Twelve Sharp

by Janet Evanovich

  So let's assume the Un-Ranger tried to set up shop in Miami and Silvio found out. And Ranger took off for Miami to take care of the Un-Ranger. But before Ranger got to the Un-Ranger, the little girl was kidnapped. And now Ranger was looking for both of them.

  Lots of assumptions. Still no facts. Still no name. No Un-Ranger face. I went into Ranger's mail program. The in-box was empty. 'Sent items' was empty. Nothing in 'Deleted Items.' Ranger kept things clean. I went to his hard drive and started opening files. This took some time because Ranger numbered his files but didn't name them. File XB112 contained two JPGs. I opened the JPGs and there was the Un-Ranger. Both photos had clearly been taken without the man's knowledge. He was walking toward a car. The shots were full frontal and head turned slightly.

  The man was dressed in black. He was a little less muscular than Ranger. Maybe a little wider in the hip. His hair was colored and styled like Ranger's. Sideburns cut at an angle. His skin tone was close. Maybe a half-shade lighter than Ranger. Facial features were startlingly similar. It was easy to see how a description of this man would fit Ranger. The foliage in the background was tropical. Florida plates on the cars in the photo.

  I printed both JPGs and then e-mailed the JPGs to myself. Then I permanently erased the e-mail from 'Sent items.'

  My cell phone rang and was so startling in the silent apartment, it had me out of my seat.

  'I'm still at work,' Morelli said. 'This is going to be a late night.'

  'That's okay,' I said. 'I'm at work, too. Maybe I'll see you tomorrow.'

  I didn't have a name, but I had a picture. And I knew Ranger was on top of it all. I shut his computer down, shut the lights off, and locked up behind myself. I rode the elevator to the garage, waved good-bye at the security camera, and drove away.

  I stopped at Pino's on the way home and picked up a pizza and a six-pack. Then I rode past the bonds office out of morbid curiosity. Not much to see, thank heaven. The car had been removed.

  I carted the pizza and beer upstairs, opened my door, and realised the lights were on in my apartment. I experienced a nanosecond of terror until I saw Ranger sitting in my living room.

  'Jeez!' I said. 'You scared the crap out of me. I thought you were in Florida.'

  Ranger unfolded himself and closed the space between us. 'I just got back.'

  He took the pizza box and the beer and carried them to the kitchen. We each took a beer and a slice of pizza and ate standing at the counter.

  'Did you water my plants?' Ranger wanted to know.

  'Ella waters your plants.'

  He went to my shoulder bag, rummaged around in it, and pulled out the two pieces of paper with the Un-Ranger pictures.

  'I'm impressed. Where did you find them?' he asked.

  'In a file in your hard drive. I couldn't get anything else because I couldn't decode your name. If I'd been really desperate I would have called Silvio.'

  'Tank wasn't helpful?'

  'Tank's entire vocabulary consists of seven words. Ten, tops. You could have returned a phone call and saved me a lot of trouble,' I said.

  'People can listen in on phone calls.'

  Ranger took an unheard-of third piece of pizza.

  'Wow,' I said. 'You must be hungry.'

  His eyes were dark when he looked at me. 'Babe, you don't want to go there.'

  My heart skipped a beat. 'Probably not,' I said. I picked the Un-Ranger picture off the counter. 'Do you know who this is?'

  'No name. Just this photo. It was taken two days before the kidnapping. We thought it was simple identity theft and didn't have him under twenty-four-hour surveillance. Big mistake, because he checked out of his motel in the middle of the night and the next day he kidnapped Julie. We've been two steps behind him ever since.'

  'Everyone thinks you kidnapped Julie.'

  'Not everyone. Rachel and Ron know I didn't take her. I have a good relationship with them. And the lead agency man knows. We made a decision to go this route and hope the kidnapper feels comfortable enough to get sloppy. The downside is my picture's been all over the media and now my movement is limited. So I could use some help.'

  'Why don't you just go blond?'

  'I've been blond. When I go blond I look like I should be singing with the Village People.'

  I burst out laughing. The visual was so perfect.

  'You have a sense of humor,' I said to him. 'Who would have thought?'

  'There are lots of things you don't know about me.'

  'Just about everything.' I gave Rex a piece of pizza crust. 'Your cars were all parked at RangeMan.'

  'I can't drive them. Every poser cowboy bounty hunter in the country is looking for me, along with a lot of law enforcement. I've got a green Explorer parked on the street.'

  'And a new wardrobe.'

  Ranger was total Abercrombie in jeans, olive-drab T-shirt, and a loose-fitting button-down shirt, worn untucked.

  'You aren't going to give me grief over this, are you?' he asked.

  I smiled at him. 'You look cute.'

  'Cute,' Ranger repeated. That just dropped my testosterone level.'

  The Pleasure Treasures bag was sitting forgotten on my counter. 'Looks like I'm not the only one who's been shopping,' Ranger said, reaching for the bag.

  'No! Don't touch that.'

