11 Eleven On Top (31 page)

“It's almost ten,” Con said. “I need to have Spiro seen one last time, driving the car that will be found in this garage. Sadly, it will be my final Spiro performance. And your body will be found in the kitchen. Horribly mutilated, of course. It seems like Spiro's style. He had a flare for the dramatic. I suppose in some ways the apple didn't fall far from the tree.” He held the stun gun up for me to see. “Do you want me to stun you before I put you away or will you cooperate?”

“What do you mean, put me away?”

“I want you to be freshly killed after Spiro is seen driving the car. So I'm going to have to put you on ice for a couple hours.”

I cut my eyes to the casket. I really didn't want to go back in the casket.

“No,” Con said. “Not the casket. I need to get that back to the mortuary. It was just an easy way to transport you.” He was looking around. “I need to find something that will keep you out of sight. Something I can lock.”

“Ranger will find me,” I told him.

"Is that the Rambo bounty hunter? Not a chance. No one's going to find you until I point him in the right direction.

He turned and looked at me with his pale, pale eyes, I saw his hand move, I heard something sizzle in my head, and everything was black.

My mouth was dry and my fingertips were tingling. The jerk had zapped me again and stuffed me into something. I was on my back, and I was curled up fetus style. No light. No room to stretch my legs. My arms were pinned under me and the cuffs were cutting into my wrists. No satin lining this time. I was pretty sure I was crammed into some sort of wooden box. I tried rocking side to side. No room to get any momentum and nothing gave. This wasn't as terrifying as being locked in the casket, but it was much more uncomfortable. I was taking shallow breaths against the pain in my back and arms, playing games to occupy my mind, imagining that I was a bird and could fly, that I was a fire-breathing dragon, that I could play the cello in spite of the fact that I wasn't sure what a cello sounded like.

And suddenly there was a very slim, faint sliver of light in my box. I went still and listened with every molecule in my body. Someone had turned a light on. Or maybe it was daylight. Or maybe I was going to heaven. There were muffled sounds and men's voices, and there was a lot of door banging. I opened my mouth to yell for help, but the box opened before I had the chance. I tumbled out, and fell into Rangers arms.

He was as stunned as I was. He had a vise-like grip on my arms, holding me up. His eyes were dilated black, and the line of his mouth was tight. “I saw you folded up in there, and I thought you were dead,” he said.

“I'm okay. Just cramped.”

I'd been stuffed into one of the empty over-the-counter cabinets. How Con had gotten me up there was a mystery. I guess when you're motivated you find strength.

Ranger had come in with Tank and Hal. Tank was at my back with a handcuff key, and Hal was working on the shackles.

“It's not Spiro,” I said. “It's Con, and he's coming back to kill me. If we hang around we can catch him.”

Ranger raised my bruised and bloody wrist to his mouth and kissed it. “I'm sorry to have to do this to you, but there's no we. I've just had six really bad hours looking for you. I need to know you're safe. Sitting in this house waiting for a homicidal undertaker doesn't feel safe.” And he clamped the handcuff back on my wrist. “You've had enough fun for one day,” he said. And the other bracelet went on Tank's wrist.

“What the...” Tank said, caught by surprise.

“Take her back to the office and have Ella tend to her wrists and then take her to Morelli,” Ranger told Tank.

I dug my heels in. “No way!”

Ranger looked at Tank. “I don't care how you do it. Pick her up. Drag her. Whatever. Just get her out of here and keep her safe. And I don't want those bracelets to come off either of you until you hand her over to Morelli.”

I glared at Tank. “I'm staying.”

Tank looked back at Ranger. Obviously trying to decide which of us was more to be feared.

Ranger locked eyes with me. “Please,” he said.

Tank and Hal were goggle-eyed. They weren't used to “please.” I wasn't used to it either. But I liked it.

“Okay,” I said. “Be careful. He's insane.”

Hal drove, and Tank and I sat in back in the Explorer. Tank was looking uncomfortable with me as an attachment, looking like he was searching for something to say but couldn't for the life of him come up with anything. I finally decided to come to his rescue.

“How did you find me?” I asked him.

“It was Ranger.”

That was it. Three words. I knew he could talk. I saw him talking to Ranger all the time.

Hal jumped in from the front seat. “It was great. Ranger dragged some old lady out of bed to open the records office and hunt down real estate. He brought her in at gunpoint.”

“Omigod.”

“Boy, he was intense,” Hal said. “He had every Range-man employee and twenty contract workers out looking for you. We knew you disappeared at Stiva's because I was monitoring your bike. Tank and me started looking for you before Ranger even landed. You told me you were coming back and I got worried.”

“You were worried about me?”

“No,” Hal said. “I was worried Ranger would kill me if I lost you.” He shot me a look in the rearview mirror. “Well yeah. Maybe I was a little worried about you, too.”

“I was worried,” Tank said. “I like you.”

Hot damn! I leaned into him and smiled, and he smiled back at me.

“We went through the funeral home, and we went through the undertakers home,” Hal said. “And then Ranger figured they might own property someplace else, so he got the old lady in the tax records to open the office. She found that little ranch house under Spiro's name. It was all tied up because Spiro was never declared dead.”

