"Don't Make Me Come to Vegas"

Ranger was waiting for me when I pulled into the lot under the RangeMan building. He was standing to the left of the elevator, arms folded across his chest, his eyes narrowed on my blue Honda Civic as I angled it into one of his private parking spaces. He walked over to the car and opened the door before I was out of my seatbelt, and reached over me to the file on the passenger seat. I got out of the car and shut the door, and watched as Ranger flipped through the file.

"Is this all you could find?" he asked when he'd reached the end.

"That's everything," I said. "I told you, I don't have any good programs. Not like you have here. Why didn't you just run this through Silvio?"

"This isn't business. It's personal." Ranger closed the file and handed it to me. "I have all the information I need. Let's go." Ranger's truck was backed into the slot next to my car. He beeped it unlocked and opened the passenger's side door.

"Get in."

"Where are we going?"

"I'll explain on the way," he said.

I climbed into the cab and Ranger shut the door, and walked around the truck to the driver's side. He cranked the engine and a pop song blasted out from the speakers.

"Jesus Christ." Ranger pressed a button on the stereo and the music stopped. A CD popped out of the player. He slid it into one of the sleeves on the case above his visor, put the truck in gear, and pulled out of the lot.

"Funny," I said. I was trying not to laugh, and not having much luck with it.

"I never pictured you as a Ricky Martin fan."

Ranger shook his head. "It's not mine," he said. "I hate that guy."

"You're only human," I said. "Julie's?"

Ranger nodded, but kept his eyes on the road.

Julie was Ranger's daughter from a previous marriage. She was ten now, and she lived with her mother and stepfather in Florida. I didn't know the particulars of Ranger's relationship with his daughter, but I did know that for the most part, Ranger kept his distance. A short while ago, a man by the name of Edward Scrog had impersonated Ranger, kidnapped Julie and brought her to Trenton so he could complete his family. In Scrog's warped mind, I was supposed to fill the Mommy role.

Probably there was something to be read into that, but I tried hard not to think about it.

"How is she?"

"She's good," Ranger said. "She asked about you."

"What did you tell her?"

A small smile played on Ranger's mouth, but he didn't say anything. There was an intensity hovering near the surface. His jaw was tight. His eyes were fixed on the road. Someone had pissed him off. And I had a pretty good idea that someone was Johnny Stone.

I turned my attention to the file. "Tell me about this guy," I said. "I ran a background check on him. No priors. Credit came back okay. He's a student. Grades are average, but no worse than mine were." I looked over at Ranger. I guess he wasn't feeling talkative. "Well, you could at least tell me where we're going."

"Vegas."

"Vegas? We can't go to Vegas!" I said. "Pull over. Stop the truck."

"I'm not pulling over," Ranger said. "If you don't want to go, you don't have to. I'll leave the keys to my truck with you, and you can drive back from the airport."

"And what about you?" I asked him. "You can't go to Nevada. They'll arrest you."

Ranger shrugged. "That's only an issue if I get caught," he said. "And I don't plan on getting caught."

I rolled my eyes and sunk low into the seat. Ranger was one of the good guys, but he wasn't a saint. He didn't do things he felt were morally wrong, but he didn't necessarily follow the rules of conduct set forth by the New Jersey Criminal Law Commission, either. Not that I had a problem with this. Well, okay, so maybe I had a small problem with it. But I was pretty sure Ranger only killed bad guys, and only then when he had to. So that was something, right?

Ranger parked the truck and I followed him into the airport, to the ticket counter.

"Can I help you?" asked the woman behind the ticket counter.

"Yeah, just a second," I said. I tugged on Ranger's elbow and pulled him off to the side. "Think about this," I said to him once we were out of earshot. "This is a bad idea."

Ranger took in a deep breath and let it out slowly. Then he said, "Here are the keys to my truck. Take it back to RangeMan. I'll be back in a few days."

Ranger folded my hands around his keys and pulled me to him, and kissed me. We were standing in front of a line of airline counters, and we were starting to attract attention. Not good. Ranger broke the kiss and walked back to the ticket counter.

And I stood there dumbfounded, not sure what to do next. That's the thing I disliked most about Ranger. He wasn't all that great at communication. So what did I know? I knew he was after someone, and that it was personal. That raised the Eep! factor by about a ton. As a rule, Ranger didn't wish death on his enemies. He planned it.

I hurried over to the ticket counter and pulled Ranger away again. "Okay," I said. "I'm coming with you. But why me? Why not Tank?"

Ranger glanced around and closed the gap between us. "I can control myself when I'm around you."

"You call that controlling yourself?" I asked him, thinking back to the kiss.

"There are different levels of self-restraint," he said. "And you said so yourself, I'm only human."

"So you think things might get out of hand in Vegas?"

"I'm hoping they won't. But if they do, I don't want to do anything stupid."

"Such as?" Ranger looked at me, but didn't say anything. He didn't need to.

We both knew what he was capable of. "What did this guy do to you, anyway?"

Ranger shook his head. "It's not about me," he said. "It's about my sister."

Ranger had grown up in a neighborhood similar to mine. His parents were still there, and he had five siblings scattered up and down the east coast. He didn't talk about them often, and I hadn't pressed the issue. Family wasn't Ranger's favorite topic.

"He did something to your sister?"

"He got her pregnant."

Oh, boy. "And we're going to Vegas because . . ."

"They've eloped."

"Are you sure?" I asked him.

Ranger nodded. "I got an email from Celia this morning, right before I called you. Luz called her this morning and told her everything."

"So why doesn't Celia go to Vegas?"

"Celia's seven months pregnant," he said. "She can't fly. And even if she could, she wouldn't. She's a romantic."

"She thinks they're in love." Ranger nodded. "And you don't."

"Luz is nineteen," Ranger said. "She's too young. She doesn't know what she's getting into."

"And you do."

"Babe," Ranger said.

I glanced over Ranger's shoulder at the woman behind the ticket counter. She was watching us with an annoyed expression. I motioned for another moment, and turned my attention back to Ranger.

"Okay," I said. "So what's the plan?"

"We stop them."

"And if that doesn't work?"

"How are you with a shovel?"

I stared at Ranger for a beat. "That's a joke, right? You're joking."

Ranger crooked an arm around my neck and brushed a kiss across my temple. "Don't bet on it."