A/N: This story begins a few weeks after the end of Explosive Eighteen. This story will be from Ranger's POV unless stated otherwise.

October 8th-11:58 pm—Stephanie's POV

I've always considered the ostrich my spirit animal because when it's scared, it sticks its head in the ground and waits for the danger to pass.

After watching a documentary on Animal Planet, I was disappointed to learn that while ostriches do try to avoid danger, they don't really bury their heads in the ground for long periods of time. They either lay completely flat on the ground, or run away. When ostriches are seen with their heads in a hole, it's actually because they are rotating the eggs in their underground nests. Go figure—my spirit animal is being maternal, not a complete idiot.

I'd been trying to bury my head in the ground over what had happened in Hawaii for over a month. Morelli and I had been distant. Ranger and I had been distant. I had been doing my bounty hunter thing, trying to forget about what had happened. Not just the fight, but what had happened during those ten days that I had been there alone with Ranger. He had come there for work, but it had felt like anything but work. It had been ten days of sex, flirting, and relaxation. It had felt like a honeymoon for the fake marriage we'd made. And it had changed everything.

Eventually, I learned that I couldn't continue living in denial for much longer. I was either going to have to face the situation in front of me, or run. The thought of facing it sent me into multiple anxiety attacks, so I opted to run. The problem was running from Ranger. He had access to so much technology and information that he would try to find me and drag the truth out of me. And that wasn't an option, especially when I didn't know the whole truth myself.

It had taken two weeks of preparation to get myself ready to leave, and I had managed it without raising any suspicions. I'd seen my family and friends during that time and no one had questioned me or given me a reason to think they knew something was up. I didn't like what I was doing—I knew it was going to hurt people, but I didn't see any other way of doing it. I'd someday make my apologies and hope that they could understand my reasons, but for now I just wanted my space. I needed it. I couldn't think with everyone so close to me.

I looked around the apartment to be sure I hadn't left anything behind except the keys to the apartment, the tracking devices from Ranger, and the letter for whichever guy came looking for me first. I knew he'd tell the other one in an effort to find me, or at least to figure out why I'd left. I got in my car and pulled away from the apartment building, feeling a little emotional knowing that I wouldn't be back there again. Someone else would move into my apartment with its crappy bathroom and penchant for burglaries and firebombs. Shithole it might be, but it had been my shithole.

I had one more stop to make on my way out of town: my parents' house. It was just after midnight as I quietly slipped inside with Rex's cage and the letter I was leaving behind. I placed the cage on the kitchen counter and propped the letter up in front of it. I reached inside the cage and gave Rex a small rub.

"I'm sorry I can't take you, buddy," I said, trying not to break down. "Hopefully I'll see you again. I don't know if you'll stay here or if Valerie will let you come live with her, but if you do, don't bite the little girls, okay? They just want to have fun with you."

I put the lid back on the hamster cage and left the house as quietly as I had entered. The last thing to ditch was my cell phone. I'd spent too much money on the phone to justify throwing it away, so I headed back to my storage unit. It was filled to bursting and I prayed that things didn't fly out of it like a cartoon as I opened the door. Thankfully, nothing fell out and crushed me. I turned off my cell phone and put it on top of a box before pulling the door shut on my life in Trenton.

October 9th—5 a.m.—Ranger's POV

I woke up on Thursday morning feeling like something was off. I couldn't put my finger on it, but something wasn't right in my world.

I showered and dressed before heading down to my office on the fifth floor. Reports from the night shift were on my desk and I immediately scanned them. Only eight alarms had gone off overnight. Two had been clients who had recently changed their passcodes and forgotten them, one had been a wiring problem, and one had been a teenager sneaking back into the house after a night on the town. The others had been attempted break-ins that were thwarted immediately or the would-be burglars had fled as soon as the alarm had gone off. Nothing out of the ordinary had happened since I'd left the control room the night before. I checked my cell phone and office phone. No messages or missed calls on either. I checked my email. Three emails regarding new contracts and several regarding company business, but nothing emergent or that threatened the integrity of the company. I checked on Stephanie's trackers, all of which were at her apartment. I went to check on her cell phone, but realized the GPS wasn't responding. That meant her phone was destroyed, dead, or shut off. I tried calling it, just in case it was a glitch, but it went straight to voicemail. Feeling uneasy, I went down to my car and drove to her apartment.

