AU of Takedown 20, contains canon plot points and some dialogue.

Chapter Thirty-Five

PD was still setting up a perimeter when he parked the Turbo and approached. The body was a fresh find. Maybe a few hours old. Uniforms were holding back the handful of bystanders and stringing police tape. Didn't take Ranger long to realize he was attracting a similar amount of sideways glances as he had at the funeral home. True that there were certain circles that knew him pretty well, but this was new. If Steph hadn't pointed it out at the funeral home he might never have realized the reasoning.

They were staring at the guy who got Morelli's girlfriend pregnant.

Ranger slipped under the police tape without resistance. Found the case's lead detective standing by the dumpster drinking Pepto straight from the bottle. Butch Shiller was in his early fifties. Stress grayed hair. Over-tired eyes. Zero sense of humor. Not the type to appreciate private sector eyes over his shoulder. He hadn't exactly been a fountain of information so far, but considering the antacid swilling and the dead-end shadow to his eyes, he was just desperate enough to tolerate it.

"Remind me why you keep sniffing around this case," he said, eyes on the Crime Scene Unit dumpster dive.

"Ruppert Gillian is a client."

"And he doesn't trust my department to do our jobs?"

"He wants to feel like he's doing something."

Shiller cut him a brief side look. Placated by the diplomatic answer. "Body was found by an employee from the Italian restaurant. She was takin' out the garbage after closing. Saw the note."

"Does anything else fit the MO?"

"You mean did she have venetian blind cords wrapped around her neck? Yeah."

"ID?"

"Not yet. So far all we know is mid to late sixties. I'm hoping she'll have an ID in her purse. It was wrapped up with her. Along with the rest of her clothes."

Yeah, leaving Steph at home had been a smart move. No way she would have liked any of this.

They watched CSU lift a stained, white linen sheet out of the dumpster and set it on the asphalt. Let the sides splay open. It was impossible not to think of Edna Mazur. Frail, starved pheasant body. White hair still striving to cling to a perfect beauty parlor set. She was more exposed though than he'd ever want to think of Edna. Pretty rose colored bra and matching panties. What Steph would have called Date Underwear. Her clothes and purse wrapped up with her like an afterthought. And as promised, her neck was wrapped in blind cords.

"Three bodies in eighteen months, and then he takes a fourth only ten days after his previous kill? That's quite the escalation," Ranger said. "What's the profile say on this guy?"

"Detailed and meticulous. No DNA left behind, no usable prints. No hesitation marks either, which suggests he's comfortable with killing. In fact, since the MO hasn't shown any signs of evolution, my guess would be this guy's been at it a while."

"Is there significance that all the victims are older women?"

"Could be indicative of a mother complex, but it could also be influenced by the killer's age. He's likely charming, given that he was able to get these women alone. We haven't found any defensive wounds that would indicate a struggle. And he's sophisticated. Covers his tracks. Drains their bank accounts without a trace. He could have disposed of these bodies at the dump or in the Pine Barrens and expected that they'd never be found. Instead he folds them up in a sheet and drops them in a dumpster in the middle of the city with a goddamn note. That doesn't just make a statement about how he sees his victims, maybe women in general. It makes a statement about us. He's flaunting these killings like there's nothing we can do about it."

"You think it's pathological?"

"Worse. I think he's doing it for fun."

"Any word yet if Trenton is his only playground?"

"I got someone working the national database, but it'll take some time."

ooo

Steph

I was alone in the bed when I woke up just after seven the next morning. I vaguely remembered seductive kisses on the back of my neck and some strategic touching, but the memories were veiled and I was still wearing my underwear, so I was guessing I'd been too tired for Ranger to successfully wake me up. Disappointing. Then again, after my botched performance last night, that might be a relief. Normally being with Ranger was intense and kinetic. Fire and magic, completely unreal. Last night had been terrifyingly real. Like having a magic trick explained away by science way more amazing than you thought the magic would be. And then he'd had to run, leaving me naked and vulnerable in his bed. Wondering what the hell had just happened.

I blew out a sigh.

