I looked beyond Morelli and saw two suits grilling Lula.

“You better rescue Lula,” I said. “Probably it’s not a good idea to let those guys look in her purse.”

MORELLI DID SOME negotiating with the feds involved in the bust and it was suggested that Lula and I should leave the scene immediately and never return. Lula and I were happy to comply with the suggestion.

Cal and Junior had backtracked and found me and were parked two cars down in the motel lot. Their faces were red and they had deodorant failure. Ranger wouldn’t have been happy if they’d lost me.

“See that,” Lula said when we were all heading south on Route 1. “I told you Morelli was there on account of work. You should be more trusting of Morelli.”

“If you’d been in my shoes, would you have trusted him?”

“Hell no,” Lula said.

Truth is, I did trust Morelli. But there’s a limit to trust. Even the most trusting woman who saw her boyfriend’s truck at a motel in the middle of the day, twice, would have doubts. There’s a difference between being trusting and being stupid.

Traffic was heavy and slow going in and out of Trenton. It was coming up on rush hour. Drivers looked sweaty and impatient. Men drummed their fingers. Women chewed on their cheeks.

I was still feeling the pull from TriBro. I turned off Route 1 and found my place in the TriBro lot.

“I don’t get it,” Lula said. “What’s with this parking thing? What are you waiting for?”

I didn’t know. Instinct kept dragging me here today. I half expected to see ominous dark clouds boiling over the building. Ghostbuster clouds. Portents of danger.

We sat there for a while and employees started to leave. The lot was almost empty and my phone rang.

It was Clyde. “Hey, Stephanie Plum,” he said. “Is that you out in the lot? I see a yellow car and it looks like you inside. I’m watching you with binoculars. Wave to me.”

I waved to Clyde.

“What are you doing in the lot?” he wanted to know.

“Just sitting,” I said. “Watching.”

“Is that your partner with you?”

“Yeah. That’s Lula.”

“It’s quitting time,” he said. “Do you and Lula want to go to dinner? We could all get a burger someplace.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Okay,” Clyde said. “Call me if you change your mind.”

“Pretty soon we’re gonna be in this lot all by ourselves,” Lula said. “You and me and the two big dummies over there. You aren’t planning on breaking in, are you? Maybe see if Bart Cone left his computer on?”

“Bart’s smarter than that. He’s not going to leave anything incriminating on his computer. Even if he did, I’m not that good at computers to be able to find it. And I’m sure the building has an alarm system.”

The idea was tempting, though. Just not practical. And it was out of my league. It was a Ranger escapade.