Explosive Eighteen (Stephanie Plum 18)

Lula looked down at Lahonka’s foot. “Yep, she’s shot all right.”

“This is going to mean a lot of paperwork,” I said to Lula.

“You told me to shoot her. Wasn’t my idea,” Lula said. “I was just following orders. Hell, I’m not even a real bounty hunter. You’re the bounty hunter in charge, and I’m just a bounty hunter helper.”

I had a twitch in my left eye. I put my finger to it and took a couple deep breaths. “We need to take her to the emergency room. Help me drag her out to the truck.”

“Good thinking that you got a truck,” Lula said. “We can lay her out in the back, and you don’t even have to worry about her bleeding all over the place.”

Fifteen minutes later, I pulled into the hospital emergency drive-thru. I stopped in front of the entrance, and Lula and I ran around to get Lahonka.

“Uh-oh,” Lula said. “There’s no Lahonka here. She must have jumped out at a light or something.”

We retraced our steps to make sure Lahonka wasn’t road-kill, toes cocked in the gutter.

• • •

“I didn’t even see no blood trails,” Lula said when I parked in front of the office. “I thought I shot her good enough to at least draw blood.”

“You’ve got to stop shooting people,” I said. “It’s against the law.”

“That wasn’t my fault,” Lula said, pushing through the front door to the office. “That was your fault. It’s your juju. It sucks. It’s getting frightening just being next to you.”

“Oh God, now what?” Connie said.

“No big deal,” Lula said. “We just can’t catch anyone.”

“As long as you didn’t shoot anyone,” Connie said. “You didn’t shoot anyone, did you?”

Lula’s eyes got big. “Why do you ask? Did you hear something?”

Connie put her hands over her ears. “I don’t want to know. Don’t tell me.”

“Fine by me,” Lula said. “I don’t want to talk about it, either. Wasn’t exactly a gratifying experience. Not that it was my fault.”

“Anything new come in?” I asked Connie.

“No. It’s been slow,” Connie said. “Moving the office around isn’t helping business.”

I stepped outside and tried Joyce again, but she still wasn’t picking up. While I was standing on the sidewalk a gray Camry parked behind my truck and Berger and Gooley got out.

“I liked the last office location,” Gooley said. “One-stop shopping. You could get bonded out and buy a black-and-white cookie all at the same time.”

“We have the finished sketch,” Berger said to me. “We wanted you to take a

last look at it before we send it up the line.” He pulled the sketch out of a folder and handed it to me. “Is this the guy in the photograph?”

“I can barely remember the photograph,” I told him, “but this guy looks familiar.”

Lula swung out of the office and looked over my shoulder. “I know this guy,” she said. “It’s Tom Cruise.”

I looked back at the photograph. Lula was right. It was Tom Cruise. No wonder he looked familiar.

Connie wandered out. “What’s going on?”

Lula showed the sketch to Connie. “Who is this?”

“Tom Cruise,” Connie said.