"Well, you must be doing something right. Someone wants to kill you. That's always a good sign."

I guess that was one way of looking at it. "Problem is, I'm not ready to die."

Ranger looked at the food in front of me. Noodles and sausage in cheese and cream sauce. "Babe," he said.

Ranger's plate held a chicken breast and grilled vegetables. He was hot, but he didn't know much about eating.

"Where are you now?" Ranger wanted to know. "Do you have any more leads to follow?"

"No leads. I'm out of ideas."

"Any gut instincts?"

"I don't think Singh's dead. I think he's hiding. And I think the freak who's stalking me is directly or indirectly associated with TriBro."

"If you had to take a guess, could you pull a name out of a hat?"

"Bart Cone is the obvious."

Ranger made a phone call and asked for the file on Bart Cone. In my mind I imagined the call going into the nerve center of the Bat Cave. No one knows the source of Rangers cars, clients, or cash. He operates a number of businesses which are security related. And he employs a bunch of men who have skills not normally found outside a prison population. His right-hand man is named Tank and the name says it all.

Tank walked into the restaurant twenty minutes later with a manila envelope. He smiled and nodded a hello to me. He helped himself to a slice of Italian bread. And he left.

Ranger and I read through the material, finding few surprises. Bart was divorced and living alone in a townhouse north of the city. He had no recorded debts. He paid his credit cards and his mortgage on time. He drove a two-year-old black BMW sedan. The packet included several newspaper clippings on the murder trial and a profile on the murdered woman.

Lillian Paressi was twenty-six years old at the time of her death. She had brown hair and blue eyes and from the photo in the paper she looked to be of average build. She was pretty in a girl-next-door way, with curly shoulder-length hair and a nice smile. She was unmarried, living alone in an apartment on Market just two blocks from the Blue Bird luncheonette, where she'd worked as a waitress.

In a very general sort of way I suppose she resembled me. Not a good thought to have when investigating an unsolved murder that had serial killer potential. But then half the women in the Burg fit that same description, so probably there was no reason for me to be alarmed.

Ranger reached over and tucked a brown curl behind my ear. "She looks a little like you, babe," Ranger said. "You want to be careful."

Super.

Ranger looked at my pasta dish. I'd eaten everything but one noodle. A smile twitched at the corner of his mouth.

"I don't want to get fat," I told him.

"And that noodle would do it?"

I narrowed my eyes. "What's your point?"

"Do you have room for dessert?"

I sighed. I always had room for dessert.

"You're going to have dessert at the Blue Bird luncheonette," Ranger said. "I bet they have good pie. And while you're eating the pie you can talk to the waitress. Maybe she knew Paressi."

Halfway across town I rechecked the reflection in my side mirror for the fourth time. "I'm pretty sure we're being followed by a black SUV," I said.

"Tank."

"Tank's following us?"

"Tank's following you."

Ordinarily I'd be annoyed at the invasion of privacy, but right now I was thinking privacy was overrated and it wasn't a bad idea to have a bodyguard.

The Blue Bird sat cheek to jowl with several small businesses on Second Avenue. This wasn't the most prosperous part of town, but it wasn't the worst, either. Most of the businesses were family owned and operated. The yellow brick storefronts were free of graffiti and bullet holes. Rents were reasonable and encouraged low-profit businesses: a shoe repair shop, a small hardware store, a vintage clothing store, a used book store. And the Blue Bird luncheonette.

The Blue Bird was approximately the size of a double-wide railroad car. There was a short counter with eight stools, a pastry display case and cash register. Booths stretched along the far wall. The linoleum was black-and-white checkerboard and the walls were bluebird blue.

We took a booth and looked at the menu. There was the usual fare of burgers and tuna melts and pie. I ordered lemon meringue and Ranger ordered coffee, black.

"Excuse me?" I said, palms down on the Formica tabletop. "Coffee? I thought we came here for pie."

"I don't eat the kind of pie they serve here."

I felt a flash of heat go through my stomach. I knew firsthand the kind of pie Ranger liked.

