Stella, Get Your Man

Stella, Get Your Man

Nancy Bartholomew

www.millsandboon.co.uk

NANCY BARTHOLOMEW

didn’t seem like the Bombshell type at first. Sure, she grew up in Philadelphia, but she was a gentle minister’s daughter. Sometimes, though, true wildness simmers just below the surface. Nancy started singing country music in biker bars before she graduated from high school. And yes, Dad was there, sitting in the front row, watching over his little girl! She graduated from college with a degree in psychology and promptly moved into the inner city, where she found work dragging addicted inner-city teenagers into drug and alcohol rehabilitation. She then moved south to Atlanta and worked as the director of a substance abuse treatment program for court-ordered offenders.

When the criminal life became less of a challenge, Nancy turned to the final frontier—parenthood. This drove her to writing. Nancy lives in North Carolina, rides with the police on a regular basis, raises two hooligan teenage boys and tries to keep up with her writing, her psychotherapy practice and her garden. She hopes you’ll love her third “child,” Stella Valocchi, and thanks you from the bottom of her heart for reading this book!

For Martha,

who taught Stella how to be a true Bombshell!

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Epilogue

Chapter 1

It was 3:00 a.m. and freezing. I was lying next to my partner, Jake, belly deep in pig shit and trying to remind myself that repo is an art form. A good repossession requires creativity and ingenuity. Repo, like art, is not always comfortable or warm. It is messy. Artists are, by their very nature, required to suffer. I took a deep whiff of Mama Pig and knew I was truly suffering. But it wasn’t the agony that bothered me really, it was my karma. This job could ruin my karma for all time. You see, we were robbing Santa Claus.

Jake hates it when I say that, but it’s true. Okay, so it’s not exactly true, but try to tell that to any good Italian-American in Glenn Ford and see where it gets you. We were huddled up inside Santa’s pigpen, waiting for our Golden Moment, the time when the coast was clear and Jake could bring the tow truck up the driveway.

“Nothin’ good is gonna come of this,” I muttered.

“Stella, you were a cop. ‘Santa,’ as you so lovingly refer to him, is a crook. He’s a dope dealer. He didn’t pay for the sleigh, despite having the cash, so we’re taking it back. Clear and simple. It’s a job, Stella, nothing more.”

I stared up at the moon and shuddered. Joey “Smack” Spagnazi, aka “Santa,” did have a bad reputation. He hadn’t served time. He hadn’t even been convicted, but every man, woman and child in tiny Glenn Ford knew he was “connected,” in a mafioso sort of way. Everyone thought he was Chester County, Pennsylvania’s, drug kingpin, but so far, the police hadn’t been able to catch him. He was just too slick. But Joey Smack had his good side, too.

“Maybe he used the payment money to send more kids to that summer camp of his,” I offered.

Jake snorted, ever the cynic. “Yeah, right, save kids with cancer so you can later introduce them to a lifetime cocaine habit. Stella, I don’t get you. Usually you’re the one giving me the soft-heart lecture.”

“All’s I’m saying is, Joey Smack doesn’t mind copping to running numbers, loan-sharking or an assorted list of criminal activities as long as your arm, but he says drugs aren’t his thing. What if he’s telling the truth and we’re robbing Santa Claus?”

“Jesus.” Jake moaned. “Listen, we took the job, let’s just do it. If Joey Smack wants a sleigh so bad, let him pay for it. We don’t have a dog in this fight, all right? We work for Lifetime Novelty. We are not the judge and jury for Joey Smack!”

I studied my partner. Good-looking, in a tall, dark and handsome sort of way. Smart, on most occasions, and resourceful when smarts failed. Why was he so stupid about humanity?

I mentally slapped myself. He was, after all, a man, wasn’t he?

Jake was staring back at me, the impatience leaving his face as something else replaced it, something smoldering hot and, up until now, unrealized between the two of us, unfinished business that had been on the back burner for years. Yep, Jake was a man all right, the kind of man that makes you tingle all over and slowly come to a steady, about-to-boil-over-if-you-touch-me simmer that I found frankly maddening.

