A/N: Thank you so much for all the kind words and reviews. I really appreciate all your enthusiasm. You guys are the best

Special thanks to my beta, Fredda (Rangergirl1234) who's been a tremendous help and has made me a better writer.

Fredda had a chance to read, edit and suggest. She made some great suggestion, I made some fixes and am reposting!

Once again, I don't own the characters, JE gets the credit for that, I'm just taking them for a test drive.

Chapter 21 The Blue Car

It was after one when Devon arrived. There were a lot of papers, but they were all flagged with Post-It X's for easy signing and Carlos buzzed through them in a matter of minutes. The whole process didn't seem very celebratory to me. I mean after all, Rangeman just bought the Bond's office. I didn't know the selling price, but I'd gathered it was probably in the millions. It was quite a profitable piece of business. And for Carlos to just put down a pen and hand the last paper back to Devon seemed kind of matter of fact. Maybe I was just too much of a romantic.

"What, no champagne?" I said as Devon sorted through the signed papers and put them back into some kind of order.

"There's some in the refrigerator if you really think the occasion calls for it," Carlos replied.

"I do. It might not seem like a big thing to you, but if you think about it I only have one boss now."

"Ok Babe, get the champagne and bring three glasses. Actually, why don't we go into the kitchen…that's a lot for you to carry."

I got the champagne out of the refrigerator while Carlos found some crystal flutes and a black lacquered tray. I was taking the foil off the top of the bottle when Carlos turned and watched me. "You really should be careful, that could explode as soon as you take the wire off. I would put a towel over it."

"It'll be fine," I said and started to twist the wire.

"Babe, champagne corks travel at 50 miles an hour. They can do a lot of damage. I would hate for anyone to get hurt." Carlos said as he took the bottle from me. He put a towel over it and twisted the muselet away. He then turned the cork slightly and we heard a gentle pop. The only thing that escaped was a little steam. Damn that perfect man.

He handed the now opened bottle back to me, "You can pour if you want."

I took the bottle from him and poured some into one of the flutes. It immediately overflowed the glass and Carlos looked at me questioningly, "Babe?"

"Sorry. I guess my mind was someplace else. My dad used to let the cork explode into the ceiling and then we'd all laugh. I never realized it could do damage. The walls and ceiling in our house are plaster over this wire mesh. My dad couldn't even drill into it. I guess it was pretty indestructible."

"I was more worried about someone getting hurt than I was about the ceiling. Here," Carlos picked up and handed us each a glass of champagne, " let's toast to Rangeman's latest venture."

"May it live long and prosper," I said, paraphrasing Mr. Spock as the three of us clicked glasses.

I took a couple of sips of the champagne and as I felt my face flush, a thought struck me. "Carlos, I was going to tell Joe about the photo that was taken from my apartment but with all the stuff he was saying about you, I never got to it. I don't want to call him back and get into it all over again, and he rarely checks his email. I think the fact that Cagiano removed that picture is important. What do you think?"

"Who is Joe?" Devon asked when he saw my pained expression.

Carlos answered, "He's the detective assigned to the case. He's also Stephanie's ex-boyfriend and he hasn't been very cooperative. He seems more interested in slandering me than he does moving the case forward."

"Ouch," Devon shuddered. "Do I detect a little jealousy there?"

"Ya think?" I interjected and rolled my eyes. "So Carlos," I said trying to move the subject from me and Joe back to the picture, "what should we do about that shot?"

Carlos walked out of the kitchen and came back with a package wrapped in brown paper. He handed it to me and nodded that I should open it. I removed the string and the paper fell away. It was the picture of Carlos and I that Lula took. It was blown up to about a 5x7 size and framed in a really pretty antique silver frame. It looked great.

"How did you do this?" I questioned. "I've never had any luck blowing up pictures from my phone."

"Hector did some Photoshop magic. It came out really nice didn't it? Show Devon." I passed the framed photo over.

"This is really a wonderful picture of the two of you," he said, looking at it and then looking back at the two of us for comparison. "Is this the picture that was stolen?"

"It's the same image, but mine was smaller and it wasn't framed." And then

I turned to Carlos, "Thank you for doing this, it's wonderful."

