And another one is out... Things are starting to heat up now!

Please leave reviews. I need some happy today.

Not mine... but I go to bed every night and wish for Ranger. One day, he'll show up.

"What the hell happened?" Ranger asked in his calm-angry voice. We were all sitting in the kitchen only an hour after the incident. I was sitting in the corner and kept my head down.

"Anne walked in on Stephanie. She surprised us." Hal said. He explained that I was almost finished and she just showed up.

"And you didn't see her?"

"One minute she was using the bathroom, the next, Stephanie was compromised. It was like we blinked and everything was going to hell."

I could hear Ranger sigh and knew he was probably rubbing his face. "And so you drugged her and brought her here?"

"It was either that or have our cover blown."

"Jesus." There was silence and then Ranger's boots came into my line of sight. He bent down and cupped my cheek, forcing me to look at him. "Are you okay?"

"I screwed up."

"None of this was your fault."

My eyes lowered and I shrugged. I wasn't so sure about that. This was all my idea. I thought it was a good one, trying to bring down a cartel. How stupid. We could never have done it and I was just kidding myself thinking that we could. "It was my bright idea."

"We all went along with it."

"And what does that tell you?"

"That it was a good plan." I scoffed and Ranger tightened his hold on my chin. "It was. You know I wouldn't have let you do it if it wasn't?"

This was true. Ranger was the master of plans. If he saw something wrong, he would have pulled the plug. "So what's our next move?"

He sat back on his heels, and nodded to himself. "What do you think?"

"I think I should let you handle it."

This time, he shook his head. "You need to see this through. If you don't I know it'll haunt you the rest of your life."

I had a feeling he was right again. I hated those movies were the woman cowered behind the big, strong man. Why didn't she stand up for herself? Or at least, get a big bat.

I sighed and thought. I wasn't sure what to do next. My mind was blank. Drugging her may have not been the best part of our plan.

"Too late, Babe. It's already been done. What now?"

"I said that out loud?"

He grinned now. "I'm glad you're now cowering behind your big, strong man."

I punched him. "Shut up." Then it dawned on me. I bit my lip. "I need to talk to her. She needs to hear the whole story."

Ranger almost smiled. "Are you sure?"

"Do you want to lose your favorite appendage?"

Ranger leaned in close. "Come on, Babe. We both know that you'd never cut it off. It's your favorite too."

I crooked my head to the side. "Your right arm is my favorite appendage?"

His eyes darkened playfully. "Cute."

"Jesus, now I know how the kitchen floor happened." Natalie muttered behind us, breaking the spell.

I rolled my eyes and covered my blush. "I'm sure."

"Good. Go with your gut."

Ranger got up and sat in the chair next to me. I looked at Hector now. "Will she be awake?"

He said something in Spanish and I felt my brow furrow. He sighed. "Si."

I nodded once and got up. I wanted to ask Ranger to come downstairs with me, but I figured it would be easier hearing the story from me.

Not that hearing about your husband's black market deals was going to be a walk in the park. I grabbed the folder and stiffened my back.

Ranger gently grabbed my neck. "Go get em, tiger." He whispered in my ear. I melted a little. He always knew the right thing to say. I gave him a small smile and one nod, and then I descended down the stairs.

Anne was sitting there, staring daggers at me. Her hands had been cuffed behind her back and the guys had moved a table down there. It looked like a police interview room.

Okay, maybe this wasn't going to be a walk in the park for either of us.

"If you're going to kill me, just do it already."

I was shocked. Did she really think I was going to kill her? "I'm not going to kill you."

Surprise registered on her face before she shut it down. Man, she looked like Ranger.

"I'm going to uncuff you and put your hands in front. If I feel I can trust you not to run, I'll take them off."

"Why?"

"Because I know how uncomfortable you must be right now." I released one hand and she stayed in her seat until I recuffed her in the front. I also loosened them a bit. What is wrong with these guys?

"Better?"

She shrugged.

I sighed. "Fine. We'll just sit here till I get an answer."

And so we sat there. For five minutes. She had finally huffed out a yes. I nodded and reiterated that we weren't going to kill her.

"Why not? I saw what you were doing. And those goons that drugged me? I saw their faces. I can identify you to the police."

"You're not going to go to the police."

"My point exactly. A dead person doesn't go to the police."

I was going to let that go. No way was she going to believe me until we let her go. "I just want to talk to you."

"You could've done that at the house. How did you get me out?"

"I said that you were sick and my friends were going to drive us home."

"Clever."

"I think well on my feet."

We sat in silence for a moment. "So, what do you want to talk about?"

"Your husband."

"Richard?"

"Do you have another husband?"

She rolled her eyes, but didn't respond. I wasn't expecting one. Instead, I moved on. "How much do you know about his job?"

"Who are you people?"

"Answer my questions and I'll answer yours."

She sighed and thought. "Not much. He does a lot of shipping."

"Do you know what he ships?"

"No."

I took out a picture of a crate of guns and slid it over. She looked at it. "My husband has nothing to do with guns."

"Did you know he used to be a CIA operative?"

"Is that who you are?"

