Chapter Seventeen
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Music blasted out of my phone into my dark bedroom. I grabbed the phone and tapped it on.
It was Ranger. “I’m coming in.”
I looked at the time. Four thirty. Good God. This man never slept. The lock on my bedroom door clicked open and Ranger walked in.
“You have a man sleeping on the floor in your living room,” Ranger said.
“That’s Herbert. He had too much to drink.”
“Do you want me to have him removed?”
“No. He lives with his mother. She’ll freak out if you bring him home now. If you haven’t noticed, it’s four thirty. Normal people are asleep at four thirty. I’d like to be asleep at four thirty.”
“Your vampire isn’t asleep at four thirty,” Ranger said. “We picked him up on camera. He was trying to buy Ecstasy, and the supplier didn’t have any. He was told to come back at five thirty, when someone named Tok would be in the alley. I’d grab him for you, but I have no authorization to arrest.”
I dragged myself out of bed. “I need coffee.”
“Get dressed,” Ranger said. “I’ll make coffee.”
I went with the abbreviated bathroom routine, omitting mascara and lip gloss. I ran a brush through my hair and pulled it into a ponytail. I dressed in my usual uniform and went to the kitchen, where my coffee was waiting in a to-go cup. Herbert was sound asleep and snoring, so I pinned a note to his shirt. It read, Herbert, go home .
Ranger was driving a fleet SUV. I took this to mean that in case of a capture he didn’t want his personal Porsche Cayenne sullied by vampire DNA.
“About Herbert,” Ranger said.
“I went to school with him. He sat behind me in algebra class. Our paths crossed last week, and I can’t get rid of him.”
“Stalker?”
“More like a harmless nerd who lives with his parents and hasn’t any friends. He just shows up and tries to do nice things for me. I came home from work one day and he’d painted my apartment.”
“How did he get in?”
“Bribed the super. Then another day he had carpet installed. And a television. It’s always all done when I’m not home.”
“He has money.”
“Apparently. He says he’s an entrepreneur. I don’t exactly know what that means. Grandma came over for dinner last night and Herbert showed up. Turned out Grandma knew him, so he got invited to stay for meatloaf.”
Ranger stopped for a light and looked over at me. “You made meatloaf?”
“Grandma made it… but I bought the meat.”
That got a smile. “Tell me about Zoran.”
I read the text message to him. “It came in at four thirty,” I said. “Herbert showed up around five thirty, and maybe ten minutes later, Zoran rang my bell. Herbert answered it, took one look at Zoran with the fangs and a knife in his hand, and started screaming like a little girl. He said Zoran backed off, and he was able to get the door shut and locked. And then he fainted. After that he chugged a bottle of wine and passed out on my living room floor.”
“Zoran expected you to answer the door.”
“Yes.”
“When you move out of this apartment and go offline, life will be dull for the men who monitor my accounts,” Ranger said. “I’ll have to fit you with a body cam, so they have something bizarre to report on once in a while.”
It was dark in the car. I had my coffee. It was quiet. The streets were empty. I was feeling a weird combination of comfy cozy because I was with Ranger, and at the same time a slow drip of adrenaline because we were on the hunt for a crazed killer. Ranger was in his zone. Alert. Outwardly relaxed. Probably had a heart rate of thirty-four. My heart rate was probably closer to a hundred and thirty-four.
“Do we have a plan?” I asked.
“I have a car in place on Freemont, and I’m going to put us on Stark. The plan is to trap Zoran in the alley. The control room will be watching and listening in, plus my man on Freemont has the camera app and I have the app and I sent the app to you, so we should all be able to see what’s going down. When I move, you move with me. Stay close. Stay behind me.”
Ranger turned onto Stark and parked behind a junker car. The alley was a car length in front of us. We couldn’t see into the alley but we could see the alley on our app.
“If you’re going to keep working for Vinnie and you’re going to have a caseload that includes freaks like Zoran, you need to carry and you need to know some self-defense,” Ranger said.
We’d had this discussion before, and it always ended in failure. I hated guns and I was a self-defense disaster. This time might be different. I had more motivation. I was genuinely terrified of Zoran.
