A/N: I offer you a belated Halloween story. You can decide if it is more trick or treat!

A big hug to Dog in the Manger for her inspired editing and patient proofreading. All mistakes are mine.

If you are a fan of Ranger/Steph stories, check out my collaboration with ShellSueD and LilyGhost. We write under the pen name HighlandsGirlLilyGhostShellSue.

Variety is the spice of life, or so the saying goes. My name is Stephanie Plum and I am an expert on both variety and spice. Today, for example, I opted for the Halloween variety dozen at the Tasty Pastry. Having worked my way through a Boston Crème and an apple fritter drizzled with caramel, I'm ready to sample a pumpkin spice cake donut with a generous smear of ginger buttercream frosting. Yum.

The weatherman predicted that October 31st would be wet and cold. On the drive from the bakery to Vinnie's, it seemed likely he would be right. At nearly ten in the morning, there was no rain but the sky was dark with gray, low-hanging clouds and a sharp, swift wind was efficiently stripping the remaining leaves from the trees. As I walked from the parking lot to the front door of the bonds office, red, yellow and brown leaves swirled around me like autumn confetti. Perfect weather for Halloween.

Both Connie and Lula looked up at me in surprise as I entered the bond's office, the little bell attached to the top of door ringing my arrival.

"Hey there," Connie called out. "Did you not get my text? You cleared all of your files earlier this week, and there haven't been any new FTAs since then. I'm sorry you had to make a trip over here—"

"Didn't have to… just wanted to spend some time with friends on my favorite day of the year." I thrust the box of doughnuts at her. "I brought treats!"

Connie gingerly picked out a cruller, protecting what I assumed was a fresh manicure, and passed the box to Lula. In honor of the season, Connie's nails were painted orange. A black web adorned each index finger and it appeared that a tiny, glittery spider was crawling across each thumbnail.

"Wow. I've never seen anything like that," I told her.

"Right? I saw the design on Pinterest. You want me to do yours?" she asked.

I considered her offer for about a half second. "Maybe not. I'm not a huge fan of spiders and other creepy crawlies."

"Yeah," Lula chimed in. "I figure Steph be goin' for something more cuddly than a spider. Something like a bat."

"A bat is cuddly?" Connie wrinkled her brow in confusion. A second later, her expression changed. "Oh, I get it!"

Over the course of the morning and the early afternoon, we polished off all but one of the donuts, and I decided I'd head over to my parents house a little early and check on the trick or treat preparations. I'd grown up on a street where nearly every house and yard was decorated for the holiday, each family trying to outdo the other. I think my mom and grandma started planning for Halloween in August or early September. Sure, there would be some favorite decorations left over from when I was a kid, but there would be some new ones too. Even my dad got into the act, dragging the ladder out from the garage so he could hang stands of blinking orange lights around the porch. Occasionally, he surprised us with decorations on the roof of our house. This year, it was a black wooden silhouette of a witch on a broomstick. Honestly, what's not to love about this holiday? I was at the door of the bonds office when Connie's voice stopped me in my tracks.

"Christ, where did this come from?"

I turned and saw Connie standing behind her desk, file in hand and a look of uncertainty on her face.

"Steph, I guess you do have a file after all. I swear this wasn't on my desk this morning."

I shrugged. "No worries, Connie. I'll get to work on it first thing tomorrow.'

Connie chewed on her bottom lip. "See, that's the thing. The bond is up tonight at midnight. I can't imagine how I missed this one." She glared at Lula. "I guess it must have been misfiled."

Lula, who had been stretched on the faux leather couch with a powdered sugar donut and the latest issue of Ebony, sat up and glared at Connie. She hit her right ear with the palm of her hand several times and then looked at me. "Yo, white girl. Help me out here 'cause I think I got a problem with my hearing. I coulda sworn I heard someone criticizin' my filing skills, but I know that can't be right."

Connie snorted. "I might criticize your filing skills if you ever filed anything." She looked pointedly at the stacks of files on the floor. "As it is, all I can comment on is your lack of filing."

Lula leaned forward, eyes narrowed. "You have a problem with me, Connie? You sayin' I don't know how to do my job?"

Connie sighed. "I don't have a problem with you, Lula, and I'm not saying you don't know how to do your job. I'm saying you don't do your job. Vinnie's would have an attack and fire us all if we missed a deadline because a file was missing."

"Well, then," I cut in, trying to sound cheerful. "No reason to worry because I'll bring this one in." I glanced from Connie to Lula, understanding that old expression, if looks could kill… Both of the women were armed, I realized, and more than a little dangerous.

"Lula, you want to come with me?"

Lula looked around the office. "Nah, girlfriend. I don't mind helping you out once in a while, but I'm a office professional." She crossed her arms across her chest. "Somebody round here's been disorganizing my files, and I gotta deal with that." She looked around the room again. "I'm gonna organize the shit outta these files."

oOoOo

I sat in my latest POS car, a 1998 puke green Toyota Corolla, looking at the file. Martha Jean Bewley, age 28, had been arrested for child endangerment, possession of a controlled substance and attempted assault of a police officer.

With any luck, she lived in the Burg and I'd have her in custody within a couple of hours. Maybe she would come with me willingly. If not, maybe I could use the promise of one of Connie's Halloween manicures to lure her in. Maybe I needed to get a grip, I sighed to myself.