“Go get the truck,” I said. “Let’s get this over with.”

I rolled away from him, coming up into a low crouch that startled Mama Pig and her babies. In the darkness I heard Jake chuckle as he moved off toward the road. I forced myself to focus on the job at hand. Joey Smack’s farmhouse sat on a slight rise, hundreds of yards from the road, protected by a wrought-iron electrified fence, which we’d disabled.

In the middle of the huge expanse of pasture he called a lawn sat a huge Christmas panorama. Joey Smack was famous for this. On one side of the field, the Baby Jesus had just been born, surrounded by his entourage, every piece hand-painted and lit up to be visible from the road. On the right, Frosty the Snowman looked on a fake pond filled with magnetic figures that swirled and skated to cheery Christmas music. But it was in the center of the field, most prominently displayed, that Joey Smack had finally outdone himself.

An electronic Santa sat in an illuminated sleigh, hooked up to nine sizable and well-lit reindeer. As you watched, Santa waved and slowly doffed his hat. Every piece of the display used the appropriately colored lights. It was wired into a panel that insured a visual feast for the hundreds of cars that drove by each evening in a long slow snake that snarled traffic for hours every night from mid-November until January. The entire showcase probably compromised the electrical power banks that fed the eastern seaboard, but this didn’t worry old Joey Smack.

No, the affable host, dressed as Santa, would wander to the roadside every night, all smiles and good cheer. He’d hand each innocent child a sucker and ask earnestly, “What do you want for Christmas?” Joey seemed to believe he really was Santa Claus and the new sleigh just added fuel to his delusional fire. It was a custom-made, larger-than-life sleigh and Joey was often spotted from the road, maniacally polishing its brass frame, or sitting up on the bench, shoving the wire-mesh Santa to one side as he cracked the whip over poor Rudolph’s head.

The word on the street was that Joey slipped his regulars rocks of crack when they pulled up in front of the estate for the grand nighttime viewing, but again, there was no proof of this. The other myth about Joey Smack was easier to verify. If he knew of an Italian-American family in Glenn Ford who was in need or without at Christmastime, Joey took care of them, with presents and food and an envelope stuffed with cash to tide them over “until there’s better times.”

Was it any wonder Joey Smack never had to worry about prosecution? Who would testify against a saint like that? Further, who in their right mind would attempt to repo Santa’s sled from Santa Claus? We were risking the wrath of hundreds of children, dozens of Joey’s minions, and probably risking our own lives as well, and for what, a few lousy hundred dollars? What was the big deal about eating and paying the rent? Was that really so important? Was this really a viable career choice?

I crept slowly toward the darkened display, looking for the panel to disconnect the wires before Jake arrived with the truck. Repo is all about speed. We had to load old Santa, his vehicle and the nine tiny reindeer before someone woke up and realized what was going on. No amount of Yankee ingenuity or artistic license would make Joey Smack decide to let Santa go without a fight. Stealth was our middle name, repossession was our game.

I was half swaggering now, buying into my own propaganda. Jake and I were pros. This was a cakewalk for us. After all, he was a former Delta Force Army Ranger, while I was a veritable killing machine, a former cop with every bit of specialized training I could absorb. What could be easier than a simple repossession? In fact, maybe that was the real problem; I just wasn’t challenged by my newfound profession.

When Jake came chugging up the driveway, I was ready for him.

“They’re unhooked. Let’s do Santa and the sleigh first and then stuff the reindeer around them.”

He nodded and we flew into action, moving as quickly and quietly as possible. We were easily a hundred yards from the house, but every move sounded like a shotgun and the diesel’s engine seem to roar louder and louder as we scrambled to load old Saint Nick.

The true shotgun blast was almost a relief.

It thundered into the still night air, turning baseless apprehension into fully grounded reality. We were busted. Rudolph stood alone on the snowy ground where he waited to join his imprisoned but unsecured buddies on the flatbed of the truck. As far as I was concerned, he could stay there, too. The Lifetime Novelty Company would just have to make do with the haul we had on the back of the truck. I was not battling shotgun fire to reclaim one red-nosed reindeer. Not me.