“We need to get you certified to carry,” Ranger said. “I have two men who are certified firearms instructors. You can work with them, get your skill level up, and they’ll complete your paperwork. In the meantime, you can do an illegal carry. There’s a loaded SIG Sauer P229 nine in the gun box under your seat. It has a slide with a red dot. It’s yours. When we’re done here, we’ll go back to Rangeman and get you started with one of my instructors.”
We sat in silence after that. Impossible to guess what Ranger was thinking. I was thinking about Cheerios. I had the camera app up on my phone. The alley was dark. It looked empty. A couple guys in gang colors entered the alley from our side. They hung close to the street and after a couple minutes a chunky dude in a tracksuit, carrying a small duffel bag, strolled down the sidewalk and joined the two gangbangers. Their voices were low, and they were speaking Spanish.
Ranger grew up one block off Calle Ocho in Miami. He speaks fluent Spanish, and he can salsa dance. I can’t do either of those things.
“They’re negotiating,” Ranger said. “The gangbangers are unhappy with the price.”
“Do you think that’s Tok in the tracksuit?”
“They aren’t using names.”
A kid came out of a building two doors down. Baggy jeans, gray hoodie. From his build and height, I’d say he was in his early teens. He entered the alley and walked toward the guy in the tracksuit. The gangbangers turned their back to the kid and went to their phones.
“I need some Ecstasy and meth,” the kid said to the tracksuit. “It’s for Fang.”
The kid took a bag from Tracksuit and turned to leave, and a black SUV pulled up to the alley. A guy got out and fired off a bunch of shots, and the kid and Tracksuit went down. The gangbangers grabbed the duffel bag and ran for the SUV. They got in and the car sped off. Ranger was on his feet, talking into his earpiece, calling for backup and medical. I was right behind him. We ran to the kid, who was moaning and crying. Blood was seeping through his jeans. He was shot in the leg. Tracksuit wasn’t moving. The two Rangeman guys from the Freemont Street car went to Tracksuit, determined that he was dead, and moved to Ranger and the kid.
“Shot in the leg,” Ranger said. “Scoop him up and take him to the medical center.”
Ranger stood, and we turned toward Stark Street. A shadowy figure was at the end of the alley. He was slim with brown hair slicked back, and he had a large knife in his hand.
I felt a chill rip through me. “Zoran,” I said. More question than statement. It was very dark and it was hard to see his face, but his mouth was wide open and I saw the fangs.
“We meet again,” he said. “Your destiny brings you to me. It’s preordained. You’ll be mine in the very near future. I’ll feast on your blood and we’ll be immortally joined. We’ll experience the rapture together.”
“When we’re done here, remind me to sharpen my wooden vampire stake,” Ranger whispered in my ear.
Zoran whirled around and took off running. Ranger ran after him, and I ran after Ranger. Zoran crossed the street, ran into a building, and slammed the door shut and locked it. Ranger kicked the door open, and we heard Zoran on the stairs above us. By the time we got upstairs there was no sign of Zoran. There were three doors on the second floor. All were shut. We heard a woman scream behind one of the doors and Ranger kicked the door open.
“He go out the window,” the woman said.
We ran to the window and saw Zoran on the fire escape. He dropped to the ground and disappeared in the dark alley that ran the length of the first three blocks of Stark.
“He’s pretty agile for a drugged-up lunatic,” I said to Ranger.
“Vampires have superpowers when they’re on meth,” Ranger said.
We exited the building in time to see a fire truck pull onto Stark. A cop car was behind it. A second Rangeman fleet SUV was angle parked by Ranger’s SUV. Ranger’s second in command, Tank, was standing beside it. Tank’s partner was standing guard at the body. Ranger and I walked over to Tank.
“Looks like the guy in the alley sold his last bag,” Tank said.
“Yeah. Drug deal gone wrong,” Ranger said. “A kid who was running an errand for Zoran got shot. Jules and McKinney took him to the medical center. I want to talk to him. Tell whoever gets assigned to this case that I’ll be in touch later this morning.”
“You got it,” Tank said. He nodded and smiled at me. “Nice to see you.”
“Nice to see you too,” I said. And I meant it. Tank was in Special Forces with Ranger. He had Ranger’s back then and he still has it now. His name is only half-appropriate. He’s a total tank on the outside. On the inside, he’s a marshmallow.
We got into Ranger’s SUV and drove off before we were pinned in by emergency vehicles. Ranger called McKinney and told him to watch the kid until we got there.
