This is a one shot that takes place and builds upon Envious 28 (also posted on this site). It will not make sense unless you have read Envious 28 first. Like my other stories, although the work is original it uses JE's characters. No money has been exchanged in writing this, and any similarity between real people and/or real events is entirely coincidental.

Sarah

I could see that Stephanie had questions, and to tell the truth, so did I. Morelli had asked me to run a couple of names through the search engines to come up with something that he could hang a couple of people on, but he had said that Stephanie should be kept far, far away from the investigation. It was intriguing. She pouted a bit, but she knew that Morelli wouldn't involve her, no matter how much she begged. I wouldn't either. I had given my word to Joe.

I also knew that this was in exchange for the information I had given him concerning Dickie Orr, Stephanie's ex-husband. When I found out that he had hit her, I had vowed to get even. I couldn't go and beat him up like I had wanted to, but I could find something in his past that would make him uncomfortable. And I did. But I wasn't the police and I didn't have the jurisdiction to arrest him. So I asked for a favor from Morelli. At the time I had told him that I owed him one. I just didn't expect him to call in the favor so quickly.

After she left, I checked my email. Sure enough, Morelli had sent over two names. Luigi Vistonni and Lorenzo Vistonni.

The current local chapter was largely made up of old Italian men who dreamed of their glory days. While they were still active, they weren't as violent as they used to be. Terry, a woman that Joe was working with, was a member of that branch of the mob. She said that there were two brothers in a newer branch of the mob. The two brothers, Luigi and Lorenzo, were the enforcers in the new branch, and Morelli said that, although he knew that they were involved in several murders, he didn't have any official evidence that he could use in court – but people in the old branch of the mob were dying quickly and Terry said that Luigi and Lorenzo were involved. She didn't have proof, however. Morelli wanted my help in finding some evidence that he'd be able to hang an arrest on.

I could understand why Stephanie wasn't to be involved in this investigation. It had been my experience that she was often targeted as the weak link in the past, just because she was female. Little did they know what she could do. What she lacked in strength she had in intelligence. However, although she'd had several run-ins with the local mob where she'd come out ahead in the past, it didn't mean that I wanted to expose her to more in the future.

I ran the information on the two brothers. Like many members of the mob, their histories were clean. There was little that they could be arrested on. An unpaid parking ticket for Luigi. Hiring a prostitute's services for Lorenzo. On paper, they were stand-up, honorable guys.

I had to be missing something. I delved further and wished that I could involve Stephanie. In a short period of time, she had become the research guru. She could find out things in her research that most people would miss. Give her a task and she was like a dog with a bone. She didn't give up until she had uncovered absolutely everything that was there to uncover. I was very glad that she had accepted the job as the researcher for Rangeman. She was the best researcher we had ever had on staff.

I looked through the reports again. Both Luigi and Lorenzo worked for Waston Enterprises. When I ran their information, I found that Luigi and Lorenzo were both principals in the business. Further research in the company showed that they owned a garbage and recycling company. I would assume that the intent was to launder the money since there seemed to be a lot of money going into the business and going out again. The money coming in was from private businesses who had hired their services. The money going out was for trucks and maintenance and fuel and staff.

I looked further into the financials of the company. The business had a habit of buying a large amount of lye per year. Since lye isn't something that is used frequently – or ever – in the provision of waste management services, its purchase was curious. And since lye was used to dissolve bodies, it made me even more curious. Unfortunately, it was all circumstantial evidence.

I sat back. Instinct said that Luigi and Lorenzo were bad news, and I could see why Morelli wanted Stephanie far away from the case. Morelli might not have known everything about the two brothers, but his instincts were good and he was equally as protective of Stephanie as I was.

It was almost time to go to bed, and I still had to send the reports to Morelli. Something was eluding me. We had circumstantial evidence, and it wasn't enough to make murder charges stick. There had to be something else. It was very rare that there was nothing to hang an arrest on.

