I pulled o
ut two pot roast sandwiches and handed one to Ranger. The sandwiches were made on perfectly sliced bakery rye bread. They had the perfect amount of mustard, a dab of horseradish, a crisp romaine lettuce leaf, a thin slice of onion and tomato, and a couple slices of my mom’s amazing pot roast. They were each cut in half to form triangles. On my best day I couldn’t make a sandwich that would come even close to these masterpieces of deliciousness. She’d also packed a couple bottles of water. A cookie tin was at the bottom of the bag. I choked up when I saw the cookie tin, because I knew Grandma had made the cookies to make the house smell happy. I took a breath and swallowed back the emotion. No negative thoughts, I told myself. Everyone has to believe that she’s okay and this will end well, and that energy will make it happen. I mentally repeated the thought until I convinced myself it was true.
We ate while Ranger drove. DeSalle lived about a half hour from the gym if traffic cooperated. At midday Saturday there was almost no traffic at all. I was working on the cookies when Ranger cruised into an area of obvious wealth.
DeSalle’s house was one of the largest on a street of very large houses. It sat on about an acre of land. A small metal sign was attached to the elaborate mailbox at the entrance to the driveway. PROTECTED BY RANGEMAN.
“It doesn’t get any better than this,” Ranger said.
He called his control room and asked them to check if the alarm system was on. The answer came back yes.
“Does he have video?” Ranger asked.
“Yes. Inside and out.”
“Check the video to see if anyone is in the house.”
After several minutes the control room came back on. “We can’t pick up anyone in the house. Twenty minutes ago, a single male got into a car and drove away. This was the same time the alarm was set.”
“Turn the alarm off and shut the cameras down,” Ranger said. “And go back over video starting at eight o’clock this morning. I want to know who was in the house.”
“Lucky us,” Ranger said to me.
He parked in the garage area, where his SUV wouldn’t be visible from the road. He unlocked the side door and announced himself as Rangeman Security. No one answered.
We went room by room through the house.
“This guy has nine bathrooms,” I said. “And I counted twelve televisions. So far as I could see he’s the only one living here. What the heck does he do with all the bathrooms and televisions?”
The control room got back to Ranger. “The one male that we saw leave is also the only one we picked up on the interior monitors.”
We returned to Ranger’s car, and reinstated the alarm and cameras.
“I’d still like to talk to DeSalle,” Ranger said. “Let’s try Miracle Fitness.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
MIRACLE FITNESS WAS PACKED. There were classes going in every room, and a lot of people in varying degrees of fitness were walking around in spandex. They were clustered at the healthy juice bar, chugging bottles of healthy water, stretching tendons while they chatted about trendy diets.
All this healthiness had me regretting that I’d just eaten half a tin of cookies made with genuine butter and a ton of sugar. I looked down at my jeans and didn’t see anything hanging over the waistband, but it was only a matter of time before the butter and sugar turned to fat. And God knows what my arteries looked like.
I glanced at Ranger. He’d eaten one cookie. One. How is it possible to eat only one cookie? What kind of a weirdo can do that? He wasn’t in Rangeman tactical gear today. He was wearing black slacks, a black dress shirt with RANGEMAN embroidered in black on the pocket, and a black blazer. It all fit him perfectly, and he looked like money, and muscle, and not someone you would want to mess with.
Ranger approached the woman at the desk and asked to see DeSalle. She said Mr. DeSalle was in conference and not to be disturbed.
“He’ll see me,” Ranger said.
“He doesn’t like to be disturbed when he’s in conference,” the woman said. Nervous. Probably making minimum wage and told never to think.
“No problem,” Ranger said.
He called his control room and asked where DeSalle’s office was located. He turned and walked left, down a corridor, found a door that said PRIVATE, and knocked.
DeSalle opened the door.
“Aphrodite called and said you were on your way,” DeSalle said. “She thought you might be a hired assassin or CIA. She’s very fit but not very smart. If this is about increasing my security, I feel like I’m sufficiently covered. If you’re here to tell me my house burned down, I don’t want to hear it.”
“I’m working with Stephanie,” Ranger said. “I’m sure you’ve heard that her grandmother was kidnapped this morning.”