“We can canvass the alley behind Stark when it gets light,” Ranger said. “Too dangerous to do it in the dark.” He glanced over at me. “You look a little pale. Are you okay?”
“I didn’t have time for makeup. I also didn’t have time for food.”
“I can’t help with the makeup, but I’ve got food. There’s a compartment in the console that’s filled with protein bars.”
I picked one out that advertised peanut butter and chocolate chips.
“Does Ella cater the cars?” I asked him.
“Her husband is in charge of cars,” Ranger said. “After we talk to the runner, we can go back to Rangeman, where there’s a larger selection of breakfast foods.”
“I should check in at the office after the medical center.”
“It’s Sunday, babe. There is no office.”
Everyone was still in the ER when we got to the medical center. Jules was in the waiting room and McKinney was bedside with the runner.
“They’re working on him now,” Jules said. “They said it wasn’t necessary to take him to the operating room. They just shot him full of a local and gave him a tranq. His name is Clay Wong. He’s sixteen. Street kid.”
We found seats in the waiting room and forty-five minutes later, Ranger was able to go back to talk to Clay. Jules and I passed the time with hangman and twenty questions. Ranger reappeared, went to the desk, filled out some forms, and finally came back to Jules and me.
“He’s getting discharged,” Ranger said to Jules. “He has some scripts that need to get filled. After that he’s going to Rangeman. McKinney will bring him out in a couple minutes.” Ranger looked down at the pad with the hangman scribbles. “You don’t ever want to play games with her,” he said to Jules. “She’s vicious.”
“Tell me about it,” Jules said.
Ranger wrapped an arm around my shoulders and steered me out of the building, to the SUV.
“Why is Clay going to Rangeman?” I asked him.
“He’s a runaway. Living on the street. No money for antibiotics. No place to recover from a gunshot wound. Says he’s clean. Just can’t go home. I’ll let him stay in one of the dorm rooms until we sort it out.”
“What did he say about Zoran?”
“Not much. Zoran saw him sleeping in a doorway and said he’d pay him to get drugs for him.”
“That was it?”
“Yes.”
“That’s a bummer. Why do you suppose Zoran didn’t get his own drugs?”
“Maybe he didn’t want to get shot.”
“Does that happen a lot?”
“Often enough,” Ranger said.
Rangeman occupies an entire building on a quiet side street in downtown Trenton. It’s seven stories, with the top floor devoted to Ranger’s apartment. The fifth floor contains the control room, offices, and a pleasant lounge with tables and chairs and a twenty-four-hour buffet. The ground floor has a small lobby and more offices. Ella and her husband have an apartment on the second floor, the third floor is a state-of-the-art gym, and floors four and six are dorm rooms and miscellaneous-use rooms. There’s an ultra-secure garage and a shooting range belowground.
Ranger pulled into the Rangeman garage and parked in a space reserved for fleet cars.
“I rushed you out of your apartment this morning,” Ranger said. “You have a firearms session with Skip now, but you can go upstairs and have a shower and get clean clothes and breakfast, if you want. Or you can grab something on the fifth floor and go straight to the gun range.”
“I’ll get something on the fifth floor,” I said. “Wouldn’t want to keep Skip waiting.”
We took the elevator to the fifth floor and Ranger texted Skip that I was in the building. I went to the buffet. The food is constantly being refreshed and changed. It’s organic or natural and healthy. Fresh fruit, fresh vegetables, sandwiches, hot selections, snacks. No doughnuts. Ever. There are some huge, muscle-bound Rangemen, but there are no fat Rangemen.
I grabbed an orange juice and a bagel with cream cheese. Ranger got coffee. I suspected he would go upstairs to his apartment once I got settled with Skip. Ella would have Ranger’s breakfast waiting. A fresh fruit plate, salmon with capers or caviar, toast points. Sometimes breakfast would be a vegetable frittata.
Skip walked in and suggested we take a table off by itself, in a corner.
“We’ll talk about guns before we go downstairs to shoot,” he said. “If it’s okay with you, we’ll pretend you’re a beginner.”
“Great,” I said. “I am a beginner. The truth is, I hate guns.”
“You don’t have to love them,” Skip said. “You just have to know how to use them successfully and safely.”
Already, I liked him.
“You eat and I’ll talk,” he said. “Do you have your gun with you?”
I pulled it out of my bag.
“Nice choice,” he said.