The waitress stood with pencil poised over her pad. She was late fifties with bleached blond hair piled high on her head, heavily mascaraed eyes, perfectly arched crayoned-on eyebrows, and iridescent white lipstick. She had big boobs barely contained in a white T-shirt, her hips were slim in a black spandex miniskirt, and she was wearing black orthopedic shoes.

"Honey, we got all kinds of pie," she said to Ranger.

Ranger cut his eyes to her and she took a step backward. "But then maybe not," she said.

"I'm not usually in this neighborhood," I told the waitress, "but my little sister knew a girl who used to work here. And she always said the food was real good. Maybe you knew my sister's friend. Lillian Paressi."

"Oh honey, I sure did. She was a sweetheart. Didn't have an enemy. Everyone loved Lillian. That was a terrible thing that happened to her. She was killed on her day off. I couldn't believe it when I heard. And they never caught the guy who did it. They had a suspect for a while, but it didn't turn out. I tell you, if I knew who killed Lillian he'd never come to trial."

"Actually, I lied about my sister," I said. "We're investigating Lillian's murder. There've been some new developments."

"I figured," the waitress said. "You get to be a good judge of people with a job like this and Rambo's got FED' written all over him. A local cop would have ordered pie."

Ranger looked at me and winked and I almost fell off my seat. It was the first time he'd ever winked at me. Somehow Ranger and winking didn't go together.

"Did Lillian have a boyfriend?" I asked.

"Nothing serious. She was going out with this one guy, but they broke up. She hadn't seen him for a couple months. His name was Bailey Scrugs. You don't forget a name like Bailey Scrags. The cops talked to him early on. So far as I know she wasn't dating anyone when she was killed. She was real depressed after breaking up with Scrugs and she spent a lot of time on her computer. Chat rooms and stuff.

"Do you want to know what I think? I think it was one of them random killings. Some nut saw her out walking in the woods. The world's full of nuts."

"I know this all happened a while ago," I said. "But try to think back. Was Lillian ever worried? Scared? Upset? Anything unusual happen to her?" Like was she ever shot with a tranquilizer dart?

"The police asked me all those same questions. At the time I couldn't think of anything to tell them. But there was something that popped into my head months later. I couldn't decide if I should go tell someone. It was sort of an odd thing and all that time had passed, so I ended up keeping it to myself."

"What was it?" I asked.

"This is probably stupid, but a couple days before she was killed someone left a red rose and a white carnation on her car. Stuck them under her windshield wiper with a card. And the card said have a nice day. Lillian was kind of upset about it. She brought them in here and threw them away. I guess that's why it bothered me when I remembered. She didn't say anything more about them, like who they were from or anything. Do you think the flowers might have been important?"

"Hard to say," Ranger told her.

"You should talk to her neighbor," the waitress said to us.

"Carl. I don't remember his last name. They were real good friends. Nothing romantic. Just good friends."

I ate my pie and Ranger drank his coffee. Neither of us said anything until we were out of the cafe and into his truck.

"Shit," I said. "Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit."

"I have a house in Maine," Ranger said. "It's nice there at this time of year."

It was a tempting offer. "Is there an outlet mall nearby? Is it close to a Cheesecake Factory? A Chili's?"

"Babe, it's a safe house. It's on a lake in the woods."

Oh boy. Bears, black flies, rabid raccoons, and spiders. "Thanks for the offer, but I think I'll pass. Just tell Tank to stick close to me."

Ranger put the truck in gear, turned at the corner, drove two blocks down Market, and parked in front of an old Victorian clapboard house. The front door was unlocked and led to a small foyer. There were six mailboxes lined up on the wall. Beyond the mailboxes, a hand-carved mahogany railing followed a broad staircase to the second and third floors. The carpet was threadbare and the wall covering was faded and had begun to peel at the corners, but the foyer and staircase were clean. An air freshener had been plugged into a baseboard outlet and spewed lemony freshness that mingled with the natural mustiness of the house.

We ran through the names on the mailboxes and found Carl Rosen. Apartment 2B. We both knew chances weren't good that he'd be in, but we took the stairs and knocked on his door. No answer. We knocked on the door across the hall. No answer there, either.

