Top Secret Twenty-One (22 page)

“It’ll take me all day. And I’ll be a sitting duck out here.”

“I’ll give you a break on the rent.”

“I’m not paying any rent.”

“Exactly.”

We walked them around the block, and they all peed and two out of ten pooped.

“How often do I have to do this?” Briggs asked.

“Four times a day. They don’t have to always go for long walks. They just need a chance to piddle.”

We dragged the dogs up the stairs, and I set out bowls of water for them and gave them a quilt to use as a bed.

“I need a television,” Briggs said. “There’s nothing to do here.”

“You could look for a job.”

“I don’t have a car. How am I going to get around?”

“Taxi. Skateboard. Drone pickup. Figure it out!”

I DROVE AWAY
feeling agitated. I hated that Forest was locked up in jail. I didn’t like leaving the dogs with Briggs. I was terrified that something horrible was going to happen to Ranger. And I had a sick feeling in my stomach that I was going to get disemboweled by Vlatko.

All morning I’d been fighting the urge to call Ranger. I wanted reassurance that he was okay, but I didn’t want to overstep the boundaries of our relationship. Ranger wasn’t a chatty person, and we didn’t make casual phone calls. Truth is, if I made a phone call every time I was worried Ranger’s life was in danger, I’d spend half my life on the phone. Still, this felt different. This was bigger and crazier and scarier.

Morelli’s green SUV wasn’t in front of his house when I pulled to the curb. He was still helping Anthony. I let myself in and realized there was no Bob. Bob was usually the first
to greet me. I went to the kitchen in search of lunch, knowing there were good things waiting for me in Morelli’s refrigerator.

Morelli had started out as the bad kid in the neighborhood. He was every teenage girl’s dream and every mother’s nightmare. He’d done some time in the Navy, joined the Trenton police, set a record for barroom brawls and one-night stands, and miraculously emerged from the devastation as a disease-free, mostly mature and responsible adult. Go figure.

I’d had a less tumultuous transition from childhood to adulthood, but somewhere in my twenties I feel like I got stalled in the process and now I’m drifting, marking time without any great passion to move forward. It could be that I’m just liking where I’m at and want to stay there a while longer. Still, it would be helpful if I could get motivated enough to buy a toaster.

I pulled a half-eaten tray of lasagna out of the fridge, carved a chunk off for myself, and ate it cold. I called Morelli and got a progress report on the swing set. It sounded to me like there was more beer drinking going on than bolting and wrenching. I went upstairs, brushed my teeth, and dabbed at the lasagna stain on my T-shirt. I gave up on the shirt, changed into a new one, and went downstairs. For lack of anything better to do I thought I’d go back to my apartment and help Briggs with the dogs. I went to the kitchen to get my messenger bag and froze in the middle of the room, unable to move, unable to breathe, my thoughts momentarily scrambled.

My messenger bag was on the counter, and next to it in a
smear of blood was what looked like a human heart. The little sticky note next to it said,
I’ll have yours next
.

I looked around. No broken or open windows. The back door was locked. With shaky hands I got the key from the red coffee mug in Morelli’s over-the-counter cupboard, unlocked the drawer next to the sink, and removed Morelli’s spare Glock 9.

I stood with my back to the kitchen wall and called Ranger.

“I’m alone in Morelli’s house and someone just left a bloody heart on the kitchen counter,” I said. “I have a gun, and I’m in the kitchen, and I’m not going to move until you get here.”

“I’m fifteen minutes away, but I’ll have one of my men in your backyard sooner than that.”

I hung up and called my parents’ house.

“Just checking in,” I said when Grandma Mazur answered. “How’s everything going there?”

“We just finished lunch, and now your father’s sleeping in front of the television.”

I called my sister. I called Briggs. I called Connie and Lula. No one was missing a heart. I looked outside and saw that two Rangeman guys were at attention in Morelli’s yard.

I debated calling Morelli. It was his house, and he should be told about this. Problem was, it would create a firestorm of unwanted activity. If I blurted out the whole story, it would get tied to the polonium and the feds would take over. There’d be CSI trucks and crime scene tape and hours of interrogation. If I didn’t blurt out the whole story, I’d be withholding information in a federal investigation. And my biggest reservation was that
the feds wouldn’t be as efficient as Ranger when it came to solving the problem. In fact, they might only complicate things. I had confidence that Ranger would find Vlatko and eliminate him. The feds, not so much.

My cellphone rang, and Ranger told me he was at the front door and coming in. I heard the door open and close, and moments later Ranger walked into the kitchen. He glanced at me and then at the heart on the counter.

“Have you cleared the house?” he asked me.

“No.”

“Stay here while I do a walk-through.”

Minutes later he returned to the kitchen.

“All the doors and windows were locked,” I told him. “I went upstairs to brush my teeth and change my shirt, and when I came down the heart was on the counter.”

“Are you sure you locked the front door when you came in?”

“Absolutely.”

“It was unlocked when I arrived. Morelli could use a better locking system, although I suspect if Vlatko wants to get through a door he can find a way.”

Ranger went to the counter and looked down at the heart. He tapped a number into his phone and gave the person on the other end Morelli’s address and told him to use the back door.

“I’m not an expert,” Ranger said, “but this looks like a human heart.”

“You’ve seen a lot of hearts?”

“How many is a lot?”

“One,” I said.

“Yeah, I’ve seen a lot of hearts. Have you called Morelli?”

“No. Not yet.”

“If it’s a human heart, we have to call him,” Ranger said. “If it’s something other than human, I’d rather not make the call. It’ll further complicate the Vlatko search.”

