To begin with, I was a big fat hypocrite. I was all bent out of shape over Morelli and Gilman when I had the exact same situation going on between Ranger and me. These are working relationships, I told myself. Get over it. Grow up. Have some trust here.

Okay, so now I’ve yelled at myself. Anything else going on? Jealousy? Jealousy didn’t feel like a fit. Insecurity? Bingo. Insecurity was a match. I didn’t have a lot of insecurity. Just enough insecurity to surface at times of mental health breakdown. And I was definitely having a mental health breakdown. The denial thing wasn’t working for me.

I put the car in gear and drove to my apartment building. I wouldn’t stay long, I decided. I’d just go in and retrieve a few things . . . like my dignity, maybe.

I parked in the lot, shoved the door open, and swung from behind the wheel. I beeped the car locked with the remote and headed for the back door to my building. I was halfway across the lot when I heard a sound behind me. Phunf. I felt something sting my right shoulder blade and heat swept through my upper body. The world went gray, then black. I put my hand out to steady myself and felt myself slide away.

I WAS SWIMMING in suffocating blackness, unable to surface. Voices only partially penetrated. Words were garbled. I ordered myself to open my eyes. Open them. Open them!

Suddenly there was daylight. The images were blurred, but the voices snapped into focus. The voices were calling my name.

“Stephanie?”

I blinked a couple times, clearing my vision, recognizing Morelli. My first words were, “What the fuck?”

“How do you feel?” Morelli asked.

“Like I’ve been hit by a truck.”

A guy I didn’t know was bending over me, opposite Joe. A paramedic. I had a blood pressure cuff on and the paramedic was listening.

“She’s looking better,” he said.

I was on the ground in the parking lot and Joe and the paramedic brought me up to sitting. An EMS truck idled not far off. There was a lot of equipment beside me. Oxygen, stretcher, medical emergency kit. A couple Trenton cops stood hands on hips. A small crowd was gathered behind the cops.

“We should take her to St. Francis to have her checked by a doctor,” the medic said. “They might want to keep her overnight.”

“What happened?” I asked Morelli.

“Someone shot you in the back with a tranquilizer dart. The impact was partially absorbed by your jacket, but you got enough tranq to knock you out.”

“Am I okay?”

“Yeah,” Morelli said. “I think you’re okay. More than I can say for me. I just had three heart attacks.”

“I don’t want to go to St. Francis. I want to go home . . . wherever that is.”

The medic looked over at Morelli. “Your call.”

“I’ll take responsibility,” Morelli said. “Help me get her to her feet.”