We could get Carl Rosen's work address easy enough, but most people were reluctant to talk in their work environment. Better to wait a couple hours and catch him at home.

"Now what?" I asked Ranger.

"I want to go through Bart Cone's house. It'll be easier to do alone, so I'm taking you back to the office. You should be safe there. I'll pick you up at five and we'll try Rosen again."

Chapter Eight

Mrs. Apusenja was sitting in the office when Ranger dropped me off. She was on the couch, arms crossed over her chest, lips pressed tightly together.

She jumped up when I walked in and pointed her finger at me. "You!" Mrs. Apusenja said. "What do you do all day? Do you look for Samuel Singh? Do you look for poor little Boo? Where are they? Why haven't you found them?"

Connie rolled her eyes.

"Hunh," Lula said from behind a file cabinet.

"I've only been looking for a couple days ..." I said.

"This is the fourth day. Do you know what I think? I think you don't know what you're doing. I want someone new on the case. I demand someone new."

We all looked at the door to Vinnie's inner office. It was closed and locked. There was silence behind the door.

Connie got up and rapped on the door. No response. "Hey," Connie yelled. "Mrs. Apusenja wants to talk to you. Open the door!"

The door still didn't open.

Connie returned to her desk, got a key from the middle drawer, and went back and opened Vinnie's door. "Guess you didn't hear me," Connie said, standing hand on hip, looking in at Vinnie. "Mrs. Apusenja wants to talk to you."

Vinnie came to the door and smiled an oily smile out at Mrs. Apusenja. "Nice to see you again," he said. "Do you have some new information for us?"

"I have this for you. The new information is that I will go to the papers if you do not find Samuel Singh. I will ruin you. How does it look for my Nonnie? People will talk. And he owes me two weeks' rent. Who will pay that?"

"Of course we'll find him," Vinnie said. "I've got my best man looking for Singh. And Stephanie's helping him."

"You are a boil on the backside of your profession," Mrs. Apusenja said. And she left.

"How many years have I been in this business? A lot of years, right?" Vinnie asked. "And I'm good at it. I'm good at writing bond. I do a service for the community. Does the honest law-abiding taxpayer have to pay my salary? No. Does the city of Trenton have to hire cops to go find their scofflaws? No. All because of me. I go get the scumbags at no cost to the general population. I risk my neck!"

Connie and Lula and I raised our eyebrows.

"Well, okay, I risk Stephanie's neck," Vinnie said. "But it's all in the family, right?"

"Yeesh," Lula said.

"I should have let Sebring write the damn visa bond," Vinnie said. "What was I thinking?"

Les Sebring was Vinnie s competitor. There were several bail bonds offices in the Trenton area, but Sebring's agency was the largest.

"So what are you doing standing here?" Vinnie asked, flapping his arms. "Go find him, for crissake." Vinnie looked around and sniffed the air. "What's that smell? It smells like roast leg of lamb."

"It was my afternoon snack," Lula said. "I got it delivered from the Greek deli. I'm on the all-you-can-eat meat diet. I didn't eat the whole leg, though. I don't want to go overboard."

"Yeah," Connie said. "She only ate half a leg."

Vinnie stepped back into his office and closed and locked the door.

"Sounds like we should go find this guy," Lula said.

I'd like nothing better than to find Samuel Singh, but I didn't know how. And worse, I was having a hard time focusing on the hunt. I couldn't get Lillian Paressi out of my head. I kept seeing her marching into the Blue Bird, angrily clutching the flowers. Red rose, white carnation. The note was innocuous. Nothing to get angry over. So the flowers had to be part of a continuing harassment. And surely she talked to someone about it. I was hoping Carl Rosen was that someone.

"Earth to Stephanie," Lula said. "You got any ideas?"

"No."

"Me, either," Lula said. "I think this diet's clogging things up inside me. This isn't a creative thinker's diet. You need Cheez Doodles to do that shit. And birthday cake. The kind with the lard icing and the big pink and yellow icing roses."

Connie and I looked at Lula.

"Not that I'm gonna eat anything like that ever again,"