Chapter 5

It was dark when I opened my eyes, but as I adjusted to the dimness, I could see that I was in a hospital room. There were guardrails on both sides of my bed, and a television mounted to the wall across from me. Morelli was sprawled across a small couch against the wall to my left. His legs hung off the edge by a good six inches, and he had an arm draped over his face. A glow emanated from behind me. I turned my head to see a heart monitor, and I followed the cord to the plastic doohickey clipped to my finger. The monitor showed a steady beat. Hooray.

"I'm not dead?"

Morelli levered himself off the couch and was at my side in an instant. "Hey, Cupcake."

He had taken my hand, and I gave his a squeeze while I took in the rest of the room. Tank was leaning against the wall near the door, arms crossed over his chest. He gave me a weary smile when my eyes landed on him.

I'd seen the whole room, but something was missing. "Where's Ranger?"

"He's not here," Morelli told me.

My stomach did a sort of painful drop. I remembered the blood. There was so much of it, but it hadn't occurred to me that it might not have been all mine. Had Ranger been hit, too? "Is he okay?"

"He's fine," Tank said. He pushed himself off the wall and stepped forward. "He had to take a meeting."

Huh. A meeting. Okay. I brought my hands to my stomach and felt the bulk of bandages under the parchment paper sheets and scratchy hospital gown. I had two IVs stuck in me, and I assumed that one of them was dosing me with the good stuff, because I was feeling very little pain and was having a hard time concentrating.

"What happened?" I asked.

Morelli's brow furrowed. "You don't remember?"

If only. "I remember getting shot. I don't remember arriving at the hospital or anything after that. What happened to me? Am I okay?"

He reached out to tuck a curl behind my ear. "You're going to be just fine. You lost some blood and were a little shocky, but the bullet missed anything critical. The doctors decided you didn't even need surgery."

"I seem to have a vague recollection of a bunch of doctors debating about that. Did I dream it?"

"You were in and out of consciousness," Tank told me. "The ER docs stopped the bleeding and got you stabilized. Then they took you for a CT and determined that the bullet missed all internal organs. There was some discussion around a laparoscopy to make sure the bleeding was under control, but the latest research shows that the risks of surgery can outweigh the benefits in cases like yours. You've been admitted and will be observed for any adverse reactions, but they're pretty confident you'll be able to go home in a couple of days."

"Days?"

Tank cut his eyes to Morelli. "I'm going to step out. Need to make a phone call."

"Thanks for leaving me to deal with that revelation," Morelli mumbled.

I watched Tank leave. "Is he right? Am I going to be stuck here for days?"

"You were unbelievably lucky. I swear, you have nine lives."

Scary thought, because if that was true, surely I was reaching the end of my allotment. "What time is it? What day is it?"

"It's still Saturday night." Morelli looked at his watch and corrected himself. "Sort of. It's past midnight, so technically it's Sunday."

"How long have you been here?"

"Tank called me when you were en route, and I arrived while you were getting your CT scan. You've been out for a few hours, but the doctors said that's mostly because of the pain meds."

I realized that I knew alarmingly little about gunshot wounds to the abdomen. "What happens from here? I assume I get to keep all my limbs. Can I move around? Can I eat solid food?"

He reached up to touch my hair again, and his hand lingered. "You can move around very carefully. We're supposed to call a nurse when you need to go to the bathroom, so she can help you. And as far as I know, you can eat whatever you want. Are you hungry?"

"No." My stomach was actually feeling sort of rocky. "I just wanted to make sure."

"You've got a few stitches in your belly, and they're the kind that dissolve on their own. You're not supposed to get them wet, and the nurses said you're also supposed to get their help when it's time to take a shower."

I let my eyes drift closed. "Great."

Morelli brushed his lips against my forehead. "You should get some more rest."

"Wait." My eyes popped open. "What about skinny guy and gargantuan? The guys who shot me?"

"We've got nothing." Morelli blew out a breath. "Donnie Piemonte drew the case. Tank and Ranger both gave their statements, and you'll need to give one too. Donnie will maybe try to set you up with a sketch artist."

"They were asking about one of my FTAs. Gabriella Ayala."

"Ranger told us as much."

"What else did Ranger tell you?"

"That was about it."

I remembered the strange phone call I'd had with Ranger. He'd reacted to Gabriella's name. He knew something, but he wasn't sharing it with the police. Ranger wasn't a sharing-and-caring type of guy, but in this case, if there were things that he was keeping to himself, he would have a good reason.

Morelli's gaze had turned assessing. "What were they asking about her?"

