The Heist

copy of Rudyard Kipling’s
The Man Who Would Be King
.
    “This is perfect,” he said. “I love it. You stole this from Griffin’s library when you went back for the laptop, didn’t you?”
    She nodded. “I thought you should have it.”
    He flashed her the thousand-watt smile. “Do you realize what this means?”
    “Yeah, I’m a thief.”
    “Honey, that’s such a turn-on.”
    He reached for her, and she jumped away.
    “Stand down,” Kate said. “My hands are lethal weapons.”
    Nick backed her against the wall and leaned into her. “I’ve got a better lethal weapon than you do,” he said. “Wanna see it?”
    “No!”
    Good lord, she could feel his lethal weapon pressing againsther belly. It was big and hard. And as much as she hated to admit it, his big, hard weapon was exactly what she needed. She looked down and gasped because it was so perfect.
    “Is this for me?” she asked.
    “Absolutely,” he said. “Take it if you want it.”
    “I want it,” she said. “I really, really want it.”
    It was a Toblerone bar. Giant size.
    “It’s more a symbol than a memento,” Nick said, handing her the Toblerone. “So where does this leave us?”
    “It leaves us waiting for our next assignment from Deputy Director Bolton,” she said. “I go back to being an FBI agent and you go back to being a fugitive on the run from the law. But I should warn you, I’ve been reassigned to head up the manhunt, so stay out of trouble.”
    “We’ll see,” he said.

 

    From #1
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    JANET EVANOVICH
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    TAKEDOWN TWENTY
    Stephanie Plum and the gang are back …
    NOVEMBER 19, 2013
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    A BANTAM BOOKSHARDCOVER AND EBOOK

It was late at night and Lula and I were hunting down Salvatore Sunucchi, better known as Uncle Sunny, when Lula spotted Jimmy Spit. Spit had his prehistoric Cadillac Eldorado parked on the fringe of the Trenton public housing projects, half a block from Sunucchi’s apartment, and he had the trunk lid up.
    “Hold on here,” Lula said. “Jimmy’s open for business, and it looks to me like he got a trunk full of handbags. I might need one of them. A girl can never have too many handbags.”
    Five minutes later, Lula was examining a purple Brahmin bag studded with what Spit claimed were Swarovski crystals. “Are you sure this is a authentic Brahmin bag?” Lula asked Spit. “I don’t want no cheap-ass imitation.”
    “I have it on good authority these are the real deal,” Spit said. “And just for you I’m only charging ten bucks. How could you go wrong?”
    Lula put the bag on her shoulder to take it for a test drive, and a giraffe loped past us and continued on down the road, turning left at Sixteenth Street and disappearing into the darkness.
    “I didn’t see that,” Lula said.
    “I didn’t see that neither,” Spit said. “You want to buy this handbag or what?”
    “That was a giraffe,” I said. “It turned the corner at Sixteenth Street.”
    “Probably goin’ the 7-Eleven,” Spit said. “Get a Slurpee.”
    A black Cadillac Escalade with tinted windows and a satellite dish attached to the roof sped past us and hooked a left at Sixteenth. There was the sound of tires screeching to a stop, then gunfire and an ungodly shriek.
    “Not only didn’t I see that giraffe, but I also didn’t see that car or hear that shit happening,” Spit said.
    He grabbed the ten dollars from Lula, slammed the trunk lid shut, and took off.
    “They better not have hurt that giraffe,” Lula said. “I don’t go with that stuff.”
    I looked over at her. “I thought you didn’t see the giraffe.”
    “I was afraid it might have been the ’shrooms on my pizza last night what was making me see things. I mean it’s not every day you see a giraffe running down the street.”
    My name is Stephanie Plum, and I work as a bond enforcement officer for Vincent Plum Bail Bonds. Lula is the office file clerk, but more often than not she’s my wheelman. Lula is a couple inches shorter than I am, a bunch of pounds bigger, and her skin is a lot darker. She’s a former streetwalker who gave up her corner but kept her wardrobe. She favors neon colors and animal prints, and she fearlessly tests the limits of spandex. Today her brown hair wasstreaked with shocking pink to match a tank