'He got a plate the first time he followed him. We've already traced it.'
'Stolen?' Ranger asked.
'Yes.'
'I'm taking Stephanie home. Stay here a while longer and let me know if anything weird goes down.'
RANGER OPENED HIS apartment door for me and walked me to the kitchen.
'Are you hungry?' he asked.
'Famished. And tired.'
'I can call Ella. She'll make whatever you want. Or you can prowl through the kitchen. There's still peanut butter from The last time you were here.'
'Peanut butter sounds perfect.'
I shucked my coat and assembled a peanut butter and olive sandwich while Ranger leaned against the kitchen counter and punched a number into his phone.
'Who are you calling?' I asked.
'Morelli. Do you want him on speakerphone?'
'No. I haven't the energy.'
'We need to talk,' Ranger said to Morelli. 'There was a second fire tonight. Two people toasted by a flamethrower. I saw them just before the building exploded. Same drill as the warehouse. Both times there were victims already burned, accelerant in the area, and there must have been an incendiary device on a timer. I'd like to see the reports. And it would be good to get a fast ID on the bodies in the apartment building tonight.'
Morelli said something, and Ranger looked over at me.
'No, she wasn't directly involved,' Ranger said. 'She was with me the whole time. She's fine. Her hair didn't even catch fire.'
I rolled my eyes and gave Morelli and Ranger the finger.
'I wanted to bring this to you first,' Ranger said. 'If you're unavailable, I can go to your captain. This probably could benefit from a task force.'
Ranger flipped his phone closed and uncorked a bottle of red wine. He poured me a glass and ate an olive from the bottle.
'Is Morelli going to run with this?' I asked.
'He's going to make a phone call.'
I had my sandwich made, but I was so exhausted I could hardly chew. I washed a chunk down with wine and felt all my bones dissolve.
'I'm going downstairs to research flamethrowers,' Ranger said. 'I'll be up later.'
I finished the sandwich and wine and fell asleep wearing one of Ranger's T-shirts. It was big and comfy; and it was the first thing I laid hands on in the dressing room.
SLEEP IS VERY strange stuff. One minute you don't know anything, and then you're awake and life starts over. I opened my eyes to Ranger, fully dressed, standing over me, coffee cup in his hand.
'I let you sleep as long as possible,' he said. 'We have a meeting at the station in a half hour. You have ten minutes to shower and get dressed. I'm putting your coffee in the bathroom.'
'Meeting?'
'Fire marshal-that would be Ken Roiker-Morelli, Captain Targa, Marty Gobel. Don't know who else. We're going to give information, and we're going to get information.' He looked down at me. 'If I leave, you'll get up, right?'
'Yeah.'
'You won't go back to sleep?'
'No.'
'I don't believe you. You have that go-back-to-sleep look.'
He ripped the covers off and dragged me into the bath-room, he turned the shower on and shoved me in still wearing his T-shirt.
'You are such an asshole,' I yelled at him.
'Ten minutes,' he said. And he left the bathroom, closing the door behind him.
I was at the sink, wearing his robe with the hair dryer in my hand, when he rapped on the door. 'Ten minutes are up.'
'Bite me,' I said.
'I've got clothes for you.'
I stuck my head out. 'You picked out my clothes?'
'It wasn't hard. They're all the same.'
I took the clothes, closed the door, and got dressed. Only the bra didn't have RangeMan embroidered on it.
I gave up on the hair drying and skipped makeup. I'd take care of that in the car.
Ranger was waiting in the kitchen. He had coffee in a travel mug and a bagel with cream cheese in a Styrofoam box. Ranger hated being late for a meeting. Only death or dismemberment or the opportunity for morning sex were considered acceptable reasons for Ranger to be late to a meeting.
I took the coffee and bagel and trotted after Ranger out of the apartment and into the elevator.
'Do we know any more about last night?' I asked.
'Tank saw Joyce at the fire scene, and it sounded like she had Smullen's girlfriend with her. Other than that, no.'
We got into the turbo and Ranger drove out of the garage. I had my coffee in the turbo's cup holder, the bagel in one hand and a mascara wand in the other.
'Don't jerk around,' I said to Ranger. 'I could go blind doing this.'
'Wouldn't it be safer to do without?'
'Yeah, but I hide behind it. I put it on when I need to feel brave.'
'You don't need to feel brave today. Nothing bad is going to happen at this meeting.'
'I've been sleeping in your bed, and I've got your name embroidered on my underpants, and now I'm going into a meeting where your air space is going to intersect with Morelli's.'
'Babe, nothing's been happening in my bed, and no one's going to see your underpants in this meeting unless you go goofy.'
We parked in the public lot and crossed the street to the municipal building. Ranger had meeting instructions, so we ignored the cop-in-a-cage and went directly to a conference room. There were six men already seated. Ranger and I took our seats, and that left one chair empty. Morelli. Morelli's chair was directly opposite mine. Ranger was to my right. Already I was sweating the seating arrangement.
The conference room door opened, and Morelli entered. He nodded to everyone and claimed his place at the table. He looked across at me and smiled. The smile was small and intimate, and his brown eyes softened just a little for just a moment. He was in jeans and a cream sweater with the sleeves pushed to his elbows.
I had no idea what was going on inside Morelli or Ranger. They looked perfectly at ease and in control. Both of them were good at hiding emotion. Both were good at compartmentalizing. I wasn't good at any of that stuff. I was a wreck inside.
'Sorry I'm late,' Morelli said. 'I had to wait for the babysitter.'
Everyone knew Morelli had someone locked down.
'You called this,' Targa said to Morelli. 'You want to run it?'
'Stephanie and Ranger have information they want to share with us,' Morelli said. 'And they're hoping we have information to share with them.' His eyes went first to me and then to Ranger. The eyes didn't say anything. Morelli was in cop mode.
'For reasons that are obvious, Stephanie and I have been looking for Dickie Orr,' Ranger said. 'Stephanie was looking for him in the warehouse when the fire started. And we were in the apartment building last night when that fire occurred. We know that all three fire victims were dead before the fire. We know there was an accelerant in the apartment. I called 911 and did a fast search, but I didn't find anything that looked like a bomb. And for that matter, in both instances, there was no explosion of any significance.'
'You saw the victims before the fire?' Targa asked.
'Stephanie saw Smullen. We both saw the two bodies in the apartment building. All three had been burned
