Blinky, Pinky, Inky and Clyde

by Proudofyoubabe

This takes place after 'It's a new day, it's a new dawn, it's a new year.' Ranger proposed to Steph during a romantic New Year's Eve at an old Victorian house his real estate agent was trying to sell him. We all know about Steph's sixth sense. She senses something...is this house haunted? Should he buy it? And just what kind of connection does Lester Santos have with the house?

21. Chapter 21—Beneath the Jacket

Blinky, Pinky, Inky and Clyde

This takes place after "It's a new day, it's a new dawn, it's a new year"

A/N Thank you so much for reading along and for all your wonderful reviews. They really do keep me going. :) Thank you :)

M rating (mostly for language)

Thank you Margaret for reading ahead as my Beta. :) I much appreciate :)

Don't own the characters (except for Clyde), just playing :)

Chapter 21—Under the jacket

I held on to Tank tighter as Joe came down the stairs.

"Cupcake, are you all right?"

"I'm ok," I said. "What are you doing here? I thought Rangeman called the Ewing PD?"

"My transfer went through. Ewing picked me up as a detective in their Crimes Against Persons division. I've been with them since Monday. What happened?"

I told Joe what I had just told Tank, of course leaving out Clyde's involvement this time.

"Did he penetrate you? Do you need some medical attention?"

"No I'm ok. I was able to distract him and then knee him in the balls before he had a chance to do anything."

"A couple of black and whites are on the way with a rape kit. I'm sorry but we'll need a statement before I can let you leave."

"I understand Joe. I know this isn't Trenton but I'd like Les and Tank to stay with me," I said, reaching out to Lester and bringing him over so I was surrounded by Rangemen.

I heard another familiar voice upstairs. "Stephanie? Bomber?"

"Bobby, we're down here. I'm ok."

Bobby and Hector descended the stairs two at a time and I ran over to them. I guessed the reality of what could have happened just set in. The tears started flowing from my eyes.

"Are you ok Steph?" Bobby asked. "He didn't hurt you did he?"

"Bruises probably. But no he didn't hurt me. Stay please. Ewing's rape team is on the way and I don't want them to touch me."

I wasn't one hundred percent sure if Clyde's aura test was accurate, but I wasn't letting anyone but Bobby look me over. God forbid they found out I was pregnant. The news would be all over town and I wanted Carlos to be the first to know. Well after me, that was.

I heard my door open once again and four police officers came down the stairs. Two went over to Jimmy Bucci and roughly unhooked him from my boiler and got him to his feet.

"Can I have my cuffs back?" I asked, knowing I'd lose another pair if I let them walk off with them. Cuffs were expensive.

One of the officers took pity on my request. He uncuffed and recuffed him with him own restraints. He handed me back mine and they took Jimmy upstairs, probably for a beating before taking him to the precinct lockup.

The female officer wanted to get pictures of my bruises for the record. I wasn't going to disrobe in front of everyone and I told her I wanted Bobby present. He showed her his medic creds and she reluctantly agreed he could come with us upstairs for the photo op.

By now my bruises were coming out. I had angry welts and yellow and purple bruises over both breasts and Bobby winced when he saw them. As I lowered my jeans I realized my whole left hip hurt. I looked over at it and it was already swollen and dark purple.

"Bomber, you're going to need some attention to that one. After the photos are done let me clean that up and put an antibiotic on it."

There was a knock on the door as she was finishing up the pictures. "Knock, knock, Stephanie, I'm…holy shit you are not okay," Joe said taking in my hip bruise. "I was going to say that I'm leaving, but do you want me to stay? I don't see Manoso here."

"Thanks Joe, but I'll be ok. It's just a scrape. Carlos had to go out of town for a few days but I'm staying at Haywood so I'll be fine."

"Well I'm sorry this had to happen to you. Call me if you need me." Turning to Bobby he added, "Take good care of her and let me know if I can be of any help."

With that he took off for parts unknown.

The Ewing officer left me and Bobby alone so he could treat my bruises. I winced when he tried to clean the scrape with an antiseptic swab.

"Bobby that hurts."

"How did this happen? You have pieces of cement in here?"

"I guess he scraped me against the wall trying to rip my pants off. It's not going to get infected is it?"

"I just need to clean it out. It may hurt. Would you rather I do this back in the office? I can numb the area with a topical first and it'll be easier to clean."

"I think that's a good idea. Besides it's cold in here and I'm half-exposed."

"I'm sorry Bomber. And I think the officers are waiting downstairs for you to give them your statement. You don't need all of us here with you; Hector and I can head back to Rangeman. Come to my office when you get back."

"Stay, please," I almost pleaded. "I don't know these officers and I'd like you Tank, Les and Hector around me for moral support. Please?"

"I guess I can stay if you really want me here."

"Yes," I demanded and I saw Bobby smile a little. "I want your opinion about what to do now too. Should I find a new demolition company? I don't want to wait for Carlos to come back to start looking. It'll delay our wedding."

"Let's talk to Tank and Les. Come on, get dressed and we'll go downstairs."

