Janet Evanovich owns the main characters of this story.
Chapter 2
As the private jet lands on the Tarmac with the Manosos several SUV's approach, to transport the family to their new home. Carlos stood at the opening surveying the surroundings before his family departs the plane. Tank, Lester and Bobby ran up the stairs anxious to greet their godsons. Steph and Julie giggled as the men ignored Carlos almost knocking him down to get to the boys. The boys screamed in excitement to see their uncles. Tank grabbed AJ, Bobby picked up BJ and Lester swung CJ into his arms and exited the plane. Ranger, Steph and Julie followed feeling no love from their three friends.
Ranger rode in the van with his sons and friends. He was filled with love and pride for his boys. The boys are extremely smart and the spitting image of him at that age with the exception of their mother's blue eyes. Ranger and Steph traveled to Trenton six months ago to purchase a new home. The 10-acre property consist of a 30,000 square foot three-story home with a full basement, elevator, panic rooms, guest house, pool, playground, and six-car garage within a gated brick fence enclosure. The basement contains a gym, sauna, server room, home theater, wine cellar, storage, and three-guest rooms to include individual bathrooms. The first floor has the kitchen, walk-in-freezer and refrigerator, butler's pantry, dining room, breakfast area, huge family room, Florida room, three-offices, large conference room, master bedroom suite, library and laundry room. The second floor has two master suites, playroom and three-bedrooms with jack and jill bathrooms. The third floor contains a private office, future playroom for the boys and an unfinished area.
Carlos, Steph, and Julie made several trips to Trenton to decorate and furnish their new home with Ella and Louis's help. The Vallejos could not stand to be away from their grandsons and decided to train their replacements for the Trenton Rangeman office and live in the Manoso's guesthouse with similar duties. Steph only trusted the Vallejos and Ranger's family to look after their kids.
Grandma Mazur will be returning to Trenton in a week. She will take over Steph's old apartment. Carlos renovated the apartment and used it as a safe house. Grandma is eager to socialize, reconnect with her friends and feed the Burg's grapevine.
As they drove through the gate of their home the uncles are giddy. Ranger eyed his friends suspiciously. Tank, Lester and Bobby can't wait to show the boys the playground equipment designed by Rangeman. As they pull up to the entrance the boys see their Grandma Ella. Steph and Julie exit the car to quickly hug Ella and Louis before the boys appear. The uncles unbuckle the boys and set them on their feet next to the van. BJ yells, "Grandma Ella, Grandpa Louis" and runs to get his hug and kisses with his brothers following.
Ella shooed everyone to the breakfast area to eat lunch. Louis arranged for the luggage to be placed in the appropriate rooms. Julie will only be home for a week before she starts Princeton.
The boys were rustled upstairs by their mom and dad to get clean and change clothes. When finished Ranger escorted the boys outside so Steph and Julie could help Ella clean. All of a sudden loud happy squeals could be heard from the triplets throughout the house. The ladies ran outside to investigate and pulled up short when they saw the massive custom playground equipment. The equipment incorporates sports, music, animals, art, space, military, castle, fitness, boats, nature and transportation. Tank, Bobby and Lester said it was a gift to the boys from all the Rangeman employees. Ranger and Steph were overwhelmed. The boys had a ball playing with their uncles. After a couple of hours of play, Ranger and Steph collected the boys for naptime.
Shortly after laying the boys down for their naps, Ranger received a call from Hal alerting him that he was 5 minutes away and to assemble the core team. Rangeman has been hired to find a missing person and the circumstances surrounding the disappearance may have government implications.
Fifteen minutes later found the core team including Steph in the conference room. Hal explained that the Orr's hired Rangeman to find their son, Dickie, who vanished. No one has seen him for possibly a week. His law firm had to obtain continuances on several cases so that junior associates could take over. His home looks fairly untampered with the exception of the electronics. Salvatore Sweet is the caretaker and reported him missing yesterday. Steph interrupted, "Sally Sweet is Dickie's caretaker? How can Dickie afford a caretaker much less the property that requires a caretaker?"
Hal stated, "His parents had the same question. All we have been able to find out is that Dickie has been the gubernatorial campaign manager for Ronald Scrump for the last two months. Scrump is secretly believed to be a former member of Stone Ghost." Hal saw the question on Steph face and elaborated. "Steph a Stone Ghost is a codename for a network operated by the United States Defense Intelligence Agency for information sharing and exchange between countries. The organization maintains strict physical and digital security requirements."
Hal continued, "We have gone over Dickie's home and the only thing out of the ordinary was every piece of electronic hardware and software was removed from the home. Anything that would leave a digital signature was removed including T1 lines, cable feeds, satellite dishes, and so forth."
Ranger sat quietly for a few moments processing Hal's information. After a moment, he addressed the team. "Lester, Steph and I will walk-thru Dickie's property in an hour. Tank contact Wilhelmina Minion who we know as Billy. Steph I want you to work with Billy regarding cyber security. She works on a contract basis only. We will provide Billy and her dog Jeffrey with accommodations in our home preferably on the first floor. Hal research Scrump's background and campaign. Bobby, I want you to investigate what Dickie has been into for the past few years. We will meet after dinner to update each other on our findings."
