‘Going Rogue’ Chapters 21-23

“No clue. I was stun gunned and bagged. Came around in this room. How did you get here?”

“I was stupid. I went to look for a storage unit with Lula and I didn’t check for a tail. I should have known they were watching me, waiting for a chance to capture me.”

“Why were you looking for a storage unit?”

“The office got bombed. Long story. I’ll tell you some other time.”

“That’s a real pisser.”

“Yeah. It was upsetting. Not as upsetting as the picture of you hanging from a meat hook.”

“They walked me down the hall and two stairwells for that. Never saw the light of day. Always cement walls or some kind of stucco. Bad light. Peeling paint. I’m guessing this used to be a factory and now it’s abandoned. They wanted a photo op. I hung there for about an hour while they fiddled with their cell phones. These brothers aren’t smart. Luther and Marcus. I heard them talking. Sounds like you’ve got a lot of money that they want.”

“I don’t have it.”

“They think you have it and that’s what matters.”

“What about your fingernails?” I asked him. “What about them?”

“They sent a second picture of someone’s bloody fingers that were missing some fingernails.”

“Not mine,” Vinnie said.

I looked up at the vent. “That’s how we’re getting out of here.” “Do they have you in flexi-cuffs?”

“Yep.”

“Amateurs,” Vinnie said.

“They were counting on me still having scrambled neurons.”

Flexible nylon disposable restraints serve a purpose. They’re inexpensive and they take up no space. They’re a good substitute for metal bracelets unless you put them on someone who knows how to get out of them. And one of my first lessons from Ranger had been how to get out of them.

If I’d been cuffed in front, it would have been relatively easy.

Being cuffed behind my back made it more difficult.

“Get over here,” Vinnie said. “Let me do it. I’m chained in front. I can work with my hands better than you.”

He got the cuffs open, and I studied his chains. They weren’t attached to the toilet. They were attached to a rusted eyebolt that was screwed into the floor next to the toilet. I tried unscrewing the bolt, but it wouldn’t budge. The concrete around it was cracked and crumbling but not enough that I could work the bolt loose.

“I need to give this bolt a good whack,” I said to Vinnie.

“They keep a flashlight by the door.”

I looked at the door. “I don’t see it.”

“It’s there. It’s so freaking dark in here it’s hard to see. It’s probably lying on its side.”

I ran over and found the flashlight. It was a monster Maglite. I tried the door. Locked, of course. I ran back to Vinnie and gave the rusted eyebolt four whacks with the Maglite, and the bolt cracked open.

“We’re in business,” I said to Vinnie.

He was no longer attached to the floor, but he was still bound by the chain. I checked my watch. Time was ticking away for us. “I can’t figure out this chain system,” I said. “They’ve got them twisted around your wrists.”

“Let me do it. I’m good with chains. Sometimes Madam Zaretsky goes on to another client and forgets about me, and I have to let myself out.”

“I wish I hadn’t heard that.”

“Hold the end of this chain while I work at the other end. I’ve almost got it unraveled.”

“We have a decision to make,” I said. “We can hide behind the door and take them by surprise and beat the crap out of them. Or we can try to escape through the overhead vent.”

“I’d like nothing better than to beat the crap out of them, but, more often than not, there are more than two. There are at least six people involved in this.”

“Then it has to be the vent. I hope it goes somewhere.” Vinnie stood on the toilet. “I can alley-oop you up to the vent. The hard part is getting myself into it.”

I climbed up Vinnie, sat on his shoulders, and removed the rusted vent.

“We’re in luck,” I said. “This is part of a huge air duct. We can easily slither along in it.”

I climbed off Vinnie and into the air duct. I was flat on my stomach, but I had enough clearance to belly crawl. Vinnie was tiptoes on the toilet, trying to pull himself up into the duct, having no luck.

“What about the laundry cart they used to get me into the room?” I called out to Vinnie. “It had a bar across the top. If you could stand on the bar, you might have a better chance of getting into the duct.”

