None of the characters below are my creation. JE gets all the joy of making that claim.
Jenny (JenRar) you make writing so much more fun. Thank you for agreeing to work with me as the beta on another story.
Chapter 1 – A New Assignment
"'Lo," I managed to croak out, only answering my phone to make it stop ringing, since whoever this was kept calling back in the middle of the night instead of leaving a message like a normal person would.
"Babe," came Ranger's voice on the other end of the line. Well, there you have it; I'd never call Ranger a normal person, so that mystery had been solved.
"I'm asleep." I managed to use real words this time, since the idea of Ranger calling me in the middle of the night definitely woke me up enough to talk, but not enough to open my eyes. He'd been gone for the last six weeks on a mission, and it made sense that he'd let me know he'd returned – although we definitely needed to talk about appropriate hours for these kinds of status updates in the future. A Facebook page might work...I just couldn't imagine Ranger sending out friend requests.
"I need your help," he replied with his rock steady voice.
The fact that he needed help at all, especially from me, took from me from semi-conscious to fully alert and sitting up, albeit wobbly. "Are you okay?" I blurted out, picturing the worst. The image from the Scrog fiasco flashed before my eyes, and I feared that he was injured and bleeding and wondered how I could do anything over the phone.
"I'm fine."
He calmed me down with those two words so that I fell over sideways, still holding the phone to my ear with one hand. My other hand was over my heart, as though reminding that important organ it had to stay in my chest, despite the temporarily panic.
"What's going on?" I asked, not intending to be rude, but hating the feeling something major was going on and I was in the dark about it.
"Manny's hurt," he said, the steady level of his voice breaking slightly on the last word, before he added, "badly."
And the next hill of the rollercoaster was upon me, so I sat back up, still holding my hand over my heart. Manny wasn't one of the Merry Men that I was closest to, but he was a part of the RangeMan family, so whatever happened mattered to me – a lot.
"We were on assignment, some things went down that hadn't been disclosed to us as possibilities, and I think ghosts from the past were able to get the jump on us. There was an explosion, and Manny got caught too close to the impact," Ranger was giving me details he would normally gloss over, so I knew he was in a bad place in his head if his editor hadn't fully engaged yet.
"Is he going to be all right?" I asked, not sure how I'd handle the answer if it wasn't yes.
There was a crinkling sound over the line, and I envisioned Ranger rubbing over his face with his hand before answering. "I hope so – I think so, eventually, but that's where I need your help."
"Tell me what to do," I instructed, getting out of bed and trying to find a pair of jeans from the dirty clothes basket without any stains so I could wear them again to be ready to move as soon as Ranger gave me my marching orders. Hmm, when I had more time, I'd have to think about when I started incorporating military lingo into my vocabulary.
"Do you remember when Manny got shot a few years ago?" he asked cryptically.
I had to think back to exactly what he was talking about. Ranger had been accused of being the one to pull the trigger at first, so I'd gone to the hospital to get Manny's version of what happened, but I had to pretend to be his wife to get access to him. "Yeah, I remember lying to the nurses and saying we were married."
I heard him exhale on the other end of the line, as though relieved. "We knew this was going to be a shit assignment, with a high likelihood of one or both of us getting hurt. I told him the day before we took off to get his legal affairs in order, and he apparently took my advice. The problem is, he rescinded his medical power of attorney so that RangeMan can't represent him."
"I don't understand," I blurted out. "Why would he do that?"
"There are some things about this mission that were personal to him, and I don't think he planned on coming back. The problem is that things blew up, literally, much sooner than he planned, and now he's completely unconscious at St. Elizabeth's in New York."
I still didn't see how I could help if Manny was in New York.
Fortunately, Ranger kept talking. "I can't go anywhere near him without blowing my cover and his. He is still in extreme danger, but legally, I can't get him out."
"Come on, Ranger," I encouraged. "You've never let something like a little legality get in your way, have you?"
"This isn't legally gray; it's completely in the black here, Babe," Ranger returned, obviously willing to accept Manny's demand that Ranger not intercede in his medical care. Then he muddied the water by adding, "Plus, the government is going to want to keep tabs on him so technically my interference with their control of him as he heals would be seen as obstruction."
"What do you need me to do?" I figured he must have something in mind if he'd interrupted my sleep to tell me all of this.
"Manny doesn't have a next of kin. His whole family is gone," Ranger picked up again, making my heart ache for Manny. I might have a crazy annoying group of relatives, but I also knew that I'd always have a place to call home if I needed it. "So legally, the only person that can go into that hospital and begin to demand he be transferred is Manny's wife."