  Too late. He had it in his hands.

  This is embarrassing,' I said. 'Give me the bag.'

  Ranger held the bag out of my reach. 'Want to wrestle me for it?'

  At another time this exchange might have felt flirty. Tonight there was an edge to Ranger. Anger simmering just below the surface. And I thought it wouldn't take too much provocation for him to rearrange someone's face. Not mine, of course. He liked my face. Still, he was a little scary.

  I narrowed my eyes at him. 'Just give me the damn bag.'

  'I let you snoop in my computer,' Ranger said. The least you can do is let me see in this bag.'

  'I don't think so.'

  'Not much you can do about it, babe.'

  'I'll be mad at you.'

  'You can't be mad at me,' Ranger said. 'I'm cute. I might even be adorable.'

  'Try jerk on for size.'

  'Sticks and stones.' He looked in the bag and gave a single soft bark of laughter. 'Nice,' he said, taking the dildo out, setting it on the counter, balls down, shaft up, like a giant pink rubber mushroom.

  I'm not one of those women who blushes easily, but I could feel my ears burning.

  'Having problems with Morelli?' Ranger asked, the edge gone. Anger replaced by something much softer… amusement, exhaustion, affection.

  'The woman working in the Pleasure Treasures store went FTA, and Lula and I went in to make an apprehension, and Lula got this dancing dildo, but they were having a two-for-one-sale, and somehow I ended up with this. It's the Herbert Horsecock model.'

  'It's impressive.'

  'It's frightening,' I told him.

  He took the DVD out of the bag. 'Big Boys,' he said. 'I'm seeing a theme here.'

  'Lula said it would change my life.'

  Ranger put the dildo and the DVD back in the bag. 'Does your life need changing?'

  'I don't know. I thought so a while ago, but it feels comfortable now… except for a commitment dilemma.'

  He pulled me to him and kissed me in a way that more than made up for the benign kiss in the bakery. 'Let me know when you figure it out,' he said.

  I realized that sometime during the kiss I'd inserted my leg between his and had plastered myself to him in all the strategic places. I inched away and smoothed out the wrinkles I'd made when I gripped his shirt.

  'Is there something I should be doing tonight to find Julie?' I asked him.

  'Not tonight, but I have some legwork for you to do tomorrow if you have time.'

  'Of course I have time. Are you managing this okay?'

  'It's not the first time I've had to find someone important to me. You learn to keep moving forward. And you go deep into denial.'

&nb
sp; 'Are you scared?'

  'Yeah,' Ranger said. 'I'm scared for Julie.'

  'Do you have a place to stay?'

  'I have a safe house in north Trenton. I'll pick you up tomorrow morning at eight.' He reached out to kiss me again, but I jumped away. Another kiss like the last one and he wouldn't leave… I'd make sure of it.

  'Still think I'm cute?' Ranger asked with the almost nonexistent smile curving the corners of his mouth. And he left.

  Stephanie Plum 12 - Twelve Sharp

  Eight

  I opened an eye and squinted at my bedside clock. Six-thirty. In the morning! My alarm wasn't set to go off for another hour, but something had dragged me awake. I opened the other eye and did some deep breathing, sucking in the smell of coffee brewing. I rolled out of bed and shuffled into the dining room.

  Ranger was at the table, using my laptop.

  'Unh,' I said.

  'Coffee's in the kitchen.'

  'What are you doing here?'

  'No computer in the safe house, and I thought this was easier than getting Tank to try to get a laptop to me. I had some things I wanted to run down.'

  'I don't have very good programs.'

  'I don't need programs. Silvio is sending me information from Miami.'

  'How long have you been here?'

  'About an hour.' He stood and stretched and headed for the kitchen. He got two mugs out of the cabinet, filled them with coffee, added milk, and gave one to me.

  I was wearing short cotton pajama bottoms and a knit tank top, and I could see Ranger was enjoying the tank top.

  'I'm feeling self-conscious,' I said to him.

  'That's not what I'm feeling.'

  No kidding! 'Go back to work,' I told him. 'I'm going to take my coffee into the shower. I'll be ready to go in a half hour.'

  Ranger had parked on a side street a block away from my building. He left through the front door and walked to his car. I left through the back door, got into the Mini, and drove around three blocks until I was sure I wasn't being followed. I parked behind Ranger, beeped the Mini locked, and slipped into the green Explorer.

  'Now what?' I asked.

  Ranger pulled into traffic and went north on Hamilton. 'I want you to canvas a neighborhood for me.'

  Ranger isn't an especially talkative guy. He doesn't do small talk, and he doesn't usually initiate conversation, but he'll talk about the job if he feels there's a genuine interest. In this case, I definitely had interest.

  'I'd really like to know the history on this,' I said to him. 'I've only got bits and pieces.'

