Disclaimer: The characters and their world belong to Janet Evanovich. I'm just playing with them for fun, and all mistakes are my own.

AN: Shout out to erdi99 – Her comment on the last chapter inspired the title of this one.

Chapter 11

This Sh*t Just Got Real

The next few minutes passed like something out of a dream – or nightmare, in this case. After I'd hung up on Ranger, I'd sat heavily down on the curb, clutching my phone as one thought echoed through my head, over and over again. Someone had kidnapped Julie, and it was my fault. My fault. I'd known about the construction. I should have left extra early, called the school office – done something.

Slowly, I became aware of the activity around me. Zero was on his phone; Zip, Woody, and Binkie had arrived and were holding back the crowd. Julie's teacher was standing next to me, hysterically screaming that 'a black SUV was waiting out front when school let out - the driver had looked just like Julie's father."

The fourth time she'd repeated the same damned thing, I finally stood and closed the distance between us. The mental vacation had been great (not), but it was time to pull on my big girl panties and get back to reality. Which currently really sucked.

I gently grasped her flailing wrist. "Sister, please." She kept right on telling me that the SUV had looked just like one of RangeMan's. I silently prayed for forgiveness and grasped both of her shoulders and shook. "Sister Mary Robert, Stop. This isn't helping Julie," I said in my firmest voice – the one I used to tell Lester to get his hands off of my butt during sparring practice.

She closed her mouth with a squeak and I stood back, grateful that I hadn't had to slap a nun. Maybe I could avoid condemning my soul to Hell for at least one more day. "Sister," I said quietly. I paused, and noticed that the sirens were getting closer. "The police will want your statement in a minute."

The principal came over and took Sister Mary Robert aside, and I let myself sag against the building.

"You holding up OK, Steph?" Woody asked as he drew me into a one-armed hug.

I leaned into him for a second. "I'm really, really not. What kind of nanny lets her charge get kidnapped?"

His expression was grim. "Share the blame. Three tours in the sandbox and I screw this up? Five fucking minutes and we would've caught the bastard."

"And you can both save this shit for group therapy, later," Tank growled from just beside us. "Let's work on getting our girl back home."

I looked around and blinked. I must've been more out of it than I thought. At some point, more RangeMen had arrived and so had the police. A couple of cops were directing traffic and my cousin's husband, Eddie Gazzara, was headed toward Sister Mary Robert and the principal, Sister Carmela.

I scanned the crowd, again. "Where's Ranger, and how did you get here so fast?"

"He ain't here." Tank winced. "It's real complicated. I was already on my way to get you, so -"

"Wait," I said, cutting him off. "More complicated than his only child being kidnapped?!" I screeched.

Tank winced again, and I made a note to dial it down. "If you can hold on for a few minutes, the boss man will answer all your questions."

R&S~R&S~R&S

It was easier to get away than I thought it'd be. Eddie took a brief statement, with the promise of a follow-up later, and with Tank clearing the way, I was in a SUV headed down Hamilton Ave in less than fifteen minutes. Instead of going back to the RangeMan building on Haywood, we pulled up outside of a three story brick townhouse in a residential area not too far from the capitol.

Once inside, I stopped in the entry way and just looked around in confusion. It was nice enough, with dark hardwood floors, overstuffed furniture and an open plan kitchen that was almost as tricked out as mine back at Haywood. The weird thing was that half a dozen of Ranger's men were spread out over the living and dining rooms and they were either on their phones or hunched over a laptop – sometimes both. It was like a mini control room.

I raised both eyebrows in question, and Tank led me through to a bedroom on the far side of the living area. Ranger was there on the bed, and he had two laptops open in front of him. "No excuses," he growled into is phone as he tapped the keys of the laptop on his right. "I'll expect the information within the hour."

He ended the call and looked up at me; I was shocked at the change in him since I'd seen him in his office that morning. His RangeMan uniform was still immaculate, but his hair was free of its usual tie and in disarray, like he'd been repeatedly running his fingers through it. There were visible lines of fatigue around his eyes and mouth, and his shoulders were slumped in….defeat?

I wanted to go to him, to take him in my arms and tell him that everything would be all right. Hell, I wanted him to do the same for me, but here's a home truth - I'm not that great in a crisis. So I found myself giving in to all of the fear and anger that had been threatening to choke me for the last hour.

