Stella, Get Your Man

Stella, Get Your Man
Nancy Bartholomew

Just once I'd like to have a plan go my way. Is that too much to ask?Smart-mouthed P.I. Stella Valocchi is finally in business, with the office and the aggravating employee–former fiancé Jake Carpenter–to prove it. And when a client with a sob story hires them to find her brother, success is one missing man away–until the search becomes hazardous to Stella's life. Threats, gunshots and car chases won't put her off the case. Neither will Jake's insistence that they be full partners–and maybe more. But the closer Stella is to getting her man, the more the case looks like a carefully set trap–and she's the bait….

“A clever, outrageously funny caper.”

—New York Times bestselling author Stella Cameron on Stella, Get Your Gun

“I think we could’ve planned this one better.”

Jake sighed. “Just like a woman. Always got 20/20 hindsight.”

“This is not about 20/20 hindsight,” I said. “It’s about you letting the damned gate swing shut because you were in too much of a hurry to check behind yourself.”

“It was wide open,” Jake protested. “We disabled it.”

“Well, it’s shut now,” I said. “Hold on.” I punched the accelerator.

“Stella, no!” Jake yelled. “Don’t hurt my truck!”

I heard gunfire behind us and mashed the accelerator pedal to the floor. “Brace yourself!”

Stella, Get Your Man

Nancy Bartholomew

www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://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?