High Five (stephanie Plum, #5)

In this Janet Evanovich novel, Stephanie Plum is a bail enforcement agent in Trenton, New Jersey, who earns a 10 percent commission on each bond only when she successfully retrieves a fugitive. Business is slow at her cousin Vincent Plum's bail bonds office, and the only available case is Randy Briggs, a computer programmer who skipped his court date after being arrested for carrying a concealed knife. The bond is $700, meaning Stephanie stands to earn $70. Briggs turns out to be a combative little person who refuses to cooperate and slams the door in her face.

Stephanie's mother pages her with more pressing news: Uncle Fred, married to Grandma Mazur's cousin Mabel, went out to run errands on a Friday and never came home. His car was found locked in the Grand Union supermarket parking lot with dry cleaning on the backseat but no groceries. At Mabel's house, Stephanie discovers photographs hidden in Fred's desk showing what appears to be a dismembered body in a garbage bag. She agrees to pass the photos to police and begins investigating Fred's disappearance.

Through police contacts and family, Stephanie pieces together Fred's last movements. He left home at one o'clock, withdrew cash at First Trenton bank at 2:35, picked up dry cleaning, and then vanished. Fred's family reveals a longstanding open secret: He has always had girlfriends on the side. His current girlfriend, Winnie Black, tells Stephanie that Fred visited her that afternoon, seemed distracted, and said he had "something big going on" related to the garbage company. Fred had been feuding with RGC Waste Haulers over a billing error: Their computer showed no record of him as a customer despite a canceled check proving payment.

Meanwhile, Ranger, Stephanie's mentor and a skilled Cuban-American bounty hunter, offers her side work to supplement her income. What he calls "interior decorating" turns out to be clearing a drug den with a tactical team on Sloane Street. Stephanie later takes a graveyard security shift at the building. The former occupant returns with a gun and explosives strapped to his body and forces Stephanie upstairs. An elderly neighbor shoots the intruder, detonating the explosives and destroying part of the building. Stephanie is knocked unconscious but survives.

Joe Morelli, a plainclothes detective and Stephanie's on-again, off-again romantic interest, warns her that Benito Ramirez has been released from prison. Ramirez is a violent professional boxer who previously stalked Stephanie and brutally attacked her friend Lula. He begins confronting Stephanie in parking lots, following her while she walks, and pressing his face against her bedroom window at night, leaving threatening notes about taking her "to see Jesus."

A man calling himself Bunchy also enters the picture, claiming to be Fred's bookie and saying Fred owes him money. He tails Stephanie in a beat-up Dodge, carries a gun, and has already searched her apartment. Despite his menacing behavior, he is oddly personable. Stephanie suspects he is not a bookie, since no one in her network recognizes his name, but plays along.

The investigation grows darker. Martha Deeter, the RGC receptionist who argued about Fred's missing account, is shot dead in her parking lot. Days later, Larry Lipinski, the RGC bookkeeper, dies from a gunshot wound with a suicide note confessing to Martha's murder. Lipinski's wife, Laura, a slim woman with short brown hair, vanished the week before, a description that could match the body in the photographs.

Stephanie begins connecting the pieces. At First Trenton, her cousin Leona, a teller, reveals that Fred's RGC check and a similar disputed check belonging to Margaret Burger, another local customer, were both canceled through First Trenton, even though other customers of those same companies use different banks. This suggests someone created secret accounts to hold skimmed funds. Margaret's husband, Sol, died of a heart attack while fighting an identical billing dispute with his cable company, and the cable employee involved, John Curly, died in a hit-and-run.

Ranger gives Stephanie a black Porsche as a company car. At RGC, a temporary worker named Mark Stemper asks to copy Fred's check, delaying Stephanie. As she and Lula leave, a garbage truck sideswipes the Porsche, which then explodes from a bomb planted on a timer. They survive only because they went back inside the building. Stemper disappears and is later found shot dead.

Morelli reveals the broader investigation to Stephanie. Treasury agents discovered someone was skimming money from businesses co-owned by Vito Grizolli, a local organized crime figure. Bunchy is actually Bronfman, a Treasury agent who met Fred at a café near RGC on the day Fred disappeared and later used Stephanie as a front for his investigation. Morelli serves as intermediary: Grizolli speaks to his niece Terry Gilman, Terry speaks to Morelli, and Morelli relays information to Treasury. Three companies are now connected, with dead accounts-receivable clerks at each.

The case breaks open when Allen Shempsky, the unremarkable vice president at First Trenton, breaks into Stephanie's apartment and holds her at gunpoint, having already tied up Briggs in the closet. Drunk and unraveling, Shempsky confesses. He and Harvey Tipp, Grizolli's accounts-receivable person, began skimming by keeping certain customer payments in a secret account at First Trenton. They recruited Lipinski at RGC and Curly at the cable company to do the same. But Shempsky was secretly skimming the skimmers, diverting money meant for offshore accounts into his own failed investments.

When Laura Lipinski threatened exposure during her divorce, Shempsky and Lipinski killed her and disposed of her dismembered body in garbage bags. Fred happened to see them dumping a bag while illicitly disposing of yard waste. He photographed the contents and tried to blackmail Shempsky for $90,000. Shempsky killed Fred and buried him in a shallow grave. He also murdered Deeter, staged Lipinski's suicide, ran over Curly, and killed Stemper.

As Shempsky prepares to shoot Stephanie, Ramirez crashes through the bedroom window. Shempsky empties his gun into Ramirez, killing him, and flees. Briggs, working on his laptop, hacks into Shempsky's files overnight and discovers he booked a flight from Newark to Miami. Stephanie is already headed to the airport for a chauffeuring job, driving her Buick with Grandma Mazur along. She spots Shempsky on the turnpike, chases him into the terminal, and tackles him with the help of Ahmed Fahed, a teenage sheik she is transporting.

Fred's body is exhumed, and Harvey Tipp confesses fully when brought in for questioning. Shempsky's killings spiraled from his need to conceal that he was stealing from his own co-conspirators. Mabel, unburdened by Fred's death, has already bought a new car and begun planning a singles cruise. At Fred's viewing, Bronfman appears clean-cut and asks Stephanie for Lula's phone number, while Morelli writes his own number on Stephanie's hand. That evening, Stephanie writes Morelli's name on one slip of paper and Ranger's on another, drops them into a bowl, and picks one, admitting she peeked. She puts on a slinky black dress, lights candles, and opens the door. The man who arrives tells her the dress is nice, then tells her to take it off. His identity is left deliberately ambiguous.