Chapter 3

I had sent all of Grandma's friends home before I left for Ranger's. They had strict instructions to wait for us to call them before they tried anything else. But when we turned the corner, I could see several of them hanging out near the road. And as we got closer, I noticed that that most of them were back at my parents house.

Grandma came running out and headed straight to the car. Seeing the guys pulling up behind us brought a big grin to her face. I noticed that Ranger swallowed hard, and I am pretty sure that he was remembering last time my grandmother was within arms reach of him. Not wanting to be too obvious, I hid my giggle in a cough as we exited the car.

Intercepting Grandma, I asked her what everyone was doing here. Trying to be tough, I gave her the 'look' but it didn't seem to phase her at all, I really didn't expect it to.

"Oh good, you brought the reinforcements!" she said. Ranger nodded slightly in her direction, and without a word, he herded everyone into the house.

Once inside, he commanded their attention as he explained the plan. I had to admit, he was precise and economical in his wording, just like I have always known him to be. Nothing had been left out, but I could see that Grandma's friends wanted a bit more. And just as soon as he stopped speaking, the questions started.

Ranger remained standing statue still, and no one noticed the signal. Right on cue, Silvio stepped forward to answer all of their questions about the technical details. I was actually impressed that they had come up with such great questions. It showed that they had been following the plan better than I had expected them to, at least that was what I thought, until one of them spoke up.

"No, no," said old Mr Kruzak. He kind of shuffled to the front of the group, and was holding up a grocery bag. "We want to know if we can leave a few surprises of our own in those packages."

Other voices joined with his and out of nowhere there were all kinds of bags being shoved at Silvio and Hector. The guys looked a little bit ill, something that I had never seen before, and it hit me. These questions had not been for their own understanding, these old people just wanted to see that they got to do what they wanted to.

"Grandma," I asked, looking her in the eye. "What is in those bags?"

She shuffled her dentures around in her mouth for a moment before she gave me a side way glance. Then she stood as tall as she could get and squared her shoulders.

"We put a few surprises in those bags," she said. Then I saw the gleam in her eyes. "We just thought that the stinking pirates need to know that they better never come back here to our neighborhood. Ever again."

The grins and nods of everyone made me even more suspicious. But Ranger asked the next question before I got the chance.

"Tell me about the surprises," he said in his deep no nonsense voice.

Once again grandma was the one to answer. "Well, there are some old clothes in some of the bags," she said. Ranger gave her a look and she continued. "And there might be some rocks too."

For a moment, she stared her feet, and then she looked up and proudly said, "And in every one of those bags we added a little treat. Betty here had some rotting potatoes in her cellar, so we packed some of them up in old Tupperware containers."

"That will be a smell that they won't soon forget," Betty said. "It'll serve 'em right!"

Her defiant attitude had Ranger fighting a smile. I guess I couldn't blame them, these people had been pretty upset when their stuff had been stolen away, and this was one way to get back at the bad guys. I got it.

"Hector," Ranger said, "Can you include some of these bags in our decoy boxes?"

A whoop went up and everyone was cheering as Hector nodded and started gathering up the bags still being handed over to him. Grandma was standing there with a proud look on her face. Yep, I thought, she was the hero of the day for bringing Ranger and his guys in on this. And she was going to enjoy every second of the fun.

I hated to ruin it for her, but I really did have to send everybody home now. Ranger and Silvio gave them strict instructions to stay inside and out of sight for the next two days. And I think that they actually listened to them. Now that they got their contributions added to operation catch the pirates, they were happy. And they were happy to leave the rest up to Ranger.

Of course, Ranger wasted no time in getting started. Hector grabbed his big bag of tools and equipment and headed out. In just a few hours, he had surveillance cameras hidden on all of the porches we were going to be using.

After directing Silvio as he pulled the van into the garage, so that it would be ready to go in the morning. Grandma shut the garage door and followed him out to the black truck. She watched in awe as Silvio helped Hector to get all the connections hooked up, and one by one the view of the porches showed up on the bank of monitors in the large SUV.

This was as much as we were going to do today, and we started packing things up to leave. Just in time, though, mom came out and invited me and the guys to stay for dinner. Score for me, that is exactly what I had been hoping for, I just wasn't sure what they would say. But without hesitation, Ranger was gracious and accepted the invitation. He knew the burg manners too, you don't refuse an invitation to dinner around here.

All of us were soon situated around the table. Mom had outdone herself tonight, Not only had she whipped up a roast with onions and carrots and potatoes that I love, she had chicken fried steak and mashed potatoes with gravy. I couldn't wait to eat!

Between bites, Grandma kept the guys talking by shooting one question after another at them. Mostly they were all about the operation she had been instrumental in starting, and Silvio answered most of them. Hector nodded a lot and Ranger seemed content to sit back and watch the show.

It was when some personal questions popped up and I was worried that Grandma may have gone too far. Again, I was amazed by Ranger. He was the one to speak up now, and I learned more about his personal life in next three minutes than I had ever known before.

Some of those strange feelings in my stomach started again. Ranger had always had that affect on me. A fact, that sent me soaring to heights I could only have dreamed of, and annoyed Morelli out of his mind. I was off again with Joe, permanently. Mostly because of his attitude toward Ranger. I don't think that I have actually shared that little tidbit of information with Ranger yet. I figure that he knows, he knows everything. And part of me wonders, if he did know, all this time, did it make any difference to him? If he knows that Joe has been out of my life for a good five months now, is he going to ever do anything about it?

While I was busy with my internal monologue, the conversation had taken yet another turn, and it was my father who was now talking about his own military experiences. Amazingly, the men at the table all seemed to have a lot in common, and they told stories until mom brought out desert. Everyone stopped and stared. I was speechless too, it looked magnificent.

"I thought I would try my hand at making a Trifle," she said with a non-nonchalant shrug. We could see the layers of fruit and cream and cake through the bowl, and I could hardly wait to try it. Mom served it into small dishes, and while we all did our best to get ready for seconds, I noticed that even Ranger ate the fruit from his.

We left, with Grandma and mom standing at the door watching the cars disappear down the street. I settled into the seat and glanced over at Ranger. This had been the most unusual day. I almost didn't want it to end. It had been a while since I had spent much time with Ranger and I had really missed him. If I could, I wanted to find some way to linger a little bit longer with him. But I knew that it wouldn't be long until he dropped me off at my apartment.

His eyes were still on the road when Ranger spoke up.

"Just wait until tomorrow, I think we are all in for some surprises," he said.

How did he always do that?