Finlay Donovan Jumps the Gun: A Novel

Book 3: The Finlay Donovan

by Elle Cosimano

Genres: Mystery

Synopsis

From USA Today bestseller and Edgar Award nominee Elle Cosimano, comes Finlay Donovan Jumps the Gun—the hilarious and heart-pounding next installment in the beloved Finlay Donovan series.

"Fresh, heartfelt and witty, Finlay Donovan Jumps the Gun is a twisty page-turner, and its relatable heroine Finlay Donovan is irresistible!" —Janet Evanovich, #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Stephanie Plum series

Dating. Diapers. And dodging bullets. Who said single moms can't have fun?

Finlay Donovan has been in messes before—after all, she's an author and single mom who's a pro at getting out bloodstains for rather unexpected reasons—but none quite like this. After she and her nanny/partner-in-crime Vero accidentally destroyed a luxury car that they may have "borrowed" in the process of saving the life of Finlay's ex-husband, the Russian mob got her out of debt. But now Finlay owes them

Still running the show from behind bars, mob boss Feliks has a task for Finlay: find a contract killer before the cops do. Problem is, the killer might be an officer.

Luckily, hot cop Nick has started up a citizen's police academy, and combined pressure from Finlay's looming book deadline and Feliks is enough to convince Finlay and Vero to get involved. Through firearm training and forensic classes (and some hands-on research with the tempting detective), Finlay and Vero have the perfect cover-up to sleuth out the real criminal and free themselves from the mob's clutches—all the while dodging spies, confronting Vero's past, and juggling the daily trials of parenthood.

 

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Release date: January 31, 2023

Publisher: Minotaur Books

Print pages: 301

Sample

CHAPTER 1

The man’s voice cracked on the other side of the partition. “I’m going to prison for this, aren’t I?”

“You’re not going to prison,” I assured him through the gap in the door. A small, familiar giggle issued from the other side and the man whimpered. “What’s your name?” I asked him, distracting him with small talk as I rummaged in my diaper bag.

“Why do you want to know my name? Are you reporting me to the police?”

“I’m not going to report you. Trust me.”

“Trust you!”

“Do you seriously think I want this to end badly?” I listened to his ragged breaths, waiting for an answer.

“Mo…” he said tentatively. Another giggle came from behind the partition and the man cried, “Mo! My name is Mo! Dear god, please do something!”

“I need you to stay calm, Mo. Listen to me and do exactly what I tell you.”

His voice climbed. “You’ve done this before?”

“Yes,” I assured him, “I have dealt with this before.” Just never in the men’s room of a Walmart. “Listen to me carefully, Mo. I’m going to bend down very slowly and reach into the stall. Whatever happens, don’t move.”

Mo started hyperventilating in earnest. “Wait, you’re going to what? I really don’t think that’s a good idea. There must be some other way—”

“There is no other way, Mo. Are you going to let me help you or do I need to call someone to unlock the stall door?”

“Don’t call anyone!” he begged. “Do whatever it is you’re going to do. But please hurry!”

I eased to the floor, cringing as I pressed my palms to the sticky tiles. I didn’t want to think about what might be growing in the grout between them as I lowered my head and peeked under the partition at Mo’s feet.

His slacks pooled around his ankles and a pair of Argyle socks were drawn high over his calves. My son’s light-up Buzz Lightyear sneakers flashed a few feet in front of the man.

“Zach,” I pleaded as he babbled and grinned at Mo. “Come out of there, right this minute.”

Thirty seconds. In the thirty seconds it had taken me to relieve my bladder, my toddler had managed to slither under the door of my stall

and slip out of the women’s restroom and into the men’s, probably on the heels of some unsuspecting young person who had never been responsible for small children or zoo animals and hadn’t had the forethought to stop him.

Zach laughed as I groped under the partition for him. The baggy hem of his overalls slipped from my fingers as he retreated deeper into the stall.

“He’s coming closer!” Mo shrieked, his knees clamping together. “No, no! Stay back!”

“You don’t have much experience with children, do you?”

“No! Why would you ask that?”

“Just a hunch.” I dropped my shoulder under the partition, my arm outstretched. Forgoing two other empty stalls, Mo had chosen the larger accessible toilet, and the commode—and now my child—were in the farthest corner of it. “I can’t reach him. He’s too far from the door.”

“I thought you said you knew how to fix this!”

“I’m working on it. Don’t panic.”