“Ranger gave it to me.”
“Ranger knows what he’s doing… always.”
After an hour, I knew why the gun was perfect for me, right down to the red dot. I could take it apart and put it back together. I could insert a clip. I could hold it without fear of accidentally shooting myself.
I followed Skip downstairs to the shooting range. I’d been there before, and the results weren’t impressive. It turned out that I had a good eye and could hit a target, but I had a horrible attitude and couldn’t get comfortable carrying a gun. Especially if it was loaded. I decided to improve my attitude this time around.
When we broke for lunch I felt like the lame-brained kid who finally aced a math test. I found Ranger at his desk, in his office.
“Congratulations,” Ranger said. “I just talked to Skip, and he said you qualified. Ramon is up next for self-defense.”
“No! No self-defense. Last time I tried self-defense, I cracked a toenail and ruined my pedicure doing kickboxing. My toenail has never been the same.”
“Babe, it’s just a toenail.”
“It’s not just a toenail. Toenails are important. They’re part of the pretty package. It goes with getting a good haircut and highlights and having a signature lipstick.”
“I missed that memo,” Ranger said.
“A girl has to have priorities.”
“Toenails over self-defense?”
“Any day of the week.”
“How about lunch. Is that a priority?”
“Yes. What’s on the menu today?”
“Ella made some hand pies. Chicken curry and steak and potatoes. And the usual salads and sandwiches. I need to finish reviewing a floor plan. Grab a bottle of water and a steak pie for me. We can eat here while I work and then we can check out the alley behind Stark.”
I filled a tray and brought it back to Ranger’s office. Egg salad sandwich, mac and cheese, and a water for me. Ranger’s water and steak pie.
The day of the week didn’t matter for Ranger, Morelli, or me. We were always on call. The job didn’t stop at five o’clock Friday. That would change for me if I had a baby. I might continue to work, but not in the field as a bounty hunter. Or, maybe not at all. I grew up with a full-time mom. Grandma was just down the street. There was always someone close by to put a Band-Aid on my bloody knee. It was a good childhood. With the exception of Morelli. He was the forbidden fruit of my childhood. He was the scourge of the neighborhood. He was the bad-boy heartthrob of my high school. And now I was engaged to him. And the thing is, he turned out to be a really good guy. Go figure.
Ranger finished his lunch and signed off on the floor plan. “Thanks for waiting. I’m still playing catch-up.”
“Not a problem,” I said. “Do you think Zoran will move away from Stark Street after this morning?”
“If he was sane and clean, yes, he’d move. Since he’s neither sane nor clean, no. He’s going to stay close to his drug supplier.”
“His drug supplier just got dead.”
Ranger stood and came out from behind his desk. “Even before they carted Tok’s body out of the alley, someone was waiting in the shadows to take his place.”
I followed Ranger to the garage and watched while he took another fleet SUV.
“You aren’t driving one of your personal cars,” I said, getting in next to him.
“The fleet SUVs are recognized as Rangeman vehicles and most of the gang members on Stark know not to touch them.”
Ranger pulled out of the garage and drove the short distance to Stark. We cruised three blocks on Stark, and Ranger turned onto a cross street and parked. We got out of the car and walked back to Stark.
I was wearing my new gun in its new holster, and I was concealing it with my hoodie. Ranger was in black Rangeman fatigues, and his holstered gun was concealed by a black windbreaker. He also was carrying an ankle gun, a knife, self-defense spray, cuffs, and a collapsible baton. I had a few extras in my bag, too. Lip gloss, hairbrush, self-defense spray, cuffs, and another bagel from the Rangeman buffet.
It was Sunday, early afternoon, and people were out enjoying the nice weather. Hookers strutted their stuff on the corners, gangbangers slouched against graffiti-covered buildings, druggies were curled in doorways and sprawled on sidewalks. A steady stream of cars rolled down the street, looking to buy whatever was for sale. No one bothered us. Ranger had the tight-ass walk of a kid with street cred, and the rest of him said he wasn’t a kid and he wasn’t someone you’d want to mess with.
We walked three blocks, taking the temperature of the street, cataloging details, keeping a watch for Zoran. We walked past Lucky Linda’s and the bar with the mop guy. We crossed the alley where Tok had been shot. No yellow crime scene tape. Some bloodstains waiting for rain to wash everything clean. We went to the end of the first block, crossed the street, and walked back toward our SUV.
