double-chin. A small pooch around the middle. And that wasn't the worst of it. I was standing on the sidewalk, mouth open, watching in total shock as Joyce loaded the skip into her SUV and took off down Hamilton Avenue. I'd just lost an insult war with Joyce Barnhardt.
Oh, god.
Lula and Connie were behind Connie's desk when I walked into the bonds office. I dropped my pastry bag on the desk and Lula peeked inside and counted the doughnuts.
"Only six this time," she said.
"I'm trying to cut back," I lied. "Anything new in?"
Connie and Lula exchanged glances.
I did a mental eye roll and turned back to Connie. "I just ran into Joyce Barnhardt at the bakery down the street. She said Vinnie wasn't giving me skips. You know anything about that?"
"Nope. Not a thing," Connie said. Then she helped herself to a doughnut.
I cut my eyes to Lula.
"Don't look at me," Lula said. "I don't know nothing. That's a double negative, by the way. That means I know something. And maybe that something I know has to do with Ranger coming in here a few weeks ago, looking for Vinnie."
Mental head slap. Ranger. I was going to kill him.
"I want to talk to Vinnie," I said. Then I leaned over Connie's desk and yelled something crude at the closed door to Vinnie's office.
"Calm down," Connie said. "Vinnie's not in. And stand up straight. You're giving me an eyeful."
I looked down at my shirt. Whoops! The neckline of my shirt was stretched low, and my boobs were spilling out. "I don't know what to do with these things," I told Connie. "They just keep getting bigger. Everything keeps getting bigger."
I sighed and picked up a file on the desk, and flipped through it. Lester Fenton, twenty-eight. Wanted for assault with a deadly weapon.
"I know this guy," I said to Connie. "I picked him up a few years ago when he skipped on a DUI charge." I stuck the folder in my bag. "I'm taking it."
"That's a high bond," Connie said. "I'm not supposed to give you high bonds." I glared at Connie. "It's nothing personal," she said. "Vinnie said Ranger wanted all the high bonds."
"Well, Ranger's not here, is he?" And if he was, I'd shoot him. "There's no way I'm letting Joyce get another high bond."
Lula gave up pretending to file and sat her ass down on the edge of Connie's desk. Lula is an ex-hooker-turned-file clerk, but I've never seen her do much filing. Today she was dressed in a fuzzy pink sweater and a white skirt that barely covered her parts when she was standing, and almost disappeared when she was sitting down. "Still not heard from him?" she asked me.
"Nope," I said. "Tank's talked to him, but you know Tank."
"Mmm-hmm," Lula said, leaning back on Connie's desk and fanning herself. Lula knew Tank, alright. She'd about known him to death a few times now. "That man is fine, but he's not big on conversation."
He wasn't big on being left behind, either, but I'd deal with that later. I swiped another doughnut from the pastry bag and stuck my head outside. The coast was clear. Lula and I said goodbye to Connie and left out the back door to where her car was parked in the rear lot.
Lester Fenton worked at Earl's Liquor Barn, a package store in nearby Hamilton Township. It was a square brick building shoved between a convenience store and a Laundromat, and had a
small lot in front. Lula pulled into the lot and cut the motor.
"So what's the plan?"
I shrugged. I didn't have a plan . . . or anything else, for that matter. "I say we go in and see if he won't agree to come with us."
"Huh," Lula said. "That never works for me. You got a Plan B?"
"Plan B is where one of us distracts him, and the other stuns him, and we both drag him to
the car."
"I like that one. You got your stun gun?"
"No."
"You got any kind of gun?"
"No."
"You got cuffs?"
"No."
Lula shook her head and rummaged around in her purse, and pulled out her Glock and a stun gun and a pair of fur-lined handcuffs. "I think the clasp is broken on one of these," said Lula, toying with the cuffs. "And there's a joint that's a little loose, so we gotta make sure he's real good and stunned."
"Maybe you should check the stun gun."
Lula pressed the button and nothing happened. She whacked it against her palm a couple times and tried again. Still nothing. The battery was dead.
