This takes place after Fearless Fourteen.
CHAPTER 9
Ranger's POV
Sometimes Steph could really get me worked up. Lots of time in a good way, but times like the past day she made me so angry I wanted to hurt someone. I trusted her, though I probably shouldn't by now, and I believed that she would be at the Suds-n-Wash waiting for me. She wouldn't run off. She had never asked me for my help when she didn't need it, and I knew it had taken her a lot to ask for my help now.
I shook my head a millimeter and smiled just a little. She had been crafty. I was impressed and proud of her. She had thought this out. For once she was the level headed one, not me.
I wondered what she was working on that was so important, and why she couldn't tell me. She'd never kept secrets like this before. Not from me. From Morelli and the police, yes. But not from me. I was guessing somehow she'd gotten involved in Conzitto. Before she'd brought in one of his men as a skip.
I pulled into the Suds-n-Wash parking lot and went inside. No Babe. My anger, which had calmed down on the ride over started bubbling up again. I went down the second row, then the third, and finally I went to the last row closest to the pay phone.
I sucked in my breath. I saw her bare feet sticking out from between two driers. I ran over, my feet crunching on the laundromat floor. I looked for movement, listened for sound. I heard nothing, and I had seen no one in the rest of the laundromat.
She was unconscious, her hands now in front of her, still handcuffed. Pinned to her tee shirt was a note, for me.
"Ranger," it said. "I leave her alive as a warning for both of you. She has been a nuisance, and you have bothered me too long. Leave us alone or I will finish the job."
It was unsigned. It was also not as important as what was going on with Stephanie. This couldn't have happened more than in the past 10 minutes. Whoever had done it had been brutal and fast.
I didn't see anything obvious, at first, but then I looked a little closer. Her hands were on her lap, cuffed still. Two of her fingers on her right hand were swollen and misshapen, and there was a long scratch going across the back. She had a few drops of blood on her right arm, and it looked like the bullet wound on her left arm had started bleeding again. She had slight bruises under her jaw, around her throat. I checked her eyes, and they seemed ok, so I didn't think she had a concussion. I knew she would hate me doing this, but I had to look at her. I pulled her tee shirt up and clenched my teeth painfully. Her abdomen, breasts, and sides were starting to bruise already. I gently felt her ribcage and felt movement. She obviously had a couple of broken ribs, I didn't know what else. She was breathing fine and had no blood coming up, so I was confident her lungs hadn't been punctured. I felt her abdomen. No hard areas indicating internal bleeding. Good. I ran my hands down her legs. I didn't feel any broken bones or areas of blood.
She was in so much danger trusting her to a wide open hospital was out of the question. If Conzitto was after her, he could get to her in any of the hospitals. Plus broken ribs and fingers were covered in field training. My men and I could take care of it ourselves. I pulled her toward me and then picked her up, carrying her like I would a sleeping child, with her head on my shoulder. I used my body to stabilize her ribs while I moved her. I left her hands cuffed so they didn't swing and move her around more than necessary. I gently carried her out to the car, strapped her in, and drove back to Rangeman's headquarters.
On the way I made a phone call for Bobby to meet me in my apartment, and for Tank and Lester to get to the laundromat to see if they could find anything. I knew I needed to call Morelli as well, this was assault on his girlfriend. But that was not a phone call I was looking forward to.
When I got back to Rangeman's headquarters I pulled into my spot and made my way carrying Stephanie in my arms as quickly as possible to my apartment. Bobby was already there waiting. I laid her on my bed as gently as I could and undid the handcuffs. She was going to be mortified when she woke up and found out, but I cut off her tee shirt so we could get to her wounds. Bobby put some oxygen on her and gave her an injection of morphine before we started, and we set about taping her ribs back into place. I cleaned her bullet wound and wrapped some gauze around her arm. We inspected her hand and set her fingers and taped them to one another. The scratch was very minor, it didn't require bandaging at all. I put one of my tee shirts on her when we were done, and we finished with a sling and swathe to her right arm. Partly to elevate her broken fingers and mostly to restrict the movement on the right side of her chest.
Bobby ran his hands down each of her legs, feeling for injuries that weren't obvious. When he got to her feet we realized that her big toe looked broken. We set and taped it, and when Bobby left I removed her jeans, confirmed that there was nothing wrong, and put a pair of my sweats on her. I didn't think whoever had done this had molested her. A small consolation. I stepped out of my bedroom with the pieces of her tee shirt and her jeans and sat in my living room thinking.
Obviously she had gone down fighting. The bruises around her jaw looked like someone had picked her up by her throat with a single hand, but hadn't tried to strangle her. Her hands were cuffed together in front of her – because of me, I thought – and so she had two fisted him against the side of his head. The scratch on the back of her hand came from what? Maybe he was wearing glasses. I thought back to when I had run to her side in the laundromat. My steps had crunched as I got nearer to her. Broken glass. She had broken her fingers on the side of his head and smashed his glasses. He was probably sporting a black eye. Stephanie is right handed, so it's probably his right eye that is blackened. She may have even broken his nose, that would explain the blood on her arm. There had been no cuts under the blood. And her toe? She must have kicked at him. Without shoes to protect her feet her toe had broken when it connected. Could there be something else she had hit upon? Something hard? If he was big enough to pick her up with one hand and deliver punches with another he was a big guy. Her toe may have connected with his thigh. What would have been so hard on his thigh that it would have broken her toe? A gun in a holster, perhaps. Or even worse. Steph was known for knocking gonads into the next county for several unfortunate men. I felt a small smile tug my mouth thinking of the damage this little woman had caused a man so much bigger than she. I was nearly positive who had done this, and I was the only one who could do anything about him. This sounded like Bruno Gregorio, Conzitto's muscle man.