“This feels pointless,” I said to Ranger.
“It’s not pointless,” he said. “You notice things that you miss when you’re in a car. You see what’s inside an open door, drug transactions, faces looking out windows, places where people hang and places that they avoid. When we get to the end of the third block we’ll walk the alley.”
“This is what you did when you were a bounty hunter?”
“Yes. I see detail. I’m good at tracking. I always took point when I was in the military.”
“Do you miss being a bounty hunter?” I asked him.
“Sometimes. I miss the hunt. I don’t miss the takedown.”
“That’s surprising. I’ve watched you do a lot of captures, and you’re good at it. You’re the best.”
“I have skills.”
“And the job that you have now?”
Ranger smiled. “It’s a mixed bag. I hate being trapped in my office, but I like designing security systems. I like the idea that I can keep people and businesses safe.”
“You wear a lot of different hats. You design systems. You ride patrol. You put on a suit and talk to future clients. You have a lot of people working for you.”
“I never wanted to own a business. I liked the independence I had as a bounty hunter. As a favor, I agreed to help a friend with a startup security agency. The agency grew faster than expected, and I had less and less time to hunt down felons. And then due to a series of unlikely events, I ended up owning the company. My original intention was to make it successful enough to sell, but it turned out that I like providing security. I like the variety of the job. I like the people who work with me. I like the technology we use. I don’t like being a salesman. I need to hire a sales specialist.” He wrapped an arm around me and hugged me to him. “Would you like the job?”
“No! I’d be horrible at it.”
We were at the end of the third block. We went around the corner and picked up the alley that intersected Stark Street and Mallow Street. Ranger moved his jacket so that his gun was exposed and accessible. This part of the alley was a dumping ground for garbage and the worst of the homeless. Broken-down tents, human waste, needles, and hollow-eyed junkies. Ranger spoke to a couple men. He asked them if they knew Fang. They said no or didn’t reply at all.
The second block was better. It was littered with garbage and a couple junker cars, but there was only one tent, with an older woman and a dog inside. Ranger asked the woman if she knew Fang and whether she’d seen anyone come off the fire escape this morning. She said she’d seen Fang on the street, but not lately. Ranger gave her twenty dollars and thanked her for her help. He stepped back and looked up at a three-story tenement.
“We chased Zoran into this building,” Ranger said. “He came down this fire escape and turned toward the first block.”
Twenty years ago, a fire had raged through the first block of Stark. The entire block had been razed, and new buildings replaced the old tenements. The new buildings didn’t have external fire escapes. They had a single-door rear exit. There were six buildings. They all had small businesses on the ground floor and apartments above. No garages. No back entrances to cellars.
Ranger tried all the doors. All were locked. The other side of the alley was commercial. Cinder block single-story buildings. A warehouse. An auto body shop.
“I was sure Zoran was hiding out here,” I said to Ranger. “Now I’m not as convinced. He found a way to get to my apartment building, so it isn’t as if he’s tethered to Stark Street. I was assuming he didn’t have transportation because his truck was parked in his driveway, but there are other possibilities. He could steal a car, or someone might be hiding him. Hell, for all I know it could be another vampire with a car.”
“Or it might be that our search area was too small, or our search was incomplete,” Ranger said. “We walked the street and the alley. We didn’t go door-to-door.”
“You think he’s here on Stark.”
“I think he’s in the area.”
“Where do we go from here?”
“We wait for him to make another drug buy.”
We walked back to the car, and Morelli called just as I was about to get in next to Ranger.
“What time do you want me to pick you up?” Morelli asked.
I drew a total blank. “Where are we going?”
“Your aunt Stella’s birthday party. She’s eighty, right?”
“Omigod. I completely forgot. I’ve been so wrapped up in work that I never thought to check my calendar.”
“According to the text you sent me a couple weeks ago, it’s at Valerie’s house,” Morelli said. “Buffet dinner at six o’clock.”
“Okey dokey. Pick me up at five thirty.”
I got into the SUV and checked my text messages. One from Grandma. Did you remember to get Stella a present? She likes lavender soap.
“I have to go home,” I said to Ranger. “I’m supposed to be at my aunt Stella’s birthday party at six o’clock, and I need to stop someplace and get her a present.”
“Babe,” Ranger said.