Once back at Rangeman, Hal, Bobby Lester and I headed up to the control room. I wanted Ranger's help with the note that I'd found, and I was curious to see if they'd managed to get anything from the bugs I'd left in the law firm office, or from their computers. What can I say, I'm nosy at the best of times.

"What did you learn?" Ranger asked as we stepped back out on to the fifth floor.

"Hal doesn't like bodily fluids," Lester quipped.

"I still feel woozy," Hal admitted.

"That wasn't what I meant by ladies liking it when you're injured. Passing out doesn't count," Lester told him.

"Hal, you're off shift. Bobby, keep an eye on him," Ranger told him.

"Yes, boss," Bobby said. "Hal, sick bay with me."

"Joyce Barnhardt wants a security system. It's an expensive neighbourhood," Lester said, holding out Joyce's card.

"Quote her three times the price of what you'd quote anyone else," Ranger told him.

"I found this," I said, holding out the note that I'd found in Joyce's drawer. "It was in the drawer where Joyce keeps her phone book. I don't know what the first two numbers are, but the last one is Dickie's social security number."

Ranger gestured me into his office. He picked up his phone, put it on speaker and punched in the first number. A programmed voice came up, announcing that we had reached the Smith Barney automated Reserved Client Service Centre and asked for our account number. Ranger looked at me. I shrugged. I had no idea what any that meant. Ranger put in the second number, and the voice asked for our access code.

"How many digits does Dickie use for an access code?" Ranger asked.

"What?"

"Like in his phone log-in. Four or six?"

"Um." I tried to remember Dickie unlocking his phone. "Just four I think." Ranger put in the last four digits of Dickie's social security number. It went through to account information. Ranger hit a few more menu options and the calm automated voice informed us that the account had a zero dollar account balance. A few more presses of menu options and the voice calmly informed us that the last transaction from the account was moving forty million dollars out of the account, the day before Dickie disappeared.

I stared at Ranger wide-eyed.

"What the hell?" I asked.

"That fits with what we've found out from the computer access you gave us this morning," Ranger said.

"What did you find?"

"That the firm has a lot of money and very few clients. The clients that they do have are a list of South American drug lords and other people you don't want to mess with. Zip says that Ziggy mostly worked on high number accounts, so that fits with what we know."

"What else did you find out?" I asked Ranger.

"Dickie is an equal partner in the firm and shares in all its assets. There's a warehouse on Stark, an apartment building which is mostly rented out, Peter Smullen does rent one of the apartments. I was going to suggest looking for Dickie there but given there's 40 million dollars moved out of an account, I'm thinking he doesn't want to see any of his partners right now."

I groaned and put my head in my hands. I had been wondering if Dickie was dumb or dirty. Now it looked like it was both – dirty to have that much money and dumb enough to think he could get away with stealing it from his partners.

"I'm going to have my finance guy look over the accounts. This is your copy of what we found," Ranger said, gathering up all the papers and passing them over to me.

"Do you think Dickie stole from his partners?"

"Yes."

Oh for fuck's sake. My husband was an idiot. A cheating, faithless complete moron. I rolled my eyes. Not only had Dickie cheated on me, he'd dragged me into this mess, I was under suspicion for his disappearance, Joyce was being way too smug and now I had to untangle all this mess. Why me! And now I was sounding just like my mother. Ugh.

"Babe?" Ranger asked tentatively.

"Sorry. I'm back. Just had to reset."

Ranger's cell phone rang and he glanced down at the display and his blank face slammed into place. He listened for a couple of minutes, not showing any emotion, and then thanked the caller and hung up.

"They found Ziggy's body. He washed ashore south of Ferry Street Bridge. The police have already talked to Zip. I've got to go."

Ranger headed out, collecting Tank on the way. They seemed to communicate through a series of head nods, but maybe Tank had already received his own phone call. The office vibe went quiet. I'm guessing they were all thinking of Zip and the news about his brother. I went upstairs to Ella and Louis's apartment. It was empty and silent. I flopped down on my bed. I'd been hoping that this would all just resolve itself and life could get back to relatively normal, but knowing that someone had been killed made it all real. It also made me worry more about Dickie. The longer he was missing, the more likely it was that something awful had happened to him.

I ordered in food for dinner and went down to the reception to collect it. When the elevator doors opened for me to go back up, Ranger and Tank were inside. Tank got off on Level Four, and then it was just Ranger and me left alone. I held up my bags of food.

"Do you want some? I decided to fend for myself tonight," I told him.

"I'm not really hungry."

"I ordered a lot. I don't think that I can eat it all. And if I have leftovers, then Ella will know that I didn't eat the food that she left out on Floor Five. Then what will happen?" I asked. Ranger's mouth twitched.

"You're right, she'll never forgive you."

"So what should I do?" I said, as the doors opened on Level Six. Ranger smiled and hit close, and the elevator went up to Seven. We stepped out into the foyer and he opened the door to his apartment.

"How's Zip?" I asked him.

"About what you'd expect. He identified Ziggy. It looks like an execution, and like Ziggy had been in the water for a few days. Zip has gone to his sisters to be with his family."

I suddenly didn't feel hungry anymore. I didn't know Ziggy but Zip was a nice guy and I knew that Ziggy had a nephews and nieces who loved him and would miss him.

"Babe?"

"Sorry. I guess I'm not good at the blank face, am I?"

"No." Ranger opened the fridge, pulled out two beers and handed one to me before he got two bowls out of his kitchen cupboard and started serving the food.

"Let's watch a movie," I said to him. Maybe if I didn't think about it, I could put all of this out of my mind for a few hours. I was tired of worry, and of death. I didn't want to worry about Dickie. He didn't deserve it.

"Sure," Ranger said, and we headed over to the couch. I channel surfed until I found what I thought of as a compromise movie – light hearted, comedy but things still got blown up at some point. I finished off my noodles and got up to put the food away and get two more beers. I finished my second beer and started yawning. I'm a cheap drunk, and I was already exhausted to begin with. I found myself nodding off and woke up on the couch snuggled into Ranger's side.

"Babe?"

"Mmhmm?"

"Do you want me to take you to bed?"

"Mmhmm," I said, and fell back asleep.