Notorious Nineteen

TWENTY-TWO

THE CHURCH WASN’T far. 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.”

I took my own watch off, dropped it into my purse, and put Ranger’s watch on my wrist. “Can I talk to you through the watch?”

“No. It just transmits. It doesn’t receive.”

The metal disk was approximately the same size as the watch face. Ranger ripped off a small piece of tape and stuck the disk to it.

“This is backup GPS. I’m going to put it inside your bra for now. If it gets uncomfortable you can move it to the small of your back. I’d like you to wear both devices until the threat is removed.”

He opened two blouse buttons and traced a line along the top of my bra with his fingertip. He bent his head, brushed a kiss across my breast, and slipped his hand inside my bra. I think I might have moaned a little, and I steadied myself by sliding my hand up the inside of his thigh. It turns out that just because I think I could have a future with Morelli doesn’t mean I’m entirely immune to Ranger’s hotness.

He taped the disk to the underside of my breast, and his thumb skimmed across my nipple. I’d once done the deed with Ranger in his Porsche but it involved an open driver’s side door and my knee on the console. I knew this wasn’t a possibility in the Cedar Mill House parking lot. Especially not with a madman stalking us, someone’s high beams shining in Ranger’s rear window, and my resolve to not be a slut.

“Rain check this,” Ranger said. “We have company.”

I made some clothing adjustments, and we followed Kinsey and Amanda into the restaurant. Besides the cars carrying the bridal party I counted two Rangeman SUVs in the lot and one more on the street.

We walked through the restaurant and up a flight of stairs. The private dining room, decorated in red and gold, was dimly lit, and seating was at three long tables. I was placed next to Amanda, and Ranger was across from us.

“I appreciate that you would take on this job,” Amanda said to me. “I knew Robert was in Special Forces, but I was unprepared for something like this to happen.”

“This has nothing to do with his Special Forces background,” I said. “This is about mental illness. This is about a man with a problem, and for some reason that’s beyond our control he’s fixated on Kinsey and Ranger. We just have to be careful until Ranger catches him.”

“Do you have a gun?” Amanda asked.

“Yes.”

“Me too,” she said. “I have a Beretta. What kind do you have?”

“A Ruger.”

“Have you ever shot anyone?”

“Yes, but it was sort of an accident.”

“You mean the gun went off when you didn’t mean it to go off?”

“No. I mean he was shooting at me, and I shot him back.”

“That doesn’t sound very accidental.”

“It wasn’t planned,” I said.

This subject was out of my comfort zone. My comfort zone ran more to bakery products, mascara, who was pregnant from my high school graduating class, and who was doing well on The Biggest Loser. I searched for a change of topic and came up short.

“You must be excited about the wedding,” I finally said.

Amanda leaned closer and lowered her voice. “Can I confide in you? I’m nervous. I thought this would be the most fabulous thing. All my life I’ve dreamed about my wedding day. The gown. The walk down the aisle. The party after.”

“And now?” I asked.

“I’m not sure. I love Robert, but marriage is so permanent.”

It should be permanent. That’s certainly the aspiration, but I knew firsthand it didn’t always work that way. I’d been married for about ten minutes. I was hoping for longer next time around . . . if there was a next time around.

“I guess most brides have pre-wedding jitters,” Amanda said. “I’m not even sure I did the right thing by having such an elaborate wedding. I almost wish we’d just gone off and gotten married.”

“It’ll all be great,” I said. “You’ll be a beautiful bride.”

Amanda sipped at the wine that was set in front of her. “Have you ever thought about marrying Ranger?”

“Ranger and I aren’t really a couple,” I said.

“Right,” Amanda said, rolling her eyes and smiling.

When Amanda rolled her eyes it was cute. In fact it was adorable, because Amanda was adorable. When I roll my eyes people are afraid I’ve had a seizure.

“I’ve seen the way he looks at you,” Amanda said.

“Like I’m a disaster?”

“Like he can’t take his eyes off you.”

“We’re friends,” I said. “And sometimes we work together. I don’t think Ranger is ready for a relationship.”

Amanda glanced over at him. “He’s very handsome,” she whispered.

I nodded in agreement. Ranger is drop-dead handsome.

The first course was set in front of me. Green salad with croutons and chunks of tomato. Standard fare. Not especially tempting.

Ranger was next to the bride’s mother, listening politely to her chatter. Occasionally he’d flick a glance my way but more often than not he was looking behind me, watching a waiter, scanning the room. I was doing the same, looking for someone with a dimple in his chin.

The main course was steak, vegetable medley, and mashed potatoes. I stared at the mashed potatoes and bit into my lower lip. I was hungry but not hungry enough to risk getting poisoned again.

“I have someone in the kitchen,” Ranger said from across the table. “This should be okay.”