Best Evanovich, Janet

It’s going to be hard for Stephanie to keep her hands off all that ice cream, and even harder for her to keep her hands off Ranger. He lives alone in the back room of his auto body shop on Baker Street in north Trenton, and he hasn’t cut his hair in at least ten years. He has a reputation for drinking too much and abusing women, and he has a hotdog with testicles tattooed on his forehead. None of this would be any of my business, but a couple months ago Trenton’s finest caught Virgil hijacking an eighteen--wheeler filled with cases of premium bourbon. Virgil was arrested and subsequently bonded out by my bail bondsman cousin and employer, Vincent Plum. If Virgil isn’t brought back into the system in a timely fashion, Vinnie will lose his bond money. I’m a college graduate with virtually no marketable skills, so for the past several years I’ve been tracking down Vinnie’s skips. What I lack in expertise I make up for with desperation and tenacity, because I only get paid when I catch someone. It was ten o’clock at night in mid--September, and cool enough for me to need a sweatshirt over my T--shirt. I was currently pulling surveillance on Larry Virgil’s three--bay garage, hoping to catch him entering or exiting. “He isn’t answering his phone, and there aren’t any lights on in the building.”. Lula is a former ’ho who Vinnie hired as a file clerk a while back. When files went digital he didn’t have the guts to fire her, so now Lula shows up every day for work and pretty much does whatever she wants. I have shoulder--length mostly unmanageable curly brown hair that’s usually pulled into a ponytail, and I’ve been told I look a little like Julia Roberts when she played a hooker in Pretty Woman. Only time this man goes out is to hijack a truck, and he got a crimp put in that activity.”. Lights flashed at the cross street and an eighteen--wheeler chugged toward us and parked in front of the lot attached to the garage. The lot was enclosed by a six--foot--high chain link fence topped with razor wire. “It’s him,” Lula said, sticking her hand into her big bedazzled purse and rooting around in it looking for her gun. Lula was out from behind the wheel of her Firebird, running across the road, waving her gun and yelling, “Bond enforcement!”. Virgil went deer in the headlights for a moment, then bolted for the corner with Lula in pursuit. Even in the dark of night I could see that Lula was running flat--out in her spike--heeled Via Spigas. Her spandex miniskirt was up around her waist, and one of her basketball--sized boobs had popped out of her tank top. He reached Lula’s red Firebird, wrenched the door open, jumped in, and took off. And it got all my makeup in there.”. “Guess you left the key in the ignition,” I said, gasping for air, coming alongside Lula. “Then go around and pull me in.”. I climbed into the cab from the passenger side, crawled over, and gave Lula a hand up. “There’s a awful lot of doohickeys here.”. “I thought you said you knew how to drive one of these.”. “I’m just sayin’ this here’s a fancy rig. I used to drive my Uncle Jimmy’s dump truck before I got established as a ’ho.”. She planted a Via Spiga on the clutch pedal and shifted. “It don’t matter if we lose a gear or two on account of this baby got a lot of them.”. We slowly drove down the street. Good thing there weren’t any cars there.”. I caught flashing strobes in my side mirror. “It’ll waste my time and I gotta get to the chop shop before they start on my Firebird. He’ll come in handy when we get to Stark Street and we confront Larry Virgil. This is our lucky day.”. The cop car zipped past us and came to a stop just before the next intersection, blocking our way. The patrolmen jumped out of the way, and Lula punted the patrol car halfway down the block before bringing the semi to a stop. That moron Larry Virgil stole my car and I gotta get to Stark Street before my baby’s nothing but spare parts. “Lula didn’t totally have the hang of driving this thing.”. Eddie’s partner, Jimmy, was standing alongside him. “Her grandmother would make my life a living hell.”. “What do you want to do about the car?” Jimmy asked Eddie. And I can get him to check with the chop shop to make sure they don’t take Lula’s car apart.”. Ranger is a former Special Forces operative turned businessman and security expert. He owns Rangeman, an exclusive security firm housed in a stealth building in downtown Trenton. I made a short call to Ranger and joined Lula and Eddie at the side of the truck. “That would be if I had a gun,” Lula said, thinking twice about her offer since she didn’t have a permit to carry concealed. Eddie took the key, opened the door to the freezer truck, and a body fell out. It was a chocolate--covered man, sprinkled with chopped pecans, totally frozen. “I’m going to see if I can get the trunk open on the squad car so I can get some crime scene tape and rubber gloves.”