The first thing I noticed was that her latest car wasn't in the lot, even though the tracker had said otherwise. Not unusual, as she often spent the night with Morelli, but I'd noticed she hadn't spent the night at his house since returning home from Hawaii. Stephanie was rarely out of bed before seven, so I doubted she was out running an errand. Things had been strained between all of us since the fight. I knew Stephanie was confused about what she felt for Morelli and me, and neither of us helped the situation. Morelli's commitment to Stephanie had the strength of dental floss while the ties that bound me to her were invisible. What that implied about their strength could be left up to interpretation. I took the stairs up to the second floor and let myself into her apartment with the key I'd had made after we'd put in her latest set of locks. Stephanie still believed that I used lock-picking tools to get into her apartment, and I let her continue to think so for sheer enjoyment. Her naiveté often brightened my day.

I stood in shock for a few moments while I stared around the living room. I pulled my gun out of the holster and began checking the apartment room by room. Everything was gone. Other than the appliances, the only things in the apartment were lying on the kitchen counter. I found three small trackers that I'd placed in her bags at various points along with the tracker that had been attached to her car. There were keys to the apartment laying on the counter as well, along with an envelope. There was no name on the envelope, but I quickly opened it and read the letter inside.

I'm fine—I'm not in danger, so don't think I've been forced out of here against my will. I chose to leave because I can't stay here and figure things out. I need space to think without people pressuring me. Things have been really confusing for the past four years and they've only gotten more confusing in the past several weeks. Please don't try to find me. I really need to be alone for now. I don't know when I'll be back, but I do think I'll come back someday. I'm sorry to leave things this way, but I knew if I tried to tell you in person, you'd stop me . I want to know that I love you, but I'll understand if you move on with your life.

Stephanie

She'd written the letter knowing that either Morelli or I would find it, so she'd left it vague enough for it to apply to either of us. I read the letter three times while I tried to figure out what I was going to do. I knew I wouldn't be able to rest until I at least knew where she was and that she was safe. I pulled out my cell phone to call Tank, but froze when I heard the apartment door open and shut.

"Steph?"

It was Morelli, who looked like he had thrown on whatever clothes had been nearby. He paused when he found me leaning against the counter, still holding the letter.

"What the hell's going on?" he asked. "Her mother just called me to say Stephanie left Rex and a note at their house, saying that she's leaving town and doesn't know when she's coming back."

"She left one here too," I said, handing him the letter. He scanned it quickly and looked confused.

"What's she talking about? What does she need to figure out?"

Morelli wasn't stupid, so I simply stared at him. I could see a vein start to throb in his forehead, which told me that realization was kicking in. "Who was the letter addressed to?"

"No one specific."

I saw his nostrils flare and he balled one of his hands into a fist while he shook his head. "If her parents found the note this morning, that means she probably left sometime late last night or early this morning," I said, trying to bring him back to the important issue. "She could be a few hundred miles away by now."

Morelli took a minute to compose himself before turning back to face me. "I can't file a missing persons report because she informed people that she was leaving town and there are no signs of distress. I can call in some favors with other places to put a look out on her car, though I don't even know where to start at this point. You'd have better luck doing whatever it is that you do to find people."

"I'll let you know what I find out."

We left the apartment at the same time and walked down to our cars in silence. I had just reached my Turbo when Morelli spoke.

"What really happened between you two in Hawaii?"

I paused in the process of reaching for the door handle and opted to rest my arms on top of the car instead. This wasn't likely to be a pleasant conversation.

"What did she tell you?"

Morelli shook his head. "I want your version."

Should I tell him the truth or lie? I'd suspected Stephanie hadn't told him everything that had happened between us in Hawaii, but considering she had run off and didn't tell anyone where she was going, I didn't figure things could get much worse with the truth. If he pushed for it.

"She called me when she saw the Rug's wife in Hawaii. She couldn't get access to the resort where they were staying, so I flew out and we went in as a married couple to get close to them. We didn't manage to find out where they were staying at the resort and they managed to check out without us knowing. Then you showed up and you know the rest of what happened."

"Did you sleep with her?" Morelli asked impatiently.

"Yes."

"How many times?"

"I didn't keep a tally."

Morelli threw up his hands in frustration. "Why am I even bothering to look for her when she's sleeping with you?"

"My understanding of your relationship is that you both are open to see other people," I reminded him. "I believe I've seen you out with that redheaded nurse from St. Francis on more than one occasion, so I'm not sure what the problem is."

"The problem is you—she can date anyone else that she wants. I just don't want her dating you," he replied as he began to pace agitatedly.

"Are you worried that I'll drag her into something dangerous or illegal?" I asked. "I do my best to keep her out of both types of situations, but she manages to find them all on her own."

"I don't want her seeing you because she's in love with you," Morelli growled. "And you're in love with her, and the only reason she has stayed with me is because you won't commit to an actual relationship with her. And I'm afraid one day that you might change your mind and then I'll lose her."