I marched up to him. "What in the hell is all of this?" I exclaimed, gesturing wildly at him and back toward the living room. "Julie is missing and no one is out there looking for her?!"

His face was impassive. "It's comp-"

I'd had it. "If I hear someone say that it's complicated one more time, I'm going to scream," I hissed. "Some crazy person has her and no one's doing anything," I said as I whapped him in the chest. "Not. A. Goddamned. Thing." I was screaming by then, and punctuating each of my words with a halfhearted punch to his chest.

Ranger's a little better in a crisis than I am, so I somehow found myself in his lap as he whispered in my ear. It was all in Spanish, so I have no idea what he said, but it was soothing. And somehow, I'd stopped beating on him and was doing my best to not sob into that hard, wonderful smelling chest.

I finally sat up and swiped at my eyes. "Boy, this is awkward." We stared at each other for several long beats before I finally said what I should have when I first walked into the room. "I'm sorry."

One elegant, dark eyebrow shot up. "Babe?"

"Julie's gone, and it's my fault." I took a deep shuddering breath and tried to get off his lap. His arms tightened convulsively around me before reluctantly letting me go.

He shook his head ruefully. "We all dropped the ball on this one, especially me."

I just shook my head. Maybe Tank had a point and we should just save the blame game for later. I finally did the second and third things I should've done from the beginning and I stepped between his legs and hugged him as he sat there on the end of the bed. "How are you holding up?"

He didn't answer me, but he hugged me back. I tried to copy his slow, steady breaths, and we stayed there, for God knows how long, just breathing. We probably would have stayed there forever, but the sound of a throat clearing finally broke us apart.

Tank shrugged, almost apologetically. "I got those updates for you, boss man."

To his credit, Ranger didn't even try to order me out of the room. He just moved over to give me room to sit next to him as Tank disappeared into the other room.

"This is pretty nice," I said as I looked around the bedroom. "But can I ask why we're here instead of Haywood?"

"It's a safe house," Ranger said, as if that would clear up all my questions.

"The cops requested the pleasure of Ranger's company, Beautiful. But since we're a little busy right now, we moved our base of operations to this super-secret hideaway," Lester explained as he entered the room with Tank.

Tank smacked him on the back of the head. "You just ain't right." He turned toward Ranger. "It's confirmed. Carmen's body was found in a dumpster behind Sal's meat market at approximately 1300 hours." He grimaced. "No intel on how long it was there, since tomorrow is trash day."

"Oh my God." All the breath whooshed out of me. Tank's statement was just wrong on so many levels. Carmen was crazy as hell, but she didn't deserve to die.

My eyes widened as the pieces fell into place for me. "Don't tell me, there was a note in her pocket that said 'Ranger did it.'"

Ranger's mouth twitched. "Not exactly."

"But the commonwealth of Virginia thinks he's married to her," Lester added helpfully. "Doesn't the husband always do it?" He was right, but I'd bet good money that it was her other husband – the one she'd actually met.

"That's the butler, dumbass," Ranger muttered. "My lawyer is delivering our files on Scrog and Carmen to our contact at the PD, but for now, I'm laying low." He locked eyes with me. "So that I'm free to look for Julie."

My cheeks burned in shame. Of course he wasn't just sitting around on his ass. This was a man who ran safety drills just for fun and I wasn't sure he ever actually slept. "Great." I stood up and tugged my T-shirt and jacket back into place. "Give me an assignment and I'll get out there."

Tank, Lester and Ranger exchanged long, significant looks, and shook their heads. I plopped back down and waited for one of them to speak; these little RangeMan ESP sessions never ended in good news.

Lester must have lost the mental argument because he sighed and consulted his iPad. "We found his hidey-hole down on Stark about an hour ago." None of us bothered to point out that was just about when Scrog had been kidnapping Julie from her school. What a freaking mess.

He stared at the ceiling for several long seconds before he spoke again. "He was long gone, but he left a bunch of stuff behind, including a couple of months' worth of surveillance photos."

I took the iPad from him and stared in disbelief at the screen. There were a couple of shots of a dim, dirty room that held only a mattress on the floor and a rickety table and chair in the corner. Most self-respecting rats wouldn't set up shop in there. But what made the bile rise in my throat were several close ups of the far wall.