"I told you it would look good on the mantle," Carlos grinned at me. "I thought it might be nice for our families to see some pictures of us together. Hal showed me one that he took in the garage a couple of years ago. I passed it on to Hector so we can blow that one up too."

Domestic Carlos was really scaring me. Next thing you know he'd tell me he made cupcakes. Ugh, scratch that thought...an apple pie.

"I took one at the Greek restaurant last week," Devon said and pulled out his phone to find it. "It was right after you guys signed the papers."

I winced remembering what kind of mood I left the restaurant in that night. I doubted any picture of me would look good, but when Devon found the picture and passed his phone over to us, I was completely surprised. Carlos had pulled me to him and we were looking into each other's eyes and smiling. We looked completely in love. It was a fabulous picture and I wanted it.

"Devon," I asked, "can we get a copy of this too? Carlos, it's recent, those other pictures are old. It might be nice to have a current shot too."

Carlos took Devon's phone from me to look at the picture again. "Devon, can you forward it to Hector?"

Obviously pleased that we liked this picture that I didn't remember him taking, he nodded and sent it off.

"Babe," Carlos said, "getting back to Morelli, do you want me to call him?"

"Uh, could you? I really don't want to talk to him right now."

"Yeah, give me your phone. I want to hear what he says when he thinks I'm you calling him."

The things these guys thought were fun still baffled me. I didn't even know what to say to that, so I just handed him my phone and hoped for the best.

"You have him in your contacts list?" Carlos asked scrolling through my stored numbers.

"Yes, under 'Joe'."

Carlos put the phone on speaker, pressed the contact and held my phone out for all three of us to hear. Joe answered sounding a little pissed, "Cupcake? Is everything ok?"

"Morelli it's Manoso," Carlos answered his annoyed tone. "Stephanie asked me to call you. She wanted me to let you know that Cagiano took something from her apartment. It was a picture of the two of us holding each other close. It was a shot Lula took about a year ago," he said, giving Joe just enough information to put two and two together...we were still seeing one another then.

"Are you rubbing it in, Manoso?" was Joe's response.

And when Carlos didn't answer, Joe continued." And I need to know this why?"

"It says Cagiano was looking for some kind of proof that Stephanie and I were connected. I'm sure he's looking for me and planned to use Stephanie to get to me."

"Are you going to put her in danger Manoso?"

"My plan is to keep her as safe as possible. I would never deliberately put Stephanie in harms way. I care about her too much."

When Carlos said those last few words to Joe, I held my breath. I wasn't sure how Joe was going to react, or if it would start a whole chain reaction.

"Oh, I'm sure you do, Manoso. I'm really sure you do," Joe challenged.

I could tell this was going to turn into a pissing match and I wasn't up it, so I looked over at Carlos and mouthed, "He's egging you on, just hang up."

"Morelli, I was giving you this information to help your investigation, not to make you angry. We don't have to like each other, but we do occasionally have to work together, so I'd like this conversation to end on a civil note."

"Noted," Joe responded and hung up.

"Having heard that, I really don't want to meet the man," Devon said, putting his barely-touched champagne back on the lacquered tray. "I have to get back to Trenton for a meeting that I have to prepare for. I'll see you guys soon," he said getting up to leave.

Carlos ushered him through the door then went over to the video keypad and remotely opened the gate. As he was doing this, he stopped suddenly and called me over. "Stephanie, have you noticed that blue car across the street before?" He asked, pointing to a car one of the remote video monitors picked up during its scan. "I think it was there earlier when I buzzed the delivery truck in too. There's no parking on this street. Someone must be in that car with the motor running. I'm going to call Hector, he can pull a plate and zoom in on the car remotely to see if anyone is inside."

He did some magic thing on the keypad and I heard Hector pick up and greet Carlos in Spanish. They were using the intercom like a phone and I could hear both sides of the conversation, although I couldn't understand a word they were saying. While he was talking, he pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and handed it to me.

"Babe can you call Devon and let him know he may have a tail. He's in my contacts under 'D'. He's trained and he can lose it if he has one, but I'd rather he know to look than to find out the hard way."

I did as I was told and let Devon know what I knew, which wasn't much.