"I told you what your options were in Hawaii," I replied, remembering the conversation we'd had while waiting outside the hospital for taxis to take us back to the resort.

"I'm not going to kill you, mostly because I don't think I could," he replied. "And I'm not going to marry her while she's still waiting around on you. It's looking like I may not have to worry about either option now. She left town without a word about where she's going, when she'll be back, or why exactly she left."

"We've both spent the past four years confusing the hell out of her, and the fight in Hawaii must have been the final blow," I said.

Morelli continued to pace for a few minutes, muttering under his breath. He knew he was partially to blame for her leaving, though I felt like more of the responsibility laid with me. Our time together in Hawaii had been more than just undercover work and sex. There had been times when it had felt very real and had left me actually considering marriage. And the sex had been the best of my life. I'd laid awake afterwards and watched her sleep, wondering how I had managed to fall in love so deeply, despite my best efforts against it.

"I want to know that she's safe," Morelli said after a few minutes. "Let's each do what we can and compare notes later. I'll talk to her friends and go the legal routes. You do the rest."

Once back at Rangeman, I told Tank to meet me in my office. Even though he was my best friend, I'd never actually told him the details of my complicated relationship with Stephanie until I'd come back from Hawaii with a fracture in my hand and stitches under my eye. He hadn't seemed surprised by any of it, except for the fact that I had once encouraged Stephanie to go back to Morelli. He hadn't said much, but I'd known him long enough to know his expressions, and the one he'd worn during that conversation had said you're a fucking idiot.

"Stephanie's gone," I told him once he had shut the door. "She ditched her trackers and her cell phone is off. She packed up her apartment and left her hamster with her parents in the middle of the night. She left a note at her apartment saying that she needed space and doesn't know when she'll be back."

"You and Morelli finally scared her off," Tank replied, shaking his head. "I thought that might happen. Stupid sons of bitches."

I glared at him, daring him to comment further, but he wisely kept his mouth shut. "I want her found. Start checking traffic cameras and tolls. See how she got out of Trenton and follow her as far as you can. I'm going to start on her digital footprints."

I started out by checking her bank account. She'd had over $30,000 in the account two weeks earlier, but there were large payments to her credit card accounts and large withdrawals every day since. The account had been closed the day she left town. Based on the calculations, she had over $24,000 cash with her. You could go pretty far and be gone fairly long with that amount of money. She had paid off her credit cards and there hadn't been any activity on them since.

Next, I began running her name through passenger lists for planes, trains, and buses leaving from the tri-state area, but turned up empty. No surprise there. I spent the next hour combing through her email and cell phone usage, but again, nothing stood out. She had been careful when she'd planned this—having worked for me, she knew what I could dig up. And she didn't want to be tracked.

"I've got her on traffic camera crossing into Pennsylvania around twelve-thirty this morning," Tank said, handing me a print out of the camera. It was Stephanie's car as it approached the Route 1 Bridge into Morrisville. "But I lose her after that. I have a feeling she's avoiding major roads with traffic cameras."

"She doesn't want to be tracked," I said quietly. "She's carrying over $20,000 in cash, not using her credit cards, email, or phone to make any plans, and ditched every single tracker. She doesn't want me to find her and come for her."

"So what are you going to do?"

"I'm going to find her. Once I do, I'll decide then if I want to respect her space or not."

I sent Morelli a text message telling him to call me once he'd finished his work to compare notes. He called an hour later.

"I've talked to friends, family, and neighbors—no one knew Stephanie had any intentions to leave town," he said. "Connie and Lula said she'd been a little quiet and distracted, but they had chalked it up to stress after Hawaii. Her building super said he found a note this morning slipped under his door that said she would be vacating the apartment at the end of the month. No one saw or heard her moving furniture, but a guy on the first floor said they saw a moving company truck show up around eleven last night, but hadn't paid much attention to it. I called the moving company, who told me that Stephanie had paid extra for movers to come at night and that they moved her furniture and several boxes into a storage facility off of Broad Street. I went to the facility to see what was going on. I couldn't get into the storage unit without a warrant, but the guy working there told me she had paid for an entire year in cash. When he'd asked what she was doing for the next year, she told him she would be travelling."

Stephanie had worked hard to cover her tracks to avoid detection, to the point that she had packed up and moved in the dead of night like the Colts leaving Baltimore. I admired her determination to get out, but it scared me that she was willing to go to those lengths. She hadn't told her friends or family anything, which was another alarming sign. She'd said she wasn't in danger, but could she have been lying? Or worse, what if she was sick? If so, was she leaving to get treatment, or going off to die alone? The thought made me sick to my stomach.