“Drive!” I yelled, diving for the passenger-side door.

The gun roared again.

“Jake, damn it! Let’s go!”

I could hear voices now, men calling out as they ran toward the pasture.

I screamed his name one more time, but knew even before I looked, that Jake had been hit.

I flew out of the truck, ducked low behind the flatbed and yelled, “Repossession! Hold your fire!”

This was met with another blast from the shotgun, this time over my head. They didn’t care who I was. They were protecting their property and would say that when the police came to investigate our murders. Shit!

“Stella!” Jake’s voice, weak, came from the rear of the flatbed. I found him, struggling to stand, and went to him. I grabbed his arm, slipped my hand around his waist and felt sticky liquid coat my fingers. My heart clutched in my throat and for a heartbeat I found I couldn’t move.

“Okay, babe, hold on,” I whispered.

A blast of gunfire blew out the windshield and back window of the truck. With strength I didn’t know I had, I pulled Jake forward, throwing him onto the floorboard of the truck as I dived over him to slide behind the wheel.

I heard Jake moan as I pulled my Glock out of its holster and slammed the truck into gear. We were moving.

Jake squirmed, trying to pull his door shut as he, too, reached for his weapon.

“I got it!” I said. “Just lie still. You’re bleeding!”

I was driving hell for leather toward the front gate. Behind us, Joey Smack’s security guards fired again. As I watched in the rearview mirror, a set of headlights swung out from behind the farmhouse and began following us. I glanced at Jake, saw the color drain from his face and knew we were in trouble.

My chest tightened with feelings I didn’t want to acknowledge, not to myself and certainly not to Jake. I was scared, but not about Joey Smack or his men. I was scared because it was Jake lying there, bleeding, and because I knew with a deep certainty that he mattered to me, really mattered.

“This is so not good,” I muttered.

“What?”

I didn’t answer him immediately. It wouldn’t do for Jake to see me scared, or worse, concerned. Any sign of emotion from me would be a dead giveaway. Around Jake I was as cool as a cucumber. I forced myself to take a deep breath before I spoke.

“Oh, nothing,” I said. “I just think we could’ve planned this one better, that’s all.”

Jake sighed, a half moan that sounded like raw pain. “Just like a woman,” he gasped. “Always got twenty-twenty hindsight, always gotta process the problems in the relationship.”

I looked out in front of us, squinting as the cold night air hit my eyes.

“No, this is not about twenty-twenty hindsight,” I said. “It is about you letting the damn gate swing shut because you were in too much of a hurry to check behind yourself. Admit it, you were in a big hurry to score Santa and you let the gate swing shut!”

“It was wide open,” Jake protested, starting to sound like a querulous child. “I knew we’d be leaving in a hurry. Remember? We disabled it.”

I stared at the eight-foot wrought-iron fence up ahead. It was closed and locked. I took a deep breath.

“Well, it’s shut now,” I said. “Hold on!”

I punched the accelerator and gripped the steering wheel with both hands.

“Don’t hurt my truck!” Jake yelled. “It’s all I got left of the shop!”

I ignored him. Jake’s truck was dispensable, we were not. His shop might’ve been blown to bits by a maniac, and he might love his truck, but I had to believe our lives were worth a lot more.

“Stella!”

We hit the fence dead-on. The shock of the impact threw me against the steering wheel and wedged Jake tighter beneath the glove compartment. The F–350 bent the metal bars like green tree limbs, but they refused to break. I shook the impact off, fastened my seat belt and shot a look in the rearview mirror as I backed up and got ready to try again. The headlights were gaining on us.

“Stella, no!” Jake screamed.

I ignored him and yelled. “Brace yourself!”

I mashed the accelerator pedal to the floor, held my left foot on the brake and then, just as I felt certain the engine would blow, released the brake pedal. We slammed into the fence, the lock gave, and we were through.

