Janet Evanovich - Takedown Twenty

Ranger doesn’t bother with trivial matters like knocking, and he isn’t slowed down by a locked door. He owns an elite security firm that operates out of a seven-story stealth office building located in the center of Trenton. His body is perfect, his moral code is unique, his thoughts aren’t usually shared. He’s in his early thirties, like me, but his life experience adds up to way beyond his years. He’s of Latino heritage. He’s former Special Forces. He’s sexy, smart, sometimes scary, and frequently overprotective of me. He was currently armed and wearing black fatigues with the Rangeman logo on his sleeve. That meant he was on patrol duty, most likely filling in for one of his men.

“Working tonight?” I asked him.

“Taking the night shift for Hal.” He looked at my glass. “Are you drinking champagne out of a beer mug?”

“I don’t have any champagne glasses.”

“Babe.”

“Babe” covers a lot of ground for Ranger. It can be the prelude to getting naked. It can be total exasperation. It can be a simple greeting. Or, as in this case, it can just mean I’ve amused him.

Ranger smiled ever so slightly and took a step closer to me.

“Stop,” I said. “Don’t come any closer. The answer is no .”

His brown eyes locked onto me. “I didn’t ask a question.”

“You were going to.”

“True.”

“Well, don’t even think about it, because I’m not going to do it.”

“I could change your mind,” he said.

“I don’t think so.”

Okay, truth is Ranger could change my mind. Ranger can be very persuasive.

Ranger’s cellphone buzzed, he checked the text message and moved to the door. “I have to go. Give me a call if you change your mind.”

“About what?”

“About anything.”

“Okay, wait a minute. I want to know the question.”

“No time to explain it,” Ranger said. “I’ll pick you up tomorrow at seven o’clock. A little black dress would be good. Something moderately sexy.”

And he was gone.

TWO

I DRAGGED MYSELF out of bed as the morning sun poured through the opening in my bedroom curtains. I showered, blasted my shoulder-length curly brown hair with the blow dryer, and pulled the whole mess back into a ponytail. I brushed my teeth, swiped some mascara onto my lashes, and went with cherry lip gloss.

Hunting down felons for my cousin Vinnie isn’t a great-paying job, but I make my own hours and I wear what’s comfy. A girly T-shirt, jeans, sneakers, handcuffs, and pepper spray, and I’m good to go.

I gave Rex fresh water and a Ritz cracker, grabbed the messenger bag I use as a purse, and took off for the office. I live in a second-floor one-bedroom, one-bath, no-frills apartment on the outskirts of Trenton. It’s not a slum, but it’s not high rent either. Mostly my apartment building is filled with seniors who take advantage of the early-bird special at the nearby diner and live for the moment they’ll qualify for a handicap sticker on their car. They’re all heavily armed, so the property is relatively safe, if you don’t count shootings that are the result of mistaken identity due to cataracts and macular degeneration. My apartment overlooks the parking lot, which is fine by me because I can peek out once in a while to see if anyone’s stolen my car.

It was a glorious Tuesday morning in the middle of summer, and traffic was light thanks to the absence of school buses. I parked in the small lot behind Vincent Plum Bail Bonds. There were four spaces, and three were already filled. My cousin Vinnie’s Cadillac was there. Connie the office manager’s Toyota was there. And Lula had her red Firebird there. I added my rusted-out mostly white Ford Taurus to the group and went inside.

“Uh-oh,” Lula said when she saw me. “You got that look.”

“What look?” I asked.

“That look like you didn’t get any last night.”

I went straight to the coffee machine. “I almost never get any. I’m used to it. Morelli is playing catch-up with his caseload.”

Joe Morelli is a Trenton plainclothes cop working crimes-against-persons. I grew up with Morelli, lost my virginity to him, ran over him with my father’s Buick in a fit of justifiable rage, and now years later he’s my boyfriend. Go figure. He’s a good cop. He’s a terrific lover. And he’s got a dog. He’s six feet of hot Italian libido, with wavy black hair, a hard-toned body, and brown eyes that could set my pants on fire. He’s been sidelined with a gunshot wound, but now he’s back on the job, popping pain pills.

“So then how come you got that look this morning, like you need at least three donuts?” Lula asked.

“Ranger came by last night.”

Lula leaned forward, eyes wide. “Say what?”

Connie looked up from her computer. “And?”

“He wanted a date.”

“I’m havin’ heart palpitations,” Lula said. “That is one fine man. Fact is, that is the hottest man I ever saw. You did the nasty with him last night, right? I want to know everything.”

“I didn’t do anything with him. He wanted a date for tonight.”

“Holy crap,” Lula said.

“And?” Connie said.

“And I had a restless night thinking about it,” I told them.

“I bet,” Lula said. “If it was me I would have been burning out the motor on my intimate appliances.”

I checked out the box of donuts on Connie’s desk and chose a maple glazed. “Last time I agreed to be Ranger’s date his friend blew himself up in my apartment.”

“Yeah, but Ranger brought in a cleaning crew to get the brains and guts off the walls,” Lula said. “That was real thoughtful.”

“What’s new?” I asked Connie. “Anything good come in for me?”

I don’t get paid a salary. I make my money by retrieving felons for Vinnie. When someone is accused of a crime they can sit in jail until trial or they can give the court a bucketload of money as a guarantee they’ll return. If they don’t have the money, they go to my cousin and he puts up a bond for a fee. If the bondee doesn’t show for court, the court keeps Vinnie’s money. This doesn’t make Vinnie happy, so he sends me out to find the guy and drag him back to jail. Then I get a percentage of the money Vinnie gets back from the court.

“Nothing interesting,” Connie said. “Just a couple low money bonds. Ziggy Radiewski didn’t show up for court, and Mary Treetrunk didn’t show up for court.”

“What’d Ziggy do this time?” Lula asked.

“He relieved himself on Mrs. Bilson’s dog,” Connie said. “And then he mooned Mrs. Bilson. He said it was accidental, and he was a victim of temporary insanity due to alcohol poisoning.”

“He probably got that right,” Lula said.

“I don’t care about any of those,” Vinnie yelled from his inner office. “Why haven’t you grabbed Uncle Sunny? He’s a big bond. He killed a guy, for crissake. What the hell are you waiting for? Put the freakin’ donut down and go to work. You think I pay you to sit around eating donuts?”

“You keep talking like that and I’m gonna come in your office and sit on you and squish you into nothing but a ugly grease spot,” Lula said.

The door to Vinnie’s office slammed closed and the bolt thunked into place.

“He’s not having a good morning,” Connie said. “We’re running in the red, and Harry is unhappy.”

Harry the Hammer owns the bonds office. He also happens to be Vinnie’s father-in-law. Legend has it Harry got his name when he was a mob enforcer and persuaded customers to meet their financial obligations on time by hammering nails into their various body parts. I assume this was back in the days before pneumatic nail guns became the tool of choice for carpenters and wiseguys.