. Lula looked into the trailer. Somebody’s gonna be real disappointed in the morning if they don’t get their ice cream delivery. Not that I’d turn my nose up at a carton of this here ice cream if it accidentally fell out of the truck.”. “That would be tampering with evidence,” Jimmy said. “Just sayin’.”. Eddie returned with some yellow tape and a box of disposable gloves. “They wouldn’t look good on me, and they’d ruin my nail varnish.”. A shiny black Porsche Cayenne drove up and eased to a stop, and Ranger got out. He’s the boss, but he still works alongside his men if the threat level is high or if they’re short--handed. “I don’t want to go through his pockets and ruin the chocolate.”. Eddie and Ranger pulled on rubber gloves, crammed the stiff back into the truck, and closed the door on him. We drove to Stark Street in silence, and Ranger parked in front of the chop shop. A Rangeman guy who looked like the Hulk except for the part about being green got out of the Explorer and walked over to us. Tonight it was said softly with an undertone of desire, as if he might take me home and stay awhile. It gave me an instant rush, and heat curled through a bunch of my internal organs. It was a good moment, but I think it’s a little like planning on winning the lottery or contemplating losing five pounds. What were you doing with the freezer truck?”. “Lula and I were staking out Larry Virgil, and he drove up in the semi. And Lula crashed the truck into Eddie Gazarra’s squad car.”. “And the deceased?”. “We opened the door to look inside and the guy fell out.”. “As it turns out,” Ranger said, “I’ve been hired by Harry Bogart. In the past it’s been confined to competitive pricing, ripping off recipes, ads that pushed the boundaries of libel, and occasionally a shouting match at a family function.”. “They’re related?”. “Cousins.”. “And I guess they don’t like each other.”. “Not even a little. Bogart is sure it’s Mo Morris out to ruin him, but he can’t prove anything.”. “So he’s hired you.”. “His factory is old--school. He says ice cream is happiness and comfort and his customers would turn to birthday cake and mac and cheese if they thought his ice cream was under siege.”. “He sounds like a nice man.”. “He’s ruthless and miserly. I’m told that everyone gets to take a pint of ice cream home with them at the end of the shift in Mo Morris’s plant.”. “Hard to pass that up.”. Ranger stopped in front of my apartment building’s back door. The kiss was light but lingering, sending a clear message of checked passion. “I’ll make the arrangements for you to start work at Bogart’s plant and be back in touch,” Ranger said. “Have a good night?”. “Eddie Gazarra called you, didn’t he?”. “Cupcake, everyone called me, including your mother and the Trenton Times.”. “News travels fast.”. “Not every day someone gets dipped in chocolate and sprinkled with nuts. Usually people in Trenton just get stabbed and shot.”. I squeezed between Morelli and Bob, flipped the lid up on the pizza box, and took a piece.

Even Joe Morelli, the city’s hottest cop, is struggling to find a clue to the suspected killer’s whereabouts. He’s dodged the bullet this time, but if Ranger wants to survive the next attempt on his life, he’ll have to enlist Stephanie’s help and reveal a bit more of his mysterious past. A boob job and getting revenge on Joe Morelli’s Grandma Bella can barely hold a candle to what’s number one on the list—but that’s top secret . Praise for Top Secret Twenty-One “The combination of biting dialogue, outrageous characters and intense story lines are consistent throughout. And [Janet Evanovich] novels are the true definition of a guilty pleasure.” —Associated Press “Evanovich doesn’t disappoint.

The only people who care about finding Linken’s killer are Trenton cop Joe Morelli, who has been assigned the case, security expert Ranger, who was hired to protect Linken, and Stephanie, who has her eye on a cash prize and hopefully has some tricks up her sleeve. Janet Evanovich is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Stephanie Plum series, the Fox and O’Hare series, the Lizzy and Diesel series, the Knight and Moon series, the Alexandra Barnaby novels and Troublemaker graphic novel, and How I Write: Secrets of a Bestselling Author .