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“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 bathroom. 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 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.”