“Good thought,” Vinnie said.

Seconds later I heard the cart roll across the room and bang into the toilet.

“Are you okay?” I asked him.

“Yeah. I had to ram the cart against the toilet to hold it steady. This is going to work.”

He climbed up the cart and pulled himself into the air vent.

I was already on the move. I was being careful not to make noise, and I was looking for a vent that led to a hallway. I didn’t want to drop into another locked room. The first vent looked into a room similar to the one we’d just left. The second vent opened to a room that appeared to be littered with sleeping bags thrown on the floor, empty water bottles, and crumpled fast-food bags. All the rooms were windowless and lit by a single low-watt bulb. I wasn’t surprised to see the sleeping bags and trash. Abandoned buildings were used by runaway kids and druggies. I was surprised that it was so close to the room where the brothers were imprisoning their captives. And I was surprised that there was electricity in a building used by squatters. It meant that the building wasn’t completely abandoned.

“We need to get out of this air duct,” Vinnie whispered “They’re going to come after us, and we don’t want to be trapped here.”

I crawled up to another vent and looked into another room filled with sleeping bags. Too many sleeping bags. Almost wall to wall. Dormitory. What exactly was this place?

The air duct branched off to the left and I took the left turn. Finally, a vent that didn’t open to a room. I got to the edge, and I heard voices. The brothers and another man. Talking about baseball. Mets fans. I held my breath when they passed underneath me. They continued down a hall and I could no longer hear their voices. They were probably on their way to our cell.

I worked the vent loose and grabbed it before it crashed to the floor. I passed it back to Vinnie. I eased myself out through the hole in the hall ceiling and dropped to the floor. Vinnie did the same. We quickly moved down the hall in the opposite direction of the three men. We came to a stairwell and carefully entered, listening for voices or footfalls. The number 5 was painted on the door. It appeared to be the top floor.

We reached the fourth-floor landing and the sound of machinery carried through the door. I cracked the door and looked out. It was a large, brightly lit room filled with women at sewing machines.

“Sweatshop,” Vinnie whispered. “The women are kept in the dorms upstairs.”

“In Trenton? Are you kidding me?”

“There are men in there too. Supervisors.”

We hurried down the rest of the stairs to the cavernous underground garage. The stairs were next to a freight elevator. A Sprinter van and four cars were parked close to the elevator.

An Acut eighteen-wheeler was parked a distance away.

“That’s Luther’s truck,” I said. “It’s Acut Trucking and it’s got Texas plates.”

“That’s how they bring the women in,” Vinnie said. “Luther and Marcus are running a trafficking operation. Long-haul traffickers.”

“Horrible.”

“Yeah. Not my problem. We need to get out of here.”

“I can’t go,” I said. “Lula is here. They took Lula.”

“And that’s a bad thing?”

“Yes! It’s a bad thing. Now that I have the lay of the land, I’m going back to find her.”

Vinnie growled.

“Do not growl at me,” I said. “That is unacceptable behavior.”

“I’ve been in the same clothes for four days and I’ve been doing my business in a chemical toilet. I’m not in a good place. Call Ranger. He’ll come find her.”

“He’s on his way.”

“How do you know?”

“I know.”

“How are you going to find her?” Vinnie asked. “There are five floors to this building. And it’s a big building. It was probably some sort of factory.”

“I’m thinking she’s on the fifth floor. It seems to be the hostage floor.”

“If she’s in one of those fifth-floor rooms you’ll need a key to get to her. It’s not like you’re gonna get her out through the air duct. She’ll never fit. And it’s not just those two idiot brothers,” Vinnie said. “There were supervisors in the room with the women workers. They were armed.”

“There were only three of them,” I said. “It’s not like there’s an army here.”

“Hello. You’re talking crazy. There are six of them. There are two of us. They got guns. We got nothing. We’re not even big and scary looking.”

Vinnie wasn’t very big, but he was definitely scary. His hair wasn’t slicked back anymore. It was sticking out like it belonged to a cartoon cat that had just been electrified. He had a four-day beard going, his clothes were stained and wrinkled, and he didn’t smell great.

