Hardcore Twenty-Four (Stephanie Plum 24)

“Right. Got it. Red sky.”

I stopped two blocks from the cemetery parking lot, and Ranger got out and moved to Tank’s SUV. I continued on, trying to ignore the churning in my stomach. I was five minutes early when I parked. I had a stun gun in one sweatshirt pocket and a small canister of pepper spray in the other. My cellphone was in my jeans pocket. When I killed the lights, I was enveloped in darkness. I left my messenger bag on the back seat and got out of the car. I stuffed the keys into another pocket of my jeans. I stood for a moment, waiting for my eyes to adjust to the darkness. I saw lights turn into the driveway that led to the lot. Not an SUV. They were too low to the ground. The car swung into the lot and parked next to me. It was Lula.

“Hey, girlfriend,” Lula said, getting out of the Firebird, locking up. “I see you got an invitation too. Good thing I just got my nails done, except I don’t know if they’re gonna show up in the dark. The text message was short. It didn’t say if there was going to be lights set up. Most of Slick’s videos only have atmospheric lighting, like from a flashlight.”

Lula was wearing a short, skintight, low-cut dress that was entirely bedazzled. Even in the dark, the dress was blinding. Her five-inch stilettos matched the dress, and she had silver glitter on her eyelids.

“This could be my moment,” Lula said, tugging her dress down over her ass.

“Do you really think he wants to make a video?”

“Well, yeah, what else would he want? He’s got a questionable sexual identity, so I don’t think this is going to be a romantic liaison. I got an idea for putting music to the video. Something sexy with a good strong beat. Like club music, you see what I’m saying?”

“I was a little worried that he might want my brain.”

“He didn’t say nothing about that in my text message. And that better not be the case because my brain’s staying in my head, right where it belongs.”

I knew Ranger and Tank were listening in on this conversation. It took a lot to make Ranger laugh out loud, but I figured this had him doubled over.

Lula hauled a Maglite out of her purse and flashed it on. So much for the stealth approach.

“Let’s do this,” Lula said, setting off for the gate that led to the footpath. “Showtime.”

“I thought you didn’t like cemeteries.”

“Yeah, but I’m willing to make an exception for my chance to be a video star. It’s not every day something like this comes along.”

This was true.

We walked along the footpath and spotted Zero Slick sitting on a tombstone, exactly where I’d expected to find him. He seemed to be alone. He wasn’t quite as scruffy and zombie-like as the last time I saw him. Probably because Morelli had shut down the dirt dens.

“Here we are,” Lula said. “What’s the plan? Do you have a script? Are there any other people coming? I thought by now you might have a crew.”

“I like to do my own camerawork,” Slick said. “That way I have total control.”

“For a while there when you disappeared, we thought you might have turned into a zombie,” Lula said.

“I was thinking about it, but then I decided that wasn’t my destiny. I was meant to make videos and to blog.”

“Good for you,” Lula said. “And I suppose you remembered that I had some extensive experience in front of the camera.”

“Sure,” Slick said, “but mostly I need you for diversity. That’s the key word these days. Diversity. If I want to get recognized as a great filmmaker I need to have some diversified zombies. Right now, I only have white zombies.”

“Hunh,” Lula said, hands on her hips. “Are you telling me I been invited because I’m gonna be your token diversification goddess?”

“Yes.”

“Okay then, now that we g

ot that straightened out. I’m still getting a producer credit, right?”

“Right.”

“So, it sounds to me like you want us to be zombies,” I said to Slick.

“Totally. And apologies because ordinarily we would have done this filming in one of our zombie transformation dens, but we’re currently relocating.”

“Who is ‘we’?” I asked.