Janet Evanovich - Finger Lickin’ Fifteen

He wrapped an arm around me and kissed me just above my ear. “There’s something wrong with this picture,” Ranger said. “You’re in my bed a lot, but never with me.”

“It was nice of you to let me stay here. Lula has taken over my apartment.”

“Nice has nothing to do with it,” Ranger said.

“How was your night?”

“Long. And uneventful. I need to get some sleep. Are you coming back to bed with me?”

“No. I’m up for the day. Gotta get to work and solve all your problems.”

“If you call Ella, she’ll bring breakfast. Or you can get dressed and have breakfast on the fifth floor.”

“I haven’t got any clothes.”

“Ella has clothes for you.”

He took a bottle of water from the refrigerator, kissed me on the forehead, and left the kitchen. I called Ella, told her I was in Ranger’s apartment, and ten minutes later, Ella was at the door with a breakfast tray and a shopping bag filled with Rangeman gear.

Ella wore Rangeman black just like everyone else in the building. Today she was in a girl-style V-neck T-shirt and black jeans.

I took the bag and tray from her at the door and thanked her.

“Let me know if the clothes don’t fit,” she said. “I saw you in the building yesterday, and I took a guess at the size. I didn’t think you’d changed from the last time you worked here.”

“I didn’t see you,” I said. “I never see you! Food just mysteriously appears and disappears in the fifth floor kitchen.”

“I try to stay invisible and not disrupt the men’s routine.”

Ella left, and I ate a bagel with cream cheese, drank a couple cups of coffee, and picked at some fresh fruit. My eyes were pretty much open, but I wasn’t sure my heart was beating fast enough to propel me through the day. I collapsed on Ranger’s couch and woke up a little before eight A.M. I picked some clothes out of the shopping bag, tiptoed past Ranger, and quietly closed the bathroom door.

I took a shower, brushed my teeth, dressed in my new clothes, and emerged from the bathroom feeling like a functioning human being. I was awake. I was clean. The caffeine had kicked in and my heart was racing. Okay, maybe it wasn’t the caffeine. Maybe it was the sight of Ranger with a day-old beard, sleeping in the bed I’d recently vacated.

I left the apartment and took the elevator to the fifth floor. Roger King was monitoring the station that included the code computer. I paused in front of him to watch him work. He was on the phone with an account that had accidentally tripped their alarm. He was polite and professional. The conversation was short. The account gave King their password, King verified the password and ended the call.

“That’s the first time I’ve seen someone verify a password,” I said to King.

King was a nice-looking guy with a voice like velvet. I knew from his human resources file that he was twenty-seven years old and had a degree in criminal justice from a community college. He’d worked as a cop in a small town in Pennsylvania but quit to take the job with Rangeman.

“If you work this shift, you get a lot of bogus alarms,” King said. “People get up in the morning and forget the alarm is on. By the time Chet takes over, this desk is like a graveyard.”

When Chet showed up for his shift, I ventured out of my cubicle again and attempted small talk. Chet was polite but not stimulating, and I was feeling like I was contributing to the graveyard syndrome, so I moseyed on back to work, starting a computer search on a deadbeat client.

Louis had made good on the new chair, and my ass no longer cramped after a half hour. I was wearing black slacks that had some stretch, and a short-sleeved V-neck knit shirt with Rangeman stitched on it and my name stitched below the Rangeman. Ella had also given me cargo pants and matching button-down-collared shirts with roll-up sleeves, a couple stretchy little skirts, black running shoes, black socks, a black zippered sweatshirt, and a black windbreaker. I was on my own for underwear.

A little before noon, I sensed a shift in the climate and looked up to find Ranger on deck. He spoke briefly to each of the men at the monitoring stations, grabbed a sandwich from the kitchen, and stopped at my cubicle on his way to his office. He was freshly showered and shaved and perfectly pressed in black dress slacks and shirt.

“I have a client meeting in the boardroom in fifteen minutes,” he said. “After that, I need to catch up on paperwork, and then I’ll take another surveillance shift at six. How far did you get on the accounts list yesterday?”

“Not that far. I was getting ready to pack up here and spend the afternoon riding around.”

“Do you need a company car?”

“No. I’m okay in the Escort.”

I stuffed myself into my new Rangeman sweatshirt, hiked my purse onto my shoulder, and went to the kitchen to load up on free food. Ella had set out vegetable soup and crackers, assorted sandwiches, a salad bar, and a large display of fresh fruit. I looked it all over and blew out a sigh.

Ramon was behind me, and he burst out laughing. “Let me guess what that sigh was about. You want a hot dog, fries, and a brownie with ice cream.”

“I’d kill for a meatball sub and a hunk of birthday cake, but this is better for me,” I said, selecting a barbecue chicken sandwich.

“Yeah, I keep telling myself that. If I get shot dead on the job, there won’t be an ounce of fat on me.”

“Do you worry about that?”

“Getting shot dead? No. I don’t do a lot of worrying, but the reality is most of this job is routine, with the occasional potential for really bad shit.”

I dropped the sandwich into my purse, along with an apple and an organic granola bar. “Gotta go,” I said. “Things to do.”

“Knock yourself out.”

I took the elevator to the garage, wrenched open the rusted door on my p.o.s. Escort, and motored out to the street. Probably it was stupid to refuse Ranger’s offer of a company car, but it seemed like the right thing to do at the time. I had lousy car karma, and I always felt crappy when I used Ranger’s Porsche and it got stolen or crushed by a garbage truck.

I had my map on the seat beside me, and I drove from one account to the next according to neighborhood. By four o’clock, I’d gone through all the accounts and had checked off a handful that I thought had the potential for a future break-in. I’d gone full circle around the city and ended on lower Hamilton, a half mile from the bonds office.

Lula hadn’t called about the door, but I felt confident the door had been replaced and everything was cool. I drove up Hamilton to talk to Connie and Lula and found Connie was manning the office all by herself.

“Where is everyone?” I asked Connie.

“Vinnie is writing bond for someone, and Lula is at your apartment. She said she lives there now.”

“I let her stay last night because her door was broken.”

“I guess her door is still broken,” Connie said.

“That’s ridiculous. How long does it take to replace a door? You go to Home Depot, buy a door, and hang it on those doohickey hinge things.”

“Something about it being a crime scene. The door can’t be replaced until the lab checks it out.”

“Who said that?”

“Morelli. He stopped by the office to talk to her after she reported the shooting.”

Unh! Mental head slap.

I dialed Morelli and did some anti-hyperventilation exercises while I waited for him to pick up.

“What?” Morelli said.

“Did you tell Lula she couldn’t replace her door?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s stupid. She has to replace her door. How can she live in her apartment without a door?”

“It’s a crime scene that’s part of an ongoing murder investigation, and we couldn’t schedule evidence collection today. I’ll have a guy out there tomorrow, and then she can replace her door.”