“I’m going back to get her,” I said. “You don’t have to go with me.”

“This sucks,” Vinnie said. “I can’t let you go back alone. I’d look like a pussy. God will repossess my nuts.”

I nodded. “True.”

“If we’re going to do this, we need to even the playing field. We need guns. We’re gonna have to kill someone and get their gun.”

“I’d rather not kill anyone,” I said. “You’re making this difficult.”

“Maybe you could just injure someone instead of killing them. And you could make sure it’s a really bad person.”

“I’m thinking if they’re in this building, they’re really bad,” Vinnie said. “Nice people don’t keep women locked up in cement bunkers.”

We stopped talking and turned toward the garage entrance. A truck was approaching. There weren’t a lot of places to hide but the lighting was dim and there were dark corners and stacks of wood pallets. We ran to a stack of pallets and crouched down.

The truck rolled in and parked. It was the second Acut truck with Texas plates. The freight elevator opened and Marcus and two men with assault weapons stepped out. One of the men grabbed a large pushcart dolly that was beside the elevator, and they all walked to the truck. A man and a woman swung down from the truck’s cab, stretched, and walked to the back of the trailer. The doors were unlocked and opened. The male driver climbed into the truck and offloaded about a dozen boxes that were stacked on the dolly. Women were offloaded after the boxes. Most were in their late teens and early twenties. There were three children with the women. I would guess ten to thirteen years old. Everyone looked exhausted. I couldn’t see much of their faces from that distance. They each carried a single bag that I assumed was filled with clothes and a few essentials.

“How long do you think they’ve been in that truck?” I asked Vinnie.

“If it came from Texas, they’ve probably been in there for about thirty-five hours. Two drivers could make a nonstop run in that time. Maybe a little longer if they were avoiding checkpoints. Most likely these women were picked up in Mexico and then the trip would be closer to two days.”

Nine women and the three children were put in the Sprinter van and driven out of the garage by the two truck drivers. The remaining women were put in the freight elevator with Marcus and one of the armed men. That left one man to unload the rest of the truck.

He lounged against the truck, smoked some weed, and surfed around on his cell phone. He was wearing a sidearm. His rifle was propped against one of the back wheels.

Vinnie looked pretty happy about all this. I knew Vinnie was thinking taking this guy would be a slam-dunk. At first glance Vinnie looks like a sneaky-eyed member of the weasel family. No bones. No muscle. A brain the size of a walnut. The reality is that Vinnie is a nasty street fighter. He’s smart. He’s stealthy. He’s fast. He’s surprisingly strong. And he has no problem going for the jugular.

The armed guard threw his butt on the ground, put his phone in his pocket, and climbed into the truck. As soon as he was out of sight, moving boxes around, I cut across the garage and Vinnie ran to the front of the truck. I was in deep shadow at the exit ramp, and I could partly see into the truck. He had a bunch of boxes lined up at the tailgate. He jumped down and started transferring the boxes to the pushcart.

I waited for him to get a few feet away from the truck and I stepped out in full view. “Hi,” I said. “My dog ran away. I thought he might have run in here.”

“There’s no dog in here,” he said. “This is private property. You have to leave.”

Vinnie was directly behind the guard. Vinnie tapped him on the shoulder, and when the man turned around, Vinnie sucker punched him in the throat and kicked him in the privates. The man doubled over, and Vinnie gave him a chop to the back of the head that sent him to the ground.

I ran to the truck and looked down at the guard. He wasn’t moving.

“Omigod,” I said. “Is he dead?”

Vinnie toed him. “Nope,” Vinnie said. “I can see him breathing.”

Vinnie took the assault rifle, and I took the sidearm. It was a Glock. Much larger than mine, but I knew how to make it go bang. I searched the guard’s pockets, found a key ring, and slipped it into my back pocket.

“You’re sure Ranger is coming,” Vinnie said. “Absolutely sure.”

