Explosive Eighteen (Stephanie Plum 18)

“Just try, okay? There’s a lot riding on this … like my pension.”

If I hadn’t been doing eighty, I would have banged my head against the steering wheel. “When do you want me to come in?”

“Now.”

FOURTEEN

I DROPPED LULA at the office and swung around into town. It was midday and the roads were clogged with cars. Lots were filled, street parking was nonexistent, and after ten minutes of circling several blocks, I gave up and drove into the FBI building’s underground garage. It was public parking, but there was a designated FBI area.

I took the elevator to the sixth floor and went directly to the conference room. Berger, Gooley, and the artist were already there.

“We thought maybe it was the last artist who was thinking

about Tom Cruise,” Berger said. “So we’re starting over with Fred.”

I took a seat and nodded at Fred. “Good luck.”

Fred managed a tight smile that was a shade away from being a grimace. An hour later, we had a new sketch.

“How do you feel about this?” Berger asked me. “Is this the guy?”

I did palms up. I didn’t know. “Maybe,” I said.

“At least it’s not Tom Cruise,” Berger said.

Gooley studied it. “It’s Ashton Kutcher.”

We crowded in to see the sketch.

“Shit! He’s right,” Berger said. “It’s freaking Ashton Kutcher.”

I took another look at it, and I had to admit it did look a lot like Ashton Kutcher.

“Well, they both have brown hair, so we can be pretty sure he has brown hair,” I said. “Do you guys validate parking?”

“Not anymore,” Berger said. “Budget cuts.”

• • •

I took the elevator to the second parking level and walked to my truck. It seemed to me Ashton Kutcher and Tom Cruise weren’t so far apart. Brown hair, nice-looking, angular face, potential for Top Gun attitude. Maybe it was the attitude that was the common denominator. A quality in their faces that projected a boyishly endearing wiseass personality.

I pressed the unlock button on my car key, reached for the door handle, and got yanked off my feet from behind. In a matter of seconds, I was dragged across the garage and slammed against a panel van. I was so caught by surprise that I barely reacted, ineffectively flailing my arms and yelling, the yelling getting lost in the cavernous garage.

I caught a flash of light from a knife blade and felt the tip of the knife bite into my neck. I went dead still, and Raz’s face swam into focus inches from mine.

“You will be stopping moving,” he said. “You are understanding?”

I nodded.

“Into the van,” he said. “Facedown, or I kill you good. I carve you into pieces and eat you for snack.”

I was too scared to totally focus, but I knew getting into the van wasn’t a step in the right direction. I pulled back, opened my mouth to scream, and he hit me in the face with the butt end of the knife. I tasted blood, a switch got flipped on in my brain, and I went into killer survival mode, kicking, screaming, scratching, gouging. The knife got knocked out of his hand, we scrambled for it, and I got there first. I lunged at him, catching him in the thigh, digging the blade in deep, opening a long gash that gushed blood. He shrieked and grabbed his leg. It was a panicky blur after that. I kicked at him, and he tried to roll away. He was bleeding and cursing, and I kept kicking. I slipped on the blood-slick garage floor, and he took the opportunity to dive into the van and ram the door closed. The motor caught, and his wheels spun and screeched on the cement as he sped away.

I bent at the waist and sucked in air. I looked down at the ground and realized I was dripping blood. I wasn’t sure where it was coming from. I walked on wobbly legs to the elevator and pushed the sixth-floor button. The doors opened, and I stepped out and stood still for a beat, not sure what to do because I was tracking blood on the tile floor.

Several people rushed over to me. One of them was Berger.

“Jeez, I’m sorry about the blood,” I said.