I sighed and decided to let the eureka moment happen. I wrote up a quick report and sent it through to Morelli. Just as I finished the report and emailing it to Joe, Steph walked into my office. I looked up quickly, glad that I had been able to get the report sent before she got there, and noticed that Steph looked stressed. I was about to ask her why when I realized that she was on speakerphone. I listened and heard that Kanye was offering to exchange Mary Lou for Steph, and I knew by looking at her face that she'd decided to do so. Although I didn't like it, I could admire it. That courage was one of the things I loved about her.

I texted Morelli that I would call him, that I needed him to pick up immediately, and I needed him not to say anything. When I got an immediate response saying that he would, I called and, when the call went through, I put it on speakerphone so that Joe could hear the conversation Stephanie was having with Kanye. When she had finished and hung up, I could hear Morelli get his keys and his wallet, lock the door and leave his house for the precinct. We quickly made plans to talk in another half hour. When I disconnected, I texted my emergency response team to mobilize them quickly. I gave them fifteen minutes to meet me in the equipment room. We had trained for situations like this, but my team hadn't had the need to respond to such a situation in quite some time. The last time, in fact, had involved Stephanie as well. As did, come to think of it, the previous two times before that.

I lent Stephanie some of my clothes to protect her. The fact that Morelli would blow a gasket when he saw them on her would be a nice side benefit. We may be working together and even, you could almost say, are friends. I had a lot of respect for the man. He was a good cop. And having been on the side of seeing the woman you love with another person for a very long time, I knew how uncomfortable a place it really was. I still felt a particular thrill when something happened that allowed me to shout out that Stephanie was mine. I probably always would. I don't think I would ever take her for granted. Wearing my clothes was such an innocuous little thing, but the fact that she wanted to wear my clothes was as reassuring to me as it was to her to wear them.

When we'd outfitted her and the team had all been briefed and assigned their roles, I knew that we were set. I drove out to meet Morelli and handed over the earpieces for his staff. While I'd been able to mobilize nine staff to help Stephanie, Morelli had only been able to pull three. I was glad that my team was there to assist in the takedown. I trusted my team and knew that they were good. I didn't have the same sort of trust in the TPD. And while I supported Stephanie going in and doing her thing, and while I thought it would be good for her own mental health to do something associated with the takedown of the gang, I didn't want her going in without a significant team backing her up. There were degrees of stupid. Going in with a team behind you was a controlled stupid, but going in without proper backup was one of the most stupid things I could think of.

I drove over to Stark and parked a block down the street. I could see Stephanie's car, could see the building, and I could see her walk in front of a homey to the bombed-out shelter that Kanye had chosen to live in. I didn't know how it had come to look like it should be condemned and thought that it probably was the attempts to create some hash oil that had caused the place to explode.

I waited and could hear Stephanie talk to Kanye and the men. She was doing a good job keeping Kanye unsure of what was going on, and I knew that this would be important for her to do stop feeling powerless. Stephanie, for all her history, wasn't a victim. She was letting her real personality shine in there, and I couldn't be more proud.

Then she called a cock a Mr. Snuffleupagus. I knew I wouldn't live that one down. The men would be teasing me about that for the rest of our lives. I shook my head as Morelli groaned. I guess he wouldn't live it down either. As she went on talking, I heard her calling Kanye Mr. Dinkie Pinkie, and suddenly I didn't mind Mr. Snuffleupagus nearly as much. At least Mr. Snuffleupagus was large, and he didn't sleep around. He was only seen by Big Bird.

She was amazing. She was able to get all the people with guns, except Kanye, out of the room. She was able to open the window so that Hal and Hector wouldn't have to slow down their entry by breaking in. She was well on the way to disarming Kanye when a shot went off and I couldn't hear Stephanie any longer.