We ran to the stairs and went one flight at a time, listening for footsteps or voices. I could see a bar of light shining under the third-floor door. I cracked the door and peeked inside. The new women were gathered in there. Luther was speaking to them in Spanish, and Marcus and two armed guards were standing watch. The room had long tables and folding chairs. Laundry carts were scattered around the room. Impossible to see what was in them. I carefully closed the door.

“This is good,” Vinnie said. “Marcus and Luther are in there organizing the latest batch of workers. That means they aren’t going to be on the fifth floor.”

Chapter Twenty-Three

We ran up to the fifth floor and discovered that a large part of the space was unused storage. It would have made an amazing loft but currently it was a depository of mouse droppings and cobwebs. The open storage backed up to a hallway that contained the windowless rooms being used as dorms and cells. The freight elevator was positioned in the middle of the long hall and there were stairs at either end.

We started at one end of the hallway. I tried the keys on the guard’s key ring and found one that opened the door to the first room. No one there. The key worked on all the other doors, but Lula wasn’t in any of the rooms.

“Now what?” Vinnie asked.

“We try the other floors.”

We went into the stairwell and heard shouting and people running up the stairs.

“They’re looking for us,” Vinnie said.

We exited the stairwell and ran down the hall to the stairs at the other end. We burst into the stairwell and stopped and listened. Nothing.

“I vote we go to the garage and get the hell out of here,” Vinnie said. “We’ll get the Marines and the cavalry and come back for Lula.”

“Agreed!”

We bolted down the stairs. I was behind Vinnie, and Vinnie was flying with a ten-foot lead on me. I reached a landing, a door suddenly opened to the side of me, and I was grabbed and yanked inside. It was the room with the long tables and laundry carts. The women from the truck were huddled together at the far end of the room. One of the armed guards stood next to them. Luther had wrestled me into the room, and he kicked the door shut and threw me onto the floor like I was a rag doll. I hit the concrete hard and the Glock flew out of my hand and slid across the floor.

Luther came at me, grabbed the front of my sweatshirt, and dragged me to my feet.

“In the beginning I just wanted my money,” he said, “but now I hate you.” He made a fist and pulled his arm back to hit me.

“Not in the face!” I said. “My eyes are still black and blue from when I tried to shoot you.”

“I want my money.”

“I keep telling you. I don’t have it. I don’t know where it is. I was lucky to find the coin. I had no idea it was associated with a lot of money.”

“Where did you find the coin?”

“I got it from one of the street vendors on Wheaton Street. It was just dumb luck.”

“You’re lying. It’s not even a good lie. I know you have the money. You’re driving a brand-new Discovery.”

“My boyfriend gave it to me.”

“Your boyfriend is a cop. He doesn’t have that kind of money. He drives a crappy green SUV.”

“It was my other boyfriend.”

“You have two boyfriends? Sweetheart, you aren’t that hot. You’re lucky the cop likes you.”

“I know,” I said. “I can’t figure it out either.”

“Where’s Jimbo?” Luther yelled at the guard.

“He’s in the kitchen icing his gonads,” the guard said.

“I need someone to take Miss Plum upstairs,” Luther said.

“I’ll take her,” the guard said. “I was going upstairs anyway. I was going to show the girls their room.”

“Cuff her,” Luther said. “And shoot her if you have to but try not to kill her.”

The guard pulled out flexi-cuffs from his back pocket.

“Use the bracelets on her,” Luther said.

The guard switched to metal handcuffs.

Crap. I held my arms out and he clapped the cuffs on me. Score one for Plum. At least I had my hands in front of me.

We all marched into the service elevator and got out at the fifth floor. No one said anything. The women were ushered into one of the larger dorm rooms and the door was closed and locked. The guard motioned for me to walk to the end of the hall. He opened the door to the last room and told me to go in.

“What about the cuffs?” I asked. “Can they come off?”

“No,” he said. “The cuffs stay on until Luther wants them off.”

“What if I have to go to the bathroom?”

