'The woman working in the Pleasure Treasures store went FTA, and Lula and I went in to make an apprehension, and Lula got this dancing dildo, but they were having a two-for-one-sale, and somehow I ended up with this. It's the Herbert Horsecock model.'

'It's impressive.'

'It's frightening,' I told him.

He took the DVD out of the bag. 'Big Boys,' he said. 'I'm seeing a theme here.'

'Lula said it would change my life.'

Ranger put the dildo and the DVD back in the bag. 'Does your life need changing?'

'I don't know. I thought so a while ago, but it feels comfortable now… except for a commitment dilemma.'

He pulled me to him and kissed me in a way that more than made up for the benign kiss in the bakery. 'Let me know when you figure it out,' he said.

I realized that sometime during the kiss I'd inserted my leg between his and had plastered myself to him in all the strategic places. I inched away and smoothed out the wrinkles I'd made when I gripped his shirt.

'Is there something I should be doing tonight to find Julie?' I asked him.

'Not tonight, but I have some legwork for you to do tomorrow if you have time.'

'Of course I have time. Are you managing this okay?'

'It's not the first time I've had to find someone important to me. You learn to keep moving forward. And you go deep into denial.'

'Are you scared?'

'Yeah,' Ranger said. 'I'm scared for Julie.'

'Do you have a place to stay?'

'I have a safe house in north Trenton. I'll pick you up tomorrow morning at eight.' He reached out to kiss me again, but I jumped away. Another kiss like the last one and he wouldn't leave… I'd make sure of it.

'Still think I'm cute?' Ranger asked with the almost nonexistent smile curving the corners of his mouth. And he left.

Eight

I opened an eye and squinted at my bedside clock. Six-thirty. In the morning! My alarm wasn't set to go off for another hour, but something had dragged me awake. I opened the other eye and did some deep breathing, sucking in the smell of coffee brewing. I rolled out of bed and shuffled into the dining room.

Ranger was at the table, using my laptop.

'Unh,' I said.

'Coffee's in the kitchen.'

'What are you doing here?'

'No computer in the safe house, and I thought this was easier than getting Tank to try to get a laptop to me. I had some things I wanted to run down.'

'I don't have very good programs.'

'I don't need programs. Silvio is sending me information from Miami.'

'How long have you been here?'

'About an hour.' He stood and stretched and headed for the kitchen. He got two mugs out of the cabinet, filled them with coffee, added milk, and gave one to me.

I was wearing short cotton pajama bottoms and a knit tank top, and I could see Ranger was enjoying the tank top.

'I'm feeling self-conscious,' I said to him.

'That's not what I'm feeling.'

No kidding! 'Go back to work,' I told him. 'I'm going to take my coffee into the shower. I'll be ready to go in a half hour.'

Ranger had parked on a side street a block away from my building. He left through the front door and walked to his car. I left through the back door, got into the Mini, and drove around three blocks until I was sure I wasn't being followed. I parked behind Ranger, beeped the Mini locked, and slipped into the green Explorer.

'Now what?' I asked.

Ranger pulled into traffic and went north on Hamilton. 'I want you to canvas a neighborhood for me.'

Ranger isn't an especially talkative guy. He doesn't do small talk, and he doesn't usually initiate conversation, but he'll talk about the job if he feels there's a genuine interest. In this case, I definitely had interest.

'I'd really like to know the history on this,' I said to him. 'I've only got bits and pieces.'

'Two weeks ago someone started using a credit card issued to Rangemanoso Enterprises with my name on it. Silvio found it during a routine scan. Silvio traced down Rangemanoso and to the best of our knowledge this guy appeared in Arlington six months ago and set up shop. I was about to go to Arlington and shut him down when we discovered he'd moved on. And then all of a sudden he started using the card in Miami. We assumed he was there reestablishing himself, but in retrospect, I think he was there to get Julie.'

'So you went to Miami to find this guy and before you got to him he took Julie.'

'Yes. And until you called Tank and told him someone smoked Carmen we had no reason to think he was in Jersey. We thought either he hunkered down somewhere in Florida or else he was in a car moving around. We didn't think he'd be able to get Julie through security and onto a plane. And the FBI was combing passenger lists for Julie Martine and Carlos Manoso and not finding anything.'

'If he stole your identity I guess he could steal others.'

'Two others turned up when Silvio ran through the Rangemanoso credit history. He paid some early bills with cards issued to Steve Scullen and Dale Small. Silvio had been watching passenger lists for both those identities, but nothing there either.'

'No leads in Miami from the crime scene?'

'Miami went cold. Julie got picked up in a stolen car. It was found abandoned two blocks from the pickup point. The police issued a bulletin, and they're doing the follow-up on calls coming in.'

'It was my impression that not many people knew you had a daughter.'

'You and Tank and relatives.'

'And Julie's mother and stepfather.'

'Rachel and Ron are working with the people in Miami, trying to trace down anyone who might have known about me. They didn't hide the fact that Ron was Julie's stepfather, but they didn't tell a lot of people the details. Julie knew. My name is on her birth certificate, but Ron adopted her, and she's always thought of herself as Julie Martine.'

'Is that painful?'

'It might be painful if she wasn't happy, but Rachel and Ron are good parents. Rachel is a nice Catholic girl I took advantage of one night on leave when I was in the military. She got pregnant, and I married her and gave the baby my name and financial support. We divorced after the baby was born. I'm involved only as much as Rachel wants me to be.'

'She didn't want you to stick around and be a permanent husband?'

'That was never an option either of us would have considered.'

We were on Route I, driving north. It was early Sunday morning and traffic was light. I was in my usual uniform of jeans and T-shirt. Ranger was in homeboy clothes.

'From the way you're dressed, I'd guess we were canvassing the ghetto today,' I said to Ranger.

'You'd guess right.'

His jeans were loose-fit but not falling off his ass. 'Think you can pull it off in those jeans?'

'They'll have to do. You can't chase someone down if your pants are around your ankles.'

True enough. I'd actually chased guys who'd literally run out of their pants.

'And I'm a little old for the homey look. I was shooting for Latino Gap,' Ranger said. 'I don't plan to get out of the car, but just in case, I wanted to blend.'

Ranger took the turnpike and got off at the Newark exit. When they nicknamed New Jersey the Garden State they weren't talking about Newark. The neighborhoods we drove through were bleak by anyone's standards. If I'd been with anyone other than Ranger I'd have turned tail and gotten back on the turnpike.

'This is a scary neighborhood,' I said, taking in the graffiti, the occasional condemned building, the sullen faces of the kids hanging on street corners.