"He's married?" I asked, and as soon as I said it, I knew what Ranger wanted me to do. "Wait a minute. If you going in there and busting him out is so far out of the legally gray area, then how is me impersonating a spouse and doing it somehow acceptable?"
"By the time you get there, we could have it set so that you aren't really impersonating a spouse," Ranger cryptically stated.
"You're going to have to say more than that," I demanded.
"We can get you all the documentation you'd need to substantiate your claim that you two are married. Then, get him out of the hospital and back to Trenton, and we can dissolve all the papers we had to create for you to get him out of there," he partially explained.
"And what if Manny doesn't want a pretend wife coming in and taking over? Don't you think I'll lose a little credibility when my husband begins telling everybody that we aren't married?" This plan had more holes in it than a colander.
"He's unconscious, and from what Bobby's been able to gather, it's doubtful he'll be waking up for quite a while. It's going to take him a while to get over this. Some of his injuries…" I could hear the strain in Ranger's voice before he left the last part unsaid, so I knew I had to help.
At that point, he stopped talking, leaving me completely confused about what I needed to do. I decided he needed a prompt, so I gave up my search for semi-clean jeans, seeing it was a lost cause anyway, and put on a pair of black cargos instead while asking, "What do you need me to do to get going?"
"Tank is in your parking lot," he said, causing me to hop over to the window with one leg in my pants and one still uncovered and peek out, verifying the presence of a shiny new black expedition right in front of the main entrance to my unit.
"I see him," I confirmed to keep Ranger talking.
"I need you to let him take you to New York, to St. Elizabeth's to pretend to be Manny's wife. Bobby will brief you on what needs to be done to sign him out AMA, and then we can get him transported via private helicopter to Trenton," Ranger explained.
I knew it would be much more complicated than he made it sound, but I figured if Tank, and apparently Bobby, were going to be there then I could handle it.
"I can do that," I promised, willing to do anything, no matter how hard, if Ranger needed me to.
"Bobby will be with you, pretending to be your bodyguard, but Tank will have to drop you off and leave because he's too distinguishable to risk being seen in the hospital," Ranger began explaining my cover. "Tank will brief you on the full extent of your cover on the drive down. I have some suspicions about who was targeting Manny, but I can't confirm them right now, which means he's still in real danger. That's why we have to get him out of there. The feds want him to stay put so that they can keep an eye on him, but with the threat still out there, it's too big of a gamble that the person who planted the bomb could get to Manny and finish the job. I'm on assignment with the government, and if my cover is blown, not only would it put my life in danger, too, but RangeMan could be in serious trouble for disclosing classified information. Legally, I'm not allowed to help Manny, so we have to do everything we can to keep Manny's discharge from the hospital from being traced back to RangeMan."
What he was saying was that, if this blew up on me, he couldn't swoop in and save the day. I knew I needed to do this. Ranger wouldn't let the possibility of him getting into trouble stop him from helping me when I needed it, but I couldn't deny needing to take a deep breath to process the fact that the fraud of pretending to be married to have legal rights at a hospital was actually the more minor of the crimes I would be committing by doing this.
"Steph, if you do this, you'll be dragged into something that is extremely dangerous. In addition to the difficulty with the government, we're talking drug wars and men who don't care who they have to kill in order to get their way. The second you walk in that hospital and say you are married to Manny, you'll have a bulls-eye on your head. And the fact that I can't just pull you back into RangeMan to keep you safe means that danger will stay with you until this whole assignment is over."
"If there was any other way to help Manny and keep you covered so that you can finish this mission, would you do it?" I pushed, trying to help him let go of the guilt that he was using me to do something potentially life threatening.
"In a heartbeat. Babe, I'm sorry to put you in this position," he said, much softer than usual.
"Besides what it will do to keep Manny living, will it help you?" I wondered, already knowing I was going to do it, but knowing this would serve as an extra motivation along the way, too.
"Yes," he confirmed what I already suspected. "Manny and I were on this assignment pretending to be cousins in the same family organization that was going up against some major players to secure a new source to import drugs into this country for us to sell on the streets. We were finally getting to the inner level of the supplier's family when someone around the family recognized Manny. They rigged an explosion in Manny's car, and he was too close to it to get away. The family seems to think I owe them a debt of gratitude for them discovering a traiter in my family's organization. I'm playing it as though Manny would never betray me, and I'm pushing that it was an attempt on my life, as well, to rush through the rest of the deal and finish this. If they decide to go along with my demands, then I can help the DEA shut down the supplier, which will temporarily slow down the illegal drugs on the street, and then I can take out the group that nearly killed Manny." I didn't miss the way his voice hardened on that last sentence.
