TWELVE
I WAS AT the office, finishing my lunch, when Morelli texted to tell me I could return to my apartment. I left Briggs with Lula and Connie, trudged out to the Buick, and slowly drove down Hamilton. I drove slowly because I didn’t want to go home. I didn’t want to see the destruction. It was depressing. I’d done this drill too many times. I was tired of it. At least this time there would be no blood spatters, I told myself. That was good, right? And honestly, why was I so upset? It’s not like I was in love with the couch that got cooked. And it’s not like the rocket was personally directed at me. I was a victim, but I wasn’t the targeted victim. That would be Briggs.
Morelli was leaning against his car, waiting for me, when I pulled into the lot.
“You’re talking to yourself,” he said when I got out. “I don’t know if that’s a good sign or a bad sign.”
“I was trying to talk myself out of being morbidly depressed.”
“Did you succeed?”
My eyes filled with tears.
Morelli wrapped his arms around me and held me close. “It’s not so bad,” he said. “A coat of paint and it’ll be like new. And you never liked that couch anyway.”
“Yes, but the apartment was just painted after that guy blew himself up in my foyer. I liked the new color.”
Morelli took my hand and tugged me toward the building. “We’ll paint it the same color.”
We took the stairs to the second floor and ran into Dillan Ruddick, the building super. He had a wet vac going, sucking up water from the soggy hall carpet.
“Thanks for saving my apartment,” I said to him.
“No problemo,” Dillan said. “I’ve got it down to a science. The alarm goes off and I run straight to your apartment and grab the fire extinguishers.”
“Nice to know,” I said to Dillan. “I’m a disaster!” I whispered to Morelli.
“Yeah, you keep life interesting,” Morelli said, unlocking my apartment. “Be careful where you walk. The carpets are soaked. We’ll get a restoration team in here tomorrow. As you can see, most of the damage is confined to the living room.”
“There’s a hole in my wall! I can see daylight through it.”
“Dillan’s going to board it up as soon as he gets rid of some of the water. I thought you’d want to get some clothes. Probably everything’s going to have to be cleaned and aired to get rid of the smoke smell.”
I filled my laundry basket and two garbage bags with clothes. I added food for Rex and some basic toiletries, grabbed the things that belonged to Briggs, and we left the apartment.
Morelli stuffed everything into the Buick. “Where are you going now? Are you moving in with your parents?”
“Probably, but I don’t know what to do with Briggs. They won’t take Briggs.”
“He’s an adult,” Morelli said. “He can take care of himself.”
“Everything in his apartment was destroyed. And Poletti is trying to kill him.”
“It’s not like he’s blameless. He helped Poletti cheat on his taxes, and he boinked his wife.”
“You know about the wife?”
“Everybody knows about the wife.”
“And he saved Rex.”
“Now we’re getting somewhere,” Morelli said.
“I can’t just walk away from him.”
Morelli looked like he was trying not to grimace. “You’re such a cupcake.”
My eyes filled with tears again.
“Oh crap,” Morelli said, cuddling me into him. “You can stay with me. And you can bring Briggs with you.”
I brought my clothes to my parents’ house and filled the washer with the first load.
“I’ll take your black suit and hang it outside to air,” Grandma said. “You’ll need it for the funeral tomorrow.”
Oh joy, the funeral. The only thing I hate more than a viewing is a funeral. I grabbed some chocolate chip cookies from my mom’s cookie jar, told Grandma I’d be back, and chugged off to the office in the Buick.
“I’m surprised you haven’t gotten a new car by now,” Lula said when I walked in.
“No time to look, and no money to buy,” I said. “I need to capture Poletti.” I handed Briggs the duffel bag filled with his clothes. “It was lucky you were keeping your clothes in this heavy-duty bag. They might not smell too smoky, and they shouldn’t have any water or foam damage.”
Briggs took his clothes bag to the bathroom to change, and Connie sprayed the office with air freshener.
“You have to get him out of here,” she said. “Even with clean clothes he’s still going to smell like charbroiled goat.”
“Have you heard any news about the Rangeman building?” I asked Connie. “Is it still under quarantine?”
“So far as I know,” Connie said. “My cousin Loretta called about a half hour ago. She’s a nurse at St. Francis, and she said Emilio Gardi isn’t doing well. He’s in kidney failure.”
A sick feeling swirled through my stomach.
“What about Ranger’s man McCready?”
“I haven’t heard anything about him.”
I called Ranger. “How’s McCready doing?”
“He’s managing. They’re trying something new with him.”
“And you?”
“I’m not running at full capacity, so be careful. I can’t always see you.”
He disconnected, and I took a moment to calm myself. There’ve been times when I’d welcomed the news that Ranger wasn’t following my every move, but this wasn’t one of them.
“You’re whiter than usual,” Lula said to me. “Are you okay?”
I sat in the chair by Connie’s desk and hung my head between my legs. “I’m a little freaked out.”