“My truck!” Jake moaned.

“Your ass,” I said, wincing as I tried to turn my neck and look into the rearview mirror. “I saved your ass and all you can think about is a few cosmetic repairs to your grillwork?”

I heard gunfire behind us, close behind us, and saw Joey Smack’s people on our tail.

“You still got your gun?” I asked.

Jake pulled himself up onto the front seat, SIG-Sauer in hand, panting with the pain and exertion.

“Out the back window,” I said.

Another gunshot and the left rearview mirror bit the dust.

“Goddamnit! That does it!” Jake cried. He sprang up, aimed, and then lowered the pistol. “I can’t see a fucking thing! The damn sleigh’s in the way. I can’t get a shot off.”

I veered left, then right, hoping to keep the car from pulling up alongside us. I looked in the rearview mirror again just as Santa took matters into his own hands. As I watched, the robotic Santa seemed to sway, his arms spinning wildly as he careened out of the sleigh and almost toppled off the back of the flatbed. He lay like a swimmer, poised to dive, wobbling.

“Jake?”

“What now?”

“You didn’t have time to tie Santa down, did you?”

Jake rose to look out the back window frame.

Santa began to move, sailing off the flatbed in slow-motion perfection, and crashing down onto the hood of our pursuers. There was a loud sound of tires screeching. The car bobbled across the highway and off into the woods. The last image I had was of a black sedan crashing into a tree and exploding into a fireball.

“Damn!” Jake murmured. “I think they’re dead.”

I ignored him and drove. There was nothing I could do about that right now. Saving our lives and taking care of Jake was my only focus. I had no idea how badly he’d been wounded. My chest hurt with the effort to keep from screaming. I wouldn’t allow myself to even consider the possibility of Jake’s injuries being life-threatening. I couldn’t go there and still function. It was all business or Stella blows a gasket, and I just couldn’t afford the luxury of emotion. I had to make sure Jake was safe and on the mend before I gave in to my feelings.

Along the way to the hospital we lost a couple of reindeer, but considering we’d managed to survive, I viewed the loss more as casualties of war and not shrinkage of the merchandise. I planned to charge Lifetime Novelty a hazard fee, too, for pain and suffering. By the time we actually reached the medical center, I’d managed to parlay our near disaster into a right hefty invoice, due upon receipt.

“You know,” I said as we pulled up to the emergency-room loading dock, “it wasn’t such a bad night after all! We got what we came for, nobody on our team died and we’re going to make a lot of money!”

When Jake didn’t answer, I turned to look at him. He was slumped against the passenger-side window, unconscious.

Chapter 2

Eventually, the entire team assembled in the emergency-room waiting area. I call us a team, but that’s really for lack of a better term. A few months ago, after my career and love life went ka-plooie in one short night, I’d returned home to my old hometown, hoping to lick my wounds and regroup. What’s that old saying? We make plans and God laughs? Three months later I was still here, only now I was in business with most of my extended family and a man who’d once left me standing at the altar.

If I’d seen another option, believe me, I would’ve hopped on it like ugly on an ape, but my uncle was dead, my aunt needed me, and my cousin was too much of a fruitcake to hold down a regular nine-to-five job. Besides, she was in love with the former assistant D.A. for Chester County. That kind of hookup comes in real handy when you’re starting a one-stop-does-it-all private investigation agency.

Jake won his ticket into the deal by helping me find my uncle’s killer. My aunt was along for the ride because she is one of our country’s brightest chemists, and because of that, she requires almost constant protection. Where better place to be protected than in an agency specializing in detection, protection and repossession?

So when Jake got shot, it was only natural that they all showed up to show their support. We might not have a plan, and on any given day one or more of us has at least one screw loose, but we are loyal, and my aunt loves Jake for reasons I may never really understand. There was no stopping them from coming, and to tell the truth, I was relieved. I looked around the waiting room, saw them sitting there, and felt somehow better about everything, even Jake.