"You know I'm glad to help, and I'd be pissed if there was something I could do for you and you refused to even give me the option of saying yes or no. I'm going to do this, and you are going to concentrate on finishing this and getting back home safe," I told him, trying to sound more confident than I really was. I was beginning to get an idea of dangerous this could be for me once I publically announced that I was married to the man a drug lord had attempted to kill. I could become their next victim, or even worse, they could try to take me to get to either Manny or Ranger. That danger combined with my usual bad luck had recipe for disaster written all over it. And assuming none of that came back to bite me, there was still the little espionage business of being given classified information and trying to pull one over on the government. Was treason still considered a capital offense?
"How long do you think it will take you to wrap this up?" I asked, figuring a few more details wouldn't hurt.
"Two weeks, maybe – three, tops," he replied, making it sound as though it were an eternity. "You'll have to stay out of sight for that entire time. The guys are trying to come up with a place that wouldn't raise any suspicion for you to lay low, but it's going to require you going on lock down."
Ah, now we were getting to why he didn't want to ask for my help. Put my life on the line to save someone else, no problem, no hesitation. Stay locked inside like some kind of caged animal, major push back. I swallowed back my initial panic over the idea of being inside for three weeks and told him, "No worries. If I'm doing it to save Manny's life or help protect you, then I won't fight it." Hopefully, I hadn't just lied.
"Pack a bag with everything you'll need for a couple of weeks and head downstairs to Tank. He and Bobby will get you up to speed on the drive down," he said, apparently believing me when I said I was going to help.
We said our goodbyes, but before we hung up, he spoke up once more. "Stephanie?"
"Yeah, Ranger?" I replied, letting him know I was still there.
He paused for a while, as though he wasn't sure how to verbalize what he wanted to, and finally cleared his throat to say, "Be careful," before hanging up. Those words felt like they were laced with so much more meaning, so I didn't dwell on the fact that he cut off the call before I could respond.
I figured if he couldn't put protection on Manny that time was of the essence, so I grabbed a duffle and randomly threw clothes in the bag, hoping I had a week's worth of acceptable outfits. Then I pulled everything I might need from my bathroom and tossed it loosely on top instead of taking the time to pack it in a toiletry bag. I went through the kitchen and grabbed the fresh box of Tasty Cakes that hadn't been opened, figuring he'd said to pack everything I needed, and this was definitely a need.
I glanced at the empty counter where Rex's cage used to sit and brushed off the fresh wave of sadness at the fact that I didn't need to get a pet sitter since Rex had passed away last week. I hadn't told anybody, because the morning I discovered he had passed away, it hit me so hard, I'd stayed in crying all day, and then I realized the way I'd reacted was so over the top that I didn't want to explain to anybody that I was this torn up over a hamster. It sounded silly when I said it out loud, but that little guy had been my only listening ear for all my problems long enough that losing him was like losing a lifelong friend.
Not wanting to get upset again, I turned to the fridge and pulled out a can of Coke, the only thing safely consumable in there at the moment. I needed caffeine, plus this would count as cleaning out my refrigerator before leaving on a trip, which is something my mom had taught me to do. I guessed all those lectures had paid off after all.
I gave the apartment one more glance and then grabbed my purse to head downstairs. I heard the engine start on the Expedition as soon as I hit the pavement from my building. Bobby jumped out, always the gentleman, and opened the back door for me.
As soon as my rear end hit the leather, Tank put it in drive and took off.
"Sorry I took so long." I felt the need to talk because the mood in the truck was so tense, I couldn't stand it. I personally thought I had been super speedy for what was asked of me, but neither of them reacted to my comment.
Tank picked up an envelope and lifted it over his shoulder for me to take it. "That's everything you can know about the mission," he began explaining. "You can't take it with you, so you need to read it now and commit it to memory," he told me bluntly, obviously slipping into that second-in-command mode.
"Got it," I replied, turning on the overhead light so I could see what he'd given me. When I opened the manila envelope, I was shocked to see a passport, driver's license, and credit cards, all for Stephanie Ramos. My picture was on them all, but I certainly didn't recall these being created. I put them in my purse, figuring I could ask about that little piece of forgery behind my back later.
"You'll need to remove anything from your bag that identifies you as Stephanie Plum and give it to me," Bobby said from the front seat. "I'll lock it up for you at RangeMan, and we can sort it out when you're finished."
