Fearless Fourteen

  The women turned and got into the elevator and disappeared.

  Ranger punched hotel security into his cell phone. “We have protestors in the elevator, heading for the lobby,” he said. “I want them escorted out of the hotel.”

  “You're sneaky,” I said to Ranger.

  Ranger ushered me back into the suite. “Something to remember.”

  Brenda had crammed herself into a low-cut black sweater and tight black jeans.

  The sweater gave a first-rate display of her spectacularly augmented breasts.

  Truth is, for a moment I was just a teensy jealous. I was half her age, and I was worried that even on a good day, I didn't look as sexy as Brenda. She was wearing strappy heels and long, dangly diamond earrings that caught the light when she moved.

  “What was that all about?” she asked.

  “More animal cruelty protestors in the hall,” I said. “They're gone.” I thought this was easier than explaining about the breast augmentation issue.

  “Honestly, I don't know what their problem is! It's not like I'm torturing puppies. It was a friggin' mink coat. Those minks were born to be coats. Has anyone ever explained that to them?” She turned and pointed her finger at Nancy. “I want you to talk to them. It's your job to make things run smoothly and effortlessly for me. This is all your fault.”

  “I'm getting a migraine,” Nancy whispered to me. “I might have to skip the press conference.”

  “A migraine isn't going to get you out of this,” I told her. “If you died, I'd drag your cold, dead body to that press conference. If I have to go... you have to go.”

  The Women Against Augmentation were MIA when we walked into the lobby with Brenda. A few die-hard fans were milling around, clumped together behind the potted plants, but we swished through before they realized Brenda was in their space. Ranger was wasting no time moving her to the large conference room at the opposite end of the hotel. Nancy was practically running in an attempt to keep ahead of him as he towed Brenda, his hand wrapped around her wrist, partially to hurry her along, partially to keep her from grabbing him. I was last in line, guarding the rear.

  The conference room was filled with media when we arrived. A small, raised stage had been set in place. It held two chairs and a table with a vase of flowers and two handheld microphones. Brenda took a chair and Lew Pepper, the concert promoter who had hired Ranger, took the other. Pepper looked over at Ranger, and Ranger deadpanned a cold-eyed stare, extended his index finger at Lew, thumb up to simulate a gun, and pulled the trigger. Lew laughed but looked nervous and pointed to the first reporter up.

  A small man with gray hair tied back in a ponytail and wearing a lumpy sports coat of no specific color stood. “I'm from the Princeton paper, and I'd like to know if you feel the lyrics to your latest album are relevant in todays culture.”

  “They weren't even relevant when I made the album,” she said. “I always try to avoid content in my songs.”

  A woman from a Hunterdon County weekly asked Brenda if she liked horses.

  “Sure,” Brenda said. “Doesn't everyone?”

  That was followed by a guy who looked like he'd been kicked around the block a few times, recently. “I'm from the Newark paper, and I'd like to know what the gate is on this concert.”

  “Not as big as your booze bill,” Brenda said.

  Everyone laughed. These people all knew one another. This was a conference for local newsmen. Brenda was a big deal in Trenton, but New York wouldn't cross the river for her. But then, New York didn't cross the river for anyone.

  Halfway through the interview, a guy from the Asbury Park paper stood and said he'd heard a rumor that Brenda was being harassed by a stalker who had unsuccessfully tried to kidnap her. Was that issue being addressed while she was in Trenton?

  “Absolutely,” Lew Pepper said. “No one's going to kidnap Brenda while she's in Trenton. All stalkers are going to have to be content with buying an album.”

  Everyone laughed but Ranger. Ranger was watching the room.

  “Is it being addressed?” I asked him.

  “He's in the third row. Pudgy guy. White hair. Black-rimmed glasses. In his forties.”

  “Why don't you have him ejected? Isn't there a restraining order against him?”

  “Yes, but I'd rather have him where I can see him.”

  A reporter for one of the Trenton papers got the nod. He looked mid-twenties.

  Probably fresh out of college. He was slim and dressed in an oversize shirt and khaki slacks.

  “Brenda,” he said, “my grandfather has been a huge fan ever since he first heard you perform when he was in college. Do you expect to see much of that early fan base here at your concert in Trenton?”

  “Cripes,” Brenda said. “Your grandfather? How old are you? You look like the last guy I dated.”

  Nancy jumped out of her chair. “And that concludes our press conference. Thank you all for coming.”

  Ranger helped Brenda off the stage and handed her a can of soda and a cookie from the refreshment table set out for the press.

  “Keeping her hands occupied?” I asked him.

  “Trying.”

  He put his hand to Brenda's back and guided her through the crowd. I watched for the stalker guy and put myself between him and Brenda when he moved toward her.

  “Are you her bodyguard?” the stalker asked.

  “I'm part of the security team.”

  “I gotta talk to her.”