I jerked my car on and went roaring up to the building, and parked haphazardly on the sidewalk behind Morelli. We both looked at each other, white-faced, and went racing up into the room as Hal was giving us a situation report. Stephanie had been shot point blank in the chest, had smacked her head on the ground as she fell, and had passed out. Mary Lou was hysterical, but Hector had Kanye cuffed. The rest of the gangbangers had been taken away earlier when Steph got them out of the room. Kanye was crying out for his guys to come back in and kill Hal and Hector. He didn't know that they were no longer there. My team was quiet and good. The gangbangers didn't have a clue what had hit them. I let Morelli in first. Kanye had no pants on, and Morelli exchanged Hector's cuffs with his. I could tell that Morelli was angry by the fact that he didn't respect Kanye's dignity by letting him cover up, and he forced Kanye to be arrested naked. I was equally angry and concurred with what he was doing. Morelli passed me as I knelt down on the floor and assessed Steph, and said, "take care of her." And then he marched Kanye out of the room, as he did so 'accidentally' pushing him into the wall and making him stumble. And as I heard him walk Kanye down the stairs, I could hear Morelli say, "Stephanie is right. You do have a Dinkie Pinkie."

I smiled and, as I assessed Stephanie, I announced my findings to the team. I knew that everyone would want to know the status of Steph's condition. I reported that she was bruised and might have a broken rib, and she was winded from the fall. I checked her eyes. She was also concussed. It would be a bitch keeping her still, but that's okay. She was alive, and I could handle a little attitude while she was recovering.

I called her name and brushed my thumb over her cheekbone, and moments later she fluttered her eyes open. "Ow", she said. "Get me up."

I smiled. The attitude was starting, and that was good. It meant that she wasn't seriously hurt. It didn't mean that I'd let her up before she was checked out by a paramedic, but I was glad to hear the attitude. "No", I said.

"Ranger! Help me up!"

I smiled. "No." I looked at her frustrated face. "You know what this means now, don't you?" I said. Stephanie looked confused. "You won't be able to carry Rex's cage for a while with your ribs." She looked disgruntled, so I added the kicker. "And I refuse to move him out of my apartment."

She shook her head and laughed.

When we got her up and down to the car – she refused to be carried, although Hal carried Mary Lou after the first few steps and Mary Lou looked thrilled – she looked at me. "I was wondering", she said, "did you get that research for Morelli done this evening like you had wanted to?"

I smiled. I knew she wouldn't forget about it, as I'm sure that Morelli knew she wouldn't forget about it. Just like I liked sticking it to him by letting her wear my clothes, he liked making my life more difficult by dropping breadcrumbs for Stephanie to find and to drive her nuts as she tried to figure out what was going on – and to drive me nuts while she was figuring it out. I may like him as a person, I may think he is a good cop, but there is a quiet competitiveness associated with Stephanie between us. Morelli is a good man and an honorable man, but he's a little too hot-headed for him to become one of my good friends.

For some reason, that eureka moment happened then. I had read in the paper about a year before that there were vast amounts of lye found in a river not that far from the waste management company that Luigi and Lorenzo owned. I also remembered that, when I had been reviewing their tax forms, there hadn't been any weigh scale receipts for loads of garbage going to the dumps. Money laundering and body destruction?

It was something, and I knew that I was on the right track.

When we got home – Steph had a concussion and severe bruising – I gave her a painkiller and put her to bed. When I was assured that she was asleep, I went into my office and started researching weigh scale tickets. There weren't any associated with Luigi's and Lorenzo's company anywhere. I then researched lye in the rivers. I wasn't an environmentalist with the EPA, but to me there seemed like a good chance that the lye was coming from their waste management facility.

I sent the information to Morelli and wished him luck. It was another avenue to explore, and I could only hope that something came of it. I turned off the computer and stretched. It was almost time to get up for the day. I had been up for almost twenty-four hours, some of them anxiety-ridden, and I was beyond tired. I sent a message to Tank telling him that I would be in late, finished up in the washroom, climbed into bed, carefully cuddled into Steph and, as I said a grateful prayer thanking whomever was responsible for her being okay, I fell asleep.