"Oops," Lula said. "You got a Plan C?"
"Plan C is the same as Plan B, only we buy a battery from the convenience store first."
We got out of the Firebird and Lula tugged her skirt down as we trudged up the lot and into the convenience store. There was a line, so we looked around while we waited. I grabbed the batteries and a diet Coke, and met Lula at the counter. She had two cans of Red Bull, a bag of chips, and a package of Ho-Hos. I made a face at the Red Bull, but the Ho-Hos looked good, so I went and got a package for myself.
We paid at the register, and went back to Lula's Firebird. We ate our chips and Ho-Hos and
Lula slipped the battery into the stun gun and tried it out. Zzzzt! Pop! We were back in business.
I finished the last Ho-Ho, wiped the grease from the chips on my pants leg, and followed Lula into the package store. Lester Fenton was behind the counter, arms raised. Two men were standing in front of the counter. One of them had a gun pointed at Fenton, and the other was scooping money out of the register, stuffing it into a backpack.
"Uh-oh," Lula said to me. "I think this is a bad time. Maybe we should come back later."
But it was too late. The two men had stopped what they were doing and turned to look at us. They exchanged glances and bolted for the door, and crashed into Lula and me, sending all four of us onto the pavement.
"Jesus," one of the men said to Lula. "Get off me!"
"I'm trying," Lula said, "but somebody keeps kicking me."
"That's me," I said to Lula. "My leg's stuck in your purse strap."
I worked at the purse strap while Lula struggled to keep her ass covered. The guy with the backpack managed to get untangled and went for one of the cars in the lot.
"Oh, no you don't," I said. I dug around inside Lula's purse for the stun gun and pressed it against the man's ankle. There was a loud crackling nose, and the man with the backpack slumped onto the ground.
Lula was still sitting on the man with the gun. He pushed her off him and we both lunged for the backpack. I grabbed one end and he grabbed the other, and the backpack ripped open,
sending money all over the parking lot.
"Fucking bitch!" the man yelled.
He rolled away from me and pulled out his gun, and pointed it in my direction. I exchanged oh, shit glances with Lula, and we both scrambled to get behind her car. There was a loud bang, and a bullet dinged off Lula's left rear panel. I peered over the car. Lester Fenton was standing of the doorway of the package store, holding a Glock. He fired again at the man with the gun, and the man with the gun fired back at him.
A black SUV swung into the lot and Tank got out.
"Put down your weapons," Tank said, and they both fired at Tank. Tank fired back, and the man with the gun fell onto the pavement.
Tank then turned to Fenton.
"Okay, okay," Fenton said. He put down his Glock and held his hands in the air. Tank holstered his gun and walked over to where the man lay on the ground, clutching his leg and screaming. Tank
kicked gun out of reach, cuffed the man behind his back, and turned to me.
"You okay?" Tank wanted to know.
Lula and I stood and walked around to the other side of her Firebird. "Yeah," I said. "How about you? You're bleeding."
Tank looked down at his left arm and checked out the hole in the sleeve of his black RangeMan jacket. "Flesh wound," he said. Then he cut his eyes to me. "Fill me in."
I left out the part about Joyce Barnhardt, but told Tank the rest.
A couple blue-and-whites pulled into the small lot a few minutes later, sirens blaring. I gave my statement and arranged for Lula to pick up the body receipt for Fenton, and followed Tank back to the SUV.
"Where to?" I asked him as we merged into traffic. "Hospital?"
"RangeMan," Tank said.
"Are you sure you don't want to get checked out first?"
Tank shrugged. "Sliced through the skin is all," he said. "I'll take care of it when we get back to the office."
#
I was asleep in Ranger's bed when I heard the door to the apartment shut. I rolled onto my back and blew out a sigh. Ranger was standing in the doorway, arms crossed over his chest. He was wearing a gray long-sleeved T-shirt and dark jeans, and a look on his face that made me gulp. Ranger didn't do facial expressions. Sometimes he thought about it, but usually he kept a blank canvas unless he was aroused or amused or really pissed off. This fell into the really pissed off category.
