My father hunkered down over his plate.
"Of course, maybe they started probing Fred and he croaked. What do you think they'd do then? You think they'd just pitch him out? Maybe their spaceship was over Afghanistan when they tossed Fred, and we'll never find him. Good thing he isn't a woman, what with landing in Afghanistan and all. I hear they don't treat women so good over there."
My mother paused with her fork halfway to her mouth, and her eyes darted to the side window. She listened like that for a moment and then resumed eating.
"Nobody's going to bomb the garage," I said to her. "I'm almost sure of it."
"Boy, wouldn't it be something if someone did bomb our garage," Grandma said. "That'd be a good story to tell at the beauty parlor."
I was starting to wonder why I hadn't received a call from Ranger. It wasn't like him not to get back to me right away. I set my shoulder bag on my lap and pawed through the clutter, looking for my cell phone.
"What are you looking for?" Grandma asked.
"My cell phone. I've got so much junk in my bag I can never find anything." I started pulling stuff out and setting it on the table. Can of hairspray, hairbrush, zippered makeup pouch, flashlight, minibinoculars, Ranger's license plates, bottle of nail polish, stun gun . . .
Grandma leaned over the table to take a better look. "What's that thing?"
"Stun gun," I said.
"What's it do?"
"It emits an electrical charge."
My father forked in more ham, focusing his concentration on his plate.
Grandma got out of her seat and came around to examine the stun gun. "What do you do with this?" she wanted to know, picking it up and studying it. "How does it work?"
I was still rooting through my bag. "You press the metal prongs against someone and push the button," I said.
"Stephanie," my mother said, "take that away from your grandmother before she electrocutes herself."
"Aha!" I said, finding my cell phone. I pulled it out and looked at it. Dead battery. No wonder Ranger hadn't called.
"Look, Frank," my grandmother said to my father, "did you ever see anything like this? Stephanie says you just stick it against someone and push the button . . ."
My mother and I both jumped out of our seats. "No!"
Too late. Grandma had the prongs pressed against my father's arm. Zzzzzt.
My father's eyes glazed over, a piece of ham fell out of his mouth, and he crashed to the floor.
"He must have had a heart attack," Grandma said, looking down at my father. "I told him and told him, he uses too much gravy."
"It's the stun gun!" I yelled at her. "That's what happens when you use a stun gun on someone!"
Grandma bent down for a closer look. "Did I kill him?"
My mother was on her knees alongside my grandmother. "Frank?" she shouted. "Can you hear me, Frank?"
I took his pulse. "He's okay," I said. "Grandma just scrambled some brain cells. It's not permanent. He'll be good as new in a couple minutes."
My father opened an eye and farted.
"Oops," Grandma said. "Someone must have stepped on a duck."
We all backed away and fanned the air.
"I have a nice chocolate cake for dessert," my mother said.
I used my parents' phone in the kitchen and left a new message on Ranger's machine. "Sorry about my cell phone. The battery conked out. I'll be home in about a half-hour. I need to talk to you." Then I called Mary Lou and asked her to give me a lift home. I didn't think it was such a good idea to ask my dad to drive so soon after getting zapped. And I didn't want my mom to take me and leave my grandmother and father alone in the house together. And first and foremost, I didn't want to be there when my father went nuts at Grandma Mazur.
"I've been dying to hear from you," Mary Lou said when she picked me up. "What happened with Morelli last night?"
"Not a lot. We talked about the case he's working on, and then he took me home."
"That's it?"
"Pretty much."
"No fooling around?"
"Nope."
"So let me get this straight. Last night you were with the two sexiest men in the entire world, and you didn't score with either one of them?"
"There are other things in this life besides scoring with men," I said.
"Like what?"
"I could score with myself."
"You could go blind doing that."
"No! I mean, I could feel good about myself. You know, like when you do a job and it turns out excellent. Or when you set a moral standard for yourself and stick to it."
Mary Lou gave me the open-mouth, wrinkled-nose, this-is-a-load-of-bullshit look. "What?"
"Well, okay, so I've never had any of those things happen, but they could!"
"And pigs could fly," Mary Lou said, "but personally, I'd rather have an orgasm."
Mary Lou swung into the lot and stopped short, jerking both of us against the shoulder harness. "Omigod," she said. "Do you see what I think I see?"
Ranger's Mercedes was parked in shadow just beyond the door.
"Damn," Mary Lou said, "if he was waiting for me, I'd need Depends."
Ranger was leaning against the car, arms folded across his chest, not moving. Very foreboding in the dark. Definitely Depends material.
"Thanks for the ride," I said to Mary Lou, my eyes on Ranger, wondering about his mood.
"You going to be okay? He looks so . . . dangerous."
"It's the hair."
"It's more than the hair."
It was the hair, the eyes, the mouth, the body, the gun on his hip . . .
"I'll call you tomorrow," I told Mary Lou. "Don't worry about Ranger. He's not as bad as he looks." Okay, so I fib now and then, but it's always for a good cause. No point Mary Lou spending the night in a state.
Mary Lou gave Ranger one last look and whipped out of the lot. I took a deep breath and ambled over.
"Where's the BMW?" Ranger asked.
I pulled the plates and the piece of dashboard out of my bag and gave them to him. "I sort of had a problem . . ."
His eyebrows raised, and a smile started to twitch at the corners of his mouth. "This is what's left of the car?"
I nodded my head and swallowed. "It got stolen."
The smile widened. "And they left you the plates and registration tag. Nice touch."
I didn't think it was a nice touch. I thought it was very crappy. In fact, I was thinking my life was crappy. The bomb, Ramirez, Uncle Fred—and just when I thought I'd succeeded at something and made a capture, someone stole my car. The whole crappy world was thumbing its nose at me. "Life sucks," I said to Ranger. A tear popped out of my eye and slid down my cheek. Damn.
Ranger studied me for a moment, turned, and dropped the plates in his backseat. "It was a car, Babe. It wasn't important."
"It's not just the car. It's everything." Another tear squeezed out. "I have all these problems."
He was very close. I could feel the heat from his body. And I could see that his eyes were dilated black in the dark parking lot.
"Here's something else to worry about," he said. And he kissed me—his hand at the nape of my neck and his mouth on mine, soft at first, then serious and demanding. He drew me closer and kissed me again and desire washed over me, hot and liquid and scary.
"Oh boy," I whispered.
"Yeah," he said. "Think about it."
"What I think . . . is that it's a bad idea."
"Of course it's a bad idea," Ranger said. "If it was a good idea I'd have been in your bed a long time ago." He took a notecard from his jacket pocket. "I have a job for you tomorrow. The young sheik is going home and needs a ride to the airport."
"No! No way am I driving that little jerk."
"Look at it this way, Steph. He deserves you."
He had a point. "Okay," I said. "I haven't got anything else to do."
"Instructions are on the card. Tank will bring the car around for you."