Janet Evanovich - Notorious Nineteen

“Are you sure it’s Orin?”

“Yes. He left a message on my phone this morning. I recognized his voice. He said it was time for him to come out of the shadows. He laughed his crazy Orin laugh, and he said I would see him soon.”

“Did he say why he wasn’t dead?”

“No. It wasn’t part of the message.”

“Do you want to tell me the rest of the message?”

“You’d rather not know.”

I was sure this was true. I didn’t even want to know what I already knew. I could have done without the whole ripping-wings-off analogy.

“Did he say why he was doing this now?”

“Only that the road here wasn’t easy but he’d finally made it.”

“Was he this crazy when you were serving together?”

“There were signs. Orin was a good man to have on your side and a very bad enemy. We all slept with one eye open, not just for whatever was out there but for Orin.”

“The life you have now must seem tame compared to that.”

“It has its moments. I had to talk to the bridal salon lady twice today.”

He had his hand at my back, guiding me down the hall to the elevator and out of the building to his Porsche 911 Turbo. I suspected the car was brand-new. Hard to tell since it was identical to the last one, but its paint was unmarred, and it was lacking the aroma of horked-up cocktail wieners and meatballs.

TWENTY-TWO

THE CHURCH WASN’Tfar. It was in the Burg, and it was the Catholic church where I’d made my First Communion. It was the church where my family worshiped and I was supposed to worship. I went to Christmas mass and I was there for weddings and funerals but true faith was elusive for me. Catholic guilt was a constant. I made the sign of the cross and watched Ranger. He was comfortable here. He knew the rituals. He was raised Catholic just as I was.

“Do you attend mass?” I asked him.

“Not as often as I would like.”

The answer surprised me. It had never occurred to me that Ranger might attend church. He was on the job 24/7, and he wasn’t a man who easily accepted someone else’s doctrine. Ranger made his own rules. Most of them were good rules, but they didn’t completely line up with the Ten Commandments.

He wrapped his hand around mine, and we walked down the aisle to the crowd of bridesmaids and ushers at the altar. Kinsey and Amanda were there. The parents were sitting in a pew. A priest and a wedding planner were organizing.

“We need the maid of honor to lead the bridesmaids to the back of the church,” the wedding planner said.

“That’s you,” Ranger said to me.

“I’m the maid of honor?”

“Yes. That’s why you have the special pink dress.”

I gave him a sharp elbow to the rib cage and was pleased to hear him expel some air.

I lined up at the back of the church with the bride and the rest of the bridesmaids. The music started and we walked down the aisle. Step, stop, step, stop. Ranger was next to Kinsey, watching me walk toward him. His expression was serious and unwavering. Hard to imagine what he was thinking. And I hoped he had no idea what I was thinking, because I was having a hard time corralling my emotions. For a heart-stopping moment I imagined myself walking down the aisle to marry Ranger. It was one of those bizarre what if moments and was so disorienting that I almost stepped on the bridesmaid in front of me. It got a smile out of Ranger and a gasp from the bride, behind me. In the next instant I saw him scan the church, nothing moving but his eyes, and then he was back to me.

I left the altar on his arm after the practice ceremony. We were behind the bride and groom. Kinsey and Ranger were vigilant. Amanda looked shell-shocked. Everyone else seemed oblivious to the possibility of impending doom.

“Would Orin try to do something in a church?” I asked Ranger.

“He’s crazy,” Ranger said. “He’d do anything.”

Ranger pulled a photo out of his jacket pocket. “This was taken a while ago but it will give you some idea what Orin looks like. Orin is standing next to me. He’s the one with the sunglasses.”

It was a picture of seven men in army fatigues. They all had rifles and they were smiling. Ranger hadn’t changed much. Maybe he was a bit heavier now but not a lot. Different haircut. The same serious dark eyes. Orin was shorter. Stocky. Blond hair. Couldn’t see his eyes behind the glasses. Dimple in his chin.

I memorized Orin, but I was most interested in Ranger. I’d never seen a photo of him at a younger age. And I’d never seen a photo of the men he’d served with for at least part of his time in the military. Ranger’s apartment was beautifully decorated and his furniture was comfortable, but as a home it was sterile. There were no photos anywhere, no keepsake baseballs, no favorite coffee mug in the cupboard. Sometimes it felt like Ranger was just passing through this life, serving some purpose, not intending to stay long.

“What exactly is my role here?” I asked him.

“My best guess is that Orin will target Amanda either tonight or tomorrow. Orin’s ultimate goal is Kinsey and eventually me, but Orin will want to pull the wings off before the kill.”

Oh God, it was the wings again.

“Kinsey will stay close to Amanda but there are times when you’ll have to take over. He can’t follow her into the ladies’ room. He won’t be with her tomorrow before the wedding. I have extra security in place but they’ll be at a distance. You’re the one who will be at Amanda’s side.”

I thought Ranger’s confidence in me was flattering but unfounded. I was willing to give this my best shot, but I wasn’t exactly Ranger. I wasn’t even half a Ranger.

“Are you sure you don’t want one of your men to go drag for this?” I asked him. “He’d be much more competent.”

“I asked Tank but he declined. He said pink wasn’t a good color for him.”

The after-rehearsal dinner was held at Cedar Mill House. It was a nice restaurant in downtown Trenton that had no relationship to anything cedar and didn’t look like a mill house. It was in a redbrick building with public dining downstairs and a private dining room upstairs. The adjoining building burned down three years ago and Cedar Mill House cleared the rubble away and used the space for a parking lot.

Ranger pulled into the lot and cut his lights. “I’m going to wire you for sound,” he said, “and add another GPS unit.”

“Another?”

“There’s one in your purse.”

“This is a new purse. This is the first time I’ve used it. How did you bug it?”

“I took a few precautions last night while you were sleeping.”

“You were in my apartment last night?”

“Briefly.”

“That’s creepy. I don’t want you looking at me when I’m sleeping.”

“Babe, that’s not the first time I’ve seen you sleep.”

“But all those other times I knew you were watching me sleep.”

“Not always,” Ranger said.

“You waited until I was asleep so you could sneak in and plant all your secret listening gizmos, because if I was awake I wouldn’t let you do it.”

“It was expedient. I had to take over a patrol for one of the men last night. I only had a few minutes to plant the GPS. When I asked you to be my date I didn’t realize it was going to turn into this. I put you in harm’s way and now I need to try to keep you safe.”

Ranger removed a small plastic bag from the glove box. It contained a watch, a metal disk, and a roll of surgical tape.

“The watch looks like a sports watch but it has a GPS system and can transmit audio. You turn the audio on and off by pushing this button. You’ll see a plus or a minus sign on the watch face telling you if the audio is sending. If you get into trouble you push the button, an alarm sounds in the control room, and we can listen in.”