Smokin' Seventeen

  “Nice.”

  “Yeah. At least Terry Gilman will be there. This time I’m going to get a better seat.”

  I punched him in the chest, kissed him, and left.

  NINETEEN

  RANGEMAN HAS UNDERGROUND PARKING for private and fleet vehicles, all of which are black and immaculate. All are equipped with GPS tracking. Ranger has personal space at the back of the garage, directly in front of the elevator. His cars are also black and immaculate. He has four spaces, and he currently has three vehicles—a Porsche 911 Turbo, a tricked-out Ford F150, and a Porsche Cayenne. I parked my filthy, dented Escort in the fourth spot.

  I entered the elevator, waved hello to the hidden camera and went to the fifth floor. Every part of Rangeman is monitored with the exception of the restrooms off the lobby on the ground floor, employees’ private apartments, and Ranger’s apartment on the seventh floor. The fifth floor is Rangeman command central. The monitoring station is here, plus Ranger’s office. The elevator door opened on five, and Ranger stepped in and pressed the seven button.

  “The plans are upstairs,” he said. “I thought we could go over them while we ate. I’m sure Ella left enough for two.”

  Ella and her husband manage the Rangeman building, and Ella personally manages Ranger. She keeps his apartment pristine, ensures that his clothes are perfect, delivers two gourmet meals a day, and attempts to humanize a space that without her would be sterile. Ranger isn’t a man who sets up family photos on the coffee table.

  The elevator opened to a small marble-floored vestibule with one door. Ranger fobbed the door open, and I stepped into his apartment. It had been professionally decorated with little help from Ranger, but it felt right for him. It was calm without being enervating. And it was masculine but not overbearing. The furniture was contemporary and comfortable with clean lines. The color palette was all earth tones. Upholstered pieces were cream with chocolate accents. Wood was dark and glossy. Lighting was subdued. The front door opened to a short hall with nondescript art on one side and a cherry sideboard on the other. Ella kept fresh flowers on the sideboard alongside a silver tray with the day’s mail, and a second tray for keys.

  Ranger dropped his keys into the key tray, leafed through his mail, and returned it to the mail tray unopened. For as many times as I’ve been in his apartment I’ve never once caught him looking at the art. I suspect he didn’t know it was there.

  The hall led to an open-floor-plan living room and dining room with a small, but state-of-the-art kitchen to the right. Appliances were stainless steel, counters were black granite, dishes were white, stemware was crystal. Ranger lived well, not by his choice, but by Ella’s. She’d left a large spinach salad on the counter, a breadbasket in the warming drawer, and a casserole in the oven. I set the bread and casserole on the counter next to the salad, and Ranger opened a bottle of pinot noir. We fixed plates and took our dinner to the dining room table.

  I buttered a dinner roll. “Tell me about the security system.”

  “Large house. Twelve thousand square feet. Wealthy, politically ambitious client with a young second wife. Two teenage daughters and one teenage son by the first marriage. He wants maximum security. The teenagers want no security. Not sure what the wife wants.”

  “So security can’t be intrusive.”

  “It can’t be intrusive, but more than that it shouldn’t be in places a woman would find objectionable.”

  “Like a camera in the bathroom.”

  Ranger nodded. “I have photographs and preliminary floor plans. You can take a look at them later.”

  “If you employed a woman you wouldn’t need to bring me in like this.”

  “If I could find a woman with the right qualifications I’d hire her. In the meantime, you’re it.”

  “Have you asked Ella to help with this?”

  “Yes. She thought my client made bad choices on kitchen appliances. And she’d change the carpet color in the master bedroom.”

  The photos were stacked at the end of the table. I finished eating and shuffled through them. I got to the bedroom photos and grimaced. “Ella’s right about the rug in the bedroom.”

  Ranger cleared the plates and spread the blueprint out on the table. He stood behind me, leaning over my shoulder, pointing out security cameras. “Every exterior door is under surveillance, plus there are roof-mounted cameras scanning the yard and driveway. The windows are impact glass but they maintain security only if they’re closed and properly locked. With three teenagers in a house that size it’s likely there will be security breaches. My client would like more interior cameras, but I’m worried I’ll be catching his daughters sneaking down to the kitchen for a midnight snack in their underwear.”

