Stella, Get Your Gun

  “Kick-ass competence and comedy are a match made in heaven, when the author is Nancy Bartholomew!”

  —Jill M. Smith, Romantic Times BOOKClub Magazine

  “Stella! Wait!” Pete cried. “Honey, really, come inside. Let’s talk about this.”

  I saw Lou Ann behind Pete, hastily pulling on her jeans and hopping around on one leg. She was panicked, and that made me perversely happy. I put the car into neutral and opened the driver’s side door. Pete looked hopeful, probably thinking that with just the right approach he could smooth the entire thing over.

  “Well,” I said. “I guess you’d better pick one of us. Are you ready to start over, too?”

  Pete looked puzzled, but Lloyd, the black-and-white-spotted mutt, bounded down the steps and leaped into the car.

  “Pete?” I said, my voice a sweet coo of encouragement.

  “Yeah, baby?”

  “Bite my smooth tender ass!”

  With that, Lloyd and I drove away.

  Dear Reader,

  We’re thrilled to bring you another exhilarating month of captivating women and explosive action! Our Bombshell heroines will take you for the ride of your life as they come under fire from all directions. With lives at stake and emotions on edge, these women stand and deliver memorable stories that will keep you riveted from cover to cover.

  When the going gets tough, feisty Stella Valocchi gets going, in Stella, Get Your Gun, by Nancy Bartholomew. Her boyfriend’s a lying rat, her uncle's been murdered and her sexy ex is back in town, but trust Stella—compared to last week, things are looking up….

  Loyal CIA agent Samantha St. John has been locked up—for treason! With the reluctant help of her wary partner, Sam will hunt for the real traitor—who bears an uncanny resemblance to Sam herself—in Double-Cross, by Meredith Fletcher, the latest adventure in the twelve-book ATHENA FORCE continuity series.

  Don’t miss the twists and turns as a former operative is sucked back into the spy life to right the wrongs done to her family, in author Natalie Dunbar’s exciting thriller, Private Agenda.

  And finally, a secret agent needs a break—but when her final mission goes wrong, she’s pushed to the limit and has to take on a rookie partner. Luckily she’s still got her deadliest weapon…it’s Killer Instinct, by Cindy Dees.

  When it comes to excitement, we’re pulling no punches! Please send me your comments c/o Silhouette Books, 233 Broadway, Suite 1001, New York, NY 10279.

  Sincerely,

  Natashya Wilson

  Associate Senior Editor, Silhouette Bombshell

  Stella, Get Your Gun

  NANCY BARTHOLOMEW

  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, her 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. Then Nancy turned to the final frontier…parenthood. This drove her to writing. Now 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 “daughter,” Stella Valocchi, and thanks you from the bottom of her heart for reading this book.

  For Marti

  Mentor, Midwife, True Blue Friend

  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

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 1

  In retrospect, perhaps kidnapping Lloyd was a bad idea, not that I regret it. I most certainly do not regret kidnapping Lloyd. It improved both our lives, and I can say that in all honesty, even if my law-enforcement career and reputation have gone straight to the dogs. Before Lloyd, my life was in the toilet, so anything short of the sewer is an improvement. I know what you’re thinking—how can a woman feel her life is on the upswing when she’s just been shot at, arrested and thrown in jail? Trust me, compared to last week, life is most definitely looking up.

  Last week I was just a junior patrol officer looking to make detective. All I wanted was my shot at the big time, and thanks to “Needle Nose” Robanski, I thought I was about to realize this lifelong ambition.

  Needle Nose was on a one-man crime spree somewhere in Garden Beach, Florida. He had a nasty knack for waylaying exotic dancers, beating them beyond recognition and then finishing the job with a filet knife. I figured I was going to be the one to catch him. I guess I just didn’t realize it would take more than a bottle of blond hair dye, stiletto heels and a fake leather loincloth to do the job. Undercover police work takes conviction. You have to sell yourself in your perp’s world. You have to be one of them and not just pass as a cheap imitation. So I was out there, selling myself, the night old Needle Nose made his appearance.

  The manager of the Solitaire Gentleman’s Club, Alfonso Lewis, wasn’t too pleased with my performance. He kept calling my sergeant and complaining I was bad for business, that I had no “customer service orientation.” I ask you, did you ever try to conceal a microphone in a padded bra the size of a postage stamp? Do you know what it feels like to have a hard plastic button nibbling away at your right boob while you’re simultaneously bending down to deliver a drink and trying to keep some jerk’s hand from slipping between your legs?

  It was a challenge, but I handled it because I was a professional, and because I wanted Needle Nose Robanski almost as much as I wanted the promotion that catching him would ensure.

  My partner, Lou Ann Ross, called in sick that night, so the sergeant sent a rookie to man the surveillance van in the parking lot. He didn’t send just any rookie, either; he sent Leon. Leon was twenty-one, maybe five foot six and weighed in at just under 130 pounds. He’d been with a training coach for three solid rotations before someone finally stuck him on our squad and warned us not to give him anything too important to do. Leon was a hair away from unemployment, and I was his last shot at redemption.

