Chapter Nine

I was curled up on the couch still wrapped snugly in Ranger's bathrobe when my cell phone rang.

"Stephanie, thank God." It was Mary Lou. "Where have you been? I've been trying to call you all day."

"Sorry. Cell phone malfunction."

"Blown up?"

Honestly. "No, just broken. But I got a new one. What's up?"

"My blood pressure, that's what." Mary Lou dissolved into a fit of sobs, which were soon drowned out by a loud crunching sound. By the tone and pitch of the crunching, I guessed she had hit the Cheez Doodle phase, a veritable Burg code red. "I'm pregnant and I'm tired. I used to wake up every day thinking I was Christie Brinkley. But not anymore. Now I'm Roseanne." Crunch, crunch, crunch.

"Don't say that," I cooed. "You like your life. You like being a mom."

"I do. I really do. But I'm tired, Steph. I've been changing diapers for five years. Five. Count them. And I was really looking forward to a break. I mean, Kenny is this close to kindergarten, and I've almost got Mikey potty trained. Now I feel like my parole finally came up and instead of a reprieve, I got an extended sentence." Mary Lou hiccupped away a few more tears, and crunched another handful of Cheez Doodles. "I need to get out of here. Can I come over?"

"I'm kind of not allowed at my apartment right now," I told her. Then I followed it up with the hand-in-the-freezer story.

"Whoa," Mary Lou said. She sounded more awestruck than horrified. "Where are you staying? You're not at your parents'. And you're not at Morelli's. And you're not living in your truck, because I hear Survivor in the background. Oh, my god! You're staying with him, aren't you?"

By the way she said it, you would think the him in question was Johnny Depp instead of Ranger.

"Only for a few days. And it's not what you think."

"Oh, my god! You're doing him!" Jesus. "You are, aren't you? I can tell by the tone in your voice. It's the same one you had when Morelli plucked you behind the éclair case."

My heart gave an involuntary flutter at the mention of the M word. I choked it down and hoped Mary Lou hadn't noticed.

"So, tell me. How was it? I want details."

I went quiet for a moment. Probably Ranger wouldn't like it if I told. But then, there were things he did that I didn't like. Giving my co-workers the authority to stun-gun me was one of them. "I can't talk here," I said. "Meet me outside the building in half an hour."

#

I disconnected and got dressed in a pair of jeans and a sweater. Then I slicked on some lip gloss and a couple coats of mascara, and did a half-assed job at the hair thing. I had my hand on the doorknob when I remembered I was under house arrest. Damn it.

I paced around the foyer while I went over my options. The moment I stepped outside the door, I would be on one of the screens in the control room, which meant Ram would be waiting for me when I got off the elevator, taser in tow. Think, I told myself. I needed something to cause a distraction. Or something to block the feed.

Mental head slap. Of course. I couldn't believe I hadn't thought of it sooner. When I started working for Rangeman, I had been issued a key fob similar to Ranger's. I suddenly wondered how similar. I picked up my key fob and looked it over. It was small, black, rounded at the top. There were two black buttons in the middle: one to access the garage, and the other to access Ranger's apartment. There was a tiny red button at the top. I'd never used that one. That had to be it.

I opened the door just enough to align the key fob with the camera. Then I pressed the button and waited. Nothing happened. Huh, I thought. I pressed the button again and held it in for a few seconds. Still nothing. I tried it a few more times and jumped when the phone rang.

I dropped my keys on the silver plate by the sideboard, shut the door, and moved into the kitchen. I reached for the phone and stopped myself. This was Ranger's apartment. His personal space. Probably he got personal calls here. What if I answered and it was his mother? I bit my lip and waited for the phone to stop ringing. Then I took a deep breath and answered when it didn't.

"You're killing us down here." It was Hal. "Stop it."

"Stop what?"

"Stop playing with your panic button."

So that's what the red button does. Hal disconnected and I called Mary Lou on her cell phone.

"Remember when we were seventeen and I wanted to go to the Springsteen concert in Newark?"

"Let me guess. You're locked in your room, with the windows nailed shut."

"Something like that."

"How long do you need?"

"I don't know. Just keep circling."

I closed my cell phone and paced back and forth for a while. Then I picked up the phone and dialed five. Hal answered.

"I need to talk to Butch. Is he there?"

"He came in with Tank about an hour ago. Probably he's in his room. Try extension forty-eight."

I thanked Hal and hung up. The fourth floor of the Rangeman building was comprised of several studio apartments reserved for Rangeman employees. I'd stayed in one of them a few months ago while hiding out from a gang hit man and had found them lacking only one thing. Ranger. I somehow doubted Butch would have that problem.

Butch answered on the second ring.

"It's Stephanie." Butch sucked in some air. I wasn't sure what Butch had heard about me, and whether or not he had believed any of it. He was real quiet for a minute. I could only assume he'd heard a lot and that he'd believed it all. Crap. That would make things more difficult, but not impossible. "I have a teensy problem," I said, "and I was hoping you could help me out."