“Don’t panic? Do you have any idea what happens to men who get caught in bathrooms with small children without their pants on? I was just in here minding my own business!”

Zach’s giggles fell suddenly, ominously silent. I dug furiously in my diaper bag. Where were the damn Cheerios when you needed them?

“Something’s wrong,” Mo said through a strained whisper. “The child is holding very still. I think he might be up to something.”

I wrinkled my nose. Zach was definitely up to something.

“He’s grunting and his face is turning red. I think he’s possessed.”

“He’s not possessed. He’s having a bowel movement.”

“He’s what?! That’s it! I’m coming out—”

“No! Whatever you do, do not stand up!” I buried my arm elbow-deep in my bag. There definitely wasn’t time to run out to the cereal aisle. The poor man would probably suffer a heart attack and wind up dead on the floor before I made it back, and the last thing I needed to deal with was one more corpse. Especially one with his pants around his ankles.

New year, new me. I wasn’t a criminal or a killer, at least not by my own choice. Harris Mickler, the sleazy accountant who had turned up dead in the back of my minivan three months ago, was not murdered by me, regardless of the fact that his wife, Patricia, had insisted on paying me to kill him. And yet, no matter how many times I explained to Mrs. Mickler that I was not a contract killer, disturbingly similar job offers continued to find me. The list of resolutions I’d adopted two weeks ago had included three very important bullets: no more junk food, no more men, and no more bodies in my minivan. Not necessarily in that order.

Zach finished his business with a delighted squeal, clapping his hands with exclamations of self-praise. He stomped toward Mo with an outstretched hand.

“I don’t understand!” Mo screamed. “What does it want from me?!”

I dumped the contents of the diaper bag onto the floor. My police officer sister, who would rather clean up crime scenes than wipe her nephew’s backside, had spent the last few weeks attempting to potty train my son despite my insistence that Zach wasn’t ready. While my barely-two-year-old now grasped what he was expected to do in the bathroom, Georgia’s training strategy had only managed to whet his appetite for bribes. “He wants a reward.”

“A reward?! Why would it expect a reward for this?”

I grabbed a plastic baggy of Cheerios and thrust it under the door. Zach turned toward the sound as I shook the cereal inside, his chubby hands chasing the bag as I drew it closer toward me. As soon as my son was within reach, I looped an arm around his waist and dragged him out of the stall.

Mo’s hands fell limp at his sides. I plopped Zach down on the floor beside me, wiping my brow as he puzzled over the seal on the snack bag.

“It’s safe, Mo. You can come out now.” I gathered the diaper creams, packets of wipes, and random mom-survival gear, stuffing them back into my purse. A quick glance under the stall revealed that Mo hadn’t moved. “Mo?” I paused, listening for signs of life through the door. “Mo? Are you okay?” For the love of god, let him be okay.

“I am far from okay.”

I released a held breath. “Do you need me to call for help?”

“I’d rather you just go,” he said, “and take the tiny demon with you.”

“Fair enough.” I plucked the bag carefully from Zach’s hands and scooped him up. Holding him over the sink on one raised knee, I washed both of our hands twice, rigorously and with plenty of soap, before returning the bag of snacks to him.

“It was nice meeting you, Mo,” I called out.

A stoic grunt issued from the stall. I comforted myself with the fact that at least Mo had survived. It was past noon, twelve days into a brand-new year, and I hadn’t broken any of my three resolutions—at least not yet. 

CHAPTER 2

After a quick diaper change and several more rounds of handwashing, I hefted Zach into a shopping cart, handed him his threadbare nap blanket and a sippy cup, and pushed him around the store, searching for Vero. I found my children’s nanny in the women’s clothing department, scrutinizing a generic fleece hoodie, which did not jibe with the brand-name-wearing, hip fashionista I’d grown to know and love. She jumped nearly a foot when I rolled my cart up behind her and tapped her on the shoulder.

“What are you doing?” I asked as she dropped the sweatshirt into her cart. She pushed a pair of oversized sunglasses up the bridge of her nose. I could hardly see them under the low bill of the baseball cap she’d been wearing since we left the house that morning. “You already have a black hoodie.” I gestured to the designer logo on the one she was presently wearing. She looked like a cat burglar in yoga pants.