It was now 7 in the morning and I knew Morelli would be awake. I did not want to make this phone call, but he needed to know, and I needed to get help with the police. Maybe something had been left on her jeans and tee shirt that could help us track these people down to where they were hiding.
I dialed Morelli's number. He answered on the third ring.
"Yo," I said. I blew out a sigh. "Steph's been hurt. I have her here, we've treated her. She's safe. It was all my fault though. And I need your help."
There was silence on the other end of the phone. I could imagine him trying to calm himself down before he trusted his mouth to work.
"Morelli?"
"What happened?" came the rough reply.
"I went to her house this morning before she woke to try to bring her to a safe house. You know how she is. Suggesting she simply come with me to a safe house would have been a waste of breath. I let myself in and found her asleep. The opportunity was too good to pass up. I handcuffed her hands behind her back and physically carried her out of her apartment, carrying her shoes in my other hand." I thought I heard an exhalation of breath at this description, which may have been laughter in a different conversation. "I was bringing her here when she dashed out of the car at a red light. Turns out she went into the Suds-n-Wash. Where she hid in there, I don't know, since I looked in and didn't see her, but I spent 20 minutes looking for her in that area, then came back to Rangeman to try to find her. She called about 20 minutes later." I paused here, not knowing how much Morelli knew about what she was working on. He knew she was in danger, but she had often not gone to him for help in the past since he was a cop.
"Go on," Morelli said.
"She said she needed my help," I could hear him bristle at this, "and that I had to promise not to try to put her in a safe house. She begged. Pleaded with me. I promised, and she said I could come and get her.
"When I got there I found her unconscious with a note pinned to her shirt. She has three broken ribs, two broken fingers, and a broken toe. Plus other bruises and scratches. I don't think she was raped. We've set all of her bones and she's sleeping with a shot of morphine and some oxygen."
This is where it was going to get hard. "If I hadn't taken her I wouldn't have forced her into this situation. If I had given her her shoes she would have been able to protect her feet. And if I hadn't handcuffed her she would have been able to defend herself better. She shouldn't have been out on the streets where she could be found. This is my fault. I'm sorry."
Morelli was quiet for a few minutes. I let him be and waited. When he spoke it was with a sigh, not with anger. "I probably would have done the same thing in your shoes," he told me. "In fact I was going to bring it up with her tomorrow. Investigating these murders has me concerned for her. She can be so unbelievably stubborn! There have been many times when I've wanted to handcuff her and put her someplace safe myself. Lord knows I've threatened her with locking her in my bathroom before. I never would have thought she'd have jumped out of a moving car and hidden, though. She's safe with you now?"
"She's safe. I need your help. I want the police to analyze her clothes, see if you can get anything from them. I can give you a physical description of the man who hurt her." I didn't want to give them a name. I wanted to work this one alone for now. "He's a big guy, big enough to pick her up around her throat with one hand, he normally wears glasses but now may not be, or may be wearing freshly repaired glasses. He probably has a black right eye and maybe a broken nose. He was wearing something metal on his left leg at thigh level. Whatever that was she broke her toe against kicking him. And her fingers were broken on the side of his face."
I could hear him writing this down. He'd gone into cop mode. "The note. Tell me about the note."
I read him the note and described the paper it was written on, as well as the penmanship. When I was done I could feel his confusion over the line.
"Do you have any idea what this is about?" he asked.
I paused. "I think I do, but I'm not positive if I'm right, and Stephanie hasn't shared with me what she's been working on. Has she told you anything?"
"Not a damn thing. She's been very quiet the past few days. And I've been stuck on the Emily Tully and Lizzie Spegrula murders and I haven't been able to talk to her much. Send over the clothes she was wearing," I heard him pause as he obviously wondered what she was wearing now, and who had done the clothes changing. He mastered himself and continued, "as well as the note that was pinned to her. Plus anything else you can think of. I'll file a report and get everything analyzed as quickly as possible. Oh, and Ranger?" He paused again. It felt like he was about to remind me of his place in her life. Instead he simply said, "Thanks for taking care of her. Keep her safe."
I nodded at the phone and disconnected with an, "I will. I promise."
I had brought her bag with me back from her parents' house, so I grabbed the other notes she had gotten, packed up her clothes and the note from the laundromat, and called one of my men to bring it to Morelli's house right away, after making copies of the notes for our use. Tank and Lester reported back. They hadn't found anything at all at the Suds-n-Wash. I went back and checked on Stephanie. The bruises on her throat were more obvious now. Her color was good and her breathing was regular, but I left the oxygen on. I sat on the edge of the bed and looked at her. I felt so many different things. I didn't normally let myself get so emotionally invested with someone. Not even my daughter. I never would be able to forgive myself for these injuries. I felt as if I had broken her myself. I was also still so angry with her for being so stubborn in the first place. If she'd just rationally thought about it she should have realized a safe house is the place where she should be! In the end I couldn't figure out which emotion was more powerful, and I laid down next to her and slept.