I went through my wallet, carefully pulling out everything that had Plum on it, happy to see that my Tasty Pastry preferred customer card only had my first name scribbled on it, so I could keep it with me for a reminder of better days. I put all my real stuff in the envelope and replaced my real life with the fake one Tank had given me.
Having that task completed, I pulled out a single page document explaining that Manny and I had married on my birthday six months ago and I was a fashion designer who did some freelance work for private clients. This gave me the excuse to travel a great deal and was the explanation for why no one had met me before now. Manny was the second-in-command to Ranger of a family business that was like a Latino mob family, specializing in drug running in the Northeast.
I read a little more about the people they were investigating, but there was only enough information to irritate me and not enough to answer any of my questions. The pictures were helpful, though, because I could see in their scowly faces, these weren't people who would tolerate being double-crossed.
When I set the paper down, Tank spoke once more. "We need to talk about where you and Manny will go after we get him out."
"I figured there was a safe house RangeMan monitored that you had ready," I blurted out, not realizing the details hadn't been settled.
Bobby turned around in his seat to see me better. "As a last resort, we could try it, but there's too great a chance that if you two were discovered, they could link the property to RangeMan, which would allow the people Ranger is still working with to know who he really is or the government to know Ranger arranged for Manny's extraction. We need to come up with a place that no one would ever think to look, and even if they did, they'd never be able to tie to the company."
"Why can't you just send us someplace far away?" I wondered, already picturing myself on some tropical beach with the wind blowing my hair.
"We need you close enough that if something happens, we can cover you for protection," Tank said, shooting down my island dreams.
"We could go to Miami or Atlanta," I pushed, figuring any RangeMan could keep us safe, but we would be far enough away from our real lives that we'd be safe.
Bobby shook his head no. "I need you close enough for me to stay on top of Manny's condition. Plus, the men Ranger thinks tried to take him out have associates along the eastern seaboard. You are safer around here than anywhere else."
Silence descended for a while as I mulled over what he was saying, and then I had a strange thought. "Did you guys change anything about my past when you set up my new identity?"
Bobby looked at Tank and waited for the big guy to say, "We changed your maiden name to Mazur."
So they'd tied me to my grandmother, but not to my parents. Hearing her name gave me an idea. "I know of a place, but it might be in kind of bad shape."
"I'm listening," Tank said, grating on my nerves slightly with his curt demeanor. He'd never been what I'd call a big talker, but this straight to the point routine was strange coming from a guy that made kissing noises at kittens.
"Grandma Mazur's parents owned a house outside of Trenton. When they died, I was ten, and Grandma Mazur had the house boarded up because she and my grandfather already had a place to live and my Mom and Dad were settled in the 'Burg. She refused to sell the house because she said that one day, it would come in useful. I know Mom and Grandma Mazur go there a couple of times a year to be sure it's still standing and they tidy up a bit. The last they checked on it was right after Christmas, so it should be empty, but it's probably pretty dusty and musty from being closed up for so long," I explained, wondering if it was a bad suggestion.
"What's the address?" Tank asked, not giving me anything to go off of to let me know if I've been helpful or not.
I gave him the logistics and then added, "I'm not sure about power and water, though. I mean, if they clean it, I'm assuming it has both, but I don't remember either of them mentioning paying utility bills on the old place."
Bobby turned around with a half smile on his face when Tank picked up his cell phone and started talking in Spanish to someone on the other end. "That's a great suggestion. If the utilities are off, Hector can patch in and route them to you. What about furniture and stuff like that?"
"As far as I know, they left the house exactly the way it was, so it might be really outdated, but it was equipped for everything a couple of people in their late eighties needed in 1985," I told him, hoping my information was still up to date.
"What about neighbors?" he asked, probably curious if anyone would call the cops if the lights came on suddenly.
"No, it's on a parcel of land at least five acres," I replied, remembering having so much fun running in the woods around the house when I was little.
"Why didn't they sell it, or at least sell some of the land?" Bobby wondered.
"I don't know completely," I replied. "I just know Grandma Mazur said that her parents wanted it to stay in the family and she couldn't live there because she said it reminded her too much of her parents. My folks already had a home, and my mom didn't like living without neighbors. Grandma Mazur hinted when I married Dickie that if she'd thought I loved him, she would have given us the house as a wedding present, but in her opinion, it was obvious that he wasn't the one to capture my heart, and she said the only people that could be happy in that house were people who were completely devoted to each other."
"What, like it has some kind of spell on it?" Bobby asked, not making fun of me, but looking really curious.