“You can never have too many hoodies.” She darted cautious glances around the women’s department, giving a heavy dose of side-eye to a sketchy-looking man with a greasy comb-over who was talking to himself as he browsed through a rack of padded bras. He’d either shoplifted a pair of tube socks or he was sporting a boner—I didn’t want to think very hard about which. She grimaced as he gave a set of double D’s an inquisitive squeeze. “How much longer until the van’s ready?”

I checked my phone. “At least another thirty minutes. And we still have an hour before we have to pick up Delia at preschool.”

“Let’s head over to the accessories department. This guy’s freaking me out, and I could use a few extra pairs of shades.”

“If you were so worried about being seen in public, we could have taken my minivan to your cousin’s garage instead of bringing it here. Ramón probably would have changed the oil for free.”

Vero gave a vehement shake of her head. “No way. We’re safer here.” Her last address of record had been her cousin Ramón’s apartment, which, according to Vero, was too close for comfort to his auto repair shop to risk being seen there.

“I don’t get it, Vero. All this paranoia doesn’t make any sense. You’re in debt to a couple of sorority girls in Maryland, so you drop out of school and leave the state, and the second these girls’ parents show up at your cousin’s door looking for you, you run off to Atlantic City and take a marker from a loan shark? Wouldn’t it have been

easier to just drive back to Maryland and tell your sorority sisters the truth, that you didn’t take their money so you can’t give it back?”

“I told them a year ago, and they didn’t believe me.”

“Then they’re not worth the effort you’re putting into avoiding them. Are you just planning to wear disguises and stay in the house indefinitely?”

“If a couple of sorority girls managed to track me all the way to my cousin’s place because they think I stole their stupid treasury money, how long do you think it will take a professional loan shark to find me after I lost his two hundred grand trying to pay them back?”

“You can’t hide forever. The spring semester at the community college starts in two weeks.”

“Doesn’t matter, because I’m not going.”

My cart lurched to a stop. Zach gripped the handlebar and giggled in his seat, spilling juice down his overalls. I used his nap blanket to wipe him up. “Vero, you’re only a few credits away from your accounting degree!”

“And smart enough to know that the more I leave the house, the higher the statistical probability people will find me. It’s a matter of karma.”

“Karma has nothing to do with it. Just because you made a few mistakes doesn’t mean you deserve to be miserable. Look.” I grabbed her hood as she skulked down the aisle. When her cart stopped, I turned her by the shoulders to face me. “Let’s focus on solving one problem at a time. Steven’s flying home from Philadelphia tomorrow. We both agreed it’s probably safe for him to come back.” My ex-husband had been lying low at his sister’s house for weeks after several attempts had been made on his life. (Don’t ask. It’s a long story.) “We have no reason to believe anyone’s trying to kill him anymore—”

“Because the universe is clearly punishing me,” she said, as if that proved her point.

I rolled my eyes and pressed on. “Steven hasn’t seen Delia and Zach in weeks. He’ll probably jump at the opportunity if I ask him to take the kids for a few days. Then you and I can drive to Atlantic City and negotiate a deal with this loan shark person.”

“Loan sharks don’t negotiate, Finn. They break kneecaps and chop off fingers.”

“He’s a businessman. I’m sure he can be reasoned with.”

“Like you’ve been reasoning with Feliks Zhirov?” I pressed a hand to her mouth, as if simply speaking Feliks’s name could conjure the Russian mob boss into the women’s sportswear department of a Walmart. I checked the surrounding aisles, making sure we hadn’t been overheard, but the old man in the lingerie section behind us was too busy sniffing the panties in the clearance bin to care. “Feliks is a businessman,” Vero insisted over my protests, “and I don’t see you waltzing into his office and reasoning with him.”

“Feliks doesn’t have an office,” I reminded her in a low voice. “He has a jail cell. And he isn’t a businessman, he’s a narcissistic sociopath with an army of enforcers who like to slit people’s throats. Of course he can’t be reasoned with.”

“He’s also expecting you to stay in town and do a job. So unless you want his goons following us to New Jersey and dumping our bodies in a ditch, I say we stick close to home and start looking for EasyClean.” EasyClean was the screen name of the mysterious contract killer who had been cultivating hit jobs through one of Feliks Zhirov’s websites, a popular women’s forum that had doubled as a front for the Russian mob. When I’d learned my ex-husband was EasyClean’s next target, I’d coerced Feliks into shutting the entire website down. EasyClean had resorted to blackmailing the mob to compensate for his losses, and Feliks was holding me responsible for it all.

