Chapter One
Five months later ...
Carol Zabo was standing on the outermost guardrail onthe bridge spanning the Delaware between Trenton, NewJersey, and Morrisville, Pennsylvania. She was holding aregulation-size yellow fire brick in the palm of her righthand, with about four feet of clothesline stretched betweenthe brick and her ankle. On the side of the bridge in bigletters was the slogan "Trenton Makes and the WorldTakes." And Carol was apparently tired of the world takingwhatever it was she was making, because she was gettingready to jump into the Delaware and let the brick do itswork.
I was standing about ten feet from Carol, trying to talkher off the guardrail. Cars were rolling past us, some slowingup to gawk, and some cutting in and out of the gawkers,giving Carol the finger because she was disturbing the flow.
"Listen, Carol," I said, "it's eight-thirty in the morning,and it's starting to snow. I'm freezing my ass off. Make upyour mind about jumping, because I have to tinkle, and Ineed a cup of coffee."
Truth is, I didn't for a minute think she'd jump. For onething, she was wearing a four-hundred-dollar jacket fromWilson Leather. You just don't jump off a bridge in a four-hundred-dollarjacket. It isn't done. The jacket would getruined. Carol was from the Chambersburg section of Trenton,just like me, and in the Burg you gave the jacket toyour sister, then you jumped off the bridge.
"Hey, you listen, Stephanie Plum," Carol said, teeth chattering."Nobody sent you an engraved invitation to thisparty."
I'd gone to high school with Carol. She'd been a cheerleader,and I'd been a baton twirler. Now she was marriedto Lubie Zabo and wanted to kill herself. If I was marriedto Lubie I'd want to kill myself too, but that wasn't Carol'sreason for standing on the guardrail, holding a brick on arope. Carol had shoplifted some crotchless bikinis from theFrederick's of Hollywood store at the mall. It wasn't thatCarol couldn't afford the panties, it was that she wantedthem to spice up her love life and was too embarrassed totake them to the register. In her haste to make a getaway,she'd rear-ended Brian Simon's plainclothes cop car and hadleft the scene. Brian had been in the car at the time, andhad chased her down and thrown her into the pokey.
My cousin Vinnie, president and sole proprietor of VincentPlum Bail Bonds, had written Carol's get-out-of-jailticket. If Carol didn't show up for her court date, Vinniewould forfeit the walking money-unless he could retrieveCarol's body in a timely manner.
This is where I come in. I'm a bond enforcement agent,which is a fancy term for bounty hunter, and I retrieve bodiesfor Vinnie. Preferably live and unharmed. Vinnie hadspotted Carol on his way in to work this morning and haddispatched me to rescue her-or, if rescue wasn't possible,to eyeball the precise spot where she splashed down. Vinniewas worried if he'd be out his bond money if Carol jumpedinto the river, and the divers and cops with grappling hookscouldn't find her water-logged corpse.
"This is really a bad way to do it," I said to Carol. "You'regoing to look awful when they find you. Think about it-yourhair's gonna be a wreck."
She rolled her eyes up as if she could see on the top ofher head. "Shit, I never thought of that," she said. "I justhad it highlighted, too. I got it foiled."
The snow was coming down in big wet blobs. I was wearinghiking boots with thick Vibram soles, but the cold was seepingthrough to my feet all the same. Carol was more dressy infunky ankle boots, a little black dress, and the excellent jacket.Somehow the brick seemed too casual for the rest of the outfit.And the dress reminded me of a dress I had hanging in myown closet. I'd only worn the dress for a matter of minutes beforeit had been dropped to the floor and kicked aside ... theopening statement in an exhaustive night with the man of mydreams. Well, one of the men, anyway. Funny how people seeclothes differently. I wore the dress, hoping to get a man inmy bed. And Carol chose it to jump off a bridge. Now in myopinion, jumping off a bridge in a dress is a bad decision. If Iwas going to jump off a bridge I'd wear slacks. Carol was goingto look like an idiot with her skirt up around her ears andher pantyhose hanging out. "So what does Lubie think of thehighlights?" I asked.
"Lubie likes the highlights," Carol said. "Only he wantsme to grow it longer. He says long hair is the style now."
Personally, I wouldn't put a lot of stock in the fashionsense of a man who got his nickname by bragging about hissexual expertise with a grease gun. But hey, that's just me."So tell me again why you're up here on the guardrail."
"Because I'd rather die than go to jail."
"I told you, you're not going to jail. And if you do, it won'tbe for very long."