I shrugged. "I don't know. They immigrated here from Hungary when they were seventeen, and Grandma Mazur said every couple that spent time in their presence came away more devoted to each other than before they met them. She said if there was even a spark of something between them, it would explode into something real just from being around them, and she didn't think it was a good idea for me to be in that house unless it was with the right man, because she wouldn't want me to be tied to someone I couldn't stand for the rest of my life."
In truth, my Grandpa Mazur used to call them gypsies and said they had the ability to do all kinds of strange Hungarian mo-jo, but to a ten-year-old, that kind of threat about a woman who always seemed to be taking fresh baked food out of her oven didn't really mean much.
Tank hung up and said, "Hector is looking it up and will take care of the utilities, I've got Ram sending out a clean up team just to give the place a once over to be sure it's clean enough for Manny's needs and structurally sound. If he gives it the green light, Ella will do some shopping and stock it up for food and bathroom stuff, and we'll have a television and laptop with cable access installed before you get there as well. Vince is going to rig up a security system that isn't too visible so we can keep you monitored and on the grid. But based on Hector's initial location search, the spot seems perfect – remote enough to stay hidden, but close enough to us that we can cover you effectively."
Then he handed me a brand new smart phone and said, "You should probably call your grandmother to let her know you're going to be there, but come up with something to keep her from dropping by."
"You say as though it's possible to control my grandmother," I replied dryly. Honestly, most of the guys hid behind me when she was close by. Why did they think I would have some kind of ability to commandl her?
Still, there was wisdom in warning her we would be there, so I dutifully typed in the number of Grandma's sparkling new neon pink Razor and waited for her to answer.
"Talk to me."
"Hey, Grandma, it's Steph," I began, hoping she could hear me over the noise in the background.
"Hey, baby granddaughter," she replied, before saying, "Herman, I've got to take this call, I'll be right back to pick up where we left off."
I so didn't want to know what that meant and hoped I could distract her before she attempted to tell me anyway.
"Sorry about that. I just met Herman, and since he's still got his own teeth and a driver's license, all the women are crazy about him, so I've had to act a little faster than I usually would, but you only live once, so I figured what the hell."
She would keep talking if I didn't interrupt, so I jumped in. "Hey, Grandma, I have a strange favor to ask of you."
"Anything. I've got my gun in my pocketbook, and I could get Herman to take me just about anywhere you need me to meet you," she offered.
"It's nothing like that," I quickly told her before she actually took her gun out and hurt somebody. "It's about Grandma Sabo's house." Sabo was Grandma Mazur's maiden name.
Every hint of joking fell out of her voice, and she sounded completely serious when she said, "What's going on?"
"I need a place to be with one of the guys from RangeMan. He's hurt, and I need to take care of him," I told her, figuring the truth, or a version of it, was always a good place to start.
"Why not go to the building that Ranger owns and do it there?" she asked. She might be over the top, but my grandmother was still a smart woman.
"We can't go there, and I can't tell you why." I knew the details were classified, and since Grandma had never been know for keeping a secret, I couldn't even give her a hint.
There was silence long enough that I had to pull the phone away from my ear to be sure it hadn't dropped the call. "Grandma?" I prompted.
"Do you like this guy you're going to be playing nurse with?" she asked.
"Yes," I said with complete certainty. I didn't need to tell her that I really didn't know him that well, but since he was from RangeMan, by default I liked him, because I knew he was a good guy.
"Of course you can use the house. They would love the idea of watching over you when you needed it, anyway," she conceded before I could begin to figure out how I was going to explain to the guys that she said no. "Once you settle in, let me know if you notice anything out of the ordinary."
"What do you mean, out of the ordinary?" I wondered, feeling a little uncertain.
"It might be nothing, so don't you worry," she said, her voice beginning to take on its lighter tone instead of the more somber one it had carried. "But call me if you need to talk about anything while you're there. I'll keep it a secret from your mother until you're ready to tell her about you and this fella."
"There's nothing to tell about me and any fella," I replied, hoping she wasn't thinking this was me looking for a place to hide out and have sex with one of the Merry Men.
"Of course there isn't," she replied. Then she added the word, "…yet," taking away my comfort and hanging up before I could argue the point.
I handed the phone back up to the front and sat back hard against my seat. I was traveling to New York City to pretend to be married to a man who was seriously injured and in grave danger. Then I was going to carry him back to a house built by my gypsy great-grandparents, where my crazy grandmother seemed to think strange things were going to happen. Something told me when all this was over, I was going to miss Rex twice as much. He might not have seemed like much, but I could really use a good listening ear right now to keep everything straight.