The file on Martha Jean was surprisingly thin—no photocopy of a driver's license, no work history – just a faded black and white photo, showing a pale woman with dark hair and dark eyes. Her last known address was in someplace called Ong's Hat, New Jersey. Definitely not the Burg.

I pulled out my iPhone and punched Ong's Hat into the search window in Google Maps. The search returned an Ong's Hat Road in Southampton Township, some forty minutes south of Trenton.

It was a slim lead, but a lead nonetheless. The least I could do was go there and ask around. If anything, I hoped to find a diner where I could grab lunch. My stomach growled, and I briefly contemplated heading back into the Bonds office for the last donut. Have some willpower, I told myself. Think of all the Halloween candy that you'll eat tonight. I tossed my phone into my purse, started the car and headed out of the city just as the first cold, grey rain drops hit my windshield.

Because of ongoing construction and seemingly permanent traffic delays on I-295, I headed south on route 206. Thirty minutes later, I'd just turned onto South Pemberton Road when my phone rang. The problem was that my phone was in my purse, and my purse was on the floor in front of the passenger seat. Carefully, I leaned to the right, keeping one eye on the road. I stretched a little more, hoping I could hook my fingers around the strap of my purse and pull it a little closer. Just as my fingers closed around the phone, I heard the blare of a horn. I sat up just in time to swerve back into my lane and out of the path of an oncoming semi. I overcorrected and ended up with two wheels on the shoulder and two the tall grass. I was still shaking when I managed to hit the 'talk' button.

"Yo, Babe. You OK?"

"Sure." My heart was still racing, but I tried to sound confident. "Why wouldn't I be?"

"Your trackers suddenly just went offline. Not a good sign when they all go at once."

"Trackers? As in more than one?" OK, so now I sounded a little shrill. "I never agreed to multiple trackers! What were you thinking, Ranger?"

"I'm thinking that I'm so relieved to hear your voice right now that I'm going to ignore that you sound cranky."

I was still working on a snappy comeback when Ranger spoke again.

"Your last known position was just east of Vincentown. You close?"

"I think so."

"Stay there," he said. "Hal and I are on our way. We'll be there in thirty."

Just over twenty minutes later, there was tap on my window. Ranger wrenched open the door and pulled me out of the car.

His left hand held his phone to his ear, while his right wrapped around my waist and pulled me close. "I have a visual. Yeah, she looks OK," he said into the phone.

Shoving the phone into his jacket pocket, he leaned into me, pinning me against the car. My first thought to register was that we were pressed together chest to groin. My second thought was that the weatherman was sadly mistaken. Turned out, it was wet but not cold today. In fact, I was thinking that it was unseasonably hot.

"You have to quit scaring the shit out of me like this, Babe."

I managed to get one hand between us and pushed on his chest. With my hand over his heart, it was hard not to notice that it was racing. "Hey, I'm fine. Nothing happened, and it's not my fault that your fancy tracking gizmos had some sort of malfunction."

"Hector has your trackers on parallel, redundant circuits. The chances of your trackers, but no one else's, all failing at once are about a million to one."

I glanced up at him through lowered eyelashes. "So are you saying I'm one in a million?"

Ranger's eyes darkened and he leaned in close. I closed my eyes and waited to feel his lips on mine. Instead, I felt his warm breath on the shell of my ear.

"You have a Halloween date with the Jersey Devil, Babe?"

Immediately, my eyes popped back open. "Huh?"

"What are you doing all the way out here? You're practically in the Pine Barrens." Keeping one hand firmly on my hip, he reached into the car, grabbed the manila folder off the passenger seat and flipped it open.

"You came to pick up a skip? By yourself?"

"It's not like that," I protested, even though it was. "Somehow this got misfiled, and the bond expires at midnight. There's not much to go on, but I thought I would drive out here and ask some questions.

Ranger sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and his forefinger.

"Get in the Explorer. I'll have Hal take your car home."

In response, I put my hands on my hips and did my best to look as well as sound pissy. "What if I don't need any help?"

He didn't say anything in response. He just stared at me until I caved under pressure.

"Need might have been the wrong word. What if I don't want any help?"

Now his eyes flashed back at me with lust and maybe something else. For a moment, I thought I saw of hint of uncertainty, but I was sure I was wrong because Ranger ground his hips firmly into mine. "Now you don't want me, Babe? Are you sure about that?" his lips whispered against mine.

"Yes," I gasped.

"Yes?" He pulled back a little to look at me, while keeping my lower half pressed firmly between him and the car. He'd once told me that he knew how to apply pressure and now he was proving it. "As in yes, you're sure that you don't want me?"

"Nooo." It came out sounding like a moan. Traitorous hormones.

With one last flick of his tongue against mine, he put some space between us, smirking. "That's what I thought."

"Time out," I said, trying not to sound breathless. Smug bastard. "I can't think like this."

He sighed and put some space between us. "I don't do time outs, Stephanie. That's a "you-and-Morelli" thing. Let's just go get your skip, OK?"

"Why can't we take my car?"

He looked at my Corolla, with its faded paint and slightly dented right quarter panel. "Tempting offer, but no." I saw him look at Hal, who was still methodically walking around my car with an iPad.

"You getting anything?"

Hal shook his head. "It's the weirdest thing. No signal whatsoever." He walked over to me and moved as if he meant to use the iPad to wand me like TSA does at the airport. "I'd worry that someone had tampered with car, but even the personal—"

"What?" I screeched. "Ranger—"

He just grabbed my hand and pulled me toward the Explorer.

"Babe."