When I think of it now, and I do - every day, what I remember most is the absolute silence.

We stood motionless, not speaking or even thinking. As if by not making any move at all we could stop the terrible reality rushing toward us with the implacable indifference of a tidal wave.

The air around us was thick with the residual smoke of the shot; the stench of gunpowder suffocating.

The silence stretched on for an eternity, until I started to hear a dull thumping noise. I looked down at my chest when I realized it was my heart thundering beneath my ribs.

I wondered if they could hear it too.

Lester was the first to speak. His voice was surprisingly calm; his words simple and direct. It was then that the severity of the situation hit me with the force of a speeding train.

"What do we do with the body?"

We had killed someone.

I had killed someone.

The steel of the revolver was suddenly substantial weight in my hand. I loosened the painful grip I had on the handle and it fell to the ground with a resounding clatter.

They all flinched at the sound and their eyes were instinctually drawn to the silver metal. It was bright against the dull, dirty tiles of the kitchen floor.

I leaned hard against the counter, desperately needing the support my now wobbly legs failed to give.

Breathing was no longer a normal bodily function for me. Each gasp for air had to be forced into my rapidly collapsing lungs. My heart felt as if it had stalled and now raced to catch up with the frenzied blood flow through my veins.

I tried to close my eyes, to block out the vision of the crumpled body before me, but my brain had ceased to function and refused to respond.

I stood transfixed, unable to pull away from the supporting counter.

A strong hand came down on my shoulder in attempted comfort.

"You didn't have a choice. We didn't have a choice."

Tank. He spoke in earnest; his eyes held a disturbing intensity. He was right, wasn't he? I opened my mouth to respond, but my vocal chords were as helpless as my legs.

"We can't bury it." This from Bobby. "There are always eyes out there – too risky."

It felt odd to me that none of us could say his name. As if in death, he ceased to be a person and became a thing. A thing to dispose of - to discard like so much garbage.

"The body isn't the only thing we have to worry about. There's a whole trail to cover."

Ranger. His arm seemed to move in slow motion as I watched him wipe a splattering of blood from his cheek with the sleeve of his shirt. He'd been the closest when the gun went off, spraying him with the dark crimson liquid.

I thought of the weeks we'd spent formulating the plan. The late nights, the secret meetings. It was mapped out perfectly, foolproof.

And then it all went to hell in a bloody mass on his kitchen floor.

Nothing happened in the way we expected, the way we planned.

In the end it came down to instinct. Mine was quicker and more deadly.

Now, we needed a new plan.

Connie's dark brown eyes, expanded with tears, met mine across the circle that had subconsciously formed around the body. So many different emotions swam in them it made me dizzy, but the longer I looked the more one shone through.

Relief.

Is that what I should have felt? Relieved that the threat to our lives was now a dead body on the floor?

What I did feel was scared. Scared of what I was apparently capable, of whom I might become.

"We need to take care of this first." Connie's tone wavered, choked with emotion.

All eyes were again on the body.

Blood seeped from underneath, across the tile, soaking into the old, disintegrating grout.

"We need a cleaner," Ranger said, his pointed look directed at Connie.

We all knew of her connections to the mob and we all knew what the cleaner would do. I felt Hal's hand rest on my arm but I couldn't tear my eyes from her back as she retreated to the living room to make the call.

"It has to where there will be no witnesses." Bobby. His eyes jumped between the body and the gun lying at my feet.

"Rangeman building." Lester's suggestion.

Ranger shook his head. "We can't risk someone seeing us carrying it out."

Silence enveloped the room again. I could only hear the erratic beat of my heart.

"The basement."

I blurted the words, my first since pulling the trigger. It sounded ragged and hoarse - as if days had passed since I'd last used my voice.

They all looked at me as if at any moment I was going to explode, like the bullet from the barrel of the gun.

I swallowed hard around the lump in my throat and braced my palms on the counter top. "It's empty. No windows or-or anything."

It was just a giant hole in the ground; there would be no chance of anyone seeing what I knew was going to happen.

Ranger nodded. "Where?"

I gestured with my head, unable to move my hands. "Over there. The door next to the pantry."

Ranger glanced quickly at the door and then across the circle to Tank.

They communicated silently, each knowing without having to speak what they needed to do. It was something I'd witnessed a thousand times and I wondered again if they really could talk telepathically.

They bent in unison and lifted the body, hefting it easily off the floor.

Lester moved methodically to the door. He held it open as they passed through.

The last thing I saw was a dangling arm, a sleeve encrusted with blood.

"The weapon, it has to go too." Lula's voice was steely, hardly recognizable. I actually turned to look at her expecting to see a stranger in her place.

Her eyes looked ancient in her young face, as if she'd lived a lifetime in the intervening ten minutes. There was hardness to her now that I couldn't quite place. She was a far cry from the happy, somewhat bumbling file clerk that forced her way into the office – and into our hearts.

