Page 1 of Now or Never

CHAPTER ONE

I parked my blue Chevy Trailblazer in front of the bail bonds office and sat for a long moment. My name is Stephanie Plum and I’m a fugitive-apprehension agent working for my cousin Vinnie’s bail bonds business in Trenton, New Jersey. I have my BA from Rutgers University and an advanced degree in doing dumb things, destroying cars, and finding love in too many places. It’s the last specialty that’s keeping me in my car right now. I’ve very recently gotten engaged to two men. Okay, so this would also fall under my first specialty of doing dumb things. In my defense, I would like to say that it wasn’t entirely my fault. It was circumstances. Still, here I was in this dilemma. And I was going to have to explain the dilemma to my two coworkers who were sitting in the office, looking at me through the large plate glass window.

I gave up a sigh and grabbed the messenger bag that was on the seat next to me. Might as well go in and get it all out there. Justspew out the whole hot mess. Now or never, right? The phrase was cringe. It was the line of thinking that had pushed me into the two engagements.

Connie Rosolli, the office manager, held up a sheet of paper with a big question mark on it. The question mark had been written with a thick black marker. And it had an exclamation point after it. I did an internal eye-roll, wrenched the car door open, and went into the office.

“We’re dying here,” Lula said. “Last we saw, you were engaged to Mr. Dark and Dangerous. And then Mr. Hot and Handsome showed up. That was two days ago. We gotta know details.”

Lula is a former ho who is now the office file clerk. Since almost all the files are digital and don’t need filing, Lula just does whatever she wants. She’s a little shorter and a little younger than me. She’s also several skin shades darker than me, has a lot more boob and booty than me, and has a much more extensive and exotic wardrobe.

“Where’s the ring?” Lula asked. “I gotta see the ring.”

“I don’t have a ring,” I said. “I didn’t think there was a big rush to get a ring.”

“Uh-oh,” Lula said. “We thought you might even be married by now, but no ring don’t sound good.”

“Ranger had to go out of town for a couple days.”

Ranger is Mr. Dark and Dangerous. Former Special Forces, former bounty hunter. Currently owns a high-tech security company in a stealth building in downtown Trenton.

“Well, when’s he coming back?” Lula asked. “Is he back?”

“Not yet,” I said.

“And what about Mr. Hot and Handsome? How’s he taking the news?”

Mr. Hot and Handsome is Joe Morelli. Former bad boy, now aTrenton PD detective working crimes against persons. Has a nice little house and a big orange dog.

“He doesn’t exactly know,” I said. “There’s a bit of a hitch.”

“A hitch?” Lula asked. “What kind of hitch?”

The door to Vinnie’s inner office burst open and Vinnie stormed out. “What’s going on out here? What is this, a ladies’ tea party? I don’t pay you to sit around on your fat asses eating doughnuts all day.”

Vinnie is a forty-something barely human version of a weasel in skinny pants. His father-in-law, Harry the Hammer, owns the agency and owns Vinnie.

“I have two big-ticket bonds in the wind,” Vinnie said. “Harry’s got me by the nuts and he’s squeezing.”

“I hear that’s your second-favorite thing after getting spanked with a spatula,” Lula said.

Vinnie narrowed his eyes and retreated into his office. He slammed the door shut and threw the bolt.

I hiked my messenger bag higher onto my shoulder. “I’m on the move. Gotta catch some bad guys.”

“What about the hitch?” Lula asked.

“Later,” I said. “Are you coming with me?”

“Might as well,” Lula said. “There’s only one doughnut left in the box and it’s one of them plain cake ones. I’m the kind of girl that needs chocolate and extra sugar in the form of attached granules or creamy frosting.”

When Vinnie writes a bond, he guarantees that the bondee is going to show up for his court appearance. If the bondee doesn’t show, Vinnie is out the bond money. So, Vinnie sends me out to find the miscreant and drag their sorry body back to jail. Lula is on salary, but I only get paid when I make a capture. This ensures that I have incentive to go to work every day.

We got into my SUV, and I pulled two files out of my messenger bag and handed them to Lula. “Eugene Fleck and Bruno Jug. Which one do you want to go after first?”

Lula paged through Bruno Jug. “It says here he’s charged with tax evasion. That’s what the feds use when they can’t prove anything else on account of people involved keep getting dead. Previous charges were racketeering. That includes narcotics trafficking, extortion, and here’s my favorite… murder for hire. He don’t sound like a lot of fun. Let’s see what’s in file number two.” She opened the second file and read down. “This is a good one. Eugene Fleck, AKA Robin Hoodie on account of he always wears a hoodie, and he robs from the rich and gives the shit to the poor. The guy is a porch pirate first class. Looks like nobody was complaining too much until he got carried away with himself and hijacked a UPS truck.”

“He made the six o’clock news for that,” I said. “He drove the UPS truck to a homeless tent city under one of the bridges and emptied it out. It was like Christmas in October with everyone ripping packages apart.”

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