“Are you making any progress?”

“I’ve been researching Viktor Volkov. Volkov is a common Russian surname. There are several Viktor Volkovs in New York and New Jersey. One of them lives in Atlantic City.”

“That’s a convenient coincidence.”

“The Atlantic City resident has been in the U.S. for several years, working as an independent contractor for a heating and air-conditioning company. Fifty-two years old. Single. Renting a house in a low-income neighborhood. Two eyes. Obviously not Vlatko. He doesn’t answer his phone.”

“Are you going to Atlantic City to talk to him?”

“Yes. I would have gone today, but we moved back into the building and I needed to be there.”

A narrow-faced, pockmarked guy in Rangeman black fatigues knocked on the back door. Ranger let him in and nodded toward the heart.

“Tell me about this,” Ranger said.

“It’s a heart,” the guy said.

“What kind?”

“Human. You can tell by the shape. It’s adult-size. It appears to have been frozen and recently defrosted. The liquid on the counter is from the defrosting process. Cells breaking down.”

“Anything else?” Ranger asked.

“It appears to have been healthy, but that’s all I could tell you without slicing into it.”

“Thanks,” Ranger said.

The Rangeman guy joined the two who were still standing at parade rest in the backyard.

“Who the heck was that?” I asked Ranger.

“Rodriguez. He’s a specialist.”

“I bet.”

“Make the phone call,” Ranger said.

“Maybe you should leave.”

He shook his head. “I’m staying.”

I blew out a sigh and called Morelli.

“Hey,” I said. “How’s it going?”

“We hit a snag on the sliding board, but I think we have it figured out.”

“I’m at your house, and I have a sort of situation here.”

“What sort of situation?”

“Sort of a home invasion situation. I’m fine and Ranger is here, but we thought you’d want to check out the … problem.”

“Oh man, did someone shoot a rocket into my living room?”

“Nope. No rocket. Your living room is just like you left it. It’s the kitchen that was sort of invaded.”

“Okay, I’ll round Bob up and come home.”

“This probably isn’t going to go well,” I said to Ranger.

Bob bounded into the kitchen, slammed into me, and sniffed at Ranger. Morelli followed. He nodded to Ranger and focused on me. His gaze traveled down my arm to my hand, and I realized I was still holding his Glock.

“On the counter,” I said.

Morelli shifted his attention. “It’s a heart,” he said.

“We think it’s human,” I told him. “Someone broke in while I was upstairs and left it here with a note.”

Morelli walked to the counter and read the note.
“I’ll have yours next.”

He looked at me, and I could see the checked anger in the set of his mouth. “Do you know what this means?”

“Probably,” I said. “We think it relates to the polonium.”

“I’m listening.”

“When I was with Special Forces,” Ranger told Morelli, “I had an encounter with an SVR agent named Vlatko. He’s an assassin and an interrogator, and he’s in this country on some sort of mission. He used Rangeman for a practice run. I’ve tracked him to the Russian consulate in New York, and have some leads, but he’s still in the wind.”

“What has this got to do with me?” Morelli asked. “Why do I have a heart on my kitchen counter?”

“It has nothing to do with you,” Ranger said. “It was left for Stephanie. He’s targeting her because she’s worked for me. Eventually he’ll come after me. In the meantime, he’s playing with the people around me.”

“Do the feds know about the Vlatko connection?”

“Not from me,” Ranger said. “But they followed all the
same initial leads that I followed. Since they don’t share their information with me, I have no idea where they’re at in the investigation.”

“If it’s a human heart, it has a body somewhere,” Morelli said. “At the very least, it needs to be tested and registered as a crime.”

We all looked over at the kitchen counter. No heart. Just a watery smear of blood and a trail of drops on the floor leading into the dining room. We followed the drops through the dining room and into the living room, where Bob was gnawing on the last remnant of the heart.

“Bad Bob,”
Morelli said, shaking his finger at Bob. “That’s not Bob food.”

Bob obviously had a different opinion, because he snatched the mangled piece of meat and ran upstairs.

Morelli ran after him, there was a lot of yelling and growling, and Morelli came down empty-handed.

“He ate it,” Morelli said.

I was horrified to the point of gagging. Ranger stared down at his shoe, making a monumental effort not to laugh. And Morelli stood hands on hips, staring at the bloody splotch on his rug. The splotch sort of blended in with the rug pattern and various other food and beverage stains.

We were all carrying guns, and no one wanted to say the wrong thing and start World War III, so no one said anything.

“This never happened,” Morelli finally said.

“I didn’t see anything,” Ranger said.

I agreed. “Me either.”

Morelli turned to Ranger. “If anything happens to her, I’m holding you responsible.”

“Understood,” Ranger said.

“Excuse me?” I said. “I’m an adult. I make my own decisions. And
I’m
responsible for my well-being. Is that clear?”

“No,” both men said in unison.

“I have to get back to Anthony before he wrenches his own thumb off,” Morelli said. “He’s no Mr. Fix-It.”

Bob slunk down the stairs and stared up at Morelli with soulful eyes. He was sorry he’d eaten the evidence.

“That was bad,” Morelli said to Bob. “You know you’re not supposed to eat off the counter.”

A shoestring of drool hung from the side of Bob’s mouth, his eyes got glassy, he planted his four feet, and
GAK
 … he barfed up the heart.

“Maybe you can still test it for DNA or something,” I said to Morelli.

Ranger grinned. “You’re going to need a snow shovel to get that up.”