“This room doesn’t come with bathroom privileges,” he said, smiling, looking like this was an enjoyable part of his job.

He closed and locked the door, and I was alone. The room was like the room Vinnie had been in but without the toilet. My first thought was about Lula. Worst-case scenario was too horrible to consider. Best-case scenario was that she’d managed to escape. I looked up. There was a vent in the ceiling, but I had no way to get to it. I had keys in my pocket, but the doors had blind locks. They only locked and unlocked from the outside.

I paced for a while. Occasionally listening at the door. I was wearing Ranger’s necklace so I knew he could find me. The tricky part was getting him to start looking. The men sitting in the SUV outside Benji Land had to first realize I was missing. No telling when that would happen.

A half hour went by, and I heard noise outside the door. Someone shouting. The door was wrenched open, and Luther stood in the doorway. His face was red and blotchy, and he was sweating. “Get out,” he said, pointing a gun at me. “Move!”

“What’s going on?”

“We’re leaving. You can cooperate and live or you can die. The only thing keeping you alive right now is our lost eleven million. Marcus and I sold our souls and worked our asses off for that money. It’s our retirement ticket. You’re either going to give it up or you’re going to die. And it’s not going to be a nice death.”

“What about this building and the workers? Are you just going to walk away from this?”

“Marcus and I transport. We’ve got two trucks. That’s it. This hellhole is someone else’s problem.” He shoved me in front of him. “Run,” he said. “We’re taking the back stairs.”

I ran down the hall and entered the back stairwell. Bang. Bang. It sounded like a couple of small explosions. I started to go down, and Luther grabbed me by my ponytail and yanked me back. “We’re going up,” he said. “The stairs aren’t safe.”

“There aren’t any stairs going up.”

“There’s a ladder. Go up the ladder. We’re going to the roof.” I climbed up the ladder and shoved the hatch open. Not the easiest thing to do wearing handcuffs. The sun was glaring bright after the darkness of the building. There was a slight breeze. I looked around and recognized some landmarks. I was in the industrial area by the button factory.

I couldn’t see the street in front of the building, but I could hear activity there. We were at the back of the building. There was a small patch of dirt and gravel and then there was the back of another building. Lots of windows in the other building. Half of them broken. Three stories high. There was a narrow walkway and another building.

“We’re going to the street,” Luther said. “Marcus will be waiting with a car.”

I crept closer to the edge, looked down at the ground, and felt some vertigo. The way to get to the ground was by a fire escape ladder attached to the building.

“I can’t do this,” I said. “I’m not good with heights, and I can’t go hand over hand wearing handcuffs.”

“There’s enough slack between the bracelets for you to manage. Get over the edge.”

I was debating whether it would be better to get shot and take my chances at dying on the roof or choose falling to my death from the fifth-floor ladder.

“If you don’t go now, I’ll shoot you. I swear to God,” Luther said. “I’m running out of time and patience.”

I sucked in some air and grabbed hold of the handrails as best I could. I swung a leg over, made sure I had good footing, and I swung the other leg over.

“I’m coming down right on top of you,” Luther said. “I’m going to be watching you, so don’t try anything stupid.”

I thought attempting to go down the ladder was at the top of the stupid list, but I was doing it anyway because I believed him when he said he would shoot me. Halfway down I was sweating from the exertion of hanging on to the ladder. I reached the second floor, and my legs were shaking. I looked up at Luther. He didn’t seem to be having any problems. It was obviously a lot easier when you weren’t wearing handcuffs.

“Don’t just hang there,” Luther said to me. “We haven’t got all day. Move!”

I was almost to the bottom. I missed a rung and crashed to the ground.

Luther swung down after me. “Get up.”

“I’m getting,” I said.

I was on all fours, trying to stand. He grabbed hold of my arm and pulled me to my feet. I took a step and went down to one knee.

He pointed the gun at me. He had his finger on the trigger. His teeth were clenched. “Get up.”

