allAll characters named in this story were created by Janet Evanovich, except the rookie cops and the teen gang members and Jacob Stanton (the House Monster), created by AutumnDreaming for this story.

All of Morelli's cop experiences in this story have been creatively adapted from the experiences of Ralph L. Dettweiler, former Sergeant of South Carolina Sheriff's Department, found at

Additional inspiration was gleaned from Charles Martin's novel Chasing Fireflies.

Morelli's POV

It was Saturday morning, but you couldn't tell it from the hustle and bustle inside the station. I was sitting at my desk in my office, having called in to find out the cash out value of my 401(k) and verify the market value of my house. After determining my total cash value, alive as opposed to dead, I moved on to business.

I was doing background checks on the first two shooters and their families. I was looking for a connection between these young shooters and Boone, Sanders, or Stanton. The first shooter was Mark Raguzzo. He was ten years old, with dark eyes, dark hair…as Italian as I was. I was not surprised to learn he was from a family with a long history of domestic violence. I was surprised, however, when I discovered that he and his father, Anthony Raguzzo, had spent several weeks off and on at the St. Lawrence halfway house. I checked the management on that halfway house, and as luck would have it, it was the same name Bell had noted on his report of Mt. Cooper's. I had a connection to Stanton.

I checked on the fourteen-year-old joy-rider. His name was Dewayne Jackson. He was a tall, thin Black boy with a shaved head and pants so baggy he kept walking out of them. I called over to Juvie and talked to his caseworker. It turned out he claimed to be a member of the Bloods, but he was still a wanna-be and hadn't been officially jumped in yet at the time of his arrest. After a little more checking, I uncovered another surprise. Dewayne Jackson had been a resident at Mt. Cooper's for two years before being placed in a temporary foster home. He had a history of domestic violence against the other boys, which was cited as the reason for his recent placement in emergency foster care. I had no doubt that Jackson had done some work for Stanton, and possibly still had a connection.

According to Pavia, Varela killed Grossman. Pavia had been an eyewitness, as I had explained to the judge. I knew he was telling the truth the moment I saw Varela's face in that court room. There was no remorse. Only outrage that he was being sold out by his number one.

Pavia had given a full statement outlining the plot to kill Officer Grossman. Varela had set out to find a cop specifically to collect on the bounty which he thought was being paid by Sanders. I knew Sanders was taking a large cut from what he would collect from Boone. That's how it always worked. The kids did all the work and took all the risks, and Sanders got paid.

Varela and Pavia and two other gang members stole a car - a vintage souped up Mustang - and drag raced it up and down the streets in their neighborhood in hopes of attracting a cop. When none materialized, Varela sent a member of his gang to call in a complaint from a pay phone. When this again failed to result in police intervention in his neighborhood, rather than being glad to be under the radar, Varela was outraged. If he had any reservations about killing a cop before, they had evaporated. The four loaded up into the Mustang, and drove towards North Clinton. Officer Grossman had a car pulled over on a side street behind an Oriental market. They waited until the car pulled away, and as Grossman prepared to leave the scene, they rear-ended him with the Mustang. While Grossman was disoriented and exiting his vehicle, Varela raced to the driver's door and shot him in the forehead, execution style. Then he shot him three more times in the chest.

Grossman only netted him $200.00. Sanders apparently kept $300.00. Varela wanted more…much more. So Sanders told Varela about the bounty on Gaspick. Varela wanted the prize, not only for the money, but to keep any other gang from claiming it. He did his research. Once he knew Gaspick's beat, he located one of the weakest members of the dominant gang in that area, which was the Latin Kings. Varela's crew broke into a house across the street from Little J.'s house, and waited for him to come home. Even though he was in the company of other gang members, Varela couldn't wait, so he took a shot with the .22, intending only to wound Little J. enough to bring Gaspick into his sights. Little J. did exactly what Varela had wanted. He cried and flopped around like a little bird with a broken wing while the others ran.

When Gaspick and I arrived together, Varela almost danced with glee. He waited for us to call in the address and report that we had verified a shooting had occurred before shooting Gaspick. And when it appeared to him that more officers were about to converge on the scene, he was positively giddy. He had his sights on me, but when he tried to fire, the rifle had jammed.

Varela usually used a handgun. Instead, he had chosen to use an AR-15 with a scope that he'd taken during a home robbery the night before. He had planned to pick us off from a distance. But he wasn't proficient with the AR-15, and he had leaned on the magazine while balancing the gun on the window sill. This had caused the rifle to jam due to a double load. While he struggled to clear it, I had a chance to pull Gaspick to safety, call it in requesting backup, and by the time Varela had the cartridges cleared, Costanza, Big Dog, and I had our guns drawn and were sniffing them out. Pavia said that we had been within one hundred feet of them, and that he had practically had to lie on the rifle to keep Varela from trying to shoot at us. He would have given them away in his insanity.

As incredibly helpful as all of this information was, Pavia did not know who had abducted Gaspick from the hospital, and he had no idea where he may be held, although we both agreed that it appeared Lionel Boone was behind the abduction.

My only other lead, though trivial, was that a seven-year-old boy had been paid five dollars to bring the gift box with the fingernails and toenails into the station. He had described the man who paid him as white, brown hair, dressed in a suit, and driving a black car. He said the man was a stranger. Apparently the kid was just walking down the street a block away and was chosen at random. We got no prints off the box but the boy's.

I was deep in thought when my cell phone rang. It was Steph.

"I've got it!" She said excitedly.

"Got what exactly?" I was hoping for the winning lottery ticket. The jackpot was $23-million.

"I've got evidence that Stanton is dealing guns."

"What's the evidence?"

