Page 69 of Now or Never

“Why don’t you just have someone remove you from the picture?”

“I could do that?”

“Yes. I know someone who might do it for you. And maybe Ed will drop the charges if you apologize and fix the picture.”

He thought about it for a beat. “Okay, but he’s still an A-hole.”

“I’ll follow you back to your house, and you can give me the picture.”

“I’ll put it in an envelope, and you have to promise not to look at it.”

“Promise. And I’m sorry about the cookies.”

“It’s my bad,” he said. “I shouldn’t have them in the house.”

Lula and I helped Zach get the kids into the van. I followed him home and waited while he got everyone inside and returned with the photo.

“What are you going to do with that?” Lula asked me.

“I’m going to see if Eugene can fix it. It seemed like he has the ability to Photoshop.”

“In the beginning it looks like you’re being a good person and doing something to help Zach, but I’m thinking it’s more that you see an opportunity to check on Eugene,” Lula said.

“I’m thinking you’re right.”

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

I cut across town and stopped at Giovichinni’s Deli. I got turkey and Swiss on seeded wheat for myself and chicken salad for Connie, and Lula got a Cuban, fries, coleslaw, and a tub of pasta salad.

I pulled a chair up to Connie’s desk. “Anything new?” I asked her.

“Local news is all about Jug,” Connie said. “Nobody knows where he is. The latest speculation is that he’s in South America someplace. Saturday morning news interviewed a woman in Newark who said she saw Jug board a plane for Brazil.”

“Hunh,” Lula said. “Imagine that.”

“Did a helicopter really land at the rest stop and take Jug back to Long Island?” Connie asked me.

I unwrapped my sandwich. “Yep. They had him AirTagged.”

“What about the tan van?” I asked Connie. “Were you able to find anything? Mrs. Werly said sometimes a tan van would be parked in Zoran’s driveway.”

“Nothing,” Connie said. “Nothing in Zoran’s history or his parents’ or his uncle’s.”

“Could just be some worker’s van,” Lula said. “A pest control guy.”

“You saw that cockroach in his bathroom,” I said. “He’s not hiring pest control.”

“Suppose you marry Morelli?” Connie asked me. “Are you still going to have Ranger tracking you?”

Good question. I thought the answer was yes. I held an odd place in Ranger’s life. From the very beginning he’d assumed the role of protector. That role had stayed constant no matter if I was in an intimate relationship with him or with Morelli. I suspected it wouldn’t change if I married Morelli. In fact, I suspected very little of Ranger’s behavior would change if I married Morelli.

“I’m pretty sure Ranger has stopped dropping bugs into my pockets and purses without my knowledge,” I said. “He just has a GPS gizmo attached to my car sometimes. It comes in handy when I run out of gas.”

I finished my sandwich and called Eugene. No answer. Lula was still working her way through the pasta salad, so I called Ranger.

“Babe,” Ranger said.

“Do you have a minute?”

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