“If we can figure out who EasyClean is, maybe your very wealthy Russian friend would consider paying us a reward.”

“Feliks is not my friend,” I whispered. “He tried to have us both gunned down, in case you’ve forgotten.”

“That was before EasyClean started blackmailing him.” She stirred the air with a finger. “That whole enemy of my enemy is my friend thing makes you and Feliks friends by default. And your mob boss friend has rubles coming out of his piroshki.”

“One, I don’t want to think about Feliks’s piroshki. And two, Feliks doesn’t want me to turn EasyClean in, he wants me to kill him.” I’d only laid eyes on EasyClean once. It had been dark when he’d climbed out of a very cop-like sedan, holding a gun. I didn’t stick around to get a good look once he’d started shooting at me. Even if Vero and I could figure out who EasyClean was, I seriously doubted Feliks was going to pay us for half the job. I was already in debt to the man for the price of one very expensive sports car—the Aston Martin I’d “borrowed” from a dealership was now riddled with bullet holes and titled in my name. One misstep with Feliks and he’d make sure a copy of that title made its way to the police.

It wasn’t hard to guess which detective Feliks would tip off first. Feliks was disconcertingly curious about the nature of my relationship with Detective Nicholas Anthony. Truth be told, so was I. But no matter how charming Nick was (or how amazing he smelled), there’d been too many skeletons in my closet (or, more literally, in my washing machine, my minivan, and Vero’s trunk) to risk letting the detective get any closer to me than he already was.

“If Feliks wants EasyClean dead, he’ll have to do it himself,” I said firmly. Killing a man in cold blood was a line I wasn’t willing to cross.

Vero shook her head at her reflection as she tried on a pair of dark sunglasses. “I can’t believe you’re playing chicken with the Russian mob.”

“I’m not playing chicken. I’m putting my foot down. Feliks’s trial is in less than a month. He’s going to be convicted of murder and shipped off to prison, and this whole nightmare will be over.”

“If Feliks goes to prison, he’ll have nothing left to lose. You’ll be lucky if he doesn’t tip off Nick just to spite you. He called again, by the way.”

“Who?”

“Detective Hottie.” 

I studied a rack of scarves, feigning disinterest. “What did you tell him?”

“That you were in the backyard, burying a body— Ow!” She giggled to herself, rubbing the spot where my elbow had jabbed her. “You can’t keep avoiding him, Finn. He’s been leaving messages on your cell phone since that dinner at your mom’s, and you haven’t once called him back.”

I smacked my forehead. “You must be referring to the dinner Nick attended on crutches because he’d been shot by Feliks’s thugs, who—incidentally—had really only been intending to murder the two of us. Yes,” I deadpanned, “I can see where that would have been a promising start to a healthy and honest relationship.”

“You’re forgetting about the part where Nick made googly eyes at you across the ham platter while he thanked you for saving his life. Face it, Finn, he’s crazy about you. And you two have great chemistry.”

She wasn’t wrong, but no amount of chemistry was going to change the fact that I had done some pretty terrible things that Nick could never know about. Still, I couldn’t help the flutter in my stomach whenever I heard his voice in my mailbox. Or when I remembered the seductive low rumble of it against my ear the last time we’d spoken, under the mistletoe at my parents’ house. “What else did he say?”

“That he still owes you dessert. I’m pretty sure that’s code for: he wants to see you naked.” She drew a scarf over her head, wrapping it around her face until only the dark lenses of her sunglasses were showing. She waggled her eyebrows at me over the rims. “You saved his life, Finn.”

“No more than he saved ours.”

“Doesn’t mean you can’t indulge in something sweet if he’s offering.” She threw up her hands at my shocked laugh. “I’m just sayin’, you know he’s only going to keep calling until you answer.”

A ringtone started deep in my diaper bag.

We both turned to stare at it. Vero drew her sunglasses down her nose. “Whoa. I think you just manifested dessert.”

I took a step back. “I’m on a diet.”

She reached into the bag with a roll of her eyes, grabbing my phone before I could stop her. “That resolution of yours is a load of horseshit. This is the age of sex positivity, body positivity, and hashtag MeToo. It’s Lizzo’s world, Finn; we’re all just living in it. Don’t let anyone tell you you can’t have dessert.” Her expression dulled as she read the caller’s name. “It’s Sylvia,” she said, holding the phone out to me.

It may have been the first time I’d ever been relieved to see my agent’s name on the screen. I swiped to connect. “Hey, Syl. I’m at Walmart. Can I call you back?”