My peripheral vision caught a flash of white and the sun glinting off silver. I turned in time to see Sir Lancelot do a twirl maneuver and slash out at Luther with his sword. There was a clang of metal, Luther’s gun sailed off into the air, and three fingers dropped onto the ground.

It was as if we were all frozen in time for several beats.

“Fuck,” Luther said, grabbing the hand that was short fingers.

There was a lot of blood and for a second, we all stared at the fingers that were lying in the dirt and gravel. Sir Lancelot’s eyes rolled back in his head, and he fainted. Luther stumbled back and sat down hard on the ground. I scrambled across the yard and grabbed the gun. My hands were shaking, but I managed to fire several shots into the air.

Marcus ran out of the alley on the other side of the yard. I saw him coming at us, gun in hand, and I fired off a shot at him. He aimed and attempted to shoot back but the gun misfired. He dropped the gun, turned, and ran for the street. After what he’d done to Connie, Vinnie, and me, not to mention all the women and kids he’d sold into slavery, no way was he going to get away. I crossed the yard and chased him into the alley. I was struggling to run with my hands cuffed in front of me, but he was no athlete. Too many hours sitting in the cab of a truck, popping gummies to stay awake.

I caught up to him as he was getting into his car. I hit him in the back of the head with the butt of the gun. He turned and I hit him square in the face. He went down to the ground, and I kicked him. I was still kicking him, calling him really vile names, when someone wrapped their arms around me and wrestled me away.

It was Ranger. He was holding me tight against him, and I could swear he was laughing. This is sobering because Ranger doesn’t laugh a lot.

“Babe,” he said. “I hope you never get that mad at me. I’m not sure I’d come out the winner.”

“He was not going to get away,” I said.

“And he won’t,” Ranger said. “We’ll take it from here. I’m pretty sure he’s got a couple broken ribs and his nose is no longer in existence, but I think he’ll live.” He looked down at me. “And you did all this damage while you were handcuffed. That’s impressive.” He took a universal key from his pocket and released the handcuffs. “We have the building secured, and I brought the police in. This is a major drug operation.”

“And human trafficking,” I said. “There are women locked in rooms on the fifth floor.”

A fire truck and an EMT screamed down the street, lights flashing, and stopped in front of us. Two cop cars followed.

Two Rangemen brought Luther out to the street. He was partly walking and mostly getting dragged. One of the Rangemen was holding Luther’s arm up to slow the bleeding.

Ranger and I returned to the yard behind the factory. Sir Lancelot was still on his back. Hal was with him, talking him back to consciousness.

“Luther was going to shoot me,” I said to Ranger. “Sir Lancelot came out of nowhere and knocked the gun out of Luther’s hand with his sword and lopped off three fingers.”

A med tech came out of the alley and walked over with a small Igloo cooler. “I’m told there are fingers back here.”

I pointed to the bloody patch on the ground. The med tech picked the fingers up and dropped them into the cooler. “Thanks,” he said. “Anybody need help?”

“Nope,” I said. “We’re okay.”

Sir Lancelot was on his feet, walking around. I waved and smiled at him, and he came over to us.

“I fainted,” he said.

“Anybody would,” I told him. “You’re my hero. You saved my life.”

“Gee whiz,” he said.

“How did you know I was here?”

“We went looking for you. Connie came back to the store and wanted to know where you were. Carpenter said you were looking at the storage units, but you and Lula didn’t come back, so we all went to the storage units and saw your drink cups on the ground. And we found your messenger bag and Lula’s purse in some bushes. So, we told the Rangemen in the SUV. And they made a phone call right away, and then they took off. We thought they might need help, so we followed them. And eventually they came here. We were out front trying to stay out of everyone’s way, and I wanted to see what was in the back of the factory. And that’s when I saw you in trouble.”

“Omigosh,” I said. “I forgot about Lula.”