I raised my eyebrows. She didn't answer.

Sighing, she said, "no."

"Up until a few years ago, he was a deep cover agent." I slid over some files we had gotten from the FBI on him. She looked them over and shook her head. "This isn't Richard. You've got the wrong man."

"I wish I did." I slid a few more pictures over, along with some news clippings.

She barely glanced at them. "No, I don't believe you."

"Your love for him is admirable, considering how much he loves you. He quit doing jobs, but when you got sick…"

"How do you know that?"

"… he knew you'd need the money for treatment. That's when he met Julia's husband."

"What?"

"Julio Juarez, aka, El Jefe. He runs the Columbian cartel." I always wondered why they were called 'El Jefe'. Maybe I'll ask Hector. I pulled out the articles about the cartel and pictures of Julio standing in the middle of the gang.

"He comes here every few months. I had no…" Anne tapered off. She looked at me. "Why are you telling me this?"

"Because your husband has been running guns for the cartel."

"No. No way."

"We have a source on the inside. He's positive."

"Then he's mistaken! My husband would never… You're making all this up."

"Why would I accuse someone of gun running?"

"Because… Because…" She couldn't come up with anything.

I took out the final articles and pictures. The school. She looked for a moment, then glanced away. "No." She whispered.

In my gut, I knew it was time to leave. She needed a moment to look the evidence over. "We don't want to hurt him either. We just want the truth and justice." Then I got up and went back upstairs.

Ranger was at the top, waiting for me. He grabbed me in his arms and held on tightly. "Good job. Proud of you, Babe." He whispered in my ear.

"I don't think I got through to her."

"Give her the time to process."

"What about Richard? Isn't he going to expect her back soon?"

"Hector left a voicemail with a recording he made. She's going to be with you all day doing girl things."

I sat down. "What if she never believes us?"

"Then we let her go."

"What?" I screeched.

He shrugged. "She can go to the police, but they won't do anything. We cleared the operation with them. Make sure there aren't any turf wars."

"Yeah, and in the process, letting them take the collar." Lester snorted.

"We want to get out as clean as possible. I don't want to walk around with the possibility of a target on the back of our heads."

"I know. It still sucks." Lester grumbled.

"Would you rather have your pride hurt or be dead?"

"I'll take my pride and run please."

"Good choice."

Hal came back into the room carrying a big folder. "You did well, Stephanie. A lot of this evidence is damning."

"Explain." Ranger barked.

"Well, after Hector and I fumbled through the translation, we got the jist of it." He opened the folder and started to flip through it. "Most of it is generic e-mails. They don't say a lot, but we noticed an odd code at the bottom. So Hector hacked the computer and found that they were imbedding files under the original e-mails. That's where we hit gold. Each e-mail shows the transactions made by the cartel, going back at least three years."

"Any on the guns?" Ranger asked.

"One or two. Nothing substantial. Just a notice that the guns would be shipped soon and the bank account number the money was wired to."

I looked over the pages. This was pretty damn good. The bank number, however, seemed familiar.

"We already sent the file to the DEA and they're working on confirming it."

"Good." Ranger looked at me. "Babe?"

I pointed to the account number. "That number, why is it familiar?"

"It's Anne's account." Hal butted in. "We checked."

"So he's laundering the dirty money through her?" As if I could hate this guy even more.

"Looks like it." Ranger looked as disgusted as I did.

"That's the proof we need. We can tie him to the cartel." Natalie looked pleased.

"We're going to need Anne's help. If we want to do this quietly, we'll need her cooperation."

Ranger nodded. "What do you have in mind?"

"I'm going back down there." I got up and made my way back down. Anne looked at me, but this time, there wasn't any hostility. Just defeat.

"I've been sitting here, thinking that everything you said was a complete lie. That my husband is a good man and would never get caught up in something like this."

I opened my mouth, but she stopped me.

"I was getting ready to fight you tooth and nail when you came back down. But I realized, if you wanted me dead, you would have already done it."

"True."

She licked her lips. "Will you answer some of my questions?"

"Sure."

"Who are you people?"

"I work for a security firm and we're helping the ATF bring down your husband." There was no way to sugar coat that.

She nodded to herself. "I'm not going to run."

And I believed her. I uncuffed her and sat back down. She rubbed her wrists and fanned out the file. "How do I know you didn't doctor these in some way? How do I know these aren't fakes?"

"Turn them over. On the back, there's an agent's ID number, the date and time stamped. You can't fake those. They can only be printed at the agency it came from."

"You can forge anything."

"Sure. But not many know about the other corner. Upper right side, flip it into the light."

She did. "What the hell is that?"

"The ID number upside down and backwards in nearly invisible ink. I think they switch it up with brail every few pages. You can only see it if you hold the page a certain way in a certain light. The only way to get that ink is to work for the government. They don't sell it commercially."

She looked at the rest of the photographs like that and then nodded. "You're sure about my husband?"

I went into vague detail about my investigation, plus what the ATF had given me. I told her how I dug deeper, just to make sure, but yes, I was positive it was her husband.

She took a deep breath. "What do you need me to do?"

So... thoughts?