Finger Lickin' Fifteen (Stephanie Plum 15)

“I’ve got a hostage. And I’d be real happy to have one more excuse to shoot her. I’ve been trying to shoot her all week. And I would have done it, if I wasn’t saddled with Marco the Moron.”

“I thought he was a Maniac,” Grandma said.

“I want a helicopter brought in,” Dudley said. “And I want one unarmed pilot flying it.”

“That only happens in the movies,” Morelli said. “Trenton can’t afford helicopters. We’re lucky we’re not all riding bicycles.”

“Get the traffic report helicopter then. Get one from the beach patrol. Get one from NASCAR. You don’t get me out of here in a helicopter, and I swear I’ll kill my hostage.”

Morelli went back to his cell phone. “I’ll make some calls,” he said to Dudley. “Maybe I can come up with something. Would National Guard be okay?”

Dudley looked at Joyce on the ground, bleeding.

“Get a medevac. I know you’ve got one of those.”

“You got it,” Morelli said. “I’ve got two paramedics here. I want you to allow them to treat her.”

“Sure. Get her out of the way.”

“This is confusing,” Lula said. “What happens to the reward? How am I gonna get the reward from you if you’re the one I caught?”

“It’s my brother-in-law’s reward. He’s the owner of the company. I’m just a token vice president. He’s the one who was the big Chipotle fan. Put his picture on all the sauce jars. I told him not to do it, but would he listen to me? Hell, no. Now see where that got us.”

“Where’d it get you?” Grandma wanted to know.

“It got us nowhere. Chipotle refused to sign a new contract. He was screwing my brother-in-law’s bimbo gold-digger wife. They were going to start their own company as soon as the divorce went through.” Dudley looked over at Morelli. “Where’s the helicopter?”

“It’s on its way. You should hear it any minute.”

“Some brother-in-law you’ve got,” Connie said. “What did he do, go to the Chicago Mob and hire someone to whack Chipotle? And then send you along to babysit and make sure the job got done?”

“He would have been better to let me do it myself. He had this idea to get rid of Chipotle and turn it into a media frenzy. Get free publicity by chopping his head off. Chipotle never saw it coming. He was still drunk from the night before. Unfortunately, we had a witness who would have been safe, except she entered the contest.”

Al Rochere ran over with his film crew and went in for an interview.

“Get him out of here,” Dudley said. “I’ll shoot her. Swear to God.”

“Wait a minute,” Lula said. “This could be my big break.”

There was the unmistakable wup wup wup of a helicopter, and the medevac chopper flew low over us and landed in an empty area of the field.

Dudley still had the gun to Lula’s head. “I’m taking her with me. I’ll release her when we land.”

“I don’t like this,” Lula said. “I don’t like helicopters. I’m gonna get the runs.”

“Shut up, and get walking.”

“I don’t feel so good,” Lula said. And she farted.

Dudley stepped back and fanned the air with his gun. “Jeez, lady, what have you been eating?”

“Barbecue,” Lula said. And she sucker punched him in the throat.

Dudley gagged and dropped his gun. And Morelli was on him.

“Is there still a reward?” Lula asked. “Does anybody know the ruling on that?”

A bunch of cops and security guards swarmed in, keeping the curious back. Morelli’s partner cuffed Dudley and a couple uniforms moved in to help.