“We found her in the garage,” Ranger said. “I think they put her in the trunk and forgot about her. Or maybe they didn’t want to deal with her. We heard her pounding on the trunk lid and yelling when we cleared the area. Vinnie was there too. He said you were behind him on the back stairs but when he reached the garage you weren’t with him. He couldn’t make it to the exit ramp because there were men unloading one of the trucks. He was hiding in a corner behind the stairwell. I had one of my men take him home.”

Connie, Lula, Benji, and Beedle came out of a back door and hurried over to us.

“What’s going on? What did I miss?” Lula asked.

“Sir Lancelot smote Luther,” I said. “It was awesome. If it wasn’t for Sir Lancelot I’d be on my way to Mexico now.”

“How bad did he smote him?”

“Chopped off three fingers,” I said. “The paramedic came and collected them.”

Everyone gave Sir Lancelot two thumbs up and some dilly dillys.

“I would have liked to smote someone,” Lula said. “I was left in the trunk of some smelly car like I was a used tire. These people got no couth.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t get a chance to do some damage,” Connie said, “but at least the nightmare has ended, and I’ll get a chance to testify. And I can guarantee you that the Smulets will not make bail.”

We all went back into the building and walked to the front lobby.

“Vinnie and I never explored the first and second floors,” I said to Ranger.

“They aren’t being used. They were locked when we got here.”

“But you got them open?”

“We blasted them open. I didn’t want to waste time getting in,” he said. “I knew you were here. I didn’t know anything beyond that. I didn’t like what I saw when we went into the garage.”

We left the building and walked out into the sunlight. There were Rangeman SUVs, cop cars, fire trucks, and EMTs. A satellite news truck rolled into the small parking area. I saw Morelli pull in.

“This is going to turn into a circus,” Ranger said. “Every three-letter agency is going to have a piece of this. I’m going to pull my men out and let the feds take over.”

“Thank you,” I said. I put my hand to my necklace. “Do you want this back?”

“Keep it,” he said. “I’ll turn the tracking function off. Let me know if you want it back on.”

He was standing close enough that I could feel the heat from his body and smell the faint scent of Bulgari. Our eyes held for a long moment before he turned and walked away.

Lula was standing behind me. “Holy hell,” she said. “Holy crap. He wasn’t even talking to me, and I got all verklempt.”

“What’s verklempt?”

“I don’t know exactly. When I was a ho, I had a steady customer who got verklempt. I’d be doing my job, and he’d be saying, ‘I’m verklempt. I’m verklempt.’ I think it might be like an orgasm of the brain. Like a good aneurism, or something. I figured it was on account of I was an excellent ho. If anybody was gonna make a man go verklempt, it was Lula.”

Morelli made his way through the chaos of cops and cars and flashing lights. Bella was scuttling after him.

“I was taking Bella to Aunt Choochi’s house, and I heard the call go out for a major drug bust at this address. Dispatch said Rangeman had the building secured, and I got instant heartburn. I knew in my gut you were involved.”

“Only tangentially,” I said.

“Huh,” Bella said. “Slut knows big word.”

The guard who had taken me upstairs and locked me in my cell without bathroom privileges was cuffed and waiting with several other guards for police transport.

“Do you see the men standing by the police car?” I asked Bella. “They’re all handcuffed.”

“I see them. So?”

“I was talking to them, and the one with the brown ponytail and red shirt said he hated Italians. Especially Sicilians. He said they’re all stupid and smell bad.”

“He say this?”

“He said he’d rather kiss a pig than kiss a Sicilian.”

Bella straightened. “I give him the eye. I give it to him good.” Bella marched off to the handcuffed group of men.

“You’re evil,” Morelli said to me.

“I have my moments.”

“Are you okay?” he asked. “No hidden injuries?”

“I’m good.”

“Are you going to be arrested for anything?”

“Nope. Not today.”

“And the kidnappers?”

“In custody.”

“Then our date is still on for tonight?”

“You betcha.”

—The End—

From GOING ROGUE by Janet Evanovich. Copyright © 2022 by Evanovich, Inc. Reprinted by permission of Atria Books, an Imprint of Simon & Schuster, LLC.