"A day is too long! An hour is too long! They make youtake off all your clothes, and then they make you bend overso they can look for smuggled weapons. And you have to goto the bathroom in front of everyone. There's no, you know,privacy. I saw a special on television."
Okay, so now I understood a little bit better. I'd kill myselfbefore I'd do any of those things, too.
"Maybe you won't have to go to jail," I said. "I know BrianSimon. I could talk to him. Maybe I could get him to dropthe charges."
Carol's face brightened. "Really? Would you do that for me?"
"Sure. I can't guarantee anything, but I can give it a shot."
"And if he won't drop the charges, I'll still have a chanceto kill myself."
"Exactly."
I packed Carol and the brick off in her car, and thenI drove over to the 7-Eleven for coffee and a box of glazedchocolate doughnuts. I figured I deserved the doughnuts,since I'd done such a good job of saving Carol's life.
I took the doughnuts and coffee to Vinnie's storefrontoffice on Hamilton Avenue. I didn't want to run the risk ofeating all the doughnuts myself. And I was hoping Vinniewould have more work for me. As a bond enforcement agentI only get paid if I bring somebody in. And at the momentI was clean out of wayward bondees.
"Damn, skippy," Lula said from behind the file cabinets."Here come doughnuts walking through the door."
At five feet five inches, weighing in at a little over twohundred pounds, Lula is something of a doughnut expert.She was in monochromatic mode this week, with hair, skin,and lip gloss all the color of cocoa. The skin color is permanent,but the hair changes weekly.
Lula does filing for Vinnie, and she helps me out when Ineed backup. Since I'm not the world's best bounty hunter,and Lula isn't the world's best backup, it's more often than notlike the amateur-hour version of The Best of "Cops" Bloopers.
"Are those chocolate doughnuts?" Lula asked. "Connieand me were just thinking we needed some chocolatedoughnuts, weren't we, Connie?"
Connie Rosolli is Vinnie's office manager. She was at herdesk, in the middle of the room, examining her mustache ina mirror. "I'm thinking of having more electrolysis," she said."What do you think?"
"I think it's a good thing," Lula told her, helping herselfto a doughnut. "Because you're starting to look like GrouchoMarx, again."
I sipped my coffee and fingered through some files Conniehad on her desk. "Anything new come in?"
The door to Vinnie's inner office slammed open, and Vinniestuck his head out. "Fuckin' A, we got something new... and it's all yours."
Lula screwed her mouth up to the side. And Connie dida nose wrinkle.
I had a bad feeling in my stomach. Usually I had to begfor jobs and here Vinnie was, having saved something forme. "What's going on?" I asked.
"It's Ranger," Connie said. "He's in the wind. Won't respondto his pager."
"The schmuck didn't show up for his court date yesterday,"Vinnie said. "He's FTA."
"FTA" is bounty-hunter-speak for "failure to appear."Usually I'm happy to hear someone has failed to appear,because it means I get to earn money by coaxing them backinto the system. In this case, there was no money to be had,because if Ranger didn't want to be found, he wasn't goingto be found. End of discussion.
Ranger is a bounty hunter, like me. Only Ranger is good.He's close to my age, give or take a few years; he's Cuban-American;and I'm pretty sure he only kills bad guys. Twoweeks ago some idiot rookie cop arrested Ranger on carryingconcealed without a license. Every other cop in Trentonknows Ranger and knows he carries concealed, and they'reperfectly happy to have it that way. But no one told the newguy. So Ranger was busted and scheduled to go before thejudge yesterday for a slap on the wrist. In the meantime,Vinnie sprung Ranger with a nice chunk of money, and nowVinnie was feeling lonely, high off the ground, out there ona limb all by himself. First Carol. Now Ranger. Not a goodway to start a Tuesday.
"There's something wrong with this picture," I said. Itmade my heart feel leaden in my chest, because there werepeople out there who wouldn't mind seeing Ranger disappearforever. And his disappearance would make a very largehole in my life.
"It's not like Ranger to ignore his court date. Or to ignorehis page."
Lula and Connie exchanged glances.
"You know that big fire they had downtown on Sunday?"Connie said. "Turns out the building is owned by AlexanderRamos."
Alexander Ramos deals guns, regulating the flow of blackmarket arms from his summer compound on the Jerseyshore and his winter fortress in Athens. Two of his threeadult sons live in the United States, one in Santa Barbara,the other in Hunterdon County. The third son lives in Rio.None of this is privileged information. The Ramos familyhas made the cover of Newsweek four times. People havespeculated for years that Ranger has ties to Ramos, but theexact nature of those ties has always been unknown. Rangeris a master of keeping things unknown.
"And?" I asked.