I rolled myself out of bed and staggered into the shower. Hoping the warm water and sexy soap might help in the waking up department. It was mornings like this that I really missed coffee. Things were clicking better by the time I got out of the shower and toweled off. I did a quick examination. No warts, no boils, no hideous rashes. Hair still thick and strong. No teeth falling out. Not that I believed in Bella's ability to give people the eye. But still. It was nice to confirm that nothing truly awful had happened to me during the night.

I got dressed in my newest maternity jeans and a stretchy top and drove to the bonds office. Lula looked me up and down. "Uh-oh. You look like you didn't get any."

"That's confidential information."

"Yep," Lula said to Connie, "she didn't get any. What the heck happened? I thought you and Mr. Babydaddy had a date last night."

"We went to a viewing for work. That's hardly a date."

"It don't matter the activity with that man. He's sex walkin' even when he's standin' still. You tellin' me he's so busy he can't cast spells lately and the one night you get him all to yourself you don't butter him up and nibble him like an ear a corn?"

Connie choked on her coffee.

"Ranger got called away last night. The police found another body."

Connie blotted her desk with a napkin and nodded. "Rose Walchek. Sixty-six. Lived in one of those little row houses on Stanton Street, by the button factory. Widowed, no children."

"Strangled?" I asked her.

"Sounds like it."

The front door opened. I turned to see Morelli lean in. He crooked a finger at me in a come here gesture. I tried to ignore the exchange of looks from Lula and Connie and followed him to the curb. "What's up?"

"I had seven people call me last night and tell me you and Ranger were seen at the Gillian viewing, and that he showed up at a related crime scene not long after."

"Ranger was asked by a victim's son to look into the case."

"Ranger's not a P.I."

"It's more like a favor for a very good client."

"You know, most women tend to steer clear when they hear a serial killer's on the loose. You're the only woman I know who chases them. Hell, you've dated one."

"That wasn't my fault. My mother ambushed me with the setup and he wouldn't take I have a boyfriend for an answer."

"Seems there's a lot of that going around," he said under his breath. I frowned at him. He dropped it, but he didn't take it back.

"Have you heard anything about Sunny lately?" I asked him.

"Not much. Word on the street is that he has a new pet project, but nobody's saying what it is. Doubt it would help you find him anyway. He's not all that interested in twenty to life. Emphasis on life, considering his bad heart."

"Do you know where he's hiding?"

"You want me to rat on my godfather?"

"Yeah."

"It might be tempting if there was sweaty gorilla sex on the table, but since you have a new boyfriend and I don't particularly feel like getting disappeared…"

"Are you saying you'd only help me in exchange for sex?"

The grin was almost cute. "Okay, no. But you can't blame me for wishful thinking. Truth is I don't actually know how to find Sunny. I just know he's moving around a lot. Mostly I've been aiming for plausible deniability. So what is it exactly that Ranger's having you do on the dumpster murder case? I thought for sure he'd be pushing for maternity leave by now."

"He's just having me ask around, since I have better access to the people who knew the victims. Tonight I'm going to Bingo at the Senior Center."

"Oh goody."

"You can stop with the grinning. It's a lead. Bingo was a common interest for all the murdered women."

"Ranger should offer you time and a half for hazard pay. I heard those ladies are tough."

"That's not the worst of it. Your grandmother put the eye on me."

"Bummer."

"That's it? Bummer?"

"There's no such thing as the eye."

"Are you sure?"

Morelli thought about that a second. "Actually, no."

"Than do something. Get her to take the whammy off me."

"I'll talk to her," he promised.

I watched Morelli get into his green SUV and went back inside to collect Lula. "Let's go get Sunny. I'm tired of being the bad guy in this."

"Now we're talkin'. Let's go root us out a crooner."

ooo

It took us fifteen minutes to get to Rita's house in Hamilton Township. I parked a half block down, watching the quiet street through the windshield. "So what's the plan here," Lula asked me. "I know she's our number one candidate for harboring Mr. Bowtie, but she did say she was gonna shoot you if you tried to take Sunny."

"Only if I broke into her house."

"That don't instill me with a lotta confidence."

"It'll be fine." I hoped. "I'm gonna go look in some windows. Maybe we'll get lucky and Sunny'll take out the garbage or something."

"Or we could just sit here in the nice bulletproof car and watch, and then call in one of them Rangemen when we spot Sunny. I bet they got vests and everything."