Carlos was still talking away in excited Spanish with Hector when I hung up with Devon. We were watching the remote feed when a shiny black SUV came up and parked behind the blue car. Someone got out and walked up to the drivers' side of the suspect car. I could see the man jump back suddenly as if punched in the chest. Carlos pushed another button on the keypad and said, "Rangeman down," and gave our address.

Before Blue Car could take off, someone was out the other door of the black SUV and had a gun to the occupant's head.

"Shouldn't we go out Carlos? That man was shot," I said, suddenly mobilized and ready to go. Watching all this on remote feed made me want to get out and be a part of the takedown.

"Babe, we need to stay safe. There are other Rangeman patrols in the neighborhood. We service a number of estates here. Someone will be along any second."

As he reassured me, two shiny black SUVs pulled up, blocking in Blue Car. Carlos was still speaking with Hector and I felt left out. I watched some Rangeman I'd never met pull a man out of the blue car with the gun still to his temple. This happened very quickly and I was in awe of the agility and professionalism of the responding Rangemen.

Once Carlos knew the threat was over, he turned to speak to me. That car is untraceable...there's no such plate fitting no such model. Ours guys should be able to get him to talk though. They're taking him into lockdown in Trenton. Cal is going to work on him for a while."

I shuddered at the thought, remembering Cal got Esposito to talk.

"Pedro Velasquez is the man that's down." Carlos continued. "He was wearing a vest but he was shot at close range, so I'm going to assume bruising at minimal and probably a broken rib or two depending on how the bullet hit the vest. We called for an ambulance so expect the police to show up too. The story is he was shot doing surveillance and the shooting car sped off. Babe, the police will probably ring our bell, remember we are Marc and Samantha Pardo. If you need to address me, please remember to call me Marc. But if you want to be on the safe side you can stay in the apartment next to the gym. I'll just say you are out."

"No, I'll be fine. I want to stay here with you," I said, watching the feed as one of our men in black put on gloves, got into the blue car and drove away. "Hmm," I said to myself, "I wonder what they are going to do with that car?"

"It's going to Trenton. We'll need to pull some prints and DNA. We need to know who that was and why he was outside the Pardo's estate."

I guessed I didn't say that to myself after all. Maybe I would be better off in the apartment. Just as I was musing to myself, an ambulance and police car arrived. Pedro was put on a stretcher and an IV was started while the cops spoke with his partner. I saw him point over to our house, which had an oval "protected by Rangeman" sign on the gate. I'd give them ten minutes at best before they were knocking on our door. It was leave now or never. I decided to stay.

Sure enough a couple of minutes later our gate sounded. Carlos buzzed them in and we went to the door to greet them.

"Marc Pardo," Carlos said with an outstretched hand, "and this is my wife Samantha."

"Officer Reynolds, Belmar PD," he responded, not taking Carlos' hand. "Did you see anything?"

"We have a pretty elaborate security system, Rangeman monitors it. When I saw that same blue car idling across the street twice today, I called them. We were watching the video feed when they showed up. One of the security guards approached the car and was shot. The blue car then sped off."

"Can we see the tapes?" Reynolds asked.

"Unfortunately it's a live feed. We don't have a tape backup. I do have the ability to record, but I didn't have that on," Carlos answered him.

"Any idea why that car was parked across the street?" he continued.

"This is a wealthy community. He may have been staking out our house. We just opened it for the season a little over a week ago, and have been staying here since the weather has been so nice. Normally the place would have been closed up so he may have thought no one was here." Carlos answered.

Their conversation was interrupted by another buzz to the gate. Carlos pointed to the video monitor and showed Officer Reynolds what it was capable of picking up as we buzzed in the other cop.

"Pretty cool," Reynolds said and smiled as the multiple cameras tracked his partner's approach. "Why do you need such an elaborate system?" he asked as Carlos opened the door for the other officer.

Carlos went through the outstretched hand and Marc and Samantha Pardo introductions again for the new officer who's namebadge read 'Higgins'.

We were standing in our foyer, so I asked if the officers would like to come inside to talk, and ushered everyone into the living room.

Officer Higgins stopped in front of the Frida Kahlo and looked it over. "This looks like something I've seen before," he said. Carlos explained the painting's questionable authenticity and left it at that.

