This is my first chapter story. Sincere thanks to all who reviewed, and to those who added it to favorites. Thanks also to the reviewer who pointed out that I misspelled "Marielitos".


16 years later - Trenton, NJ

If Stephanie Plum had known what the day had in store for her, she would have taken more time to say goodbye to her much despised 70s brown tile bathroom. She would have taken time to talk with Rex, given him an extra special breakfast, and scratched his furry ears before telling him goodbye. She probably would not have bothered to bid goodbye to the almost always bare kitchen, which usually managed to produce at least a pot of strong coffee each morning or the living room, which had as many nightmarish memories as good ones.

She would have bid a fond farewell to her not totally comfortable bed, the one she had purchased when she first moved into the apartment, the one which she had shared many times with Joe over the almost three years they battled back and forth in a relationship that finally went sour. And occasionally with Ranger when they both needed sleep, with the exception of the one glorious, too short night they had consummated the volcanic attraction that had plagued them since they first met over three years ago. Ranger, known to his family as Ricardo Carlos Mañoso, was a former Army Ranger, owner of Rangeman Security LLC, her current employer, mentor and her best friend.

Since she had no way of knowing the portents of the day, she rushed through her relatively new normal morning routine, slipping into her Rangeman uniform: black cargoes, black Rangeman T-shirt, cushioned socks and black boots. Long curly hair brushed back into a careless ponytail, a slap of mascara, minimal jewelry – simple gold stud earrings, a couple of favorite rings. And her fancy Seiko watch, a gift from Ranger when she finally signed the contract to work full-time for Rangeman. That was 10 months ago, after it seemed obvious that Vinnie wasn't going to get the Bonds Office back to full speed in time to help keep her out of bankruptcy. She filled Rex's dish with hamster kibble, a baby carrot and a grape, gave him clean water, and told him goodbye as he was backing out of his Campbell's tomato soup can to check out his breakfast offerings. It was early September in Trenton, but it was chilly this morning, so she grabbed a light-weight leather jacket from her closet, and strapped on her utility belt – with gun, pepper spray, stun gun and holster for her pager. Then she grabbed her keys off the kitchen counter, snagged her laptop bag and purse and headed out the door, forgetting about making coffee.

She had been a Bond Enforcement Agent, or Bounty Hunter, working for her cousin Vinnie until arson destroyed the Vincent Plum Bail Bonds office last year. She had worked off and on for Rangeman for the last two years, as her financial circumstances dictated. Ranger seemed to always know when she needed money; he checked her refrigerator and cupboards, and then offered her the work. Rangeman was a broad-service security company, providing commercial and residential security, personal protection (body guards). The employees at Rangeman also did Bond Enforcement for Vinnie and other local Bail Bonds and Federal agencies. With fewer skips to help her pay bills, Ranger had convinced her she needed the full time work, and Rangeman had plenty to keep her busy. She had started at a desk, mostly running searches or background checks on potential clients, as well as investigations and client relations work. She proved to be better at these than many of the Rangemen staff, who preferred physical action over sitting at a computer behind a desk. Even Steph preferred the action of chasing skips and the flexibility that gave her, but the instability of the pay checks made it less attractive by comparison. Tank, Ranger's second-in-command, was her day-to-day supervisor, and occasionally gave her lower risk skips just so she could keep her hand in the game and keep her license current, and she always had a Rangeman partner when she went out. Two conditions of her employment were getting into better physical shape and to always carrying her gun, which meant she had to "qualify" on the gun range quarterly.

She pulled her Rangeman Explorer into the garage at Haywood, into her slot, beeped it locked, and headed for the elevator. She pressed the call button and the doors opened immediately.

" 'Morning, Lester." She called to the man who was leaning lazily on the wall in the elevator as it opened. Lester was inarguably her very best friend at Rangeman, other than Ranger. Ranger's cousin, and also a former Army Ranger, Lester had served under Ranger's command, and seemed to understand the complicated so-called "relationship" she had with Ranger. He always knew how to pull her out of her depressions when she felt that Ranger was pulling away, again, which seemed too frequent for her emotional health. Steph noted that today he had his blond-tipped dark brown hair spiked, and his Rangeman t-shirt was as usual pulling tight across his broad muscular shoulders and chest, as if he were The Hulk and could at any moment rip out of the t-shirt with a roar. With a sigh she broke off her inspection before it invited some innuendo or ill-considered comment from the Rangeman-designated playboy. "You heading out already?"

