Hey, I'm back! I just can't stay away. As always, I'm not Janet and I only own my OCs. Thanks!
Trenton, New Jersey is my hometown. It isn't pretty, it doesn't smell good and it isn't for the tourists but I can't seem to get away. I've left it a few times, but Trenton has always pulled me back. It has that effect on people. I grew up in Chambersburg, commonly known as the 'burg, which is in the East Ward of the city. Trenton is split up into four sections creatively named for their geography. North, East, South and West. The East Ward is the smallest section and the West Ward has the new neighborhoods and the 'burbs. The South Ward is the most culturally diverse, mostly made up of Latinos, Italians and blacks. Then, there's the North Ward. As a kid, I wasn't allowed in the North side.
The North Ward is the oldest part of town and it used to be nice. It was the hub of the middle class and the home to the most beautiful, historic buildings. It was a magnet for tourists. Then the riots happened in 1968. In the days after Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated, the North side was torn apart by the race riots. Over 200 buildings were fire bombed and vandalized. Hundreds of people were arrested and Trenton was never the same. The North Ward was dead.
It became the most crime ridden part of the city. The area that used to house the middle class became slums and a good share of Trenton's oldest buildings were torn down. It's the center of urban decay. Pushers and prostitutes on every other corner and squatters inhabiting the deserted buildings. This is Andy's neighborhood. Andrew Carson is one of my best friends and a street lawyer. A street lawyer's job is help the helpless. He is an advocate for the homeless, the poor and the abused. For nearly a year, he has worked for the streets.
Within that year, he has convinced the mayor and the City Board to build shelters, soup kitchens and youth centers all over Trenton. He has reorganized the low income housing to make it more available to the people that need it the most and made the city enforce code to protect against the slum lords. He's an optimist, but he's an optimist that gets shit done. In a nutshell, he would be put up for early sainthood if he was a Catholic.
He told me when this idea to become the city's guardian angel sparked in his brain that he wanted to help people before they get to my level. I am a bounty hunter. It goes by several different names, but it has the same meaning it did back in the old west. I bring bond skippers back to justice. Bring 'um in dead or alive. However, they usually frown on the dead ones. Too much paperwork.
As far as bounty hunters go, I'm kind of in the middle. I have good instincts and like I said, this is my town. I know it well. I know the people and I know the terrain. This kind of balances out the insane situations that I get myself into. Its not my fault! Really. See, I lose a car every few months, but I always get my man. Fair trade, right? Yeah, Ranger shakes his head at that, too.
Ranger's mother named him Ricardo Carlos Manoso. He is about as street as they get and he probably knows Trenton better than I do, just different parts if you get my drift. I figure if I can shock an ex Ranger, then my karma must be bad. Ranger is my roommate, in a way. We coinhabit my apartment, we eat together, we share my bed and sometimes we do some very unroommate-like things. It's a good relationship, even if my mother constantly tells me that we are living in sin and that the only way to know if he loves me is to force him down the aisle.
I disagree. We have both been married before and my marriage ended about ten minutes after I found my then husband on the dining room table with the neighborhood skank. I affectionately call him the Dick.
Ranger once told me on a stakeout that he got his girlfriend pregnant on leave. He did the right thing, married her to give the baby his name then he cut her loose so they could live their own lives. He supports them and his ex-wife is happily married.
He has been there for me since the beginning. I needed someone to show me the ropes and he stepped in and after trying to put some sense in my curly head, he became my mentor. His number is one on my speed dial. And right now, he is proving what a good mentor he is. We have been sitting in this abandoned house for three hours watching for my skip. It's March and neither of us thought it would take this long.
Ranger was leaning against a wall, crouched on one leg with the other one stretched out in front watching out the window. I was sitting on the other side of the window, shivering my butt off. Like I said, he's a Ranger. I used to buy and sell underwear for a company. We all have our uses.
We had been silent for half an hour when my cell started buzzing in my pocket. Ranger raised an eyebrow and never turned his sight from the window. I dug into my coat quickly.
"Yo." I tried to keep me voice down.
"Hey, Steph." Andy mimicked me with his voice low.
"What's up?"
"I hate to break up your stake out party, but I need to talk to you guys about something."
"How did you know I was on a stake out?"
"Can't keep anything from the homeless, sweetie. You're on their turf."
"Right, but how did you know?"
"One of my clients was complaining about two people in black in his house. I figured it was you guys."
"Good watchmen."
"You don't know the half of it. I'll buy you dinner so you can defrost."
"Sounds better than this. I don't think my guy is going to show anyway."
"The usual?"
"I'm feeling Pino's."
"Meet you there." We hung up and I told Ranger that we were packing it up. He nodded.
"If Andy knows then the skip does too."
* * * * * * * *
Andy was sitting in the back booth when we walked in. I almost laughed when I saw that he wasn't sitting in the side against the wall. He knows Ranger pretty well. We slid in across from him and I scanned the room. Joe Morelli and Mia Brookline were sitting at a table surrounded by fellow cops. Joe raised his beer to me and I nodded back. I've known Joe Morelli most of my life. We dated for a while and we are still good friends. Now, he's engaged to Mia. She was my best friend briefly when I was a kid. I had assumed she was dead after she left town with her abusive family and I didn't hear from her again. She came back into my life about the same time Andy did to try to save my life. She does that a lot, it's just how she is. Annoying, yes, but I still love her.
"I need your help." Andy pulled me back. He was looking at both of us.
"What's up?" I asked.
"I have had several clients go missing lately. At first, I just shrugged it off. These people don't stay in one place too long and I thought they had just moved on."
"But?" Ranger helped Andy along.
"But I think eleven people is too many."