"Go on."

"Well, I was hoping to go for a run before I turn in. Except I can't remember how to block the feed on the security cameras in the gym. Ranger had showed me this thing with my key fob, but it doesn't seem to be working."

"You got it with you? What's it look like?"

"Small. Black. Red button on the top."

"Look to the right. There should be a small button about the size of a pin-head. It will be slightly recessed. Press it once to block the feed, twice to reset. Got it?"

"Got it."

"And remember to reset the system when you're done."

"No problemo."

There was a pause, then Butch asked, "About the Explorer. That sort of thing happen often?"

"You mean do cars I'm in routinely get shot at? No." Butch let out a relieved sigh. "Usually they just blow up."

#

I secured my cell phone to the waistband of my pants and swung my bag over my shoulder. I opened the door just an inch and paused. I felt kind-of guilty for skipping out, so I pulled a business card out of my bag and left a note on the back of it. RANGER, it read. I placed it on the silver plate on the sideboard and stuck my head out the door. Then

I pressed the button like Butch had instructed. The light on the camera went to solid red.

I stepped into the elevator, careful to block the feed on that camera, too. The doors opened to the underground lot and I half-expected to see Tank waiting on me, armed to the teeth. When I saw no one, I felt a mixture of elation and panic. That had been easy. Too easy. Either I was getting really good at this bounty-hunter thing, or something was up. My bet was on the latter.

I spotted Mary Lou at the curb, buzzed open the gate, and angled into her tan Honda Pilot. Mary Lou pulled out with a squeal. She made a few sudden turns, crossed onto Hamilton, then checked her rearview mirror and said to me, "Do you think we lost them?"

"Yeah," I said. "Good work."

Truth was, I didn't think we were being followed. For one thing, there were no black cars on the road. For another, no one short of Grandma Mazur would have been able to lose Mary Lou. She had a giant Winnie the Pooh head suction-cupped to the rear driver's side window. She made a left onto Roebling and pulled into the lot at Rossini's. "What happened to the truck?" Mary Lou wanted to know as we filed out of the SUV.

"I'm having it detailed." And checked for gratuitous amounts of C4.

We got a table near the front and ordered from the menu. I got the fettuccini and Mary Lou got the manicotti. I unclipped my cell phone and placed it on the table and sipped a glass of red wine while we waited. The breadsticks arrived a couple minutes later. Mary Lou seized one and tore it in half.

"Okay," she said. "Spill. What's going on between you and that Ranger guy?"

I shrugged and took another sip of wine. There was a warm happy feeling spreading all the way to my toes. "Nothing. We just work together."

"Mm hmm." Mary Lou took a bite and chewed. "Fine. Don't tell me. But don't think for a minute that I believe you."

I gulped some more wine. My cheeks felt flushed and my eyelids heavy. Another half of a glass and I would tell Mary Lou anything she wanted to know. She had me, hook, line, and sinker. And she knew it. Mary Lou leaned across the table and stared at me, her eyes wide. "So?"

"Okay, we did it," I said.

"Oh, my god. I knew it. How was it?"

The waiter brought our food. I smoothed my napkin onto my lap and forked a piece of sausage to my mouth. "It was okay," I said.

Mary Lou's face fell. "Okay? Did he...I mean, did you...He wasn't, you know, was he?" She held up half a breadstick and gave her eyebrows a double-shrug.

I let out a snort of laughter. "No, he wasn't..." I gestured to the breadstick. Then I said, "It was good. It was nice." Great. Excellent. Mind-blowing. All of the above, and then some.

"But..."

I shrugged. "It's complicated," I said through a mouth-full of fettuccini. "He's Batman! He lives in a Bat Cave and drives a Batmobile. He always skips dessert, and he runs, like, eight miles before breakfast. I never skip dessert and I don't run unless I have to. And he's not big on the over-sharing. Most of the time, I don't even know what he's thinking. And on the rare times when I do, it's only because he has his hand down my pants." I took another sip of wine and then speared a chunk of sausage. "Don't get me wrong, the sex is good. Really, really good. It's just that maybe I'm not cut out for this nostrings-attached stuff. Maybe I need more than fun."

Mary Lou stared at me for a moment, looking pained. Probably I'd just destroyed her fantasy. Oh, well. I'd destroyed mine, too.

"Was it better than Batman?" she wanted to know.

"Which one?"

Mary Lou chewed on a piece of manicotti and thought for a moment. "Keaton."

I rolled my eyes. "Obviously."

"Okay. Kilmer?" I nodded. "Clooney?"

"Better than Kilmer. He ties with Clooney."

Mary Lou nodded. It would take a lot to trump Clooney. "What about Bond?"

We both agreed that Ranger was better than all of the Bonds. Except for maybe

Timothy Dalton.