“You know what helps me when I get freaked out?” Lula said. “Donuts. You probably need donuts. And I wouldn’t mind having some donuts either.”
Briggs came out of the bathroom. “I’d like a donut.”
He’d washed the smudges off his face, combed his hair, and put on clean clothes. He still smelled like smoke, but it wasn’t at the charred goat level anymore.
“I don’t need a donut,” I said. “I need some sanity to my life. Some normality.”
“Yeah, but a donut’s a good start,” Lula said. “I always think better when I got a donut in my hand.”
“Where do you suppose Ranger is hiding out?” I asked Connie.
“I don’t know,” Connie said, “but I’m guessing he’s not too far away from Rangeman. He’s a cautious guy. He probably has a small satellite office with his account information duplicated offsite somewhere safe. I can’t see him trusting the cloud.”
I knew he owned several properties in Trenton. All under different holding companies. I didn’t know any of the addresses.
“Okay,” I said, “I’m going for donuts. Who’s going with me?”
“I am,” Lula said.
“Me too,” Briggs said.
I drove Lula and Briggs to Tasty Pastry, gave them a twenty, and told them I wanted two chocolate-covered donuts. As soon as they were in the bakery, I took off. It was a sneaky thing to do, but I needed some personal space. I wanted to find Ranger, and I couldn’t do it with Lula and Briggs tagging along.
My phone rang two minutes later.
“What the heck?” Lula said.
“I had to get away from Briggs so I could talk to Ranger,” I told her.
I started at the Rangeman building and methodically explored a six-block area. I was looking for a building with secure parking and reflective glass windows. Ranger was all about privacy. I enlarged the grid and found a building on Bender Street that had promise. It was about a half mile from the Rangeman building. It was a three-story townhouse with tinted windows. An alley ran along the back of the townhouse, the backyard was enclosed by a nine-foot cement wall with an automated security gate, and security cameras looked down at the alley from the roof.
I got out of the Buick and waved at one of the cameras. Thirty seconds later my phone chirped.
“Babe,” Ranger said.
I smiled at the camera. “Howdy.”
The gate opened. I got back into the Buick and drove into the paved parking area. There were three black SUVs parked and three more spaces. The back door to the townhouse opened, and Tank looked out. He didn’t look happy to see me. I stepped past him into a hallway that led to the front of the house and a six-man elevator.
“Third floor,” Tank said, holding the elevator for me.
The elevator opened onto a third-floor loft and Ranger. He didn’t look that happy either, but then it’s hard to tell with Ranger. He doesn’t usually show a lot of emotion.
The walls were white. The furniture was sleek black leather. The floors were cement. There was a small ultramodern galley kitchen, a dining room table and six chairs, a corner set aside as an office, a couch and a coffee table in front of a flat-screen television, and a section partitioned off that I imagined was a bedroom and bathroom.
“Is this the Batcave?” I asked him.
“It was a safe house until you discovered it.”
“And now it’s not safe?”
“Now it’s a home,” Ranger said.
“Wow!”
The corners of his mouth twitched into the beginnings of a smile. “Don’t read too much into that.”
“It was a profound revelation. And I don’t know how to tell you this, but your safe house wasn’t that hard to find.”
“Only because you know me so well. And it’s more satellite office than safe house. Was there a specific reason for this visit?”
“I have two problems. The first is Jimmy Poletti. I know Poletti is in the area because he just shot a firebomb into my living room. Unfortunately, I’m not having any luck capturing him. I thought you might be able to help me.”
“Do you have a plan?”
“I have some ideas.”
“And your second problem?”
“It’s you. I don’t like the thought that some freakazoid polonium assassin will have better luck the second time around and you’ll end up glowing in the dark. It’s causing me stress, so I wish you’d find the guy and eliminate him.”
“I’m working on it.”
“Do you have any leads?”
“I think this person is probably Russian. Either mob or military. I’ve apprehended some members of the Russian mob. And it wouldn’t be hard to imagine Gardi moving in those circles.”
“Why Russian?”
“The polonium-210 that was in Gardi’s possession is a relatively obscure radioactive poison that has limited production. To my knowledge it’s currently being produced only in Russia and is available only to well-connected Russians.”
“And you think some Russian mob guy hates you enough to do this?”
“It would require a certain level of insanity, but it’s possible.”
“So how do you find this guy?”
“It’s hard without access to Gardi.”
“Morelli said even the police don’t have access.”
“He’s been charged with nuclear terrorism. He’s guarded by an army of FBI agents, and no one at the federal level is sharing information.”
“I bet I can get you in.”
One eyebrow raised a fraction of an inch.
“I’ve got Randy Briggs,” I said. “He was briefly head of security at Central Hospital, and while he was at Central he filled in weekends at St. Francis. I’m sure he knows everyone’s schedule and all the ways to get onto a floor.”