"Ranger, I-"
Ranger cut me off with a wave of his hand. "Don't say anything. Not yet. Just listen."
I closed my mouth and chewed on my bottom lip. As a rule, I don't like being told what to do. Probably that's because of the bad temper I inherited from my father's Italian side of the family. My mother's Hungarian side contributed a good metabolism and a set of rampaging hormones. I was thankful for the metabolism, but the hormones were killing me, especially now that they were set on overdrive. And between the temper and the hormones, I was ready to snap. The only thing keeping me from launching into a Burg temper tantrum was Ranger. I could see it in his eyes. He was fighting hard to keep his cool, and he was losing. I didn't think it would take much to push him
over the edge.
There was a long silence while Ranger collected himself.
"Let me make something very clear to you," he said. "I'm not in the habit of doing things that are unnecessary or unwarranted. I have an obligation to you, and I have an interest in this, so it's very important that I do whatever I can to keep you safe. You don't have to like it. You don't have to agree with it. But it would be nice to know that you respected it."
I threw off the covers and got out of bed. "You're being over-protective," I said.
"You had no gun. No backup. And you've got a cast on your arm." He didn't mention the
other problem, thank God, but I could tell it was on his mind. "What the hell were you thinking?"
"You know," I said to Ranger, folding my arms over my chest, "I'm not liking your tone. In fact, while we're on the subject, I'm not liking a lot of things about you right now, your hair being one of them."
"My hair?"
"You cut your hair," I explained. "When did you cut your hair?"
Ranger gave me an incredulous stare. "Tuesday," he said. "But my hair isn't the topic of this discussion."
"Fine. Then let's move on to something else. Like maybe where you've been for the past three weeks."
Ranger took in a deep breath and let it out slowly. "Boston," he said.
"You could've called."
"I did call."
"You called Tank," I said. "You didn't call me."
"Tank is business," Ranger said. "You're-"
I cocked my head to the side and looked at him. "Pleasure?"
"Distracting."
I rolled my eyes and brushed past him, heading for the living room. I was still in my jeans and sweater, thank god, but I could only find one shoe. I slid it on and searched the living room for the other one.
Ranger caught me around the waist. "Where are you going?"
"Out," I told him, trying to wriggle out of his grasp. "Let me go."
"No."
"I mean it, Ranger."
"So do I," Ranger, said. Then he picked me up and carried me back to the bedroom, and set me down on the bed.
"You're really starting to piss me off," I said.
Ranger's eyes flashed, and I got the impression I was pissing him off, too.
"Deal with it," he said, "because we're going to talk about this whether you like it or not."
"There's nothing to talk about!"
"You have a lack of regard for your own safety, and the safety of those around you. You didn't have control of the situation. You made yourself a target."
"What was I supposed to do?" I yelled.
"Nothing."
I rolled off the bed and stood, hands on hips, facing Ranger. "You wouldn't have done nothing," I said to him. "You would've done the exact same thing."
"I would've diffused the situation," Ranger retorted. "I would've had a gun and a plan."
"I had a plan." Just not a very good one. "And none of this would've even happened if you hadn't told Vinnie not to give me any more skips!"
Ranger went quiet again. Then he brushed past me and emptied his pockets on the dresser by the bed. "Your other shoe's in the foyer under the sideboard," he said. "I saw it when I came in." He blew out a sigh. "I'm going to take a shower."
And then he disappeared into the bathroom.
I flipped the closed bathroom door the bird and padded through the apartment. I tugged on my other shoe and grabbed a set of keys off the sideboard. Then I took the elevator to the underground garage and piled into the Porsche.
And here's where I ran into a problem, because the Porsche was a stick shift.
I blew out a sigh and cranked the engine, and tried to figure out how I the hell I was supposed to both steer and shift with only one good hand. I worked the clutch and tried shifting into first gear. There was a loud grinding sound, followed by some whirring, and then the Porsche shuddered and died.