Twelve Sharp (Stephanie Plum 12)

Silence.

'Hello?' I said. 'Are you mad?'

'Mad doesn't come close. Are you going to tell me where you are?'

'Not when you're in this kind of mood.'

More silence.

'Are you trying to control yourself?' I asked. Easy to be brave when Ranger was in Trenton, and I was in Point Pleasant.

'Don't push me,' Ranger said.

'You can just keep going and going and going,' I told him. 'I'm not that strong. I'm running low on happy. And I hardly have any brave left at all. We were careful not to be followed. We're armed. We're sober. I'll be home this afternoon. I'll call you when I get to Trenton.' I disconnected and broke into a nervous sweat. 'That was Ranger.'

'No shit.'

'It gets worse,' I told her. 'He's been staying in my apartment, and this morning Morelli moved in.'

'Let me get this straight. You got Ranger and Morelli living with you. At the same time.'

'Looks that way.'

Lula pulled into the lot at the pavilion. 'Girl, you got a problem. You can't put two alpha dogs in the same kennel. They'll kill each other. It's not like those two are ordinary men. They got enough testosterone between them that if testosterone was electricity they could light up New York City for the month of August.'

'I don't want to talk about it. I want to get some ice cream and sit in the sun and listen to the ocean.'

Ranger was brooding in the parking lot in front of my condo when I pulled in. He was in a RangeMan SUV, which meant it was new, it was immaculate, it had the big engine, it was black with black tinted windows, and it had the big-bucks chrome wheel covers.

He got out of the SUV and silently escorted me to my apartment.

'Is Morelli here?' I asked him.

'No. Not yet, but it's almost five, so I imagine he'll be rolling in soon.' He unlocked the apartment door, stepped in first, and looked around before he motioned me in. 'Your nose is sunburned,' he said. 'They don't sell sunscreen at Point Pleasant?'

'Are you sure I was at Point Pleasant?'

'I knew it was either the mall or Point Pleasant, and there were no background mall sounds when you talked to me.'

'You followed me down there?'

'No. I sent Hal and Roy.'

'I didn't see them.'

'That's my point. Hal doesn't blend in. It's like being followed by a stegasaurus. So if you didn't see Hal, you sure as hell weren't going to pick out Edward Scrog.' He tossed his keys on the kitchen counter. 'If you have an issue with me I expect you to tell me about it, not run away.'

'You don't listen.'

'I always listen,' Ranger said. 'I don't always agree. I have a problem right now that I can't seem to solve by myself. I need you to help me find my daughter. And there's an even bigger problem involved. I feel a financial and moral obligation to my daughter. I send child support, I send birthday and Christmas presents, I visit when I'm invited. But I've kept myself emotionally distanced. I'm not emotionally distanced from you. I couldn't live with myself if something happened to you because I was using you to find someone… even if that someone was my daughter. So I have to make every effort to keep you safe.'

'You're a little smothering.'

'Deal with it.' He looked over at Morelli's duffle bag still sitting in the foyer. 'This should be interesting.'

'You're not going to do something stupid and macho, are you?'

'I try hard not to do things that are stupid. I'm willing to make an exception in this case. I'm not leaving. And if you sleep with him while I'm here, I'll have to kill him.'