"And when they could finally go through the building yesterdaythey found Ramos's youngest son, Homer, barbecuedin a third-floor office. Besides being toasted, he also had alarge bullet hole in his head."
"And?"
"And Ranger's wanted for questioning. The police werehere just a few minutes ago, looking for him."
"Why do they want Ranger?"
Connie did a palms-up.
"Anyway, he's skipped," Vinnie said, "and you're gonnabring him in."
My voice involuntarily rose an octave. "What, are youcrazy? I'm not going after Ranger!"
"That's the beauty of it," Vinnie said. "You don't have togo after him. He'll come to you. He's got a thing for you."
"No! No way. Forget it."
"Fine," Vinnie said, "you don't want the job, I'll put Joyceon it."
Joyce Barnhardt is my archenemy. Ordinarily, I'd eat dirtbefore I'd give anything up to Joyce. In this case, Joyce couldtake it. Let her spend her time spinning her wheels, lookingfor the invisible man.
"So what else have you got?" I asked Connie.
"Two minors and a real stinker." She passed three foldersover to me. "Since Ranger isn't available I'm going to haveto give the stinker to you."
I flipped the top file open. Morris Munson. Arrested forvehicular manslaughter. "Could be worse," I said. "Could bea homicidal rapist."
"You didn't read down far enough," Connie said. "Afterthis guy ran over the victim, who just happened to be hisex-wife, he beat her with a tire iron, raped her, and tried toset her on fire. He was charged with vehicular manslaughterbecause according to the M.E. she was already dead whenhe took the tire iron to her. He had her soaked in gasolineand was trying to get his Bic to work when a blue-and-whitehappened to drive by."
Little black dots danced in front of my eyes. I sat downhard on the fake-leather couch and put my head betweenmy legs.
"You okay?" Lula asked.
"Probably it's just low blood sugar," I said. Probably it'smy job.
"It could be worse," Connie said. "It says here he wasn'tarmed. Just bring your gun along, and I'm sure you'll befine."
"I can't believe they let him out on bail!"
"Go figure," Connie said. "Guess they didn't have anymore room at the inn."
I looked up at Vinnie, who was still standing in the doorwayto his private office. "You wrote bail on this maniac?"
"Hey, I'm not a judge. I'm a businessman. He didn't haveany priors," Vinnie said. "And he has a good job working atthe button factory. Homeowner."
"And now he's gone."
"Didn't show up for his court date," Connie said. "I calledthe button factory, and they said last they saw him wasWednesday."
"Have they heard from him at all? Did he call in sick?"
"No. Nothing. I called his home number and got his machine."
I glanced at the other two files. Lenny Dale, missing inaction, charged with domestic violence. And Walter "MoonMan" Dunphy, wanted for drunk and disorderly and urinatingin a public place.
I tucked the three folders into my shoulder bag and stood."Page me if you hear anything on Ranger."
"Last chance," Vinnie said. "I swear I'll give his file toJoyce."
I took a doughnut from the box, gave the box over to Lula,and left. It was March and the snowstorm was having a hardtime working itself up into anything serious. There was someslush on the street, and a layer of ice had accumulated onmy windshield and my passenger-side windows. There wasa large blurry object behind the window. I squinted throughthe ice. The blurry object was Joe Morelli.
Most women would have an orgasm on the spot to findMorelli sitting in their car. He had that effect. I'd knownMorelli for most of my life, and I almost never had an on-the-spotorgasm, anymore. I needed at least four minutes.
He was wearing boots and jeans and a black fleece jacket.The tails of a red plaid flannel shirt hung under the jacket.Under the flannel shirt he wore a black T-shirt and a .40-caliberGlock. His eyes were the color of aged whiskey andhis body was a testament to good Italian genes and hardwork at the gym. He had a reputation for living fast, and thereputation was well deserved but dated. Morelli focused hisenergy on his job now.
I slid behind the wheel, turned the key in the ignition,and cranked up the defroster. I was driving a six-year-oldblue Honda Civic that was perfectly good transportation butdidn't enhance my fantasy life. Hard to be Xena, WarriorPrincess in a six-year-old Civic.
"So," I said to Morelli, "what's up?"
"You going after Ranger?"
"Nope. Not me. No siree. No way."
He raised his eyebrows.
"I'm not magic," I said. Sending me after Ranger wouldbe like sending the chicken out to hunt down the fox.
Morelli was slouched against the door. "I need to talk tohim."
Continues...
Excerpted from Hot Sixby Janet Evanovich Copyright © 2000 by Janet Evanovich. Excerpted by permission.
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