"They asked me where she was, and I honestly have no clue. I couldn't tell them anything. They said they were looking for her, and they wanted me to stop looking. Or else."

"Piemonte will be talking to Gabriella's arresting officer, to see what he might know."

Morelli kept his eyes on me. He was a good cop. He suspected there was more. I'd decided not to say anything about the weird message that skinny guy had given me. I would tell Ranger and let him decide what to do with it. I had no idea what the message meant, but I didn't want to screw anything up for Ranger if it was part of what he was playing close to the vest.

Our staring contest was interrupted when a nurse bustled in to check on me. She took my vitals, asked me a few questions, and handed Morelli a little paper cup with a pill before she left.

"What's that?" I asked him. "I'm the one lying in a hospital bed. Why are you getting medication?"

He grimaced. "It's for my blood pressure."

"What's wrong with your blood pressure?"

"It's too high, apparently. I started having some chest pains when I first saw you, after you came out of your CT scan."

I gaped at him. "I gave you chest pains?"

"They gave me an injection at first, and now they have me on these pills. I'm supposed to keep taking them until I come back in a month for a follow-up appointment."

"Are you okay?"

"Don't worry about me. I'll be fine. Get some rest," he told me.

###

The next time I awoke, it was morning. I looked over to see Vicky Placzek fussing with the bags attached to my IVs. Seeing her was almost like rubbing salt in my wound.

Vicky Placzek was friends with my sister Valerie in high school. Just like Valerie, Vicky was perfect. Perfect daughter, perfect student, perfect Prom Queen. Vicky had been voted Most Likely to Succeed in her graduating class. I hadn't been voted Most Likely anything.

I might have sighed a little. Vicky startled and looked down at me. "Sorry. Did I wake you?"

"It wasn't you. What time is it?"

"Almost nine." Vicky must have caught my glance at the empty couch across the room. "Joe just stepped out when I came in for morning rounds. I think he went to get some breakfast. He should be back soon."

"Thanks."

She lowered her voice. "Who is that big guy outside your room?"

"Hard to say." I wasn't sure if Tank would have been relieved by another Rangeman employee by now. 'Big guy' could cover about half of the Rangeman roster.

"Look at you. Lying here with a gunshot wound, with some guy who looks like he could be a body double for The Rock standing guard outside your door. I can't imagine what having your life must be like."

"Don't remind me."

"It must be so exciting."

I blinked up at her, surprised. Not sure how to respond to that one. "I mean… if you think rolling around in garbage, or getting shot at, or being stalked by crazy killers, or getting your car bombed, or having people breaking into your apartment at all hours of the day or night is exciting, then… sure. I guess."

"It sounds at least a little exciting. Maybe not the getting shot at part. Or the garbage. And as long as no one gets hurt in the car bombings."

"There's about to be an opening at the bonds office, if you're interested in trying my life on for size."

"Your cousin owns the place, right? Is he expanding?"

"Nope. I'm quitting."

Her eyes went a little wide. "Why would you do that?"

"Look at me!" I flapped my arms out and let them fall back down. "I'm sick of this. I'm sick of being a failure. I'm sick of having to hear about how everyone around town is talking about my latest catastrophe."

"Mostly what I hear around town is that you're a little scary, but in a good way. Like that time you burnt down the funeral home to save your grandma."

Huh. Usually when people talk about the funeral home incident, they conveniently forget about the more heroic aspects of the situation. "You must not be running in the same gossip circles as my… Ohmigod."

My heart sort of tripped up in my chest. Somebody would have undoubtedly called my mother by now. Probably more like a dozen somebodies. She would have gotten a thorough play-by-play of the whole dramatic circumstance surrounding my arrival at the hospital, my admittance, my…

I heard a kerfuffle from the hallway just seconds before the door opened and my Grandma Mazur rushed in. Grandma had her hair done up in curls and was wearing a lavender velour track suit and a fresh coat of mauve lipstick. My mother followed closely on Grandma's heels. None of this was surprising, but I was about bowled over when my father strolled in behind them.

"Wowee, look at you," Grandma said. She stopped about two feet from the bed and gaped at me. "You really did get shot."

"Ohmigod." My mother reached out to place a hand on the foot of my bed, steadying herself.

"I'm fine," I told them. "I didn't even need surgery. I'm totally okay."

"You're lying in a hospital bed!" my mother exclaimed. "Of course you're not okay!"

"It's just precautionary. I get to go home soon, and I'll be as good as new."

My mother looked to Vicky, who was looking rather official in her scrubs and with her stethoscope and all. "Is that true?"