  “That’s very sensitive of you.”

  “Sensitivity doesn’t have much to do with it. It’s a lawsuit waiting to happen if one of those kids thinks their right to privacy has been violated. I don’t want my technicians accused of spying on a thirteen-year-old.”

  “Does the video feed into your monitoring station?”

  “No. It records for a set amount of time and recycles, but a technician could have access to it on a service call. The client can also have select locations available to him for monitoring.”

  I was trying to concentrate on the security system, but I was already a little buzzed from the wine. Ranger was close, and I wanted him even closer. He was warm, and he smelled faintly of something unbelievably appealing.

  “Babe?”

  His face was inches from mine. “Mmmm?”

  “Are you listening?”

  “Yes.” No.

  My relationship with Ranger is well defined. We both acknowledge the desire existing between us. Ranger’s made it clear he’ll take advantage of any opening given. And I’ve struggled to keep my openings closed. My position has more to do with self-preservation than my allegiance to Morelli. Morelli chose to back off on commitment, and I agreed. Maybe some day that will change, but for now we have a comfortable working arrangement. My arrangement with Ranger isn’t nearly so comfortable. It’s frustrating at best and borderline scary at its worst. Ranger lives by his own code of conduct. He’s an honorable guy … just not by normal standards.

  “What did I just say?” he asked. And the corners of his mouth almost smiled.

  I leaned into him a little. “I love the way you smell. It’s sweet and citrusy and clean and very sexy.” My lips accidentally skimmed across his ear when I spoke, and I think I might have sighed a little.

  He lifted me out of my chair, pulled me into him, and kissed me. His lips were soft on my mouth, his hands were firm on my back, his tongue touched mine, and heat swirled through me and went straight to my doodah.

  Ranger is good at just about everything, but Ranger is outstanding at making love. He knows when to go slow, when to be gentle, when to stop being gentle, and best of all … Ranger instinctively knows when he’s on target.

  His hands slid under my shirt and moved to my breasts. He was hard against me, his mouth at my ear, his breath warm on my neck. He stripped my shirt off, and then my bra. His mouth returned to mine. The kisses were hotter and deeper. And then my jeans were gone, tugged over my hips and discarded. We moved from the dining room to the bedroom, both of us naked. His hands were everywhere on me. His mouth followed his hands.

  I had a whisper of a thought that this might not be a good idea, but the thought was immediately banished, pushed out of my brain by the knowledge that I was about to experience the mother of all orgasms.

  When we were done he rolled me on top of him and wrapped the quilt around us. I drifted into sleep and was awakened by my cell phone ringing far off in the dining room.

  “Let it go,” Ranger said, his lips grazing across my temple.

  I glanced at his bedside clock. It was almost nine. “It could be important.”

  “Such as?”

  “My grandmother could have had a heart attack. Or my apartment could have caught fire.”

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nbsp; “Babe, none of those things are going to happen.”

  “You don’t know that for sure. My apartment catches fire a lot.”

  The phone rang a second time, and I wriggled out of his arms, picked his T-shirt off the floor, dropped it over my head, and went to the dining room to get my phone.

  The message was from Connie, telling me to call her back. I touched the redial and looked down at Ranger’s shirt. It still smelled like him, and it was triggering little stabs of desire that mingled awkwardly with globs of guilt. Morelli and I had a no-commitment agreement, but that didn’t stop me from feeling guilty.

  “I found out about vordo,” Connie said. “My Aunt Pauline came to visit my mother, and she knew all about it. It’s one of those old country curses. It’s supposed to make you horny. If you’ve got a vendetta going against your neighbor, you put vordo on her daughter, and she turns into a slut. You might want to lock yourself up in your apartment until the vordo wears off, or you could be tackling guys on the street. And you want to stay away from Ranger.”

  “Too late for that.”

  “Omigod. Where are you?”

