before Ranger even landed. You told me you were coming back and I got worried."

“You were worried about me?”

“No,” Hal said. “I was worried Ranger would kill me if I lost you.” He shot me a look in the rearview mirror. “Well yeah. Maybe I was a little worried about you, too.”

“I was worried,” Tank said. “I like you.”

Hot damn! I leaned into him and smiled, and he smiled back at me.

“We went through the funeral home, and we went through the undertakers home,” Hal said. “And then Ranger figured they might own property someplace else, so he got the old lady in the tax records to open the office. She found that little ranch house under Spiro's name. It was all tied up because Spiro was never declared dead.”

Forty minutes later, I got dropped off at Morelli's. I had my wrists bandaged, and I had some powdered-sugar siftings on my black T-shirt. Tank walked me to the door and unlocked the cuffs while Morelli waited, a crutch under one arm, his other hand hooked into Bob's collar.

“She's in your care,” Tank said to Morelli. “If Ranger asks, you can tell him I unlocked the cuffs in front of you.”

“Do you want me to sign for her?” Morelli asked, on a smile.

“Not necessary,” Tank said. “But I'm holding you responsible.”

I ruffled Bob's head and slipped past Morelli. He shut the door and looked at my T-shirt.

“Powdered sugar?” he asked.

“I needed a doughnut. I had Hal stop at Dunkin' Donuts on the way across town.”

“Ranger called and told me you were safe and on your way here, but he wouldn't tell me anything else.”

Ranger was going to take Stiva down, and he didn't want anything going wrong. He didn't want to lose Stiva. He wanted to do the takedown himself, without a lot of police muddying the water.

“I accidentally got lost trying to find the memorial service and happened to stumble into Con's personal workroom. I tripped an alarm and Con found me snooping.”

“I'm guessing he wasn't happy about you snooping?”

“It turns out Spiro is dead. Con said he found Spiro's ring in the fire debris. Con needed a scapegoat and decided Spiro was the ghost for the job. So Con's been going around in mortician's makeup, looking like a scarred Spiro.”

“Why did Con need a scapegoat?”

I told Morelli about the hijacking and the money missing from the vault, and I told him about the mass murder.

Morelli was grinning. “Let me get this straight,” he said. “In the beginning, you basically made all the wrong assumptions about Anthony's involvement and Spiro's identity. And yet, at the end, you solved the crime.”

“Yeah.”

“Fucking amazing.”

/> “Anyway, Stiva locked me up in a casket and took me somewhere to kill me. He left so he could do one last Spiro impersonation, and while he was gone Ranger found me.”

“And Ranger's waiting for him to return?” “Yep.”

“He should have told me,” Morelli said.

“Probably didn't want the police involved. Ranger likes to keep things simple.”

“Rangers a little psycho.”

“ Marches to his own drummer,” I said.

“His drummers are all psycho, too.”

Tags: Janet Evanovich Stephanie Plum Mystery
Source: readsnovelonline.net