Lean Mean Thirteen (Stephanie Plum 13)

I gave up on the files and sat at his desk. I opened the top drawer and found two file folders. One was labeled nuts and stalkers and the other was labeled current. Hooray! Now I was getting somewhere. I shoved the folders into my pants, under the waistband, and buttoned my coat over them.

Smullens office was similar in design to Dickies. Same furniture, but Smullens desk drawers were filled with candy bars. Mounds, Baby Ruths, M&Ms, Snickers, Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, Twizzlers. His computer was fresh out of the box. Software installed. Nothing else. No Rolodex. A pen and a pad, but nothing written. Coffee cup stains on his leather desktop. Nothing of interest in his file drawers.

I snitched a couple Snickers and a Reese s and moved on to Gorvich. His office was also unused. No candy bars in the drawers. Gorvich s drawers were empty.

Ditto Petiak.

c. j. SLOAN had been printed in small block letters on the door to the office next to Petiaks. I had no idea what Sloan did for the firm, but he obviously did it in his office because there were stacks of files on every flat surface. There were four in/ou

t baskets on his desk, and they were all filled with papers. His computer monitor was extra wide. And while there was a lot of clutter in the office, it was all perfectly aligned. Sloan was a totally anal neat freak.

I went into Sloans computer and struck gold. Sloan had client lists with billable hours, current and past. I plugged my flash drive into a USB port and downloaded a bunch of files. In a last-ditch effort, when I left Sloan's office, I tried the secretary's desk. She had all the hardware but not much content. Multiline phone, super-duper computer, and a drawer filled with take-out menus. There was a small wooden crate, two cardboard boxes, and an industrial staple gun by the desk. Someone was packing.

The elevator binged and before I had time to react, a huge guy stepped out. He was dressed in shirt and tie and a badly fitting dark blue suit. He was late twenties, early thirties, and he lifted. Probably did some 'roids. His hair was buzzed short and bleached blond. L.A. muscleman.

Muscleman approached the desk and looked down at me. “Whatchadom?”

I had the Pizza Hut menu in my hand. “Ordering out. Do you like pepperoni?”

“The loser downstairs said he let you up here to install televisions.”

I was on my feet behind the desk. “I'm doing the prelim on some security monitors.”

“No, you're not. I know who you are. I saw your picture in the paper. You're the nut who tried to choke Mr. Orr.”

“You're mistaken. I work for Richter Security. I guess I have a double out there somewhere, eh?”

“I don't make mistakes like that, lady. I got an eye for the girls. I even remember your name. Stephanie Plum. I remember it 'cause it's a 'ho name. Stephanie Juicy. Stephanie Goodto-Eat. Stephanie I’m-Gonna-Sink-My-Teeth-into-You.” Yikes. ”Sorry,“ I told him. ”I'm not on the menu."

“I think you are. I think I'm gonna have some fun with you before I turn you over to Mr. Petiak.”

“Is he your boss?”

“Yeah. And he don't like intruders. He's got things he does to them so they don't intrude anymore, but sometimes he lets me have fun with them first.”

I had pepper spray and a stun gun in my bag. “Let me show you my identification-”

“The only identification I care about is between your legs, Stephanie Juicy.”

He was around the desk in two strides, reaching out for me. I knocked his hand away, grabbed the staple gun, pressed it into his crotch, and bam, bam, bam, bam … I stapled his nuts. At least, I thought it felt like nuts, but hell, what do I know. There's other equipment down there, and I guess it could have been most anything.

Muscleman's mouth dropped open and his face turned red. He froze for a moment, sucking air, and then he doubled over and crashed to the floor.

I was in love with the genius who'd invented the electric stapler.

I wasted no time getting out of there. I ran out of the office and flew down the stairs. I crossed the lobby and was out the front door before the guard at the desk was on his feet. I bolted for the lot and ran flat-out into Ranger when I turned the corner. He absorbed the impact without moving and wrapped his arms around me to keep me from falling. “I need to get out of here," I told him.

Tank was idling behind the Cayenne. Ranger signaled that he could leave, and Ranger and I got into the Porsche. Ranger drove out of the lot, made a U-turn half a block away, and parked.

“What were you doing in the lot?” I asked him.

“Hal was working the remote monitors and suspected you were in the law office building. He was worried about you.”

“How about you? Were you worried about me?”

“I always worry about you.”

“We didn't get anything out of Dickies house,” I told Ranger, “so I decided to look at his office. Didn't think there'd be much activity on a Saturday. Figured I could fly under the radar.”