  “Rangeman.”

  “I want details. I want to know everything.”

  “I couldn’t possibly do it justice,” I told Connie. “There are no words to describe where I’ve just been.”

  I disconnected and went back to the bedroom. The lights were low, and Ranger was naked and lounging on the bed, waiting for me to return. I did a slow scan of his perfect body.

  “It’s not my fault,” I said. “It’s the vordo.”

  TWENTY

  RANGER’S BEDSIDE PHONE rang at seven-thirty the next morning. We were in a tangle of sweaty bed linens, waiting for our blood pressure to drop below stroke level, having moments before dispatched some high-quality passion.

  He reached across me, answered the phone, and listened for a beat. He disconnected and stood. “That was Tank. Someone dumped another body on Vinnie’s lot. Didn’t bother to bury it this time.”

  “Do you have an ID?”

  “Not yet. It just came across the police band. I’m going to take a fast shower and go downstairs. After the second body was found I had cameras installed on the adjacent building. So with any luck we’ve got a picture of the killer. Tank sent a tech out to get the images.”

  Tank is Ranger’s second in command. He’s the guy who watches Ranger’s back, and he needs no further description because his name says it all.

  I sat up in bed. “Would it be okay if I take a look, too?”

  “Sure. Come down when you’re ready.”

  I showered and dressed in my clothes from the previous day. I pulled my hair into a ponytail, took the stairs to the fifth floor, and stopped in at the small kitchen and dining area where Ella set out a full breakfast every morning. Hot cereal, cold cereal, fruit, healthy muffins and bagels, an egg dish and a meat dish.

  I poured myself a cup of coffee, added cream, grabbed a morning glory muffin, and made my way to Ranger’s office. I’m sure everyone in the building knew I’d spent the night, but no one snickered or whispered. Anything other than a friendly smile and they would have to answer to Ranger. And no one wanted to tangle with Ranger.

  Ranger was behind his desk with the video pulled up on his computer. He had also stopped at the kitchen, and he had chosen black coffee, a cup of plain, fat-free yogurt, and a plate of fruit. He glanced at my cream-enhanced coffee and giant muffin and almost rolled his eyes.

  “It’s a healthy muffin,” I said. “I’m pretty sure it’s got carrots in it. And I got a lot of exercise last night. I deserve this muffin.”

  Ranger smiled. “I’ll give you that. Why did you keep shouting go vordo?”

  “It’s complicated.” I moved behind him so I could see the screen. “Is that the killer, leaving the scene?”

  “Yes.” Ranger leaned back in his chair, his hand on the mouse. “I’ll replay this for you. As you can see we’re using infrared cameras. There are actually three cameras on a single mount. All three are activated by motion sensors. The time is shown in the upper right corner.”

  “Five in the morning. There had to be light traffic on Hamilton at that hour.”

  “Mooner’s bus is parked in front of the lot. Plus a construction trailer. Very little is visible from the road. And the killer doesn’t waste time dropping the body.”

  I watched the video and saw a car appear in the alley behind the lot. The car swerved into the lot and stopped. The driver got out, ran to the other side of the car, and opened the back door. The car shielded him from the camera, but whatever he did took less than a minute. I was watching the time tick on the computer screen. He ran around the car, got back behind the wheel, and drove away. The body left on the ground appeared to be a woman with long blond hair.

  “Any ideas?” Ranger asked.

  “Play it again.”

  I watched the clip three more times and was increasingly disturbed.

  Ranger forked a piece of melon into his mouth. “Well?”

  “The car looks like a light-color, late-model Toyota. You can see the emblem when he pulls into the lot. I’m guessing it’s a Camry. And with some enhancement you should be able to see the plate when he leaves. Have you given this to the police?”

  “Yes. And we’re also running the plate.”

  “Hard to tell on the infrared, but I didn’t see any blood. I couldn’t see her face. Slim body. Short skirt. Tank top. No shoes.”

  “And the killer?”

