Finger Lickin' Fifteen (Stephanie Plum 15)

“I’m leaving Sal and Raphael here until the building opens for business,” Ranger said. “We can go back to Rangeman.”

“It isn’t even seven A.M.! Normal people are still asleep.”

“Is this going somewhere?” Ranger asked.

“Yes. It’s going to . . . take Stephanie home so she can go back to bed.”

“Babe, I’d be happy to take you back to bed.”

Unh. Mental head slap.

IT WAS ALMOST noon when I left my apartment for the second time that morning. I’d run out of Rangeman clothes, so I was dressed in jeans and a stretchy red V-neck T-shirt. My hair was freshly washed and fluffed. My eyes were enhanced with liner and mascara. My lips were comfy in Burt’s Bees lip balm.

I stopped at the bonds office on my way to Rangeman.

“Just in time for lunch,” Lula said when I walked in the door. “Me and Connie are feeling like we should try the chicken at the new barbecue place by the hospital.”

“That’s sacrilege. You always get your chicken at Cluck-in-a-Bucket.”

“Yeah, but we gotta do barbecue research. I don’t have my just-right gourmet barbecue sauce yet. I might have had it on the chicken last night, but the dogs run off with it. Anyways, I thought it wouldn’t hurt to shop around. And I hear the guy who owns the barbecue place is gonna be in the contest.”

“Sorry, no can do. I’m late for work.”

“Just tell Ranger you needed barbecue,” Lula said. “Everybody understands when the barbecue urge comes over you. And besides, there’s no place to park by that barbecue place. I need a ride up there. It’ll take you a minute, and it’s the least you can do since I rescued you from that embarrassing experience last night.”

“You didn’t rescue me! You pulled me down the stairs and let Junior escape.”

“Yeah, but people was watching me go ass-over-elbows down the stairs, and they hardly noticed you at all.”

That could be true. “Okay, I’ll give you a ride, but then I have to go to work.”

Lula hiked her purse onto her shoulder. “We got it all planned out what me and Connie want to eat. All’s I gotta do is run in and out.”

Lula and I stepped out of the office onto the sidewalk and stood for a moment squinting into the sun.

“This here’s a beautiful day,” Lula said. “I got a real good feeling about today.”

A black Mercedes with tinted windows pulled out of a parking space half a block away and cruised up to the bonds office. It slowed, the side window slid down, a gun barrel appeared, there was maniacal giggling, and four rounds were fired off.

I heard a bullet whistle past my ear, the plate-glass window behind me cracked, and Lula and I hit the ground. Connie kicked the bonds office door open and aimed a Glock at the Mercedes, but the car was already too far away.

“That asshole took out my computer,” Connie said.

Lula hauled herself up off the sidewalk and pulled her lime green spandex miniskirt down over her butt. “Someone call the police. Call the National Guard. Those guys are out to get me. That was one of those Chipotle killers behind that gun. I saw his idiot face. And I heard that crazy-ass giggling. Did someone get that license plate?”

Vinnie appeared in the doorway and cautiously peeked outside. “What’s going on?”

Vinnie was my rodent cousin. Good bail bondsman. Scary human being. Slicked-back hair, face like a ferret, dressed like Tony Soprano, had a body like Pee-wee Herman.

“Someone’s trying to kill Lula,” Connie said.

Vinnie put his hand to his heart. “That’s a relief. I thought they were after me.”

“It’s no relief to me,” Lula said. “I’m a nervous wreck. And stress like this is bad for your immune system. I read about it. I could get shingles or something.”

People from nearby businesses migrated onto the sidewalk, looked around, and realized it was just the bonds office getting shot at. Their faces registered that this was no big whoopity-do, and they drifted back into their buildings.

Lights flashed in the distance on Hamilton, and a fire truck and an EMS truck rumbled to a stop in front of the office.