"I got a bug inside the boys home, and I have Stanton on tape talking about guns that he wants one of the boys to deliver to a house in North Trenton after dark tonight."

"Cupcake, we know he's dealing guns. I can pick up the boy, but I want to catch Stanton red-handed. Does he have the guns in the house?"

"I don't know," she said, sounding a little deflated. "What I was thinking was that you could take this tape to the judge, and you could get a search warrant and then you could nail Stanton."

"An illegal bugging of a residence is not something that I want to bring to the judges attention."

"You do it all the time. Don't even try to tell me that you don't. You've probably even got my apartment bugged. So why is it different when I do it?"

"There is a big difference between what I do in order to obtain information for my own purposes and what I would present to a judge as evidence in order to secure a warrant. Even if it is accurate, it isn't admissible evidence."

"Well then, Mr. Smarty-Pants, what's your grand plan for getting the goods on Stanton?"

"Remember when I threatened to turn in a complaint on the state of the dwelling to the city inspectors? Well I turned it in today with a request that I be present during their inspection."

"Okay, but did you know that the organization Stanton works for has a warehouse where they allow homeless people to store their personal property? I'm betting that that's where the guns are, and if I listen long enough, maybe I'll find out where it is."

"It's attached to the St. Lawrence homeless shelter, which is run by the same organization that runs the boys' home. I already been down and had a look through the windows. If they're hiding any guns in there, it's not a very lucrative business."

"When were you planning to tell me any of this?" She was fuming. "I thought we were working together on this. I thought we were partners."

"I just found out about it this morning thanks to Arnie Rupp, the Violent Crimes supervisor. He'd read Bell's report and it came up on an unrelated search that St. Lawrence and Mt. Cooper's are both run by the same umbrella organization, and Stanton is listed as being a board member at St. Lawrence."

"Sounds like you have it all wrapped up! I guess you don't need me then!" She slapped her phone shut.

Crap! How did I get back into the doghouse again just by doing my job?

I called her back, but I got voice mail.

"Cupcake, I'm sorry I didn't tell you. I was still working out the details. I still don't know where Boone has Gaspick. I'm trying to get to Stanton to find Sanders to hopefully get to Boone. I know we have a plan, but there's no such thing as having too many leads on a case like this. We have a few hours before tonight, so I'm going to take your advice and check out the warehouse more thoroughly. Love you."

I stopped back by Rupp's office to see if he wanted to go. He indicated that he would, but his phone rang and he got tied up. He signaled me that it would be quite sometime before he was free. I nodded, and gave him the sign that I was going to go without him. He nodded back and gave me the thumbs up.

I couldn't believe I was on the job driving Big Blue to an investigation site. I couldn't attract more attention to myself if I tried. Maybe I should've taken a cab. After stopping to put more gas in the bottomless tank, I pulled up outside of the homeless shelter.

I walked around to the side, and approach the warehouse door. I was in stealth mode, and nearly jumped out of my skin when my cell phone rang. I quickly hit the button to shut off the ringer. I stuck it back in my pocket, and as soon as it stopped it rang again. It was Stephanie. I turned off the ringer, and was about to approach the door once again, when a text message popped up. It was a 911 from Steph.

I headed back to Big Blue, and before I attracted any more attention, turned the motor over and headed down the street before calling her back.

"Joe! Thank God I got you! Don't go to the warehouse. It's a trap."

"How's that?"

"I just heard Stanton talking to someone on the phone. There's a shooter waiting for you inside the warehouse. They named you Joe. How did they know your name? How did they know you were coming?"

"There's no way they could have known I was coming."

"Well they did."

"I believe you, Cupcake." My breath was caught in my throat. "I love you."

"I love you too, Joe."

"Where are you?"

"Down the block from Mt. Cooper's."

"Where is the bug?"

"In the microwave."

"Please tell me you did not go into that house. I told you no more B&E."

"No one went into the house. They needed a new microwave, and this one just happened to have a few at extra features."

"So you just walk up to them and gave them a microwave?"

"No! Kenny did. He pretended to be from the Salvation Army. You know, they replace things like that when a disaster happens."

After all this time with Stephanie, nothing shouldn't surprise me, but every time I heard one of the stories, she did. "Okay, I'll bite."

"Well, Grandma Mazur took them some frozen burritos she and Carl had bought, thinking that the boys might be hungry. It turned out that some of the burritos might've been a little too spicy, because they set the microwave on fire."

"And I suppose the fire department was standing by?"

"Of course. Safety first."

I stifled a groan.

"And then the Salvation Army showed up with a new mircrowave, just like that."

"Yep. That's it." She took a deep cleansing breath, seeming glad to get through that explanation. "Now what?"

"Uh, Steph...what are you driving?"

"A Hummer. It's Ranger's."

"That's what I thought. I'm pulling in behind you. Big Blue is too conspicuous. I can't believe I'm saying this, but it looks like were going to be taking a Hummer in order to be less conspicuous."

"Where are we going?" She asked, clearing the front seat and sliding over.

I clicked my phone shut as I slid into the driver's seat. "If the guns aren't at Mt. Cooper's and they aren't at the shelter, what do you want to bet Stanton has been stashed at the main office headquarters?"

"It's worth a look."

I put my seatbelt on, and turned the key in the ignition. The Hummer roared to life, vibrating with power. I had done a lot of things in my life, but I had never driven a Porsche Turbo or an original assault model Humvee. Steph had me beat on that score. There were a lot of things I had been jealous of Ranger for, and in all honesty, the cars were pretty high on the list. But that thought was wiped away in an instant when Steph leaned over and kissed me. Eat your heart out, Ranger.

To be continued…