Disclaimer: Recognisable characters are the property of Janet Evanovich and are used without permission. I make no profit from their use.
Storyline is mine.
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The Usual Mayhem
Chapter 3: Raising the Stakes
Ranger and I took off for Point Pleasant in the Mercedes while Tank, Lester, Ram and Hal followed in two of the Explorers. Ranger had the drop-top of the convertible closed and the air conditioning on and I had the Lopez file open over my thighs, trying to cover what the skirt didn't. Ranger cut his eyes to my lap and the corners of his mouth tipped up. I was amusing him. Then he went into his zone and focused on the road. I tried to ignore his magnetic pull by reading through the file.
I pulled out photos. Alicia Pereira Lopez was gorgeous. Blonde, green almond-shaped eyes, olive skin, an exotic, miniature Brazilian Barbie transplanted into New York celebrity society. The expression around her mouth told me she was a woman used to getting her way.
According to the file, her family was very wealthy, but it was dirty money. Her mother's family, the Alvarez, had land holdings in Brazil, Argentina and Colombia on which they grew illicit crops alongside coffee, ran cattle and cut down rainforests. The Pereiras owned an international shipping company that moved goods – quite a lot of them illegal – everywhere. The two families were connected all over South America, with all the wrong people in all the wrong ways.
Alicia moved to New York to chase her interest in fashion and she put down roots when she married Lopez. She appeared to have clean hands but I could understand why Lopez wanted to keep his son away from his ex-wife's family. What I couldn't understand was what such a high-maintenance woman was doing in Point Pleasant.
"Why are you so sure that she's here?" I asked.
Ranger kept his eyes on the road. "We got access to her accounts. The last three days she's been using her plastic at the beach in the triangle east of Pleasant Canal. We can't narrow it down any more than that. We've found no trace of where she's staying. No hotel bookings, no apartment rentals, nothing. We know she's been taking Andy to the boardwalk every day and eating out with him at the better restaurants."
I checked the snap of Andy. Cheeky kid with big brown eyes, a shock of wild black hair, dimples. He looked happy. I compared his face to Alicia's and decided he must take after his dad.
"I still don't get it. She looks more Miami money than Jersey shore."
He cut his eyes to me for a second. "Good call, babe. She has a house in Boca and a lot of connections in Miami. At Point Pleasant, she's anonymous. She has an acquaintance in Mantoloking but we're watching and she's made no contact. That's the attraction for her: she won't be noticed here."
I looked back at her photo. "You think?"
Ranger did his thinking-about-smiling thing. "She's keeping a low profile."
"But why here, exactly?"
"The marinas and anonymity. Her uncle, Benito Alvarez, has an ocean-going yacht. It docked in Miami three weeks ago and has been slowly heading north up the east coast since then. According to my source in the Coast Guard, it should reach the water around Bay Head some time tonight or tomorrow morning. My bet is Alicia will be taking Andy out in a boat to rendezvous with it tomorrow when the channels are busiest. Probably during the regatta, so they can use it as camouflage."
Sheesh! Why can't she smuggle her son out on a plane, like a normal person. "You don't know which marina?"
Ranger shook his head once. "No. She could be leaving from any of a thousand private berths. We can't watch everywhere. We have to find Andy today, while she's giving him his final day of fun on the boardwalk."
I thought about the miles of boardwalk and the crowds the nice weather had attracted to the shore. "What if we don't find them today?"
"Then we find the yacht tomorrow. But that would be troublesome." Master of understatement.
I was chewing that over when Morelli's distinctive ring tone blared and my stomach dropped. I sucked in a breath and answered.
"Hey, Cupcake. How's your day?"
"It's okay."
"I'll finish up earlier than I thought." I recognized Morelli's warm, lazy, Saturday-afternoon-off voice. I liked this voice. It reminded me of cosy afternoons snuggling on his couch with nothing much to do. I hoped it wouldn't change into his pissed off voice by the end of the conversation.
"Oh. How much earlier?"
"I'm outta here in an hour and a half. I thought I'd pick us up some meatball subs and a couple beers, you could bring Bob and we could meet by the lake for a picnic."
"Oh." Crap. Not only was I missing out on a picnic, I was playing the evade-and-omit game with Morelli. I'd be suffering self-induced guilt for the next week.
"Oh? I'm detecting a distinct lack of enthusiasm here. You okay? What's going on?"
"Nothing." Nothing but subterfuge and intrigue. "It's just, I thought you were working all day and it's so nice out I decided to spend the day at the beach. So, that's where I'm heading. I'm on my way to the shore." I glanced up at Ranger but he was eyes front and granite-faced.
There was a long silence on the phone. "You decided to go to the shore?" Morelli sounded incredulous.
"It was toss up between the boardwalk or stay home and scrub the bathroom. It was a tough choice."
"No. I'm not buying it, Cupcake. It's not like you to just take off for the shore. What's going on? Are you and Lula chasing a skip down there?"
Lula is my regular sidekick when I'm chasing down FTA's. She's a generously endowed, plus-sized black woman stuffed into petite-sized neon Lycra. Lula is larger than life in other ways, too. She's a former 'ho, brash, smart and one of my best friends. The two of us have occasionally been distracted by the boardwalk while on a job.
