“Gonna put a cap up your pussy ass,” he said.

And POW.

I felt the bullet hit my shoulder, knock me back an inch or two, and something splattered out across my chest.

“What the?” I said.

“Run, Pussy!”

“What?”

“Run!”

And POW. I got shot again. POW. POW.

An arm wrapped around my waist, and I was lifted off my feet and whisked out of the room and back into the hall. Ranger kicked the door closed and set me down.

“What? Why?” I asked.

“Paintball. Are you okay?”

“No! It hurt. It’s like getting hit with a rock. Why on earth do people do that? You’d have to be crazy.”

“It’s a game,” Ranger said. “Usually. This version is more like shooting sitting ducks.”

I checked myself out. I was completely splattered with blue, pink, and yellow paint. It was in my hair and on my shoes and everywhere in between. There was no paint on Ranger.

“You don’t have a drop of paint on you,” I said. “Why is that?”

Ranger smiled, liking that he hadn’t gotten hit. “I guess they were hunting pussy.”

“But I walked into the Motherfucker room.”

“Yeah, but babe, you’re clearly pussy.”

“That is so sexist and annoying. These are my favorite sneakers, and now they’re ruined. I’ll never get this paint out.”

“I’m sure it’s water-based. Throw them in the washer.”

“I don’t have a washer.”

Ranger took my hand and tugged me toward the stairs. “Then throw them in your mother’s washer.”

“You wouldn’t be this cheery if you were covered in paint.”

He pushed my back to the wall and leaned in to me. “Would you like me to take your mind off your sneakers?”

I bit into my lower lip.

“Well?” he asked, kissing me just below my ear, making the little man in the boat pay attention.

“I’m th-th-thinking.”

Actually, I was thinking he’d have half my paint on him when he pried himself loose. And along with that I was thinking he felt great plastered against me. He was big and warm and strong.

A door banged open on the first floor and conversation carried up to us. Ranger listened for a moment and eased away. I followed him down the stairs and into the first-floor hall, where the kid in the white T-shirt and homeboy jeans stood talking to a stocky older man with wiry gray hair. Both guys looked up when we stepped into the hall. The kid froze in his tracks. The older guy spun around, ran to the office, and locked himself inside.

Ranger dismissed the kid and knocked on the locked office door. He waited a couple beats and knocked again. When there was no response to his second knock, he put his foot to the door and kicked it open.

“Jeez Louise,” I said to Ranger, knowing he could have finessed the lock and opened the door.

Ranger smiled. “Making a statement.”

The guy inside the office was behind his desk, waving his arms, his eyes rolling around in their sockets, popped out like marbles.

“This must be Marbles,” I said to Ranger.

“Only one of them is real,” Ranger said.

“You broke my door,” Marbles said. “You’re gonna pay. You think doors grow on trees?”

“Bond enforcement,” Ranger said.

“That’s bullshit. You owe me for a door. And she owes me for playing. Does she have a ticket? Where’s her fuckin’ ticket?”

Ranger never shows much emotion. I saw him walk into a room once, knowing he was going to get shot and maybe die, and he was perfectly composed. Only because I’ve spent a decent amount of time with him did I know the limit to his patience. So I took a step back and gave him some room, because I knew he was done talking.

“And another thing…” Marbles said, finger pointed at Ranger, eyes all googly-woogly.

Marbles never finished the sentence, because in a matter of moments, he was on the ground and cuffed. Ranger dragged Marbles to his feet and set him in his chair. Marbles opened his mouth to speak, Ranger looked at him, and Marbles clamped his mouth shut.

“You have a choice,” Ranger said to me. “We can take him to the station and get him booked in, or I can have one of my men do it, and I can take you home so we can get you out of your clothes.”

“We can get me out of my clothes? Are you planning on making it a group activity?”

“Figure of speech, Babe. I don’t need help getting you undressed.” He answered his cell phone, listened for a moment, and disconnected. “Change in plans,” he said, yanking Marbles out of his chair. “There’s been another break-in. We’ll take Marbles with us and pass him off on site.”

THE HOUSE WAS a big white colonial with black shutters and a massive mahogany front door. The grounds were professionally landscaped. A dusty and battered police cruiser and two gleaming black Rangeman SUVs were parked in the circular drive. Ranger parked behind one of the Rangeman SUVs, we got out, and Tank and Hal came forward to meet us.

I gave Hal my paperwork for Marbles, Hal got behind the wheel, backed the Escalade out of the drive and disappeared down the street.

“Same MO,” Tank told Ranger. “The clients attended a political fund-raiser, came home, and found money and jewelry missing.” He handed Ranger a list. “We interrogated the system and found it had been briefly disarmed and then reset.”

“Anything missing besides the money and jewelry?”

“Some electronics. They’re going through the house now, trying to make sure the list is complete.”

“I want Stephanie to walk through the house and look at it from a woman’s point of view. Make sure she has total access. Assure the owners her paint isn’t wet.”

Tank looked at my paint-splattered hair and clothes. He paused for a beat, but he didn’t smile or frown or grimace. “Yessir,” he said to Ranger.

I wandered around, checking out the kitchen with its professional-level appliances, marble countertops and splash plates, warming ovens and wine cooler. I thought it would be nice to have a kitchen like this, although most of it would go unused. All I actually needed was a butter knife, a loaf of white bread, and a jar of peanut butter. And can you fill a wine cooler with Bud Light?

The upstairs master bath had a crystal chandelier and a bidet. I knew the purpose for the bidet, because I had seen Crocodile Dundee about a hundred times, but I wasn’t sure how one actually used a bidet. I mean, does it shoot water up your cooter or do you splash it around? And I thought I might have issues with the crystal chandelier. I wasn’t sure I could do number two in a room with a crystal chandelier.

I’d looked at the list, so I knew what had been taken and what had been left. There was a safe in the master bedroom, but it hadn’t been touched. Madame’s jewelry had been easy access in a jewelry case on display in her walk-in closet. A couple thousand in twenties had been left on the dresser. All this stuff was gone. Plus two laptop computers from the home office, and a Patek Philippe man’s watch.

I wandered around in the house for a half hour while the police did their thing, and Ranger did his thing, and the burgled house owners, a conservatively dressed middle-aged couple, quietly sat in the living room, looking shell-shocked.

Ranger caught up with me in the front foyer. “Any ideas?” he asked me.

“The thieves only hit two rooms. The master bedroom and the home office. There was a woman’s rose gold and diamond Cartier watch on the kitchen counter. And there were four icons that looked priceless in a display case in the living room. All untouched. Is this always the pattern?”

“Yes. They disable the alarm for precisely fifteen minutes, and they move directly to the master bedroom and office.”

“Why fifteen minutes?”

Ranger did palms-up. “I don’t know.”

“No prints left on doorknobs?”

“None.”

“And they only hit residential accounts?”

“So far.”