I looked from her to Lester and Hal. They had it too and I suddenly realized that if I looked in the mirror, I see it in myself.

We were different now. Aged by unimaginable secrets. Hardened by the most shocking of betrayals.

Hal bent down and retrieved my .38 revolver from the floor. "I'll take care of it."

Lula moved to my side and wrapped her arm around my shoulders. "You saved us tonight, Steph." She spoke softly, carefully. "All of us."

At what cost? I wanted to ask her. What price is this newest secret we have to bear going to cost? Because I don't have much left to give.

"I know you loved him," Lula said quietly.

The tears came abruptly. One second my eyes were dry; the next, tears were overflowing my eyelids and streaming down my cheeks.

"Yes, and it was still my finger that pulled the trigger," I responded through my tears.

"He would have killed us. Even you," Lula continued in the vain attempt to justify what I'd done.

I knew that. I could feel it in every cell in my body. He would have destroyed every one of us without a second thought. No remorse.

I couldn't let that happen.

"It's okay that it hurts," Lula assured me.

And that's what I'd been struggling with since we'd discovered that he'd had his own agenda all along. It hurt that he was betraying us - that he meant for all of us to die in the end.

But mostly it hurt because even knowing all those things, I still loved him.

I collapsed at her words, my legs finally giving out completely. Lula caught me in her arms with a strength I didn't know she had and hauled me back up.

I clung to her like the lifeline that she'd become.

The door to the basement opened and Ranger and Tank filed back into the kitchen

"It's ready." Tank's comment was directed at Connie who had just come back into the room.

Everyone crowded around Lula and me, leaning on one another. The room grew quiet again as we waited.

"We could stage a home invasion," Hal suggested after several long moments of silence.

Tank shook his head. "A smart enough cop would see right through that."

"A kidnapping?" Bobby tried.

Ranger shot that down as well. "It would be suspicious when no ransom demands start."

Lester brought reality clearly into focus again. "So we wait for the cleaner – It will be like he vanished off the face of the earth. How long before someone reports him missing? The cops will be all over anyone he's ever been seen with. That won't be good for anyone in this room."

We all knew the truth of that statement, but there were no comments until the idea that had been slowly trickling into my brain pooled into one coherent thought.

"I have a plan," I stated and seven sets of eyes met mine. I focused on Ranger's because I knew he would be the last one to agree. "You won't like it because it will have to look very real."

It took him less than a minute to read my mind. "No."

"It's the best option we have."

"Stephanie."

My full name from him was never a good thing and everyone heard the warning in his tone - their eyes bounced back and forth between us.

"It's the only way."

Those were my last words before the cleaner arrived.

##############

It was ludicrous, really. Ranger argued against it vehemently, but in the end no one could come up with anything better that didn't put all of us under suspicion.

Lester ended up being the one to get the job done. When he found out one of my ribs was cracked, he spent the better part of a week inside a bottle of vodka. All my injuries have healed and there was no permanent damage done, but he still can't bear to look at me.

Sometimes, I can't bear to look at myself.

Also can't bear it being quiet. I have to have some sort of noise or sounds going on around me at all times. I sleep with music or the TV on because silence is now my undoing. Ranger was the one to figure that out shortly after the first time I broke down. It wasn't pretty. Bobby had to sedate me.

Ranger spends every night with me. I can't sleep if he's not next to me. He keeps the demons away. I know it's not a healthy dependence but I don't know how to fix it – or even if I can.

I was waiting for him now with drone of the TV on in the background as I sat folding a basket of laundry. Something the news anchor said garnered my full attention. I abandoned the clothes and turned the volume up with the remote.

"Local Trenton police detective Joseph Morelli was officially declared missing today. Detective Morelli was in the news two months ago when a warrant for his arrest was issued for domestic violence. The police suspected he was in hiding after savagely beating his girlfriend but after two months of zero contact with anyone in his family, his Mother filed a missing persons report…"

Ranger entered my apartment during the broadcast and slid next to me on to couch. His arm fell across my shoulder and he pulled me to his side. We watched the rest of the announcement together – there was mention of anyone having any information or any knowledge of Joe's whereabouts to contact the Trenton police department. Ranger eventually turned off the TV and immediately clicked on the radio.

"I talked to Garza," Ranger said. "No one is really putting in much effort in the search and he doesn't think they will. You might be called in for questioning again, but he doesn't even think that's likely."

I nodded and tilted my head up to receive his comforting kiss. "You okay, Babe?" he asked and brushed a loose strand of hair off my face.

"Sure," I said and tried my best to smile.

Deep down we both knew it was a lie.

I hope eventually when he asks me that I will be okay but for now I just try to pretend that nothing has changed, that I am still the same person I have always been.

But I am not. Everything is different.

I am different.

And when I close my eyes, the gun is there in my hand, the body is there on the floor and there is absolute silence.