I took the files from Lula and shuffled through them. No devil guy. Connie handed me the remaining four files. No devil guy there either. This left me with three possibilities. The devil guy didn't have a record. Or the devil guy used a different bond agent.

Les Sebring, maybe. Or the devil guy gave an address outside of Slayerland.

I saw Connie and Lula go still and fix their eyes on the door behind me. Either someone walked in with a gun in his hand or else Ranger was here. Since no one ducked for cover, I was betting it was Ranger.

A warm hand settled at the base of my neck, and I felt Ranger lean into me. 'Babe,' he said, softly, his right arm snaking around me to take the file from my hand. 'Eugene Brown,' he read. 'You might not want to spend a lot of time with Eugene. He's not a fun guy.'

'I sort of bounced him off the hood of the Buick today,' I told Ranger. 'But it wasn't my fault.'

Ranger tightened his hold on my neck. 'You want to be careful with Eugene. He hasn't got much of a sense of humor, Babe.'

'I don't suppose you know the identity of the devil guy who's robbing all the deli-marts?'

'Don't suppose I do,' Ranger said. 'But it's not Eugene. There'd be more bodies on the floor if it was Eugene.'

Vinnie's inner office door opened, and Vinnie stuck his head out.

'What's up?'

'I'm going out of town for a couple weeks,' Ranger said. 'Tank will be on the job, if you need him.' Ranger dropped the Brown file on Connie's desk and turned to me. 'I want to talk to you… outside.'

It was late afternoon and the sky was overcast, but the autumn air was still warm in spite of the gloom. Ranger's customized black Ford F-150 FX4 was parked curbside. A black SUV with tinted windows was parked behind the truck. The SUV had its motor running.

I followed Ranger out of the office, glancing first at the SUV and then at the heavy traffic on Hamilton. Rush hour in Trenton.

'What if I need something?' I asked Ranger, doing a little flirting, feeling brave because I was on a public street. 'Should I call Tank?'

He ran a fingertip along my hairline and tucked a stray curl behind my ear. 'It depends what you need. Did you have anything special in mind?'

Our eyes held, and I felt the first licks of panic. I should know better than to play with Ranger. He never got rattled, and he never backed down. I, on the other hand, frequently got rattled with Ranger and almost always backed down.

'How about if I need a car?' I asked, searching for something legitimate to change the tone. There'd been times past when I'd needed a car, and Ranger had provided one.

Ranger pulled a set of keys from his pocket and dropped them into my hand. 'You can take my truck. I can get a ride back with Tank.'

A narrow alley separated Vinnie's office from the neighboring business. Ranger nudged me into the shadow of the alley, pressed me against the brick wall, and kissed me. When his tongue touched mine my fingers curled into his shirt, and I think I might have momentarily lost consciousness.

'Hey,' I said, when consciousness returned. 'You're poaching.'

'And?'

'Stop it.'

'You don't mean that,' Ranger said, smiling.

He was right. A woman would have to be dead not to want to kiss Ranger. And I wasn't even close to dead.

I gave the keys back to him. 'Nice gesture but I can't take the truck.'

'Call Tank if you change your mind. And be careful. Don't try to play with Eugene.'

And he was gone.

Lula and Connie were shuffling papers, trying to look busy, when I returned to the office.

'Is he gone?' Lula wanted to know.

'Yeah.'

'Lord, he makes me nervous. He is so hot. I got flashes. Look at me. I'm having a flash. I'm not even in menopause, and I'm hot flashing.'

Connie rolled back in her chair. 'Did he tell you where he was going? How long he'd be away?'

'No'

Connie had a problem. When Ranger was gone she was left with me and a couple part-time BEAs. If a high-stakes bond went south, she'd be in a bind. The case would have to go to me. At least temporarily. I was okay at my job, but I wasn't Ranger. Ranger had skills that went way beyond the normal parameters of human ability.

'I hate when he does this,' Connie said.

'I been noticing the last two times he took off there was a coup in Central America,' Lula said. 'I'm going home, and I'm watching CNN.'

I left the office and headed home to Joe's house. Somehow I'd managed to keep busy all day, but it didn't feel like I'd accomplished much. I stopped at Giovichinni's deli on Hamilton and picked up some lunch meat, sliced provolone, a medium container of potato salad, and a loaf of bread. I added a couple tomatoes and a small tub of chocolate ice cream.

It was a bad time to stop at Giovichinni's, but it was my only option if I wanted to eat. St Francis Hospital was a block away, and half the hospital emptied out into Giovichinni's at this hour.

Mrs Wexler came up to me while I was standing in line. 'My goodness,' she said, 'I haven't seen you in an age. I understand your sister is getting married. Isn't that nice for her, but it must be a very stressful time for you. Is that a cold sore on your lip, dear?'

My hand immediately flew to my lip. I didn't have anything on my lip when I left the house this morning, but yes, there was definitely something erupting on my mouth, I dug in my purse for a mirror. I've never had a cold sore,' I told Mrs Wexler. 'I swear to God.'

'Well, it does look like a cold sore,' Mrs Wexler said.

I squinted into my mirror. Yikes! There it was… big and red and angry looking. How did this happen? And then it hit me. Marty Sklar and his cooties! I studied my lip. No. Wait a minute, it wasn't a cold sore. It was a booboo.

I'd gnawed a hole into my lip on the way across town, worrying about Eugene Brown and God knows what else. Okay, and the fact that I was attracted to two men didn't help. Probably I loved both of them. How sick is that?

'It's a cut,' I said to Mrs Wexler. 'I got it this afternoon.'

'Of course,' Mrs Wexler said. 'I can see that now.'

My mother called on my cell phone. 'Mrs Rogers just called,' my mother said. 'She said you're in Giovichinni's, and you have a cold sore.'

'It's not a cold sore. It's a cut.'

'Well, that's a relief. Could you pick up a couple things for me while you're there at Giovichinni's? I need a pound of olive loaf, an Entenmanns raspberry swirl coffee cake, and a quarter pound of Swiss. Make sure they don't slice the Swiss too thin. It all sticks together if it's too thin.'

I scurried off to the deli counter, got my mother's stuff, and got back into line.

Leslie Giovichinni was working the register. 'Gosh,' she said, when I stepped in front of her. 'You poor thing. You've got a big herpes!'

'It's not a herpes,' I said. 'Its a cut. I got it this afternoon.'

'You should put ice on it,' she said. 'It looks real painful.'

I paid Leslie and slunk out of the store. I hunched behind the wheel of the Buick and turned into the Burg. I had to park in the driveway when I got to my parents' house because there was a big yellow school bus at the curb.

Grandma was at the door, waiting for me. 'Guess who's here?' she said.

'Sally?'

'He came over because he was so excited that the charges were dropped. And he's been real helpful on account of Valerie's still here, and we've been discussing the bridesmaids' dresses. Valerie wants pink, but Sally thinks they should be a fall color since it's fall.'

Valerie was in the kitchen, sitting at the table with the baby hanging from her neck in a land of sling apparatus. My mother was at the stove, stirring a pot of marinara.

Sally was sitting across from Valerie. His long black curly hair was Medusa meets Howard Stern. He was wearing a Motley Crue T-shirt, jeans with the knees torn out, and red lizard cowboy boots.