Bobby was right; the officers were waiting for me. After I gave them my statement, I somehow added in, "I don't know why he would try to do this to me, I've know him since maybe the fifth grade."

"Didn't anyone tell you?" the female officer asked.

"Tell me what?"

"He's a registered sex offender. It's required by law that you be informed about him. You weren't told?"

"They may have told my fiancé, but no one told me directly. And Jimmy has always creeped me out. If I knew, I probably would have asked Carlos to find another company."

"Well he's probably going away for a long time now. I'm just sorry you weren't alerted earlier. It might have prevented this from happening. Are you going to be ok?"

I assured the officers that I was fine and they left me with the guys.

I hadn't felt Clyde's presence since I went upstairs for the pictures. I wondered where he was.

"Did Clyde let any of you know where he was going?" I asked.

"Sí Chica. I told him that I thought the Grizzoli's were having a closed door meeting right now and he left to go listen in. He said he'd be back as soon as he got some information."

"He wants to join Rangeman you know?"

"Who told you that?" Tank asked.

"He did. He says he's enjoying himself and wanted to ask Carlos about coming on staff."

"I don't want to bring up the obvious, but how do you pay someone who's dead?"

"I think he may have had an idea for that too. He said he wanted to talk to Carlos when he got back." Changing the subject I added, "Tank, do you know if he was deployed yet?"

"I haven't heard anything, but I didn't expect to. We'll hear when he's back. Shall we take you to Rangeman?"

"Ok, but let's talk in the car. I'm not quite sure what do about the demolition now. I feel like we were lied to by Bucci. I can't think of any other reason why Carlos wouldn't have told me?"

"Do you want to stop by their offices? It's on the way and we can confront him in person. You don't have to do this by yourself, we'll be with you."

I liked that idea and told the guys so.

They had two cars and I had the Cayenne. We left one of the Rangemn SUVs at the house and Bobby and Hector came with me. Les and Tank followed us in their Explorer. John Bucci wasn't going to know what hit him.

I saw lights on in the trailer as we approached, so someone was there. Obviously it wasn't Jimmy.

We parked and made our way to his office as a group. I opened the door. John was sitting at the desk and looked surprised to see me. He looked more surprised to see the entourage that followed.

"Stephanie, what's up?"

"Your brother tried to rape me. Why didn't you tell us he was a registered sex offender? The Ewing police department told me it's the law."

"Whoa, step back. He tried to rape you?"

"Yeah and he would have been successful if these guys didn't show up when they did." I lied for a good reason.

"I'm sorry Steph. I was told he was rehabilitated. I spoke with Ranger about it and he said fifteen years was long enough; to just forgive and forget."

"Well no one told me and I went into that house trusting. Obviously I didn't make it out that way," I said showing just a little of my ripped clothing under the Rangeman windbreaker.

"Shit. I am so sorry."

"He's in Ewing's custody and now I'm not sure what to do about you? I can report you for not disclosing that information to me. Or we can work this out."

"As I said, I'm sorry, I never expected…"

"Yeah let's not go there again."

"What if we do the excavating for free? It's one of the more expensive parts of the demolition and I know you don't want to keep the same footprint."

I thought he was offering me a good deal. Jimmy wasn't going to be part of the team and he was taking thousands of dollars off the cost of the work.

I looked back to Tank for some sort of acknowledgement. He gave me a slight nod. I guessed he thought it was a good deal too.

"There are no other registered sex offenders on your payroll that I need to worry about, are there?"

"Jesus no. Again, I am so sorry."

"Ok it's a deal. Are we still on schedule to start on Monday or do you need to find someone else to dismantle the plumbing?"

"We can keep to the schedule. I'll do the dismantling myself if I have to, but I have a very good plumber on my payroll. His name is Mike and I think you'll like him. He's a grandfather and how can I say this without insulting him…he's um, very grandfatherly."

I thought about my grandpa Harry when he said that and all kinds of warm, mushy feelings swam around in my head. I was liking this guy already.

"So I'll like him?"

"All my clients like him."

"So why were you hiding him from us? Why did we get stuck with Jimmy then?"

"He's my brother and I felt that I owed him a job. Listen, I'm sorry, that was poor judgment on my part. Won't happen again."

"Oh it won't. I don't think he'll be getting out of jail for a very long time."

"Maybe that's where he belongs," John muttered.

Something made me turn around and I saw Hector taking his cell phone out of his pocket. He looked at the text display, excused himself and went outside. I wondered if it was Clyde? I didn't hear the buzz of an incoming text, so to me it was a distinct possibility.

I guessed we were finished here as John got up to shake hands on our new deal.

"See you Monday then," he said.

"Oh you may need these," I added, taking the extra fob and keys out of my bag and handing them to him, "That is, unless you plan on visiting the Ewing PD and getting my keys back from them."

"Thanks. I'll get your keys back eventually, but I'm not in any rush to see my brother. Let him sit there."

When we got outside, Hector was by the Rangeman SUV texting away.