"I mean…" Vicky hesitated, but I shot her my Burg death glare. Vicky grew up in the Burg just like me, and as far as I knew she didn't have any mob ties or Italian heritage or other protections against the glare. She paled a little and turned back to my mother with a meek smile. "That's right."

Vicky left not long after that, mumbling an excuse and edging her way past my family and out of the room.

"Where'd he shoot you?" Grandma's eyes were wide and alight with curiosity.

"Honestly!" my mother chided. "You'd think Stephanie was a roadside attraction, with the way you're treating her. Your granddaughter got shot. I bet Lauren Lovick's mother never has to take a call in the middle of the night from some mysterious monochromatic man, telling her that her daughter's been shot!"

"We already knew that she was okay, and now we just heard it straight from the horse's mouth. Now I'm ready to hear how it happened. Stephan McCarty is gonna be laid out at Stiva's tonight, and I got the juiciest story in the neighborhood. People are gonna want to hear how it went down."

"I don't want to hear this! And she doesn't want to relive it, either. It was traumatic, and it's best to focus on the positive now. She's healing and is going to be okay. She'll come stay in her old room for a few weeks and we'll take care of her while she's on the mend."

I was frozen. I didn't hear any crazy beeping, so apparently the heart monitor wasn't picking up my distress. The idea of staying at my parents' house for any length of time was not an appealing one.

My savior came from an unexpected place. My father stepped up to lay a hand on my mother's shoulder. "Why don't we let Stephanie decide for herself whether she wants to tell us what happened, and what kind of help she could use from us."

My mother and grandmother both swung their expectant gazes back to me, but my eyes were still stuck on my father's. I telegraphed him a silent thank you.

"It's all sort of fuzzy," I told them. I'd decided to go light on the details, trying to strike a balance between appeasing Grandma without permanently scarring my mother. "I was asking around in a neighborhood about an FTA, and these two guys followed me back to my apartment. They didn't mean to shoot me, exactly. It was sort of an accident."

"Huh. I thought for sure you would've been shot in the process of hauling some delinquent guy's butt to jail."

I supposed I could take that as a weird sort of vote of confidence. "Not this time."

"Honestly," my mother said again, sounding more resigned than indignant this time. She sank into a chair across from my bed. "What kind of life is this? It's no wonder Joseph started seeing Lauren Lovick. What kind of man could handle this life?"

I swallowed past a hard, painful lump in my throat. She was right. As things stood, I was not great wife material. I'd just learned that I was basically slowly killing Morelli. And he was a cop! If he couldn't handle me, then no one could.

"You should find a new job," my mother continued. "I hear they're hiring at the personal products plant again."

"I'll fill out an application as soon as I'm out of here."

"I don't see why you insist on keeping this…" my mother went on. Then her brain caught up. "Oh. Really? Good. That's great. I could even swing by and pick one up for you, if you'd like."

Grandma perched herself on the edge of my bed near my feet. "You're not quitting again, are you? That might put a real crimp in my social standing, if we don't got any more stories of you kicking butt out on the streets. Although I guess it didn't turn out so bad last time you quit, what with all the different explosions at your new jobs."

"There won't be any explosions this time," I said. I wished that I felt as confident as I sounded.

My family left once I'd successfully reassured my mother that I wasn't dying and emphasized to Grandma that she was not allowed to embellish the story of my shooting for dramatic effect. Morelli reappeared not long after, and I suspected that his absence during their visit had not been coincidental.

I managed to get up and out of bed a few times, and by the end of the day I'd given the hospital staff enough confidence in me that I was now allowed to use the restroom by myself. Yay. Morelli hung out with me all day and through dinner, but then his cell phone buzzed and he had to take off. Murder never takes a night off in Trenton.

The next twenty-four hours in the hospital were a brain-numbing montage of flipping through channels on the television, scrolling through my phone, deeply introspective questioning of my life decisions, and sleeping. Connie and Lula came to visit, but Lula couldn't stay long on account of the hospital cooties. I was grateful that she'd braved the hospital to check up on me.

By Monday night, I was crawling out of my skin. I did my routine of channel-flipping and phone-scrolling for the three hundredth time that day, and then figured I may as well just go to sleep. I made a wish that I would magically sleep through the next twenty-four hours and that by the time I woke up, I could go home. The bed was hard, the pillows were flat, and the sheets were scratchy. It took me about an hour and a half, but finally I managed to drift into unconsciousness.

When I awoke in the darkened room, my first thought was one of annoyance. I couldn't stay asleep in this damn bed. But then I saw Ranger sitting in the chair next to me, and my second thought was also one of annoyance.

"I'm trying hard not to be a total girl about this, but where have you been?"

"I had to take a meeting," he said.

