Back Sizzling Sixteen Save as PDF
Contents ( 27)
  1. ONE
  2. TWO
  3. THREE
  4. FOUR
  5. FIVE
  6. SIX
  7. SEVEN
  8. EIGHT
  9. NINE
  10. TEN
  11. ELEVEN
  12. TWELVE
  13. THIRTEEN
  14. FOURTEEN
  15. FIFTEEN
  16. SIXTEEN
  17. SEVENTEEN
  18. EIGHTEEN
  19. NINETEEN
  20. TWENTY
  21. TWENTY-ONE
  22. TWENTY-TWO
  23. TWENTY-THREE
  24. TWENTY-FOUR
  25. TWENTY-FIVE
  26. TWENTY-SIX
  27. TWENTY-SEVEN

“How much time do we have?” I asked him.

“Four minutes,” he said. “Plenty of time.”

We exited the elevator into the lobby, crossed the lobby, and left the building. Ranger reset the alarm with the fob, and we got into the SUV.

“Two minutes,” Ranger said, pulling away from the curb.

The fifth-floor windows blew out when we reached the corner. Ranger hooked a U-turn and parked so we could watch the building. There was a second explosion, the alarm was wailing away, and fire spilled out the open windows.

Ranger called his control room. “Tell all responders to the Meagan Building alarm to secure the exterior of the building. Under no circumstances are they to go inside until the fire marshall declares the building safe.”

Two Rangeman SUVs arrived and parked half a block from the burning building. A police car was simultaneously on the scene. Ranger made another U-turn and drove back to Rangeman. He parked in the garage and looked over at me.

“You can really haul ass in those heels,” he said. “The memory will give me sleepless nights for a long time.”

That got a smile out of me. “Sorry to interfere with your sleep.”

“There’s a solution to the problem,” Ranger said, getting out of the car. “You can finish your wine upstairs, and we can discuss it.” He opened the passenger-side door, took the briefcase from me, and grinned. “Babe, you have panic written all over your face.”

“You’re a dilemma.”

He ushered me into the elevator. “Good to know.”

We rode in silence to Ranger’s floor, he opened his door, and I went to the kitchen and retrieved my wine.

“I would have liked more time at Wellington,” Ranger said.

He dropped his jacket and gun belt onto the kitchen counter, poured a glass of wine for himself, and refreshed mine.

“They were shredding bags of papers when I was there with Vinnie. Probably, there wasn’t anything left to see.”

Ranger took his wine into the dining room and dumped the contents of Drager’s briefcase onto the table.

“Bank statements,” Ranger said. “And a list of businesses owned by the firm.” He leafed through the bank statements. “Looks like a pattern of outgoing wire transfers to a New Jersey LLC called GBZakhar, and someone has checked them off on the latest statement.”

He took the statement to the combination office and den attached to his bedroom and typed Zakhar into his computer.

“GBZakhar doesn’t have a Web site,” he said. “Let’s go to the Jersey state business gateway site.”

Ranger worked his way through the site and finally came to a guide for requesting public record information. He gave a credit card number, and information on GBZakhar was displayed on the screen.

“This is interesting,” Ranger said. “Do you recognize the name of the registered agent?”

“Walter Dunne. One of the Wellington lawyers found executed behind the diner.”

“GBZakhar gives a Newark P.O. box as its address. And they list four company officers. Herpes Zoster, Mickey Mouskovitch, Rainbow Trout, and Gregor Bluttovich. I expect the first three names are fake. That leaves Gregor Bluttovich,” Ranger said.