Ranger and Steph are the last to exit the conference room. "Carlos, I want to host a bar-b-que this Saturday for Julie and invite your family and our Rangemen family. I will only invite my nieces from my side."
"Sounds like fun. Babe, when are you going to introduce the boys to your mom and dad?"
"We invited them to Florida but they declined. I will invite them to dinner tomorrow at Rangeman. For some strange reason I don't want them in our home or to know of its location."
Standing in the hallway outside of the conference room, Ranger gives his wife a long satisfying kiss. They proceed to the kitchen to notify Ella and Julie that they will be gone for a couple of hours and that Cal will remain behind.
Ranger, Steph and Lester arrived at Dickie's home, which turned out to be a McMansion. As they parked Ranger's Porsche Cayenne at the entrance the door opened to reveal Sally Sweet. Steph jumped out the car and ran to hug Sally. Sally was surprised for a moment then rushed to pick up Steph for long bear hug. "Steph, I am so fuckin happy to see your fuckin face I'm about to fuckin shit myself. This fuckin day was in the fuckin toilet until I fuckin saw your face. I guess you fucks are here because the fucking fuckers fucked that fucking Dickie by fucking around and fucking grabbing him."
Ranger and Lester smiling widely joined Steph and Sally. Steph took a step back, "Sally what happened to your vow to stop cursing?"
"The fuckers fucked me up by fucking firing me for fucking up and fucking cursing to many fucking times. The little fucks caught me on fucking video and fucking posted it online. I was fucked by the little fuckers, it fucks."
Steph shook her head in disbelief, "Well why stifle your natural gifts. So can you give us a tour of Dickie's home, tell us about his activities, and how you came to be the caretaker with minimum to no cursing?"
As Sally motioned them to follow him inside, "Sure Steph! Dickie and I are first cousins on his mother's side. Dickie and I were close growing up. We lost touch for a while during our college years, he studied law and I obtained doctorates in math and cryptography. Then I was recruited by the CIA."
Ranger stared at Lester who correctly interpreted his look to mean why didn't we know this information about Sally, heads will roll.
Sally continued the tour pointing out areas that may be of interest. "Over the last four months Dickie was working from home. The people he would see regularly were Joyce Barnhardt, Joe Morelli, and Jeanne Ellen Burrows."
Steph asked Sally, "What is your job and duties?"
"I oversee the house staff who come to clean, cook, and maintain the yard, every Monday, the remainder of my days are free. I would frequently assist Dickie with his computer repair business. I would break the encryption so that Dickie could repair the computer problem."
Ranger, Lester and Steph all had a gut reaction that this was the source of Dickie's disappearance. Steph's spidey sense is telling her that Sally was the original target not Dickie. Somehow she believed that Dickie took credit for Sally's abilities and played himself. Steph excused herself to talk to Ranger privately to make him aware of her spidey sense.
Lester asked Sally, "How can you articulate now without cursing?"
Sally smiled, "I don't curse around my family out of respect. I have always considered Steph family so it's easy switch over."
As they returned Steph caught the tail end of Sally's conversation. Ranger observed his wife hug Sally with tears in her eyes, "Sally I think of you as family also and I fucking love you too."
Ranger made a couple of phone calls before joining Sally, Steph and Lester in Dickie's computer workroom. Steph was walking around taking pictures and processing what was left of the setup to determine the services that Dickie provided. She lifted floor tiles, removed wall and ceiling panels. Ranger told Sally and Lester the scenario of Dickie's disappearance per Steph's spidey sense. Each man new that Steph was usually dead on when it came to her spidey sense. Sally thanked Ranger for allowing him to crash at their place and went to pack with Lester sticking close.
The rest of Dickie's home and exterior was as expected. The four left to return to the Manoso compound. The boys were just awakening from their nap. Ranger, Lester and Cal fetched the boys from their room to introduce them to uncle Sally. The guys couldn't wait to see the boy's reaction to Sally.
The men stood the boys in front of Sally. Ranger introduced Sally to Alejandro, Benito, and Carlos or as Steph calls them AJ, BJ, and CJ. The boys scrambled around the kitchen before anyone could stop them. AJ bought over a package of chicken, BJ had a bag of frozen green beans and CJ had a bottle of aspirin. Everyone was confused especially Sally. Sally said, "Little dudes its nice to meet you but what's with the gifts?"
BJ the spokesman for the group said, "We wanted to make you comfortable and welcome you like Mom and Grandma Ella taught us. The chicken is because we don't have a golden goose, green beans because you may be the jolly green giant on vacation and the aspirin because you may have a headache. David did hit you in the head with a rock."
When it clicked with the adults they laughed so hard they were crying, clutching their stomachs and some ran to the bathroom. Ranger and Lester couldn't stop laughing and had to walk outside to try to compose themselves.
The boys were exasperated with the adults but fascinated with the height of their new uncle. Sally put BJ on his shoulders and lifted the other two in his arms. "Where to little dudes?"
Playground they all yelled. Steph shook her head in thought. Who knew Sally is a kid whisperer.
Steph called her parents and Val to invite them to dinner tomorrow night. Surprisingly they all accepted. She then proceeded to research the components and setup of Dickie's workshop.
It's about to get nasty.