"What about Kenny Zale?"

I downed the last of my wine glass and shook my head. "I never did it with Kenny Zale."

"You didn't?"

"No."

"Because that's what he told Lenny. He said you two hooked up at Sue Ann Grebeck's sweet sixteen party and did it on her parents' bed."

"What?" I yelled, louder than I had intended. Several heads turned in our direction. "That son of a bitch. I'll kill him. Where's my gun?" I brought my bag to my lap and started digging through it. I pulled my Sig from the bottom and slammed it on the table. Then I dug around for the mag and some bullets.

"Don't bother," said Mary Lou. "I think someone already beat you to it."

"Oh," I said, dropping my gun back into my bag. That was good. I really didn't like shooting people unless I had to. I forced down another bite of pasta and pushed the plate away. Then I slouched down so my pants would stop cutting into my skin. I'd probably gained ten pounds from the sauce alone. Not good since I was already bursting at the seams.

Mary Lou finished off her manicotti and shook her head. She dabbed at the corners of her mouth with one of the linen napkins, and said, "I can't believe you're doing

Batman. I love your life."

"Yeah, but you have bigger boobs. Way bigger."

"They're sagging. And I have stretch marks. Three kids' worth."

"You're married to someone who someone who would walk over hot coals just to make you happy." As long as the coals weren't too hot. But I guess it's the thought that counts.

"You're doing Batman!"

The waiter came by and took our checks. I sighed and gulped down another half glass of wine.

"So that's it, then?" Mary Lou asked. "With you and Morelli?"

I shook my head. I didn't know the answer to that. Morelli and I broke up and got back together on a monthly-sometimes weekly-basis. We'd done the on-and-off thing for three years. But this time felt different. Not quite the Big It, the final end of the road It, but not the rest-stop It to which we had become accustomed, either. Part of that was because of Morelli. He had a new-millennium idea of how a woman should act in the bedroom, and a fifties idea of how a woman should act in the kitchen. I was okay with the first part. The second part gave me hives. I didn't want to be a Burg wife. I had a hard enough time taking care of my hamster, let alone a handful of little Morellis.

Then there was the thing with Ranger, whatever it was. I knew there was some love and there was definitely some lust, but he wasn't marriage material, and I didn't want to spend my life worrying about whether or not I was going to wake up alone one day.

But the real problem wasn't Joe. And it wasn't Ranger. It was me, and the simple fact that I didn't know what I wanted. Or whom.

A sick feeling slid through my stomach. "Yeah," I said. "I think so."

There was a somber sort-of silence around our table. My cell phone buzzed, interrupting my thoughts. I checked the ID. It was Ranger. Shit. I made a face, and answered with a Yo.

"Smart ass."

"You got the note. Back already?"

"Hal called me when the cameras started shorting out. I came back to check on you and thought I'd stick around for the rest of the show." Pause. "Better than Keaton, but not Clooney?"

Fuck!

My face went slack and I felt the color drain from my face. Ranger let out a bark of laughter. Then he said, "Say goodnight to Mary Lou. I'll pick you up in ten."

Ranger pulled up in the Turbo and I angled in from the curb. Mary Lou stole a glance inside and then waved goodbye and walked back to her Honda. I shut the door and Ranger merged into traffic. He was being his usual laconic self. I couldn't tell if he was angry or amused. Probably he was a mixture of both. I saw him ogling my boobs at a stoplight and decided maybe he was something else altogether.

"How much did you hear?" Ranger's eyebrows jumped a fraction of an inch and his mouth curved. "And Ram? Hal? Woody?"

"Will pretend they heard nothing if they know what's good for them."

My face grew red-hot with embarrassment and I wondered if Ranger felt the same. After all, I had just compared him to George Clooney. And he had lost.

"It was the gadgets!" I said aloud. "Clooney had more gadgets! And since when do you have me bugged? Ever hear of privacy?"

Ranger eased to a stop at another traffic light and slid his glance my way. "Babe, all company-issued cell phones come equipped with satellite tracking and audio surveillance. Usually they're turned off, unless something is amiss. Once Ram realized you were gone, he activated both until we could get the control room back up and running."

"Are you mad?"

Ranger shook his head. "No. I knew you would figure it out sooner or later. Actually, I thought it would be sooner. But now that you have, I would like to remind you that I still have a business to run, and I can't have you short-circuiting the control room every time you want to compare breadsticks with Mary Lou. Understand?" I nodded, and stared out the window. The Turbo pulled up to the curb outside the front entrance. I moved to open the door, and Ranger pulled me to him and kissed me. "It's more than fun," he said when we pulled apart. "But don't expect a blue box any time soon."

"Are you coming up?"

Ranger shook his head. "No. I have to work tonight."

He kissed me again and let go. I staggered out of the Turbo and passed through the double glass doors, and took the elevator to the apartment on the seventh floor.