"You don't think we can take down a little old man by ourselves?"

"What I think is my big beautiful ass don't want no bullets in it."

A black Lincoln Town Car cruised down the street and swung into Rita's driveway. "Looks like it might not be an issue."

"Well, shut up," Lula said. "You think they're doing a pick up or a drop off?"

"I'm guessing pickup."

We watched for a few minutes, and sure enough the front door opened and Uncle Sunny walked out and got into the backseat of the Lincoln.

"Now what?" Lula wanted to know.

"Now we're going to follow them. With any luck Sunny'll end up somewhere we can make an apprehension without his henchmen around."

The Lincoln rolled out of the driveway and started back the way it came. They didn't seem to notice when we followed it. Or maybe they didn't care. There was a decent chance they saw me and Lula as a nuisance and not a genuine threat. We kept a careful distance all the way to his home base on Morgan and Fifteenth street. The Lincoln stopped on Freeman and Shorty, Moe and Sunny got out of the car and walking into a three story brownstone. A young guy ran out of the building a moment later and drove the car away.

"Mafia valet parking," Lula said.

"This is one of Sunny's buildings. He rents it to the Chestnut Social Club."

"I performed at the Chestnut Social Club when I was a 'ho. It was a bunch of old Italian geezers who liked talking about the good old days when they could get a boner."

"You know the layout of the building?"

"Haven't been there in a bunch of years, but I bet it ain't a whole lot different. Used to be they played dominos and cards on cheap-ass tables and folding chairs on the ground floor. Bar and kitchen on the second. They had a TV and some leather couches up there too, and a room with a bed. I never been on the third floor, though. I figured that's where they counted the day's receipts."

"Not an ideal place to make a bust."

"It might not be so bad. It's someplace Sunny feels safe, so he prolly won't have his lackeys with him. I'd bet he'll go upstairs to see what they took in last night, and Shorty and Moe might not feel like climbin' all them stairs. They might wanna watch some dominoes and scarf up cannolis."

"How would I get to Sunny if he's on the third floor?"

"Backstairs. Every floor got a little balcony with stairs connecting them. It's an emergency exit they could use if they gotta sneak out. I know about it because it's the 'ho exit."

We found a discrete place to park and got out to look at the stairs. "I don't see any doors. Just windows."

"The windows open to a stairwell that have doors on each floor. You can go up on the inside or the outside. Only on the inside you might run into one of them shriveled up Chestnuts, so I'd go outside."

Outside would mean anyone who looked out a window in a neighboring building would see me, but the one directly next to us looked like it was being renovated, and even if it wasn't I'd rather face the police than a retired mob guy any day. We climbed the outside stairs up to the third floor window and gave it a tug. "It's locked."

"Could be they don't use this window much. Let's try one down." We tried one down. It was locked too. "Well, it is just a window, and accidents happen," she said. Without warning Lula swung her purse and broke the window. An alarm started bleating. "Shoot, I wasn't counting on that."

We bolted down the stairs and hid behind a construction dumpster. The back door to Sunny's building opened and two overweight and balding guys came out. They looked around, then peered up the side of the building. Neither looked motivated to make the climb. They dismissed it as a suicidal bird and went back to their card game. The bleating stopped. Someone had turned off the alarm.

Lula and I crept out from behind the dumpster and went up the stairs again before they had the chance to turn the alarm back on. Lula stuck her hand through the fractured glass and unlocked the window, shoving it open. "You got a gun, right?" she asked me.

"I don't need a gun. I have the pepper spray and my stun gun."

"I'm gettin' them doubts again."

"This was your idea!"

"Yeah, but since when do we listen to me?"

"If you're scared you can wait here and keep a lookout. I'll call you if I need help with Sunny, and if you see anyone coming up the stairs text me and I'll get the heck out of there."

"If you say so."

I tried to do a graceful catburglar crawl through the window and tripped over the sill. Effectively spoiling my James Bond fantasies. I resisted the urge to swear and put my ear to the door. Heard noises from a television and conversational voices. I tiptoed up to the third floor and eased the door open. Found Uncle Sunny sitting at a long table counting money in front of a middle-aged lackey and a monster safe. His eyes met mine the second I saw him. Crap.