"Clyde?" I asked as I got close enough to speak without yelling.

"Sí. He's got some interesting information. Let's meet in Tank's office in fifteen minutes."

We took our separate cars back to Rangeman. Bobby and Hector we're with me and even though I tried to get information out of Hector, he wasn't sharing. He was too busy texting. It only took us about ten minutes to get to Haywood so I stopped in the break room to grab a sandwich before heading to Tank's office.

The guys had pretty much devoured everything Ella prepared and all that was left was a chicken salad and a turkey on whole grain. Even though I had it yesterday, I took the turkey again.

Everyone was assembled in Tank's office, so I took the empty chair and sat down. Hector got up and closed the door. I wanted to get a couple of bites in before the meeting got serious, so I unwrapped the wax paper that was around my sandwich and everyone turned to look at me.

"Sorry, I'm hungry. Just let me take a bite and I'll put this aside."

"It's ok Beautiful," Lester said grinning broadly, "We know how you love your food."

I would have smacked him, but that meant getting up. Instead I took a bite and with my mouth full asked Hector what he heard.

"Clyde was able to sit in the meeting undetected. He said Terry was there along with seven other people he didn't know. And someone named Vito led the meeting."

"Vito Grizzoli, Terry's uncle," I added.

"That's what I told him Chica. Seems like they were talking about getting into the wind and water business."

"The what?"

"Hydroelectric and windmill power. It's the latest alternative energy thing in upscale urban areas. People are giving up their electric companies to be off the grid. Looks like the Grizzolis want to join the bandwagon."

"That doesn't seem very illegal," I added.

"It does when you're stealing the power from the people producing it."

"Oh. Is this what the FBI was looking for?"

"They didn't know what to expect. All they knew was that the heads of some of the larger families in the northeast were congregated at Vito's compound and something was going on."

"Is stealing electricity big money?"

"It's alternative sources of electricity. You can charge double for your electric if it's green. So sí, it's pretty big money."

"So do you have enough info for the feebs or does Clyde need to hang around?" I asked selfishly, as he had promised to help me with my searches this afternoon and I was kind of missing him too.

"We don't know who they are stealing the electricity from or how they are doing it, or even what the name of their fraudulent electric company is called, but we'll call the feebs with what we do have and see if that's enough for them to go in there with a warrant. If not, we might need Clyde to do a little more investigating."

"Does he know?"

"Yes. He said he'll hang out there on standby. He said watching Terry in action was interesting."

"Yeah, I bet it was." Just what does everyone see in her?

Tank was going to call our contact at the FBI and he said we could stay if we wanted to hear firsthand what they said. Not a one of us got up to leave. Guessed we all found this interesting.

"Jason? Tank from Rangeman. I have some information...," Tank said, placing his call and then relaying what we did know.

"No I can't reveal our source, you'll just have to believe me when I tell you that it would be hard to find a more accurate account."

"He's there now and said he stay if we needed him to."

"I can't tell you that, it would be breaking a confidence. Is this good enough?"

The feebs wanted more, so Hector texted Clyde to see what more he could find out.

"They are out of their meeting and they don't talk about anything but the weather unless they are behind closed doors," he texted back to Hector. "I'll stay another few hours to see if something slips. How's Steph?"

He was asking about me. That made my heart go pitter patter. I'd text him later.

After the meeting broke up, I went upstairs to shower and change. I'd almost forgotten that under the Rangeman windbreaker that came to my knees, I was torn, bruised and battered. As I was spending the evening alone I didn't spend a lot of time on my hair or makeup. I pulled my hair into a ponytail and added one light coat of mascara. I had just gotten comfortable on the couch and booted up my laptop to run a search on the new skips when my cell phone rang.

It was Bobby.

"I didn't want you to forget about cleaning out that scrape. It could get infected if you don't get the dirt out."

"I just washed it with soap and water. I think I'm ok."

"Come down for five minutes. I promise it won't take longer than that.

I did as he asked and met him in his infirmary. He numbed the area with a topical anesthetic and pulled pieces of cement and dirt out with a tweezer. He then bathed the area in an antibiotical cream and bandaged it up. He gave me some samples of bacitracin to put on if I got it wet. Bobby was a saint.

I thanked him with a hug and made my way back upstairs. I was in the elevator when my cell rang again.

Joe's name popped on the display. I wondered what he wanted now.

"Hey Joe, what's up?"

"I just wanted to see how you were doing. That looked like a nasty bruise on your hip. Are you ok?"

"Thanks Joe. Yeah I'm ok. Bobby cleaned it out and put some stuff on it. I'll be fine in a few days."

"Good. Would you like to go out to dinner? Manoso's away and so is Terry; we could grab something at Pinos. It would be like old times."

It would never be like old times, but since Joe and I were friends now I thought it wouldn't do any harm to just meet for a meatball sub. Clyde wasn't with me and wouldn't be nauseated by the smell and the idea of spending an evening alone with my skips didn't thrill me. We agreed to meet at Pinos at six-thirty. I hoped I made the right decision.