Game On: Tempting Twenty-Eight (Stephanie Plum #28)(2)

It was a clichéd line, but I got the point.

“What do you know about Oswald?” Diesel asked me.

“He’s fifty-two years old, five foot nine inches, black hair pulled into a ponytail, medium build, gave us an address of a short-term rental on Dugan Street. He hasn’t been seen in the neighborhood since he was arrested. I wouldn’t be happy if you snatched him up and whisked him away before I could collect my recovery money.”

“Understood. Maybe you should rethink letting me live here.”

“I don’t need the recovery money that bad.”

Diesel grinned. “That’s brutal. What’s wrong with me?”

“You don’t know how to share an apartment. You take it over. You have no sense of personal space or privacy. You always have to get your own way and you have a problem understanding the concept of no.”

“That’s it?”

“That’s the tip of the iceberg. You can’t stay here. It’ll be uncomfortably crowded in my bed when Morelli sleeps over.”

“I’ll concede that one.”

I poured coffee into a to-go mug and grabbed my messenger bag and a sweatshirt.

“I have to go,” I said. “Things to do. Make sure the door is locked when you leave.”

I live in a one-bedroom apartment on the second floor of a three-story apartment building. It sits on the edge of Trenton proper, making it a twenty-minute drive to the bail bonds office, my parents’ house, my boyfriend’s house, and my favorite bakery. I took the stairs instead of waiting for the elevator, exited through the back door, and crossed the parking lot to my previously owned, slightly dented Ford Focus.

I wasn’t entirely comfortable leaving Diesel alone in my apartment but I was a working girl and I needed to check in at the office.





CHAPTER TWO


Vincent Plum Bail Bonds is located on Hamilton Avenue, on the edge of my parents’ neighborhood. I parked in front of the small storefront-type office and marched in. Connie Rosolli, the office manager, was at her desk and my coworker, Lula, was pacing back and forth across the room.

It’s hard to say exactly what Lula’s job entails, but she mostly hangs with me. She’s a former professional erectile engineer who after years of practice has perfected the art of successfully squeezing her size 16 body into size 7 dresses.

“I’ve got a problem,” Lula said when I walked into the office. “My hairstylist is moving out of Trenton. Can you believe it? Why would someone want to do that? And what am I supposed to do? Where am I going to find someone to replace her? She’s a hair genius.”

I have curly shoulder-length brown hair and Lula has hair du jour. At the moment it was a huge puff ball of midnight blue enhanced with silver pixie dust.

“It’s not like I can have any kind of hair,” Lula said. “I need hair that can hold its own with my big, voluptuous body. Most hairdos get overwhelmed with the rest of me. You see what I’m saying? And if that isn’t problem enough, Connie didn’t get doughnuts this morning. She got bagels.”

I went to the box of bagels on Connie’s desk and selected a sesame seed.

“I thought I’d change things around,” Connie said. “Especially since the bakery got shot up last night, and I couldn’t get past the crime scene tape this morning.”

“Say what?” Lula said. “I didn’t hear about that. Who would shoot up a bakery? That’s just wrong.”

“Was anyone hurt?” I asked Connie.

“No. It was after hours,” Connie said. “It was empty except for the lunatic who broke in, went gonzo, and emptied a couple clips into the display case with the éclairs and cannoli.”

“That’s sick,” Lula said. “What the heck’s wrong with people these days. You just don’t go around shooting éclairs and cannoli. If you gotta shoot something, you want to at least shoot something undesirable, like something with no gluten in it.”

“Did they catch the shooter?” I asked Connie.

Connie spread cream cheese on an onion bagel. “The police responded to the alarm and caught the shooter leaving the bakery. Vinnie already bonded her out. Mary Jane Merkle.”

“We went to school with her,” I said to Connie. “She was a cheerleader. She was prom queen.”

Lula took the file from Connie and paged through it. “Here’s her booking picture,” Lula said. “She looks like she stuck her finger in an electric socket.”

I glanced at the photo. Mary Jane had fright night hair. It looked like she’d lacquered it with hair spray in the middle of a cat 4 hurricane. Her eyes were wide open and crazed. Her face was streaked with mascara. Note to self: If you’re going to go gonzo and get arrested, use waterproof mascara in case you cry.

“You never know about people,” Lula said. “One minute they’re prom queen and then next thing they’re whackadoodle.”

“We had two new FTAs come in this morning,” Connie said, handing me the paperwork. “Nothing big. A homeless guy who keeps killing and stick-roasting the ducks in the park, and an indecent exposure.”

FTA stands for Failure to Appear. If you get arrested and don’t want to hang around in jail waiting for your court date, you put up some money and you’re released. If you haven’t got the money, you can pay a bail bonds agent, like my cousin Vinnie, to essentially loan you the money. If you fail to appear for your court date or violate the rules of your release, Vinnie’s money is forfeited. This makes him unhappy, and he sends me out to find you. If I bring you back in a timely manner, Vinnie can recoup his money.