  “No can do,” I said.

  “You don't understand. It's critical. I had a new vision.”

  I moved closer to Ranger, closing the gap, and followed him into the elevator.

  The doors closed and Brenda's stalker was out of my life, stuck in the lobby with the rest of the crazies.

  Brenda drank some soda and nibbled the cookie. “Where am I again?”

  “Trenton.”

  She did an exaggerated eye roll. “I hate Trenton. It's dreary and provincial. Why can't I be in New York or Paris?”

  “No one wanted you there,” Nancy said. “We could only get you a gig in Trenton.”

  “That's ridiculous,” Brenda said. “It's your incompetence that has me stuck here. Why do I always get the incompetent assistants?”

  Tank was in the hall when we stepped out of the elevator. He was back to silent mode after spilling his guts about his engagement. I thought he probably wouldn't speak to me again for another four or five years. We lured Nancy and Brenda into the suite with the promise of room service and closed the door after them.

  “Tank and I can take it for the rest of the afternoon,” Ranger said. “I'd like you back here at six-thirty. The dinner is at seven. It's formal. Black tie.”

  “Formal! You never told me the dinner was formal. I haven't got anything to wear.”

  He gave me a credit card. “Take the corporate card. Get whatever you need.”

  My eyes went wide. “It's not that easy! Do you have any idea how hard it is to find the right gown? And then I have to accessorize. Shoes and a purse and jewelry.”

  “Babe,” Ranger said.

  Zook WAS waiting when I rolled to a stop in front of his school. He was with the same odd assortment of friends, and they all applauded when they saw my car.

  He slid onto the passenger seat, dropped his backpack between his legs, and buckled up. “I guess my mom's still in the slammer,” he said on a sigh.

  “I'm sorry.”

  “I feel sort of stupid that I can't help her.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Me, too.”

  My cell phone rang with a number I didn't recognize on the display.

  “It's your new best friend, Dom,” he said. “I'm watching you, but you'll never find me, so don't bother to look around. Just act like everything is normal. I don't want to freak the kid.”

  “Okay, what's up?”

  “Just making sure you're not taking him back to Morelli's house. You take him back to Morelli's house, and I'm gonna have to kill you al
ong with Morelli.”

  “Have you thought about getting help? Maybe seeing a doctor?”

  “I don't need help. I know what I'm doing. You're the one who's gonna need help if you don't take good care of the kid.”

  And he disconnected.

  This was a family beyond dysfunction. Dom's mother was probably the sanest of them all, and she was being fed pureed peas.

  I pulled away from the school and hooked a left. Zook turned in his seat and looked out the back window.

  “Who's the guy following you?” he asked.

  I looked in my rearview mirror. White car right on my bumper. Might be a Taurus. That probably meant it was a rental, since no one actually buys a white Taurus. My first thought was Dom. I stopped for a light and got a glimpse of the driver. White hair. Pasty complexion. Large, framed, black plastic Buddy Holly glasses. Definitely not Dom. It was the stalker.

  Must have followed me from the hotel garage. Just what I needed, one more nut to add to my collection.

  “Hang on,” I said to Zook. “I'm going to get rid of him.”

  I have a routine that I do in the Burg when I want to lose a tail. It involves a lot of cornering and rocketing down alleys, and it always works. It was especially easy this time, because the stalker was clearly an amateur. I lost him halfway through my drill.

  “Cool,” Zook said. “That was excellent. Do you know that guy?”

  “He's a Brenda stalker. I don't know why he attached himself to me.”

  I rolled through the Burg and parked in front of my parents' house.

  “I have to work tonight, so I'm leaving you with my parents,” I told Zook.

  “What about Morelli?”

  “I thought we'd test-drive this arrangement. Variety can be good, right?”

  My Grandma Mazur had the door open before we even got to the front porch.

  Grandma was dressed in her favorite lavender slacks, white tennis shoes, and flowered shirt. Her gray hair was freshly set in rows of curls, her nails were painted to match her slacks. She'd been a beauty in her time, but a lot of her had shrunk and sagged. This went unnoticed by Grandma, who seemed to get younger in spirit as her body aged.

  “Who do we have here?” she wanted to know.

  “This is Mario Rizzi, Loretta's son. Everyone calls him Zook.”

  “Zook,” Grandma said. “That's a pip of a name. I wish I had a name like that.”

  She took a closer look at him. “You got a awful lot of holes in you. How do you sleep with all those rings attached to your head? Don't it bother you when you roll over?”

  “You get used to it,” Zook said.

  “You remind me of someone,” Grandma said. “Stephanie, who does he look like?”

  I gnawed on my lower lip. “Gee, I don't know.”

  Grandma snapped her fingers. “I know who it is. It's Morelli! He's the spitting image of Joseph when he was Zook's age.”

  “They're very, very distant cousins,” I said.