" 'Morning, beautiful. I was watching the monitors, so I came down to get you when I saw you pull in. Tank wants to see us now," he said. As the doors closed he pressed the button for five and reached for her laptop bag.

Yielding the bag to Lester, Steph fretted, "I'm not late for anything, am I? I didn't have any early meeting on my schedule." Her voice had more than a touch of worry. Who wants to be summoned to the boss's office first thing in the morning, before she even had her coffee?

"No, something is up, and he wants you, me and Bobby in Conference Room three as soon as possible." Lester seemed a tad less relaxed now, meaning he didn't know what was up either.

"Is there coffee?"

"You bet, several carafes, including hazelnut and French vanilla, and Ella brought donuts since Ranger isn't here to object."

Ranger was a health fanatic and was very particular that all the employees eat healthily, so sweets were normally not on the menu at Rangeman. Ella was the resident "housekeeper" for the building, which included the apartments that were supplied for the employees who chose to live there. She cleaned the common areas and the apartments, and provided snacks and lunches for all employees and dinners when needed. Ranger had the large 7th floor penthouse apartment in the building, so Ella cooked all of his meals, and basically took care of whatever else was needed. In other words, she was the RangeMom to everyone there, and was Ranger's and Lester's aunt.

When she first started working there full time, Steph had moved into an apartment on the 4th floor, since it was easier to get up early to go to the gym, and she could use her own bathroom to shower and change, as the gym had no separate locker or shower facilities for women. Steph was the only woman on staff other than Ella, who lived in an apartment on 6 with her husband, who also worked for Rangeman as a handyman/facilities maintenance man.

After 4 months, Steph moved back to her old apartment, deciding she would be more comfortable. She could use the bathroom in Ranger's apartment to shower and change when she needed to. She had had a key fob for his apartment for most of the last 2 years, since she used it as a sanctuary when her own apartment didn't offer enough security - whether Ranger was present or not. It seemed that he was gone more often than not, as he had been for the last few months.

Steph's relationship with Ranger was hard to describe; he denied it was a relationship, but it was the most supportive of any Steph had ever had outside of Mary Lou, her best friend since childhood. Ranger was always there for her; he had rescued her from danger more often than she could recount, and when she was down and just needed a shoulder, he'd be there. There had never been any doubt that she was attracted to him, and the fact that she had grown to depend upon him for validation, had bothered them both. That she was in love with him was a not so well-guarded secret, although she had never told him. That he also loved her was doubted by only Stephanie, but was apparent to anyone who knew them. That they both ignored and tried to deny these facts made life for those around them frustrating at times.

The months since she joined Rangeman fulltime had been confounding, as Ranger had almost immediately imposed a professional-only relationship on them. This "pulling back" pissed her off at first, even after both Tank and Lester explained Ranger's intent; but understanding his intent and feeling good about it was definitely not the same thing. Ranger had always encouraged "the word on the street" to be that she was his "woman" – mostly to let the worst elements know that she was under his protection. It had probably saved her life more than once, but when she started working at Rangeman, Ranger didn't want his staff to assume that she was there ONLY because she was "his woman," so he tried to create a distance between them so she could prove her qualifications on her own, to earn her own place on the team. She had worked doubly hard to do just that, and had succeeded. Not that she was equal to any of them in physical strength, prowess or with weapons, but she applied her Business Degree to helping on the administrative and client work, and used her intuition and knowledge on the investigative side. She had improved her conditioning substantially, and was more than just competent with her gun. But by that time, Ranger had gone "into the wind," on some sort of secret mission, and hadn't been there to see how well she had done. One reason she had moved back to her apartment was that it simply hurt to continue to live in the same building that Ranger did, when her only interactions with him were strictly business related.

Without even pausing to put her purse and jacket away in her cubicle, she followed Lester into the conference room. Tank and Bobby were already there, and polishing off a couple of donuts. Tank fit his name perfectly; 6'6" and over 280 pounds of hard-cut solid muscle, head shaved smooth. His ebony skin was almost the same color as the black Rangeman uniform he wore. Bobby was a marginally smaller version of Tank, 6'2", 210 and dark chocolate skin, with Army-short hair. Bobby was the company Medic, as he had been in the Army. Like Lester, Tank and Bobby had served with Ranger. This was a tight team, they had been together under the most horrific of battle conditions, always had each other's back, and came together to start Rangeman. Steph pulled out the chair next to Tank, dropped her purse and jacket in the chair to her right, then she grabbed a cup and almost filled it up with the hazelnut coffee, leaving room for the sugar and cream that made it more light tan than black. Then she scoured the pastry tray and found several of her favorite Boston Crèmes, bless Ella.