He then walked over to the mantle and picked up the photo of the two of us. Thank God it was cropped and you couldn't tell Carlos was in full Rangeman regalia when it was taken...including his two guns and a knife. "Nice picture," he mumbled as he looked over at me and put it back down.

I pulled out my best 'Burg manners and asked the officers if I could get them anything. Thankfully both declined and we settled into the couches to talk.

"So tell me again why you need such an elaborate security system?" Officer Reynolds asked, never having gotten an answer the first time.

"I'm a successful businessman, and I try to keep our private lives as private as I can," he answered. "We just bought this place end of last year and one of the first things I did was upgrade security."

I noticed Higgins staring at the ginormous diamonds on my finger and I mentally patted myself for remembering to put them on every morning. I guessed he couldn't contain himself any longer when he asked me, "Are those real?"

I loved being given the opportunity to play along so I answered him as though I didn't know what he was talking about. "Excuse me?" I asked.

"The diamonds on your finger, are they real?"

"Yes, of course they are," I answered, acting indignant.

"Must be nice to be able to afford to give your wife Fort Knox," he said, looking over at Carlos.

I was hoping Carlos wasn't going to say something he'd regret, so when he didn't even bother to grace him with a reply I felt relieved. I wondered why they were treating us like this? We were the ones who called in the security breach, we weren't the suspects.

"So getting back to the blue car," Reynolds interrupted his partner and looked over to Carlos. "Any thoughts?"

"I'm not sure what to think," Carlos began, "but we planned on being out of the country on vacation right after Easter and I'm a little nervous about leaving the house empty now. Even with our extensive security system," he added.

"A few of our wealthier residents let us know when they are going away and we drive by more often than we would on our normal patrol. We can do the same for you," Reynolds offered.

"Thank you, we would appreciate that very much, but I do have a caretaker and I would hate for you to accidentally arrest him. Do I need to give the police department a list of people who have access? How does that work?" Carlos asked him, playing the concerned citizen.

"You can leave us a list of who can come and go along with their license plates and the dates you will be away, and we'll do our best to keep everyone safe," Reynolds answered, now acting more the way I'd expect the police department in an exclusive community to act.

"Thank you. I'll drop that off at the station before we go."

At least we weren't being scrutinized now and I felt myself relax a bit. The officers asked a few more questions that we really didn't have answers to, then got up to leave.

Hal and Binky had been our bodyguards for the day, but I hadn't seen hide or hair of them since before Devon arrived and I wondered where they were. I remembered Carlos saying Cal was the one who was going to interrogate Blue Car Man, so I didn't think they followed the parade back to Trenton. I also knew Cal and Ram were on duty tonight, so whatever interrogation Cal was doing was being done now. So to quiet my curiosity, I asked Carlos after we closed the door on the officers.

"What happened to Hal and Binky?"

"I think they are still in the gym. They didn't need to be in on Rangeman business and I had them stay out of sight once the officers arrived. If you want them, just call them on the intercom and they'll come over."

"I was just curious. I didn't hear you tell them to stay out of sight. Did I miss something?" I asked, my nosiness getting the better of me.

"I pressed the keypad, Babe. We use the same code here that we use at Rangeman, we don't always need words to communicate."

"Can you show me, in case I need to use one of those shortcuts someday?" I asked, all of a sudden interested in this multi-faceted contraption.

"Sure Babe, want me to take you through it now?"

I shook my head no, suddenly not as interested in learning the code shortcuts as I was a minute ago. "We don't have to do that now, but I'd just like to learn at some point," I mused.

"And just so you know, Hector created an app that will let you use your iPhone or iPad to view the video feeds here and at Rangeman from anywhere. I can show you that too. You have them installed on your devices and the same shortcuts will work there too."

Oh boy, Star Wars.

"That I'd be interested in seeing, but let me ask you something first. You told Reynolds that we didn't have a video backup to our live feed, is that true? Or did you just say that so he wouldn't see Rangeman apprehend Blue Car Man or drive his car away? Or do we really not have tape backup? I'm certain I've gone through tapes at Rangeman and if we have the same sys...

"Babe," he flashed me that 200-watt smile, "what do you think?"