"Oh God, she's been his target for months!" The bastard had been following me and Julie. There were photos of us shopping, at the beach, and even one with Ranger, Julie and I leaving her birthday party. And if that wasn't creepy enough, he'd drawn bullseyes on the heads of any man that was in the photo with us, and he'd devoted a whole section of the wall to shots of me in my swim suit.

Tank cleared his throat. "I think you're missing the point, little girl. There are plenty of photos of just you, so you're a likely target, too."

Spots danced in front of my eyes as all of the breath seemed to squeeze out of my lungs. Someone – probably Ranger – shoved my head down between my knees and told me to breathe. After several moments, my head cleared and I was able to sit up again.

"So I'm on lock down. Here." I made it a statement, not a question. Normally, I'd be whining or trying to figure out how to make a break for it, but life had just delivered me a big helping of grow the fuck up. If my staying put freed up more men to look for Julie, then so be it. Plus, those bikini shots were really creepy.

The guys just stared at me, so I stood and dusted off my hands briefly. "I get it, no wandering off by myself. But…." I glared at them each in turn. "Give me something to do. There's no way I'm just sitting around on my ass while that crazy bastard has my little girl."

I felt my cheeks burn when I realized what I just said. "I mean – I mean, Julie," I stammered.

Ranger stood and pressed a kiss into my forehead. "I know what you meant, Babe." He nodded to Lester once, and then he and Tank were gone.

The next few hours passed in a blur. Lester set me up with a laptop at the dining table and I got to work on background checks. My butt usually went to sleep after about thirty seconds of any sort of computer work, but I attacked the list of Scrog's known associates like they were the last pair of FMPs in my size at Macy's semi-annual sale. I didn't even care if it was mostly busy work – it kept me sane, sort of.

So, I ran searches. I made coffee. Ella brought food and supplies, so I helped make sandwiches. I even laid out sleeping bags in a couple of the upstairs room for the men as they trickled in and out for fuel and a couple of hours of sleep. As far as I could tell, Ranger and Tank had most of the men on rotating, four-hour shifts. I wasn't sure who was running the main office and I really didn't care.

Around midnight, I finally decided I wasn't getting anywhere doing searches on Scrog's third cousins, so I stumbled into the first floor bedroom. I barely took the time to kick off my shoes and jeans, and I was asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow. At some point, I could've sworn Ranger slid under the covers and pulled me to him, but since I was alone when the alarm went off, I figured I must've dreamt the whole thing.

And if it wasn't a figment of my imagination, I was just too damn numb to care. Even finally figuring out why Ranger always smelt so good didn't penetrate my fog. It's his body wash, by the way. I was so worried about Julie that wet Ranger and the whole bottle of heavenly smelling Bvlgari shower gel wouldn't have woken up my hormones.

Not knowing what else to do, I threw on the T-shirt and jeans Ella had brought me, and went back to work. The morning went much like the night before. Ella brought food, we all took turns making coffee, and I ran searches. I slowly went insane.

Over the last few days, we'd slowly built a picture of just who the hell Edward Scrog was. As far as the guys could figure, he'd been a security guard at a mall Ranger and Tank had done a takedown at the year before. No one knew why, but he'd decided that keeping teenagers from loitering around the food court wasn't the life for him and he'd tried to step into Ranger's, instead. Well, he'd at least taken up bounty hunting under Ranger's name, and Ranger's sources had confirmed that six months ago, he'd married Carmen Sanchez. Who was now very, very, dead. I knew his mother's maiden name and that his cousin Billy couldn't stand him. But all of that didn't tell me where he had Julie or how to get her back.

I'd just flopped onto the bed in my thinking position when I heard the faint sounds of 'Enter Sandman' coming from the nightstand. My phone had only rang twice in the last twenty-four hours when my mom and Mary Lou had called. They'd promised to head off the Burg gossips for me and it had been silent ever since. Until now. I snatched up my phone and stared at the display – it was a blocked number. Normally, this meant someone wanted to sell me a timeshare in Florida, but something kept me from sending it to voicemail.

"Hello?" I asked hesitantly as my spidey senses went haywire. The line was silent for several seconds and then I heard what was possibly the creepiest seven words, ever.

"You've been a very bad mother, Stephanie."

I swallowed, hard. "Who is this? How did you get my number?"

His soft, low laugh did nothing to calm my stomach. "Your daughter gave it to me."