"Yeah, that's what Tank said. A meeting. For two days."

He was quiet. Nothing to say to that. My patience was wearing thin.

"I got shot!"

"I know. I was there. I won't be forgetting it anytime soon."

"Where were you?" I asked again.

"Not where I wanted to be."

"I have questions."

A breath escaped him, and if I didn't know better, I'd say it was a sigh. "I have questions, too. And not nearly as many answers as I'd like."

"Who is Gabriella Ayala?"

He was silent for the space of several heartbeats, during which time I debated punching him in the nose. But probably I'd rip a stitch or something if I lunged at him. Luckily for both of us, he started talking.

"She's the ex-girlfriend of a very powerful drug lord."

"If she's connected like that, then why was she arrested for trying to buy drugs from a cop?" I asked. "I wouldn't think she'd be needing to look for a new dealer."

"That's one question," Ranger agreed. "But it's not even close to the top of my list. I have no idea why she's shown up here in Trenton, but no matter what way I try to spin it, it's not good news."

"No kidding. It seems there are a few people looking for her."

"Way more than a few."

"I think that includes the cops, now, too," I said. "I still need to give them my statement."

"I'd appreciate it if you could stick with what you know from your FTA file for now."

"Why aren't we sharing the drug lord connection?"

"There are too many missing pieces of the puzzle. I need to put a few more of them together before I'll have a grasp on the bigger picture."

This whole conversation was one big puzzle, and I had a feeling that Ranger had more pieces than he was letting on. But hey, what else was new? Ranger had two lives - or possibly more - but I was only involved in one of them. He didn't go out of town or 'in the wind' as often as he once had, but it still wasn't an uncommon occurrence. Although I was deeply curious, I'd learned that asking questions didn't get me far, and I had long since stopped trying. Ranger felt that I knew all I needed to know - that his life doesn't lend itself to relationships - and I was no longer sure how much I even wanted to know about his other personas.

He leaned forward in his chair and propped his arms on my bed. He looked weary, and my annoyance was slipping through my fingers. "You look like you've been sleeping about as well as I have."

"Probably true. I need to get home for a couple hours of shut-eye before I head back out, but I wanted to see you first. How are you holding up?"

"I'm alright. The nurses like my mobility, and Vicky Placzek said she'd put in a good word with the doctors. If all goes well, I might be able to get out of here tomorrow."

"Are you planning on staying with Morelli? Or your parents?"

"I really just want to go home. I want my own bed, and my own couch, and I need to get back to Rex."

"Rex is at Rangeman," he told me.

"What's he doing there?"

"I wasn't sure how long you'd be admitted. I had Binkie pick him up yesterday morning. He's been with Ella."

Lucky Rex. Staying at Rangeman was sort of like staying at an all-inclusive resort. Probably Ella was feeding him organic veggies and fine cheeses. "Thank you."

"Are you sure you're okay?"

"Pretty sure. I have a souvenir of the experience. They tell me I get to keep the bullet in my belly."

"Yeah. I've got a few souvenirs like that, too."

"Can I ask you something?"

He held my gaze for a few beats. "You can always ask. I'll do my best to answer."

"Do you set off metal detectors?"

That earned me a real smile, though it was a few watts short of his usual. "Hardly ever. The threshold is usually set too high to be bothered by a few measly bullet fragments. You've only got one, so you won't have to worry about it."

"How many do you have?"

"I'm not sure."

"You're not sure how many bullets are in your body?"

"I haven't bothered to keep track. The important part is what happens after the bullet."

"And what's that?"

"You learn from it. You do better next time."

"It was a potshot!"

"There was some lead-up," he said. "What did you do to defend yourself when they grabbed you? Did you even have your gun on you? Or did you make it easy for them?"

My breath caught at his tone. I'd heard Ranger chastise his men before, but I wasn't used to being on the receiving end. He was right, of course, and that made it even worse. How stupid could I be? I blinked against the prickling sensation behind my eyeballs.

"Fuck." He ran a hand over his face, and then took my hand in his. "I'm sorry. This wasn't your fault. This is about my issues. It hasn't been a great 48 hours."

"Those guys followed me from Stark. I was there asking questions, and I knew the kind of crowd I was dealing with. You're right, I should have had my gun."

He didn't bother contesting that. "I'm sorry this happened to you."

"I still have questions. About the guys who shot me, and about Gabriella Ayala."

"I know. I'm working on getting more answers."

"And you'll share, once you get them?"

"I'll share as much as I can."

That wasn't exactly what I'd been hoping to hear, but it was probably the best deal I was going to get. Ranger leaned in to kiss me on the forehead, and then he was gone.