My aunt Lucy, her gray hair still in pink rollers, her butterball body encased in a solid black dress with black sensible shoes, sat next to my bizarre cousin, Nina. My aunt was frowning and clutching her black purse to her ample bosom.

Nina, despite the early hour, looked the same as she always did, disheveled. She sat next to Spike Montgomery, Chester County’s former assistant D.A., and her girlfriend. Nina was wearing wrinkled khakis, a T-shirt under a wrinkled man’s cotton dress shirt and open-weave, thick-soled sandals. Her short, spiky blond hair stood out all over her head, its pink tips glowing like traffic cones in a work zone out on I–95. Sometimes I wondered how Spike, the seeming counterculture opposite to Nina, had ever fallen in love with such an oddball.

Spike was the only one of us who seemed unperturbed by a 4:00 a.m. wake-up call to the emergency room. Her long brown hair was pulled back into a simple, conservative ponytail. Her jeans were Tommy Hilfiger, dark denim, and very much unwrinkled. Her turtleneck sweater was unblemished beige, and matched her skin tone and flawless complexion. She wore stiletto heels, even at this hour, when it was all I could do to balance myself in sneakers. But that was Spike, performance artist and former D.A. With her, nothing was truly as it seemed. She was like a tiny Christmas present in a huge, well-wrapped box.

Of course, Lloyd wasn’t allowed in despite my aunt’s protests that he was really my uncle Benny reincarnated. He was, after all, an Australian sheepdog. My dog. Instead, Lloyd was relegated to Aunt Lucy’s ancient Buick, where he sat behind the wheel, with one paw on the gearshift, waiting for updates. Nina had tried to smuggle him in to no avail, and I could tell she wasn’t going to let the issue die an easy death.

As if reading my thoughts, Nina got up and decided to revisit the issue with the powers that watched over the emergency room. She walked across the room, shoulders squared, head held high. Spike watched, following Nina’s progress with a benevolent smile.

“The Western world so discriminates against Eastern philosophy,” Nina told the security guard at the E.R. entrance. “I mean, like, in China, Border collies would be a part of the family. They wouldn’t have to wait in cars.”

“Yeah, but that’s on account of the family don’t want nobody eating their backup stash,” the guard said. “Here we just say leave the animals outside where they belong.”

“You are such a bigot!” Nina sputtered.

That was when Aunt Lucy decided to get into the fray. “You are talking about my husband, sir,” she snapped. “And I do not appreciate your attitude! Benito should be with Jake.”

The security guard wasn’t sure what to do with this turn of events. He took the cigar stump out of his mouth and stared, slack-jawed, at my aunt.

“Excuse me?” he said.

Nina stepped in between the two. “My uncle died a few months ago. Aunt Lucy says the dog is him, reincarnated.” She glared at the guard. “And who’s to say he isn’t?” she finished, daring the man to disagree.

The security guard cocked his head to one side. “Is this uncle related to the patient?” he asked.

“No,” Aunt Lucy answered. “But we look out for each other.”

The guard gave her a patronizing smile. “Well, then,” he said, “if he ain’t family, he ain’t coming in anyway, so he can park his canine butt in the lot like all the other dogs!”

That’s when Spike took over dragging the two women inside while I took a detour back into Jake’s examining room. I was family on account of I’d told the admitting clerk that I was Jake’s wife. I figured they might get sticky on the policies and procedures, so I took care of the red tape early on.

After all, Jake had been unconscious. It was up to me to ensure his safety and overall well-being. We were partners now and even if I had mixed feelings about the guy in real life, it wouldn’t do to act that way when the chips were down. It just wouldn’t be professional. Actually, I was about to lose my mind worrying about him. I was having a great deal of trouble stuffing my feelings back into a neat little box. I couldn’t stand thinking he might be critically wounded.

“Relax,” the resident told me. “It’s just a flesh wound with a lot of blood loss. The bullet went clean through his side. Other than a couple of little scars, he should be fine. Just give him a few days’ rest and go easy on the, um, physical activities.”