"Did you order takeout?" the lackey asked Sunny.

"She's a bounty hunter," Sunny said. "And she's a pain in the ass."

The lackey turned and reached for the gun sitting on top of the safe, but I got to him first and tagged him with my stun gun. He seized up and fell over like a sack of potatoes. Sunny's chair scraped back and he bolted for the door. I lunged and tackled him, taking us both to the floor. We wrestled for a minute, grunting and cussing. He might have had thirty pounds on me, but he had thirty years on me too. He paused to catch his breath and I snapped a cuff on his wrist. More scrambling and I got the second cuff. I scooted away, panting with my back to the wall. The door beside me shoved open suddenly and I nearly died. I tagged the newcomer on the ankle before he could attack and saw a big tower of black seize up and crash to the floor.

It was Cal.

Tank showed up in the doorway a second later, total brick wall when he took in the scene. "What the hell happened?"

"I panicked. I thought he was a mob guy."

Cal's fingers were twitching. But then, pretty much all of him was twitching.

Tank shook his head at me. He thought I was a trial too. "Your bounty's the one in the cuffs, right?"

"Right."

Tank cuffed the other guy to the safe and grabbed the metal bracelets that connected Sunny's wrists in one massive hand, hauling him to his feet. Shoved him my way before he scooped Cal off the floor into a fireman's carry. Cal was six feet five inches of terrifying tattooed muscle and Tank was treating him like a heavy army pack. "We need to move out. I don't have the backup to shoot our way out of this. You got him?"

"Yeah I got him."

"Good. You first."

Sunny only resisted a little when I pushed him toward the stairs. He realized that the massive man-wall would drop his cargo at the slightest trouble and possibly rip him in half. I got him as far as the second floor landing before he made a desperate bid for freedom. Dove for the door that stood between us and whoever was watching television in the next room. I grabbed hold of his collar to stop him and we swung together into the wall. My back hit first, knocking the air from my lungs. His head hit next. His skull bounced back and he flopped onto the landing. "Cripes!" I whispered. "He's out cold. I can't carry him."

Gunshots boomed upstairs. Tank hadn't searched the guy when he cuffed him to the safe. The voices on the other side of the door called out in alarm. Tank shoved me out the window and down the stairs, one hand closed around the back of my shirt to keep me from falling.

"What about Sunny?"

"Sunny's on his own," Tank said.

The stairwell door banged Sunny in the ribs when it failed to open. We were halfway down a flight by then. The shouts got clearer when they reached the window. So did the gunfire. Muzzle flashes and the sing of bullets pinging metal stairs. Tank flung Cal over the side halfway down the last flight and my feet left the ground. His deep bass barks going over his shoulder. My Mercedes squealed into the alley, and Tank ripped the back door open, shoving me inside, all six and a half feet of him crowding in behind me. A pale Cal slumped into the passenger's seat and Lula hit the gas, whipping backward out of the alley while more bullets bounced off my car. She tore away into the street.

"Holy moly. I got palpitations," Lula said. "I swear, your life just flashed before my eyes."

"You mean your life?"

"No, pretty sure it was yours. It was too boring to be mine."

"Where did you guys come from?" I asked Tank, who was hastily trying to buckled my seatbelt while cutting shifty looks at Lula's driving.

"Control routed us your way when they heard you found Sunny."

"Wait. How did they hear I found Sunny? I didn't call it in."

"Ranger's having the audio from your vehicle monitored."

"Since when?"

"Since he had to have Hank detail the bullet marks out of your rear driver's side door last night."

"I can explain that. That was just Moe making a point."

"The point being that he would shoot you?"
I opened my mouth to deny it and couldn't. Dammit. Not only was I battered and bruised from my altercation with a skip I failed to hold onto, but I'd likely walked my way right into lockdown mode again. Cripes, this was getting old. In fact, I wasn't sure any part of this job was worth it at the moment. My back ached, I was crabby, and I was pretty sure I'd sprained something when I grabbed onto Sunny. I hadn't felt it right away with all the adrenaline, but now that I was safe I was definitely feeling some sharp pains in my finger. "I need a new job."

"That's a thought I can second," Tank said. "But first you're going to the hospital before Ranger kills me."