Finger Lickin' Fifteen (Stephanie Plum 15)

“What?”

“You’re snoring.”

“No way. I was watching television. Look at me. Do I look like I’m asleep?”

“I’m going to bed,” I said.

“You sure you don’t want to see the end of this? This is a real good show.”

“I’ll catch it on reruns.”

I closed the door to my bedroom, crawled into bed, and shut my light off. I took a couple deep breaths and willed myself to go to sleep. Relax, I told myself. Calm down. Life is good. Think of a gentle breeze. Think of the moon in a dark sky. Hear the ocean. My eyes snapped open. I wasn’t hearing the ocean. I was hearing Lula snoring. I put my pillow over my head and went back to talking myself into sleep. Hear the ocean. Hear the wind in the trees. Shit! It wasn’t working. All I could hear was Lula.

Okay, I had a choice. I could kick her out of my apartment. I could hit her in the head with a hammer until she was dead. Or I could leave.

I PARKED IN the Rangeman garage and fobbed myself into the elevator and up to the seventh floor. I knew all eyes were on me in the control room. I waved at the Minicam hidden in the far corner of the elevator and tried to look nonchalant. I was wearing sneakers, flannel pajamas, and a sweatshirt. I’d called Ranger on the way across town and told him I needed a room. He said he was out on surveillance, and the only room available was his bedroom . . . so that was where I was headed.

I walked through his apartment in the dark and debated sleeping on the couch, but in the end Ranger’s bed was too alluring. He was working a double shift, doing drive-bys on accounts he felt were at highest risk for break-in. That meant he wouldn’t be back until six A.M. All I had to do was set the alarm so I’d be out of his bed before he rolled in.

The next morning, I was still in my pajamas and was standing in Ranger’s kitchen when he got home. I wasn’t entirely with the program, needing at least another two hours of sleep and a lot of hot coffee. Ranger had been up for more than twenty-four hours and looked annoyingly alert.

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.