  Zook peeked into the living room. “This house has high speed Internet, right?”

  “Sure, we got cable,” Grandma said. “We're not in the Stone Age here. I blog and everything.”

  “I have to go,” I said to Zook. “Don't paint anything. Moondog doesn't stand a chance against Grandma.”

  I left my parents' house and drove the short distance to Morelli's house to let Bob out to tinkle. I parked and let myself in through the front door. The house was quiet. No Bob feet galloping to greet me.

  “Bob!” I yelled. “Yoohoo! Want to go out?”

  Nothing. I walked through the dining room to the kitchen. Still no sign of Bob. I looked out the window over the sink and saw Bob sitting in the sun in Morelli's little backyard. Bob was wearing his collar but no leash. Morelli wasn't around. I opened the back door, and Bob rushed in, tail wagging, all smiley face.

  I wasn't nearly so happy as Bob. I had creepy crawlies, plus the willies. I took Bob's leash off the kitchen counter, snapped it onto Bob's collar, and walked him straight through the house to the front door, out the door to my car.

  I loaded Bob into the back of the Sentra and I called Morelli.

  “I stopped by to let Bob out to tinkle, and he was sitting in your backyard,”

  I said. “Did you let him out?”

  “No. You were the last one out of the house.”

  “Bob was sleeping in your bed when I left. And I know your kitchen door was locked, because I remember checking it, but it was unlocked when I got here just now.”

  “Does it look like anything is missing? Any sign of forced entry?”

  “I didn't hang around long enough to find out. I've got Bob in my car, and I'm dropping him at my mom's. You need to go home and walk through the house, and please don't do it alone, like a big, stupid, macho cop. Two break-ins in a row is too much of a coincidence. Something is going on here.”

  Stephanie Plum 14 - Fearless Forteen

  CHAPTER SIX

  It had taken me longer than I would have thought to get clothes for the dinner. I had Ranger's credit card, with a limit high enough to buy a house, but I couldn't spend beyond my own comfort zone. And then there were Ranger's rules, which he hadn't articulated but I knew existed. He'd want me in black, and he'd want me to wear something that would allow me to move about unnoticed.

  I'd done a decent job, with the possible exception of the skirt. And lucky for Ranger, I'd run out of time before I got around to accessorizing at Tiffany's.

  I hiked my skirt up over my knees so I wouldn't catch my heel in my hem, and I ran through the parking lot to the hotel. I was ten minutes late. I was wearing a white silk camisole under a short black satin jacket and a simple floor-length black skirt with a slit up the front that stopped a couple inches short of slut.

  I barreled through the lobby and was sideswiped by the stalker. He reached out for me, and I slapped his hand away.

  “I have to talk to you,” he said.

  “Go away,” I told him, on the run for the elevator. “I'm late.”

  “It's important. It's about Brenda. I had another vision. There was a big pizza ...”

  I rushed into an open elevator, he tried to follow me, and I gave him a two-handed shove that sent him out of the elevator and onto his ass. The elevator doors closed and I checked my hair and makeup in the shiny gold door trim.

  Ranger and Hal were in the hall when I stepped out. The shift had changed, and Tank was either getting ready to face Lula, or else he was at the airport, heading for South America and points unknown.

  Ranger was wearing a perfectly fitted black tux, black shirt, black-on-black striped silk tie. I've seen him in SWAT black fatigues, black T-shirt and jeans, black slacks and jacket, and I've seen him naked. He always looks great, but Ranger in a tux was a heart-stopper. Almost as good as Ranger naked. Almost, because nothing was better than Ranger naked.

  I returned the credit card, and he pocketed it with a smile. “Nice,” he said, eyes fixed on the slit in the front of my skirt.

  It was one of those moments that if Hal hadn't been present, we might have torn each other's clothes off right there in the hall.

  Ranger knocked on the door, and Nancy answered.

  “How long?” Ranger asked.

  “Hard to say. She's undecided on gowns.”

  “I'm going to knock again in ten minutes, and she'll go to the dinner in whatever she's got on.”

  “Jeez,” Nancy said. And she closed the door.

  “Boy, you're tough,” I told Ranger.

  “It was a desperate, hollow threat.”

  Ten minutes to the second, the door opened, and Brenda flounced out in a very low-cut, skintight, iridescent white gown trimmed in long, fluffy white feathers. The feathers fluttered from her shoulders and the lower half of her skirt. I couldn't imagine what sort of bird had grown the fabulous feathers, but I suspected there were a lot of them running around bare-skinned.

  “Wow,” I said.

  Brenda wiggled so the feathers wo
uld swirl around her. “It's from the Ginger Rogers collection.”

  No shit.

  She sidled up to Ranger. “I'm not wearing panties. The dress is too tight. I thought you'd want to know.”

  “Eeuw,” I said.

  Brenda looked at me. “You have a problem with that?”