“No, you can’t,” she said bluntly. Her accent was always more pronounced when her patience was thin. More Jersey than New York. “We have something very important to discuss. Your editor called. She read your manuscript.”

I pushed my cart farther from Vero’s as she hovered in my personal space, her head tipped to hear. “What did she say?” I asked.

“She’s not paying you.”

“What do you mean, she’s not paying me?” I slapped Vero’s hand as she lunged for my phone. “I turned in a finished manuscript, Sylvia. I’ve earned the second half of my advance.”

“Only if your editor approves it. She wants a revision.”

“What kind of revision?”

“She wants more of the cop in the story.”

“But I put the cop in the story. There’s plenty of the cop in the story.” There was far more cop in my story than there probably should have been.

“The cop is hot, but the romance is not, and your publisher’s not paying you for fifty shades of boring.” I held the phone away from my ear as Sylvia shouted for a taxi. A car door slammed and she barked out an address. “You’re holding back on this one, Finlay. The cop and your heroine waste too much time staring longingly at each other’s assets. By the second act, they should be sampling the goods.”

“She’s still mourning the attorney,” I argued.

“The attorney disappeared in chapter one. That relationship is over. It’s time for your heroine to move on.”

“Well maybe she needs a minute to figure out what she wants,” I said bitterly. I pinched the bridge of my nose. It had been almost three weeks since I’d broken things off with the younger law student/ bartender I’d been seeing, and while breaking up with Julian Baker had felt like the right thing to do, I still ached a little thinking about it.

“Your heroine knows what she wants. She wants the cop. She said as much on page forty-three when she was lying in bed, alone, staring at the ceiling. If you’re not going to let her have the cop in the second act, at least let the woman have a sex toy.”

Vero gave me an I told you so smirk. I turned away from her.

“It doesn’t matter what my heroine wants, Syl. She’s a criminal. She can’t just jump into bed with a cop. She’ll risk getting caught.”

“That’s precisely what I’m talking about. Raise the stakes. Take some risks! You’ve got the perfect setup for a star-crossed romance. Your assassin has escaped from jail. She’s on the run from the one man she shouldn’t want but can’t deny her feelings for. Meanwhile, the cop is hot on her trail, determined to catch her. Only the longer they play cat and mouse, the more he wants to bring her to bed instead of bringing her to justice.”

“Oh, that’s good,” someone said in the background.

“See?” Sylvia assured me. “Even the taxi driver loves it.”

“You put me on speaker?!”

“Yes,” Sylvia and her driver said.

“The cop and the assassin should give in to their desires,” Sylvia insisted. “They should do it someplace dangerous—”

“On a plane,” the driver suggested.

Sylvia answered with a “Meh.”

“As it’s crashing into shark-infested waters?”

“Better.”

“Fine,” I snapped. “I’ll rework a few scenes.”

“While you’re at it, rewrite the ending,” Sylvia said.

I gripped the phone tighter to keep myself from throwing it. “What’s wrong with the ending?”

“Your heroine can’t ride off into the sunset with her sidekick. This is a romance novel, not Thelma and Louise.”

“Thelma and Louise won an Academy Award.”

“They held hands and drove off a cliff, Finlay.” I bit my tongue through her exasperated sigh. “The assassin and the cop are good together. Give your heroine the happy ending she deserves. And do it quickly,” she added. “I, for one, would like to get paid.”

“Me, too,” the driver and Vero said in unison.

“Great. I’ll tell your editor you’re on board with the changes.” Sylvia disconnected before I managed to respond.

I handed my phone to Vero. “Happy?”

She shook her head as she took my cell and dropped it in the diaper bag. “I don’t understand your hesitation with the cop.”

“Because whenever the cop and the assassin get together, somebody dies.”

“Only because you make them.”

“Way to rub it in.” I checked the time and turned my cart toward the front of the store.

“How hard can it be to write a happy ending? Just pretend your characters are Delia’s Barbie dolls. Take off all their clothes and mash their faces together.”

“It’s not that simple.”

“You’re absolutely right,” she conceded. “The cop should ask for the assassin’s consent first. Then, when she soberly, mutually, and enthusiastically agrees, they can jump each other like jackrabbits and you can write a bestseller.”

“Any other brilliant revision advice?”

She looked at me sideways as we pushed our carts toward the register. “Maybe this time, try not to kill anybody.”