  When I saw him pull up, I could only assume that catching Needle Nose must not have been too important to the Garden Beach Police Department. Covering my ass must’ve ranked up there with mundane chores like dispensing parking tickets. Maybe sending Leon was the department’s way of saying that our undercover operation wasn’t paying off. Needle Nose Robanski wasn’t taking the bait and had probably left town.

  Still, when I stepped out onto the loading dock of the club a little after 1:00 a.m., I assumed Leon had me covered. I needed a break. I’d just come close to committing a vicious assault of my own, and had Alfonso not been tailing me like a bird dog, I might’ve gotten away with more than just teaching my nasty little customer a few things about respect and anatomy.

  I slipped out the back door, shutting it firmly behind me, and paused to catch my breath. “Leon,” I said softly, believing he was secure in his listening post across the lot, “I’m taking a break. I’m gonna sit in my car and eat a sandwich.”

>   I stood there for another moment or two, scanning the lot, and then headed down the steps. It was a beautiful fall night, with a clear sky and bright stars. Living on the Florida Panhandle was heaven to a displaced Yankee. I let myself relax a little. I got careless and that was all it took. Needle Nose caught me off guard just as I inserted the key into the driver’s side door. He slammed me into the hard metal of my car and clamped his thick hand over my mouth.

  “Don’t fucking move or I’ll cut you,” he said. To make sure I took him seriously, he jabbed the tip of his knife into my side, the cold metal nicking my bare skin and drawing a thin trickle of blood.

  A surge of adrenaline hit me, dead center in my chest, sucking my heart up into my throat. This was it, the real thing, the moment I’d trained for—a face-to-face encounter with a bad guy.

  Needle Nose was huge compared to me. He must’ve outweighed me by seventy pounds and had a good eight inches on my five feet four inches. To make matters worse, he had bad breath and a weapon. I would’ve given anything for my Glock.

  I waited for Leon, hoping he’d left the tape running in the camera and on the recorder. I listened hard for the sound of the van door opening but heard nothing. Needle Nose pulled me back against his chest, one arm wrapped around my neck while his other hand held the knife against my exposed skin. He twisted away from the vehicle and began moving toward the Dumpster, half pushing and half dragging me with him.

  I knew what would come next; I’d read all the reports. It was always the same M.O. He would take me behind the trash bin, slit my clothes off, rape me, beat me and then cut me beyond all recognition. Good thing I had the full support of the Garden Beach Police Department behind me; otherwise, I might’ve been in trouble.

  When Needle Nose rounded the trash bin, I decided not to count on backup. It was time to make my move. Unfortunately, he made his move first. He slipped his knife up behind my bra strap and sliced it cleanly before I could react or even really process what he’d done. It was too late to stop and regroup; I was already taking action, faking a stumble to the left. His knife hand flew out to the side as he cut the strap. He was forced to try to grab me with his left hand.

  I used his own momentum to duck back under him, grabbing his wrist as I went, twisting and jerking his arm up as hard as I could. I was rewarded with the sound of ripping tendons and ligaments, followed by a sharp scream of pain as Needle Nose fell forward and I landed on top of him.

  I hung on to his thick wrist as he bucked like a bronco. I was riding him and trying to drive the heel of my stiletto into his knife hand when Leon finally materialized.

  “Stop!” he cried in his squeaky adolescent voice. “Garden Beach Police! Stop or I’ll shoot!”

  But Needle Nose never heard him. As Leon arrived, the sharp point of my heel had connected with the meaty flesh of his underarm, sinking in with a sickening squish that forced Needle Nose to drop the knife. Blood began to rain down on the two of us as I fought to control him. The guy wouldn’t quit. If anything, he fought harder, but then, so did I.

  I lurched forward, grabbed Needle Nose by his stringy hair, jerked his head back and then, with a force I didn’t know I had, slammed his face into the concrete slab beneath us. His head connected with a sickening thud that seemed to knock the fight right out of him. I smiled as Needle Nose gave up, his body shuddering into an involuntary surrender.

  I was a little disappointed when he didn’t rally. My energy was still in fight-to-survive mode and I didn’t want to stop, not yet at least. I was in touch with my violent side and I was thinking I liked it. I was thinking I’d come a long way from the mousy little girl who joined the academy on a dare. I was riding the crest of an adrenaline high, and finally I was one with Clint Eastwood, Sylvester Stallone and Demi Moore. This was good versus evil. This was karma delivering a massive dose of cosmic justice. This was my life…and I loved it.

  “Are you all right?” Leon was staring at me, his face frozen in a terrified grimace of bravado and something else I couldn’t quite read. He didn’t make a move to help me, just stared, mouth open and eyes wide.

  “Leon, why are you just standing there? Quit pointing the gun at me and help me cuff the son of a bitch!”

  Leon’s face was scarlet. He lowered his weapon, tried to reach for the handcuffs and struggled without success for thirty seconds.