  “Male. Obviously disguised. He’s wearing a coverall that looks padded. And he’s wearing a rubber Frankenstein mask. His hands are hidden in gloves. Judging his height by the car I’d say he’s somewhere between 5?10? to 6? tall. And there’s something familiar about him.”

  Ranger looked at me. “You know him?”

  “I can’t exactly dial in on it, but the more I watch the video, the more I feel like I’ve run into him before.”

  “You’ve met a lot of bad guys since you’ve worked for Vinnie.”

  I ate some of my muffin. It would be comforting to think I recognized the killer from a previous takedown, but I wasn’t sure that was it. I felt like I knew this guy.

  Ranger closed the file. “What’s your plan for the day?”

  “I thought I’d do my bounty hunter thing.”

  “You know where to find me if you want to do your vordo thing.”

  The hideous truth was I wanted to do my vordo thing at this very moment. I wanted to do it bad. I had memories of Ranger in bed, his voice a whisper against my ear, the small of his back slick with sweat, his silky brown hair falling across his forehead when he took control and moved over me. The only thing stopping me from closing his office door and straddling him as he sat in his chair was the knowledge that we were out of raincoats.

  He read my thoughts, and it dragged another smile out of him. “Babe.”

  “Vordo is a bitch,” I told him.

  • • •

  I passed by the office on my way home. Mooner’s bus was still there, plus a couple cop cars, the M.E.’s truck, the state crime scene van, a satellite truck from Fox News, Morelli’s SUV, and Vinnie’s Caddie. I thought it best not to stop since I was wearing yesterday’s clothes, coming from the wrong direction, and even though I’d taken a shower I worried that I smelled like sex, or at the very least like Ranger, since I’d used his shower gel. Okay, so I have an agreement with Morelli and technically I didn’t do anything wrong. And last night was all his crazy grandmother’s fault. That didn’t mean it was a good idea to stand next to him reeking of Ranger first thing in the morning. If the situation was reversed and I knew for sure he was doing Terry Gilman, I might be inclined to pry her heart out of her chest with a butter knife. I assumed Morelli had similar issues with Ranger.

  I swung into the lot to my apartment building and parked. The plan was to make a fast pit stop, turn myself into a brand-new Stephanie, and head back out to the crime scene. I hustled to the lobby and too
k the stairs two at a time to the second floor. I burst into the hall and saw that a gold foil gift bag had been placed in front of my door. There was a red apron inside the bag and a card.

  LOOKING FORWARD TO SEEING YOU WEAR THIS. OTHER CLOTHES WOULD BE OPTIONAL. DAVE.

  Good grief. I took the bag to the trash shoot and tossed it.

  Forty minutes later I was back on the road. Rex had been fed, I’d re-showered and dressed in clean clothes, I’d checked my phone for messages, and I’d checked my email. I’d had sixteen junk emails advertising male enhancement drugs. This was like trying to sell sand in a desert, because my males needed no further enhancement.

  I also had three messages from my mother asking if I had heard from Dave Brewer, that he was such a nice young man who came from a wonderful family. Clearly my mother had given up on Morelli as a source for future grandchildren. Ranger had never been in contention. Dave Brewer was up at bat.

  I reached the bonds office lot and saw that everyone was still in place, plus Connie’s car had been added to the mix. I parked and crossed to where Connie and Vinnie were standing, looking not too happy.

  “Someone dumped another body,” Connie said. “A young woman this time.”

  “Anyone recognize her?”

  “Juki Beck,” Vinnie said. “I wrote bond for her once, a couple years ago. Shoplifting. At the rate we’re going I’ll have to call in an exorcist before the union lets me build on this lot.”

  “I need to download mail,” Connie said. “Does the bus still smell like bear?”

  “No,” Vinnie said. “It smells like Mooner.”

  I handed Connie my key. “You can use my apartment. Just don’t let Vinnie in.”

  “Nice way to treat your relative,” Vinnie said. “You know, I gave you this job, and I could take it away.”

  “You didn’t give me the job,” I said. “I blackmailed you into hiring me. And you’re not going to take it away, because you can’t find anyone else stupid enough to work for you.”