Lester sat next to Bobby, poured a mug of black coffee and grabbed two glazed donuts. "So, boss, what's the deal? We have a revolution to put down today?" Tank raised his eyebrows at Lester, and handed Stephanie a white envelope.

Steph took the envelope and examined it – nothing on the outside, no address, no letterhead, just a plain, white, business-sized envelope. She glanced at Tank, who continued to eat his donut with no expression, then at Lester who shrugged. Opening the envelope, she pulled out the contents and read over the documents.

"A one-way ticket to Miami! Tank, what's up? The flight leaves in less than two hours! I have to pack. I can't leave Rex home alone!" Puzzled as much as panicked, Steph set the ticket on the table and continued to stare at it, barely avoiding hyperventilating.

"Don't worry about packing. Ella has a suitcase ready for you with the essentials; all of your preferences. Cruzanne in Miami is getting together another suitcase with clothes that are appropriate for Florida this time of year. All you have to do is get there. Rex will come here and we'll look after him. Your job will be to find Ranger and bring him home."

"ME? Of all the security experts you have on staff here, Miami and the other offices, why do you think I am capable of doing this? And if he wanted to come home, why doesn't he just get on a plane and come home? How do you even know where he is? At our last briefing, no one had any idea where he was."

Lester jumped in before Tank could respond, "Steph, one thing you have proved over the last few months, is that you have a unique ability to put yourself in the skip's mind, and figure out how he is moving or where he might be holing up. You are better at that than anyone else on the roster. And right now, Ranger is basically a "skip" as far as we are concerned."

"You and Ranger have a special connection – you will know when you are close, even if you can't see him," Tank added. On this last statement, Steph raised her hand to the back of her neck, not that she currently felt any tingle or sensation, but recalling how it felt made her sad, and made her blush. She hadn't realized anyone else had noticed that she always got a tingly neck whenever Ranger was within a few dozen feet of her; it made it hard for him to sneak up on her even when he tried. She often wondered if he ever felt the same or something similar. But no one could sneak up on Ranger; he had a hyper-awareness of his surroundings at all times.

"As for knowing where he is, I got a call from the General this morning. It seems that a Sheriff's office in South Florida found Ranger's fingerprints all over a cheap motel room in Everglades City. There were two bodies in the room, small time felons, both dead of heroin overdoses. Ranger would never walk out and leave fingerprints if he didn't want them found, especially at such a potential crime scene. When the Sheriff tried searching the fingerprints, an alert came up to notify a number in Washington. So the General got the call and convinced the Sheriff that Ranger was not a criminal, and was, in fact, a valued employee working in Homeland Security. And that it would require specially trained operatives to find Ranger if he didn't want to be found. He told the Sheriff that he would make arrangement to engage an appropriate team. Stephanie, you are that team. You will meet with the Sheriff in Collier County and assure him that you will find Ranger, and that they should not waste their resources. Ranger is wanted only for questioning about the two victims, he is not suspected of any involvement in their deaths. The ME ruled the deaths accidental overdoses, self-administered. Ranger has relatives in that part of South Florida, but I've already contacted them and no one admits to having seen him. There are no indications that Ranger is in the area anymore, so you need to track him down. We still don't know why Ranger was there, other than what he told me when he left, that this was a personal emergency, something to do with his cousin."

With that, Tank handed Steph a briefcase, in which was a file folder. "Read that on the plane to get any other details you need. Mario from the Miami office will meet you at the Miami airport and give you Ranger's personal Navigator. It has a car phone, GPS and all the toys you would expect locked in the gunsafe under the driver's seat. It will have the suitcase Cruzanne packed, and all of the necessary documentation you will need, including your Florida driver's license, concealed carry permits and BEA license. He'll also have some Rangeman Miami business cards for you with the car phone and Miami office numbers. While you are in Florida, you will be an employee of Rangeman Miami; you will use those cards and that number. The Miami number listed as your business number will ring through to me here, so I will intercept any calls that come to you at that number. Stay in touch with me every day, by calling that number, at the same time every day or any time you need me. We don't intend to misplace another Rangeman employee."

Lester got up to take Stephanie to the airport. He grabbed her laptop bag, and wrapped his arm around her shoulder leading her from the conference room. "Beautiful, don't worry, we all want Ranger home, and Tank wouldn't have given this to you if he didn't have every confidence that you'd be successful."


"people think being alone makes you lonely,

but I don't think that's true.

being surrounded by the wrong people is the

loneliest thing in the world"

kim culbertson