Plum Spooky (Stephanie Plum 14.50)

He broke out of the woods, and I momentarily lost him. I reached the road and looked right. Munch was on an ATV. He hit the start button and roared away.

Lula burst out of the woods and bent at the waist. “I’m dying. I’m a dead woman. I need something. Oxygen. A lung. Legal drugs. Hell, any kind of drugs.”

I pulled her back into the pines. “Catch your breath while we walk. We don’t want to be here when he comes back with his partner.”

“Was that Martin Munch?” Lula asked.

“I think so.”

“Where are we going?”

“I don’t know where we’re going. I just know we can’t stay on the road.”

“What do you mean you don’t know where we’re going?”

“Look around. What do you see?”

“Nothing,” Lula said. “It’s black as a witch’s tit in here.”

“Exactly.”

“We could be walking in circles. We could be easy prey for the Jersey Dev il and the Tree People.”

Or worse.

“I don’t want to alarm you or nothing,” Lula said. “But I’m gonna have a freak-?out. I’m feelin’ a freak-?out coming on. I’m not a woods person. I need cement under my feet. I need a streetlight. I need a burger.”

“Don’t panic. This isn’t Alaska. This is Jersey. We’ll be fine. We have to just keep walking, and we’ll get somewhere.”

“Shush. Do you hear that?”

“What?”

“They’re talking again. I hear the Tree People talking. Feet, don’t fail me. I’m getting out of here.”

Lula took off in the dark and didn’t run more than ten steps when SPLASH.

“They got me,” she shrieked. “Help. I’m drowning. I’m a goner.”

Lula was floundering around at the edge of what looked like a cranberry bog. I squinted into the dark and reached out to her. “Grab my hand.”

“I got it,” Lula said. “Get me out.”

I planted my foot, the mud oozed over my shoe, and I went into the soup with Lula.

“I’m getting sucked away,” Lula said. “I’m gonna die. This is the end. The swamp monster got me.”

“You’re only in two feet of water,” I told her. “You’re not going to die. Not unless I choke you because you won’t shut up.”

I tried to stand, but the ground gave way, and I went down again. Hands grabbed me from behind and lifted me out of the muck. It was Ranger. He was up to his knees in swamp water.

“Babe,” Ranger said.

“How did you find me?”

He set me on solid ground and waded out of the water. “I heard Lula yelling. Half the state heard her.”

Two of Ranger’s men had slogged over to Lula and had her by the armpits, dragging her out.