Twelve Sharp

Janet Evanovich

Twelve Sharp

Thanks to Dea

One

When I was twelve years old I accidentally substituted salt for sugar in a cake recipe. I baked the cake, iced the cake, and served it up. It looked like a cake, but as soon as you cut into it and took a taste, you knew something else was going on. People are like that too. Sometimes you just can't tell what's on the inside from looking at the outside. Sometimes people are a big surprise, just like the salt cake. Sometimes the surprise turns out to be good. And sometimes the surprise turns out to be bad. And sometimes the surprise is just friggin' confusing.

Joe Morelli is one of those good surprises. He's two years older than I am, and for most of my school years, spending time with Morelli was like a visit to the dark side, alluring and frightening. He's a Trenton cop now, and he's my off-again, on-again boyfriend. He used to be the hair-raising part of my life, but my life has had a lot of changes, and now he's the normal part. He has a dog named Bob, and a nice little house, and a toaster. On the outside Morelli is still street tough and dangerously alluring. On the inside Morelli is now the sexy guy with the toaster. Go figure.

I have a hamster named Rex, a utilitarian apartment, and my toaster is broken. My name is Stephanie Plum, and I work as a bond enforcement agent, also known as bounty hunter, for my cousin Vi

Sometimes I moonlight for a guy named Ranger who's extremely bad in an incredibly good way. He's a security expert, and a bounty hunter, and he moves like smoke. Ranger is milk chocolate on the outside… a delicious, tempting, forbidden pleasure. And no one knows what's on the inside. Ranger keeps his own counsel.

I work with two women I like a lot. Co

The other woman is my sometimes-partner Lula. Lula was at this moment parading around in the bail bonds office, showing Co

With Co

Lula bent to take a look at the heel on her shoe, and Co

'Crikey,' Co

'I got underwear on,' Lula said. I'm wearing my best thong. Just 'cause I used to be a 'ho don't mean I'm cheap. Problem is that little thong stringy gets lost in all my derriere.'

'Tell me again what you're doing in this getup,' Co

'I'm go

'You can't sing,' Co

'The hell I can't,' Lula said. 'I could sing your ass off. Besides, half those rock stars can't sing. They just open their big oversize mouths and yell. And you gotta admit, I look good in this here dress. Nobody go

'She's got a point,' I said to Co

'No argument,' Co

'I'm underrealized,' Lula said. 'I gotta lot of untapped potential. Yesterday my horoscope said I gotta expand my horizons.'

'You expand anymore in that dress, and you'll get yourself arrested,' Co

The bonds office is on Hamilton Avenue, a couple blocks from St Francis Hospital. Handy for bonding out guys who've been shot. It's a small storefront office sandwiched between a beauty parlor and a used bookstore. There's an outer room with a scarred imitation leather couch, a couple folding chairs, Co

When I started working for Vi

'I hate to be a party pooper,' Co

Here's the way bail bonds works. If you're accused of a crime and you don't want to sit and rot in jail while you're waiting for your trial to come up, you can give the court a wad of money. The court takes the money and lets you walk, and you get the money back when you show up on your trial date. If you don't have that money stashed under your mattress, a bail bondsman can give the court the money on your behalf. He'll charge you a percentage of the money, maybe ten percent, and he'll keep that percentage whether you're proven guilty or not. If the accused shows up for court, the court gives the bail bondsman his money back. If the accused doesn't show up, the court keeps the money until the bondsman finds the accused and drags his sorry butt back to jail.

So you see the problem, right? Too much money going out and not enough money going in, and Vi

'Lula and I can't keep up with the skips,' I said to Co

'Yeah, and I'll tell you the problem,' Lula said. 'It used to be Ranger worked full time for you, but not any more, he's got his own security business going, and he's not doing skip tracing. It's just Stephanie and me catching the bad guys these days.'

It was true. Ranger had moved most of his business toward the security side and only went into tracking mode when something came in that was over my head. There are some who might argue everything is over my head, but for practical purposes we've had to ignore that argument.

'I hate to say this,' I told Co

'It's not that easy,' Co

Joyce Barnhardt is my archenemy. I went all through school with her, and she was a misery. And before the ink was dry on my marriage license she was in bed with my husband, who is now my ex-husband. Thank you, Joyce.