I squeezed my eyes shut. I'd never anticipated something like this when I'd had Julie memorize my number. "If you've hurt her…."

"Why would I hurt my own child?" He asked, with just the slightest edge of hurt tingeing his voice. "But it's time you came home to us."

Oh. My. God. He was a freaking psycho. "You could always bring her to me." I rolled off the bed and started for the door. Surely Les or Silvio could trace the call.

He laughed again. "You seriously don't think I'm stupid, do you? And if you try to alert any of those idiots who work for him, I'll have to punish Julie again."

I stopped dead in my tracks as a feeling of dread settled in my stomach. "What did you do to her?" I whispered.

"Nothing much, yet, Babe." He paused. "But if you don't come to us now, I'll have to do something a little more serious than send our girl to bed without her dinner."

I fought the wave of nausea that threatened to take over me. "What do you want me to do?"

"I knew you were smart." He laughed a third time and I really wished that we were in the same room – so that I could shove his balls halfway up to his throat. "It's 3 PM, now. Meet me on Olive off of North Stockton in ten," he said, naming a residential street a couple of blocks from US 1. "I'll know if you're followed." His voice hardened. "If you want to keep Julie safe, you won't even try."

After he hung up, I stared at the phone for several moments. It would take me every bit of those ten minutes to make it to that intersection. I knew I was about to make possibly the biggest mistake of my life, but I couldn't risk that crazy bastard hurting Julie. Moving quickly, I shoved my feet into the shoes I'd left by the bed and I grabbed my purse. It took me several precious seconds, but I finally located the tracker Tank had given me all those months ago and I shoved it down my bra.

Finally, I darted to the bedroom door and looked around. I could hear voices upstairs, but no one was in the living room. I knew for a fact that Lester and Ranger were still combing the streets and that Tank was halfway across town on Haywood, so if I could just find some wheels…

Yes! There was a set of keys on the breakfast bar. The voices were headed for the stairs, so I put my head down and ran for them. I was already out the front door before I heard the first shouts.

My phone rang when I was still several streets away. I glanced down at the display before I put the call on speaker.

"What do you think you're doing?" Tank growled.

I swallowed. "I don't have a choice. He has Julie."

The line was silent for so long that I thought the call had dropped. "Don't do this, little girl."

Yeah, it was a colossally bad idea, and I knew it. "You can't follow me, or he'll hurt her, but I have my tracker." I bit my lip and blinked back the tears that threatened to spill over. "I'm sorry," I whispered as I ended the call and powered off my phone.

I made it to the intersection with less than a minute to spare and slowed as I turned onto Olive Street. I pulled in behind a black explorer that was parked halfway down the street and cautiously walked around the SUV. It was virtually identical to one of the RangeMan fleet SUV's, down to the small black and silver RangeMan decal on the back window. As I approached the passenger door, it swung open and I saw just how he'd fooled Julie and Sister Mary Robert. It was Ranger…but not. The black T-shirt and cargoes were close to RangeMan standard issue, and his long, dark hair was slicked back into an eerily familiar ponytail. Mirrored aviators hid his eyes, and though the rest of his features weren't quite right, at a distance he'd pass for Ranger. The bastard had been hiding in plain sight all this time.

"Get in." The voice definitely wasn't the same – harsh and grating where Ranger's was smooth and deep. And there was a long scratch along his left cheek. Good. Julie hadn't gone quietly. I hoped he had a lot more of those.

I swung up into the SUV and closed the door. "Take me to her. Now."

As a nasty grin spread over his face, my last thought was that he didn't look a thing like Ranger, anymore. And then everything went black.

AN: I apologize for the second evil cliffie in a row, but this chapter was slow going and I wanted to get something posted tonight. I've discovered that I don't speak crazy psycho bastard very well. Which is a good thing 99.9999% of the time, except for when I'm trying to finish this story.

Shout outs to: MargaritaS, JenRar, brighteyes343, kjr54, got2BaBabeFan, Janarden, highlands girl, deviates322, erdi99, Selene Aduial, DebK, eisbehr, Anonymous, YbanormImom, caregiver, carrotmusic, Stephanie1014, bgrgrmpy, alix33, Angela Mueller, daffydbuck, shellbell78, 56 olds, RhoJ, Barb4psu, Fanfictionstalker, bkc04, and guest reviewers. Thanks for your reviews; they mean a lot to me.