  'Two weeks ago someone started using a credit card issued to Rangemanoso Enterprises with my name on it. Silvio found it during a routine scan. Silvio traced down Rangemanoso and to the best of our knowledge this guy appeared in Arlington six months ago and set up shop. I was about to go to Arlington and shut him down when we discovered he'd moved on. And then all of a sudden he started using the card in Miami. We assumed he was there reestablishing himself, but in retrospect, I think he was there to get Julie.'

  'So you went to Miami to find this guy and before you got to him he took Julie.'

  'Yes. And until you called Tank and told him someone smoked Carmen we had no reason to think he was in Jersey. We thought either he hunkered down somewhere in Florida or else he was in a car moving around. We didn't think he'd be able to get Julie through security and onto a plane. And the FBI was combing passenger lists for Julie Martine and Carlos Manoso and not finding anything.'

  'If he stole your identity I guess he could steal others.'

  'Two others turned up when Silvio ran through the Rangemanoso credit history. He paid some early bills with cards issued to Steve Scullen and Dale Small. Silvio had been watching passenger lists for both those identities, but nothing there either.'

  'No leads in Miami from the crime scene?'

  'Miami went cold. Julie got picked up in a stolen car. It was found abandoned two blocks from the pickup point. The police issued a bulletin, and they're doing the follow-up on calls coming in.'

  'It was my impression that not many people knew you had a daughter.'

  'You and Tank and relatives.'

  'And Julie's mother and stepfather.'

  'Rachel and Ron are working with the people in Miami, trying to trace down anyone who might have known about me. They didn't hide the fact that Ron was Julie's stepfather, but they didn't tell a lot of people the details. Julie knew. My name is on her birth certificate, but Ron adopted her, and she's always thought of herself as Julie Martine.'

  'Is that painful?'

  'It might be painful if she wasn't happy, but Rachel and Ron are good parents. Rachel is a nice Catholic girl I took advantage of one night on leave when I was in the military. She got pregnant, and I married her and gave the baby my name and financial support. We divorced after the baby was born. I'm involved only as much as Rachel wants me to be.'

  'She didn't want you to stick around and be a permanent husband?'

  'That was never an option either of us would have considered.'

  We were on Route I, driving north. It was early Sunday morning and traffic was light. I was in my usual uniform of jeans and T-shirt. Ranger was in homeboy clothes.

  'From the way you're dressed, I'd guess we were canvassing the ghetto today,' I said to Ranger.

  'You'd guess right.'

  His jeans were loose-fit but not falling off his ass. 'Think you can pull it off in those jeans?'

  'They'll have to do. You can't chase someone down if your pants are around your ankles.'

  True enough. I'd actually chased guys who'd literally run out of their pants.

  'And I'm a little old for the homey look. I was shooting for Latino Gap,' Ranger said. 'I don't plan to get out of the car, but just in case, I wanted to blend.'

  Ranger took the turnpike and got off at the Newark exit. When they nicknamed New Jersey the Garden State they weren't talking about Newark. The neighborhoods we drove through were bleak by anyone's standards. If I'd been with anyone other than Ranger I'd have turned tail and gotten back on the turnpike.

  'This is a scary neighborhood,' I said, taking in the graffiti, the occasional condemned building, the sullen faces of the kids hanging on street corners.

  'I grew up here,' Ranger said. 'It hasn't changed much in twenty years.'

  'Were you one of those guys on the corner?'

  Ranger cut his eyes to a group of teens. 'Eventually. When I was a kid, I was little and I didn't fit, so I got beat up a lot. My skin color was too light for the blacks and too dark for the Cubans. And I had straight brown hair that made me look like a girl.'

  'How awful.'

  Ranger shrugged. 'I found out I could survive a beating. And I learned to be quick, and to watch my back, and to fight dirty.'

  'All good skills,' I said.

  'For street thugs and bounty hunters.'

  'I thought you lived in Miami for a while.'

  'When I was fourteen I got arrested for stealing a car and spent some time in juvie. When I got out, my parents sent me to Miami to live with my grandmother. I went to high school in Miami. I moved back to Jersey to take a shot at college, and then I came back when I got out of the army.'

  Ranger found a place at the curb in front of a deli. 'My parents live on the next block,' Ranger said. 'This neighborhood we're in right now really isn't so bad. It's actually the Cuban equivalent to the Burg. Problem is, you have to go through the bad neighborhood to get anywhere, including the school.'

  Ranger clipped a little gizmo onto my jeans waistband. 'Panic button. If you have a problem, just push it, and I'll come to you. I want you to take the photo you got from my computer and see if someone knows this guy. He has to have some association with me.'

  'All the signs are in Spanish. Will I be able to talk to anyone?'

  'Everyone speaks English. Except for my Grandma Rosa, and we're going to try hard not to run into her.'

  I left Ranger sitting in the SUV and took the pic
ture into the deli. It was a little mom-and-pop business. A butcher in the back behind a glass case filled with sausages and pork roasts and chicken parts. Shelves filled with sacks of rice, spices, cereals, canned goods. Baskets of vegetables. More shelves with breads and packaged cakes and cookies.