Forty minutes later, I got dropped off at Morelli's. I had my wrists bandaged, and I had some powdered-sugar siftings on my black T-shirt. Tank walked me to the door and unlocked the cuffs while Morelli waited, a crutch under one arm, his other hand hooked into Bob's collar.

“She's in your care,” Tank said to Morelli. “If Ranger asks, you can tell him I unlocked the cuffs in front of you.”

“Do you want me to sign for her?” Morelli asked, on a smile.

“Not necessary,” Tank said. “But I'm holding you responsible.”

I ruffled Bob's head and slipped past Morelli. He shut the door and looked at my T-shirt.

“Powdered sugar?” he asked.

“I needed a doughnut. I had Hal stop at Dunkin' Donuts on the way across town.”

“Ranger called and told me you were safe and on your way here, but he wouldn't tell me anything else.”

Ranger was going to take Stiva down, and he didn't want anything going wrong. He didn't want to lose Stiva. He wanted to do the takedown himself, without a lot of police muddying the water.

“I accidentally got lost trying to find the memorial service and happened to stumble into Con's personal workroom. I tripped an alarm and Con found me snooping.”

“I'm guessing he wasn't happy about you snooping?”

“It turns out Spiro is dead. Con said he found Spiro's ring in the fire debris. Con needed a scapegoat and decided Spiro was the ghost for the job. So Con's been going around in mortician's makeup, looking like a scarred Spiro.”

“Why did Con need a scapegoat?”

I told Morelli about the hijacking and the money missing from the vault, and I told him about the mass murder.

Morelli was grinning. “Let me get this straight,” he said. “In the beginning, you basically made all the wrong assumptions about Anthony's involvement and Spiro's identity. And yet, at the end, you solved the crime.”

“Yeah.”

“Fucking amazing.”

“Anyway, Stiva locked me up in a casket and took me somewhere to kill me. He left so he could do one last Spiro impersonation, and while he was gone Ranger found me.”

“And Ranger's waiting for him to return?” Yep.

“He should have told me,” Morelli said.

“Probably didn't want the police involved. Ranger likes to keep things simple.”

“Rangers a little psycho.”

“Marches to his own drummer,” I said.

“His drummers are all psycho, too.”

I looked at Bob. “Has he been out?”

“Only in the yard.”

“I'll take him for a short walk.”

I went to the kitchen and got Bob's leash. And while I was at it I pocketed the keys to the Buick. I was feeling left out. And I was feeling pissed off. I wanted to be part of the takedown. And I wanted to release some anger on Stiva. I'd quit my job in an effort to normalize my life, and he'd sabotaged my plan. Of course, he'd done some good things, too, like blowing up Mama Macaroni and sending my cello to cello heaven. Still, it was small compensation for mowing Joe down and stuffing me into a casket.

Maybe I should be feeling charitable because it appeared he was insane, but I just didn't feel charitable. I felt angry.

I snapped the leash on Bob, took him out the front door, and loaded him into the Buick. There was a slight chance we'd both be blown to smithereens, but I didn't think so. Blowing me up wasn't in Stiva's plan. I shoved the key in the ignition and listened to the Buick suck gas. Music to my ears. Morelli wouldn't be happy when he heard the Buick drive off, but I couldn't risk telling him I was going back to help Ranger. Morelli would never let me go.

I'd paid attention when we left the little ranch house where I'd been held captive, and in fifteen minutes I was back in the neighborhood. I cruised by the house. It was dark. Half a block away I spotted the Explorer. Hal and Tank were in the house with Ranger. I backed the Buick into a dark driveway directly across from the little ranch. I sat with the motor running and my lights off. Bob was panting in the backseat, snuffling his nose against the window. Bob liked being part of an adventure.

After ten minutes, a green sedan came down the street. The car passed under a streetlight, and I could see Stiva behind the wheel. He was wearing the hat, and a splash of light illuminated his fake scars. He turned into the ranch house driveway and stopped. The garage door started to slide up. This was my moment. I stomped my foot down on the gas and roared across the street, slamming into the back of the green sedan. I caught it square, sending it crashing through the bottom half of the garage door, push¬ing it into the back of the garage.

Bob was barking and jumping around in the backseat. Bob probably drove NASCAR in another life. Or maybe demolition derby. Bob loved destruction.

“So what do you think?” I asked Bob. “Should we hit him again?”

“Rolf, rolf, rolf!”

I backed up and rammed the green sedan a second time.

Ranger and Tank ran out of the house, guns drawn. Hal came five steps behind them. I backed up about ten feet and got out. I inspected the Buick. Hard to get a good look in the dark, but I couldn't see any damage by the light of the moon.

Tank played a beam of light from his Mag across the green sedan. The hood was completely smashed, the roof had been partially peeled away by the garage door, and the trunk was crumple city. Steam hissed from the radiator and liquid was pooling dark and slick under the car. Stiva was fighting the airbag.

I took Bob out of the backseat and walked him around on Spiro’s front lawn so he could tinkle. I was thinking I'd move back into my apartment tomorrow. And maybe I'd get a cello. Not that I needed it. I was pretty darned inter¬esting without it. Still, a cello might be fun.

Ranger was standing, hands on hips, watching me.

“I feel better now,” I said to Ranger.

“Babe.”

The End