Ten Big Ones (Stephanie Plum 10)

'If you have all this, why do you still do fugitive apprehension?'

`I'M good at it. And someone has to do the job.'

I followed him into his dressing room and watched him open the locked drawer and remove a gun. I was working hard at keeping my eyes focused above his waist, but I was thinking no underwear!

'Do you still have your Slayer hidden away?' he asked.

'Yes.'

'Is he secure?'

'Yes,' I said.

'My day is filled, but we can talk to him tonight. In the meantime, don't have any contact with this guy. Don't feed him. Let him worry.' He clipped the gun to his belt. 'I need the truck. Use one of the Porsches. The keys are in the plate on the sideboard. The communication room and gym are on the fifth floor. Feel free to use the gym. Ella and Louis live on the sixth floor. You can intercom number six if you need anything. She'll be in today to make the bed and clean and pick up laundry. She'll do your laundry if you leave it out for her.' He glanced at his watch again. `I have a meeting scheduled. I'm assuming you want to live here a while longer?'

'Yes.' I didn't have a lot of good choices.

His mouth curved into the almost-smile. 'You're going to be indebted to me, Babe. You want to start working on that guilt problem.'

Oh boy.

He grabbed me and kissed me, and I felt my toes curl. And I wondered how long it would take me to get him undressed. And just exactly how many minutes did he have before the meeting. I didn't think I needed a lot of time. After all, he wasn't wearing any undies. That would help, right?

'I have to go,' he said.`I'm late.'

Thank God, he was late. There were no minutes. No time to cheat on Joe. No time to send myself straight to hell. I smoothed the wrinkles from his shirt where my fingers had gripped the material. 'Do you know where the truck is?'

'It's in the garage. I had Tank bring it in last night. All the cars and trucks are equipped with GPS tracking. We always know where they are.'

Great. Really glad I went to the trouble to park two blocks away.

I showered and dressed and left the apartment, being careful not to run into any of the men. I suspected they were also careful not to run into me. The arrangement felt awkward.

I chose the Turbo, parking at the curb when I got to the office, so I could keep an eye on the car. It was one thing to lose a bargain-basement

Lincoln; I didn't want to get a bunch of unnecessary holes in Ranger's megabucks Porsche.

'Holy crap,' Lula said, staring out the window at the Porsche. 'Is that Ranger's Turbo?'

`Yes He's back, and he needed the truck, so he gave me the 911.

He's going to talk to our friend tonight. He said we shouldn't have any contact with him. And he didn't want us to feed him.'

'Fine by me,' Connie said. I'm not anxious to repeat yesterday's performance.'

'Yeah,' Lula said. That was embarrassing.'

'Anything new on the books?' I asked.

'No, but you have three outstandings,' Connie said. 'Shoshanna

Brown, Harold Pancek, and the thumb guy, Jamil Rodriguez.

Maybe you want to leave Rodriguez for Ranger.'

'We'll see how it goes,' I said.`I'm going to pick up Shoshanna

Brown this morning.'