I sighed. "Okay. You got me. I'm working."
"You didn't say who you're working with." Silence. "Stephanie, is Lula with you?" Morelli's cop nose could smell a rat over the phone.
I sighed again. I wasn't getting out of this one. "Not exactly."
"God damn it, Stephanie! You're working with Ranger again. We talked about this and we agreed you wouldn't take any more of his nutcase jobs."
I pulled the phone away from my ear to prevent permanent hearing loss. I was getting pissed off now. There's nothing like a man trying to do the macho power thing over me to get my blood up.
"No, you talked about it and you came to your own conclusions. Listen, Morelli, this is my job and I make my own choices about it. And you could show me some support."
"If you made responsible choices, I'd be able to support them!" he yelled.
"Hey! What was that?" I yelled back.
The Italian male in Morelli has a hard time keeping a lid on his anger. When he loses it, he shuts down into cop mode and now his voice got cold and detached.
"You choose to work with a man who plays fast and loose with the law. I don't call that a responsible choice. When he goes down, and he will, I don't want you going down with him. And that's not my biggest problem. This isn't about the job and you know it. It's about you and me, and Ranger getting in the middle."
I bit my lip. This had been a long time coming but his timing sucked. "Joe. I can't do this now."
I heard him take a big breath and blow out air. "I know. But I'm not letting this ride. We are going to talk about this. And you be careful out there today. Poor, dumb bastard." He disconnected. I knew Morelli had insulted somebody but I wasn't sure whether it was me or Ranger.
The day was just getting better and better. I couldn't think of anything I'd rather have hanging over my head than a deep and meaningful talk with Morelli about my job and our future and the Ranger factor. I was seriously considering moving to Atlantic City, immediately. Or maybe Alaska.
I glanced up at Ranger and found him watching me, his face giving nothing away. Ranger is a hard man to read even when he's talking and he wasn't doing any. Faced with an uncomfortable silence, I did what I always do. I blabbed.
"Morelli doesn't want me working with you."
"Babe, Morelli doesn't want you anywhere near me, ever," Ranger corrected, eyes front again.
"He thinks the risk is too high," I countered.
Ranger shot me a look, his mouth tipping into a smile. "For you? Or for him?"
No way was I going to answer that. Truth is, proximity to Ranger makes me question my relationship with Morelli. Heck, there are times when it makes me forget I have a relationship at all. I turned my attention back to the file in my lap.
Ranger wouldn't let it lie. "Have you got a stake in this, babe? Is being around me too big a risk?"
What? Whether he intends it or not, Ranger messes with my emotions and this was stirring my emotional pot one time too many. My anger with Morelli suddenly changed direction and I snapped.
"You know what, you don't get to ask questions like that. You forfeited the right when you told me to repair my relationship with Morelli." The very day after you chose to sleep with me! Whoa. I'd been carrying that with me a long time.
I heard my voice pitched high and loud but I was on a roll. " 'No emotional price,' you said, but what you meant was you won't commit to anything more than one night at a time with no strings attached! Wham, bam, thank you ma'am!"
It felt so good to finally get it off my chest that I kept going. "You wanted me to look to Morelli for the meat and potatoes so that you could provide cake when you felt like it. 'I'm dessert,' you said. Well, now Morelli is committed to me. He's stepping up. He wants to marry me. And I should risk this for...what, exactly?"
I glared at his profile, fuming. Ranger was relaxed, breathing easy. "Babe."
That was all he had? Babe? If he wasn't driving the car down a highway, I'd have socked him one.
"You are such a jerk, Manoso!" I bit off, as soon as I could speak without shrieking like a banshee. I clenched my arms across my chest so I wouldn't be tempted to go at him and hoped I wouldn't pop any veins or eyeballs.
"You all done now?" he asked, when I'd stopped breathing fire out of my nostrils.
"Yeah, I'm all done talking to you," I said, through clenched teeth. I shot him a dirty look and caught him watching me. His voice had sounded calm but his eyes were black and intense, scorching. I couldn't read the emotion rolling off him but I felt buffeted. It was so unexpected I was startled out of my anger and I stared at him. Then the road demanded his attention and I saw him take a breath and slip right back into his zone.
I sank into the leather seat, shaking a little on the inside and wondering what I'd missed. I rewound the last few minutes and thought about Ranger's question, trying to figure out what he meant. What did I have at stake? I loved Morelli but, if I was honest, in all the time we'd been together I was the one who backed off from commitment. I'd been hedging my bets while Morelli was betting everything he had on our relationship working. He was staking high and I was fence-sitting.
And what the hell was Ranger offering anyway? Another kiss and fondle in the back alley that had me befuddled for days? A night of fire and magic with a vanishing act when the sun came up? True, Ranger performed magic like no one else, but it wasn't something a girl could hold on to. Although, Ranger was magic, magic hands, magic mouth, magic body, magic voice...
Okay, mental head-slap. Didn't I just go into full rhino mode on him about this? Today was about work. That's it. Focus on the Lopez job and don't think about Mr Magic.
Denial works surprisingly well if you stick with it.
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