  “Put the gun in your holster, then take out the handcuffs,” I said, feeling the impatience rising to the point of boiling over. “You did call for backup, right?” I demanded.

  “Backup?” He sounded as if he were repeating a foreign language.

  “Yeah, you know, where they send some help to take this dirtbag to jail?”

  Leon had the cuffs now and handed them to me, turning his head aside as he did so. “Yeah, I’ll do that right now.” He started to key his mike, leaving me to try to cuff a now writhing Needle Nose all by myself.

  “Leon?” I said.

  “Yeah?” He looked back at me for a second, then down at the ground like a schoolkid.

  “Would you mind securing the suspect’s weapon first, then helping me get the bracelets on before you call?”

  Leon lurched forward and grabbed the knife from the ground. Once he’d tossed it out of harm’s way, he grabbed the suspect’s bleeding arm and jerked it awkwardly in my direction, his head averted as if touching the wounded man was extremely distasteful.

  “Leon,” I said, “watch what you’re doing! What is wrong with you?”

  I started to swing my leg off of Needle Nose and pull him up, but Leon was too close, hovering over me like a forty-pound baby robin.

  “Ma’am?” he said, his voice even squeakier than before.

  “What is it, Leon?”

  “Um, do you know that you’re naked?” he asked.

  I looked down, saw the girls flying free in the night air and remembered Needle Nose’s deft handiwork.

  I looked back at Leon. “Is that a problem for you, Leon?” I said. “Because I am fully aware of that fact and will attend to it once we have secured the suspect.”

  He gulped. I pushed up and tried to stand, pulling a screaming, bleeding Needle Nose along with me. Leon attempted to help, but accidentally tripped me in his attempt not to look at my tits.

  That is how I wound up in the examining room next to Needle Nose at the Bay County Medical Center.

  “It’s only a sprain,” the doctor said. “Keep it wrapped and you’ll be back to normal in a week.” He looked at Leon’s uniform shirt, buttons straining across my chest, and then back at the clipboard he held out in front of him.

  “So this was an undercover thing, huh?” he said.

  “No, Doc,” I answered. “I always wear a loincloth with my shirt. It makes it so I can run faster and leap tall buildings in a single bound.”

  He glanced back at me, or rather at my breasts, and swallowed. “You need anything for pain?”

  “They don’t,” I said, “and my foot’s fine, too.”

  His face reddened and he left without another word.

  “Stella,” my sergeant said, “why’d you do that? He’s only a kid.”

  I looked at the sergeant and grinned. “I don’t know,” I said. “I guess I just couldn’t help myself. Did you see how red his face got?”

  The sergeant rolled his eyes. “Stella, you gotta work the public-relations angle here. What’s Pete gonna say when I tell him how you acted?”

  That got my attention. “You’re not going to tell Pete, Randy,” I said. “I’m serious. He doesn’t need to hear about tonight from anybody but me, okay? Let me tell him myself.”

  The sergeant sighed. “Stella, I gotta work with the man. You only gotta live with him. He’ll go easy on you, but me, I gotta cover my ass. How’s it gonna look, me letting you get hurt on your first undercover gig, huh? Besides, it’ll be all over the department by tomorrow. You can’t keep a thing like this quiet. I’m putting you in for a commendation.”

  I frowned. “I don’t want
a commendation, Randy—I want to make detective.”

  Randy rubbed the five-o’clock shadow that made his already dark skin seem three shades darker. “You gotta be patient, Stella. You’ve only been with the department, what, four years?”

  I nodded, feeling a knot tighten in my stomach. It was the good-old-boy system that kept me and Randy from getting ahead and he and I both knew it. It had nothing to do with time in or how well you performed.

  “Just try, all right, Randy?” He nodded and held the door open while I hobbled out. “Leon brought your car over,” he said, and handed me the keys.

  “Oh, great! You let him drive it?”

  Randy smiled. “Stella, you gotta have more patience with Leon. He’ll get the hang of it sooner or later. Besides,” he added, “Leon was the only guy left on the squad tonight. We’re short-staffed. I had no other option. I never thought this—”

  “Don’t worry about it, Randy. I know you were doing the best you could.”

  I hadn’t told him about Leon and I wasn’t going to—nope, that was something I was saving for a personal face-to-face with the rookie.

  “All right,” I said. “Whatever. Just don’t call Pete. Let me go home and tell him myself. Maybe I can make him see it in a positive light. I’ll tell him I tripped.”

  “Stella,” Randy warned, “he’s the best officer in the department. He’s gonna find out.”

  “Yeah, but maybe I can cushion the blow for him first.” I grinned. “That is one of the benefits of the job, you know. I get to keep the loincloth, and the girls at the club taught me a couple of moves I didn’t even know were physically possible. Maybe I can try my act out on Pete and he’ll—”

  “Stella,” Randy said, “just go home and stay off your foot! I don’t want to see you back at work for a week, okay?”

  “My plan exactly,” I said, and grinned at him as if I really meant it.