I informed Morelli of what I had learned so far, but that I was planning to dig deeper. He told me he had some friends in nearby state patrols that he could contact. He was going to see if they keep a look out for Stephanie's car in Pennsylvania so that he we could try to keep track of where she was going. He would just ask for phone updates on location only, not that anyone approach her.

After I got off the phone with Morelli, I tasked Tank with searching medical records for any sign of Stephanie having had a recent hospital or doctor visit. The problem was that without insurance, it was going to be difficult to try to track her down. I knew the names of her general practitioner and gynecologist, but beyond that I had no other doctors to pursue. I told Tank to start with the doctors, then go to the hospitals and outpatient clinics. If she'd had any major tests or scans done, those would be the places she would have gone for them. I also told him to check the local pharmacies' records for prescriptions that had been filled. I went into meetings for the remainder of the afternoon and found it difficult to stay focused. There had been many times when I hadn't known where Stephanie was, but I'd also known what was going on in her life during those times and had known where to start looking for her. I had nothing to go on this time.

"She hasn't been to any of the hospitals or outpatients clinics or filled a prescription at any pharmacy in a thirty-mile radius, and the last time she was at either of her doctors was several months ago for routine physicals," Tank told me before he left the office at six that evening. "Anything else you want me to check on before I go?"

I shook my head. "No. We've managed a fairly extensive search in the past twelve hours. I have some favors I can call in to get her tagged in different areas, but I'll wait until tomorrow to set those up. She doesn't want to be found, and she's done a good job of hiding her tracks so far. But it's still early. She might eventually slip up somewhere."

I headed up to my apartment after Tank left and tried to eat the dinner that Ella had left for me. I was normally able to keep myself calm and steady when doing what I needed to do, but Stephanie's leaving had my stomach in knots. I gave up on my dinner and stretched out on my bedroom floor in an attempt to meditate and get a fresh perspective on a way to find Stephanie. The only thing I managed to do was think about the day I had arrived in Hawaii. She had picked me up at the airport and told me about the resort and the Ruguzzis. I had given her a gold wedding band, placed a matching one on my own hand, and promised her the wedding night of her dreams. She had laughed at the suggestion, but later that night had acknowledged that our fake wedding night had been much better than her actual wedding night. She and Dickie had gotten into an argument after their wedding and she'd made him sleep on the couch in their hotel room.

I headed down to the office the next morning and started making calls. I had several people who owed me favors. Some of them were high-ranking officials who could keep me out of jail or extricate me from a hostile country, but instead I was using these favors to find Stephanie. I was able to get a notification flag put on her with the IRS in case she was to get a job somewhere, her name was flagged with a phone-call only notice should she try to take a plane, train or bus, and her passport was going to be monitored in case she tried to leave the country by car. They were my only possibilities as I continued in vain to follow her path as she drove through Pennsylvania. If I couldn't find her, my only hope was that she stayed safe and that she'd get homesick quickly and come back.

But what was I going to do or say when I found her? She'd left because I confused her. I loved her, had crossed legal and moral lines to protect her, and had gotten her into bed every chance she gave me, but she had always hit the emotional wall that I hadn't been prepared to let down at this point in my life. I worked eighty to ninety hours every week, spent at least seven days of the month at other offices, and still struggled with some symptoms of PTSD. She knew about my hypervigilance in public, but that was the least of the problems. She'd never been there on the nights when I'd woken up screaming from my nightmares or when I'd been so paranoid that someone was after me that I hadn't been able to sleep for days on end. In the years since I had started considering the possibility of a deeper relationship with her, I'd worked on those things and they had gotten better. Our ten days in Hawaii had been eye-opening because I hadn't experienced any nightmares or paranoia episodes while there. I'd actually been able to sleep better than I had in years, even better than other times when she'd slept in the same bed with me. Any other time we had shared a bed, something bad had been happening and the stress of the situations had kept me restless and on edge.

There had been one point while we were in Hawaii where I had seriously considered asking her to marry me. We had gone on a scheduled couples' hike up a volcano. Stephanie had been breathless and exhausted by the time we'd reached the top, and I'd done my best not to make fun of her for it. She had taken my cell phone and snapped a picture of us together at the top, telling me "that's what normal couples do". I still had all of the pictures she'd taken during our trip on my phone, so I pulled it out and started going through them. We'd looked happy and relaxed, and if I hadn't known us, I thought I'd believe we were a happily-married couple on vacation in paradise.

I couldn't just find Stephanie and have nothing new for her. Something would have to be different. And while I continued to look for her, I'd try to figure out what I was capable of giving her, hoping that I wasn't too late.

A/N: The chapter titles are going to refer to how many days Stephanie has been gone at the start of the chapter.