'Are you evicting me?'
'Yes.'
'We have unfinished business,' Ranger said.
'We always have unfinished business. Just out of morbid curiosity, how would you define your role in my life?'
'I'm dessert,' he said.
'Something that gives me pleasure, but isn't especially good for me?'
'Something that could never be the base of your food pyramid.'
See, here's where I was in trouble. Dessert was the base of my food pyramid!
I was holding a bag of leftovers from my mom, and a bag of clean clothes, plus the shoulder bag I'd left in the Mini when I changed cars in the parking lot. I juggled the bags, fumbled with the key, and let myself into my dark, quiet apartment. I maneuvered into the kitchen and dumped everything on the counter.
Rex was on his wheel, running, running, running. I tapped on the case and said hello. It was good to be home. Good to be alone. Ranger had just very nicely uncomplicated my life. Don't count on me to be meat and potatoes, babe. Decent of him to be honest. Not that I didn't already know it. Still, it helped to have it articulated. I blew out a sigh. Who was I kidding? It didn't help at all. Any more than the attempt to come back to my apartment and normalize my life helped to erase Julie from my thoughts. Julie Martine was a dull ache in my chest. The ache was constant, and all the more painful since I had no clue how to help in her search. At least when I was bait I had some purpose. I was sidelined now, left with nothing to do but wait. I couldn't imagine what it must be like for her mom. Truly terrible.
I pulled a package of sliced turkey out of the leftover bag. Some rolls fresh from the bakery. A wedge of chocolate cake. And then… sizzle. Again. Shit!
I didn't have a lot of furniture. A table and four chairs in the dining room. A couch and a comfy chair in the living room. A television on a low chest. A coffee table in front of the couch. When I came around I
was in the living room, facing in such a way that I could see people entering from the little entrance foyer. I was sitting on a dining room chair, held to it by electrician's tape, my hands painfully cuffed behind the chair.
Julie was slumped in the single comfy chair. Her face was ghost-white and slack. Her eyes were drugged slits, barely open, unseeing. Her hands lay loose in her lap.
'What did you do to her?' I asked Scrog.
'She's okay. Just knocked out. I had to leave the motor home in a hurry. I didn't have time to make another bomb. Easier to zap her and give her a shot.'
'How did you get in here?'
'I used a pick I bought on the Internet.'
Scrog looked terrible. He had blood all over him from when I'd punched him in the nose. His eyes were black and swollen. His lip was cut. His foot was still in his shoe, and the shoe was wrapped around and around with the electrician's tape. He was sitting in the living room with me, in another of my dining room chairs, pulled to the side, out of view from the front door. He had a gun in his hand.
'I feel sick,' I whispered, head down. I was dripping drool and snot and my stomach was in a nauseous free fall. I was scared and horrified, and I'd been stun-gunned one too many times.
'Are you gonna throw up?'
'Yeah.'
He limped to the bathroom and came back with the wastebasket just in time for me to fill it with my mother's roast chicken and chocolate cake.
'That's disgusting,' he said.
'Maybe if you'd stop stun-gunning me…'
He limped back to the bathroom, and I heard him flush the toilet. He limped back and eased himself into his chair.
'You look like you could use some of the joy juice you gave Julie,' I said to him.
'I took some Advil.'
'Are you still going to Mexico?'
'Yeah. Maybe I'll work my way south and go to Guatemala. I think I heard they need bounty hunters there.'