Chapter 25

RPOV

I set Ram on the task of speaking with the person responsible for organizing the charity event to get hold of the guest list and then went down to the apartment on four where Steph had stayed. I don't know why really because as I stood in the bedroom all I could smell was the lingering smell of her signature perfume. The room was neat and tidy with her bag placed at the foot of the bed, no doubt someone had found it outside of Shorty's on that fateful night. I took out her phone and set it to charge on the bedside table listening to the on going pings from text messages and missed calls. Looking at it I was amazed at how she coped with such an intrusion in her life but that was probably the way the Burg worked. I sat on the edge of the bed holding the phone lost in my thoughts of how much I missed her. I wasn't even aware that Ella had come into the room until she was sat down beside me an arm around my waist.

"You protect her don't you?"
"Yes, but"
"You care for her?"
"Of course I do"
"You trust her as well?"
"Without a doubt"

"Do you support her?"
"When ever I can"
"Are you proud of her?"
"Always"

"Do you have the need to have her with you, miss her when she's gone and worry about her?"

"Of course I do"

"Then you know what you feel for her don't you?"
I turned and looked at Ella wondering where the hell this conversation was going then felt her hand across the back of my head.

"Por el amor de Dios"

"Tía?"
"When are you going to admit to yourself that you love her?"

I watched as Ella got to her feet and left the room thinking through what she'd just said, I'd never really considered what it really meant to love someone and I could add more to Ella's descriptive questions. I comforted her when she was sad and felt happy when she smiled, I craved the touch and smell of her, her voice and the sounds she made when we made love or even when she ate. Yes if that was what being in love was like then I did love her, more than anything else in the world.

"Go find her Carlos, she needs you"

I hadn't realized Ella was still in the apartment and smiled at her retreating back, I knew she was still alive somewhere so with a renewed enthusiasm I returned to the conference room to focus on getting her back, and when the time came I knew I was ready to bare my soul to her.

As I entered the room I handed her phone to Hector, he seemed to know what I wanted him to do because he plugged in the charger and then used a code to open it, handing it back he whispered.

"Batman"

I smiled feeling privileged that my Babe used that name to unlock her phone. A quick look through the missed calls and messages showed that most were from her mother, a few from Mary Lou and one from Connie and Eddie, and thought it was strange that there were was only one from Morelli. The rest were form unknown callers, probably people trying to get the latest gossip. I used my own phone to call Eddie; maybe it would help Steph if they had another story to talk about.

"Ranger, didn't know you were back"
"Yeah, I need to ask a favor Eddie"
"Sure"
"Can you put the word out that Steph is working out of town"

"Shit Ranger it's true then?"
"What is"
"That she got kidnapped by that asshole who got washed up in the river"
"No that's not true, but she is missing"
"You need any help?"
"No, but thanks Eddie"
"I'll feed the Burg, at least that will take the pressure off her when she gets home"
"Thanks"

That done I focused on the information that Santos was looking at.

"Santos?"

"Ram came through, the man's called Hugo Iveson, aged 49, raced through education getting a couple of masters in sciences at Harvard but he's also a psychiatrist. He worked at Souza -Baranowski Correctional Center, a maximum-security prison 40 miles northwest of Boston, has a property there but no others came up on the search"
"Check any flights with his name and call Rab, tell him to send a surveillance team out there a.s.a.p."

There had to be something we were missing, I just knew it, so I sat down and began to read through the information Santos had gathered, according to the search he still did some work at the center but also took on private clients. There was no mention of a clinic in his name nor was there anything in the listings for certified psychiatrists in the Boston area. What would Steph do? She always managed to find that thread, that one elusive piece of information. Hugo had been married three times the first two had died and the third had divorced him after only being married to him for two years, maybe she might be a way in to find out something about him, if she divorced him then she would hopefully be happy to help. The name of the third wife was now Noleen Jones, she'd remarried and had a one-year-old child and was living in Chicago. I found a number and went into my office to make the call, feeling nervous because this was a lead I so desperately wanted to find something from.

"Hello"
"Mrs. Jones, Noleen Jones?"
"Yes, what do you want?"
"My name is Carlos Manoso and I'm trying to find your ex husband, I was calling to ask if you may have some ideas that might help"

"Him, why would I help you find him, he was an absolute bastard to me"
"Mrs. Jones, he may have hurt a close friend of mine"
"That wouldn't surprise me, he was so manipulative and demanding with me. Is he in trouble?"
"Yes, which is why I'm looking for him"
"I only know of the house near Boston"
"Was there a place he liked to go?"
"He'd visit his parents in Switzerland"
"Anywhere else?"
"Not really, he spent a lot of time sailing that dam boat of his up and down the coast"
Boat, now that would be a way to move someone without raising suspicion and once at sea whoever was on board wouldn't be able to escape or put out a call for help.

"What boat Mrs. Jones?"
"He kept it at Marina Bay when he was in Boston"
"What was the name of the boat?"

"Hell, I'm not sure if I remember that, give a minute to think will you?"

I could hear her tapping a finger against the side of the phone, if it wasn't for that sound I would have thought she'd hung up me.

"Soul spirit, or maybe Spirit soul, something like that"
"That could be very helpful Mrs. Jones"
"Well I hope you get him he's not right in the head even for a psychiatrist, and that poor wife of his before me. Anyway I hope you get him and your friend's okay"
"Thank you for talking with me Mrs. Jones"

I put my phone in my pocket and turned from my chair opening a door behind me, not many people knew a room existed here; I'd used it when I needed to work on Intel for any missions or confidential cases. Hector had set up the computer system in here to be fast and effective, adding a few of his own programs that would probably be construed as illegal. I found the site for the marina and hacking into their systems looked for a boat with Spirit and Soul in the name. It didn't take long before the information came onto the screen about a boat named Spirit Soul owned by Hugo Iveson. The boat had left the marina in the early hours the morning before Steph had disappeared, the problem now was finding where the hell it had gone, unlike planes, boat owners didn't have to notify anyone where they were sailing and he could have sailed south or north. I messaged Santos to come into my office, he was one of the people who knew about this room, and I stood up to meet him at the door.

"You got something Ranger?"
"Maybe, but it's going to take both of us using the system in here to follow it up"

"What are we looking for?"
"A boat named Spirit Soul, it belongs to Iveson and it left Boston the morning before Steph disappeared"

"So it would take what, 12 hours to get to somewhere near here?"

"Probably, you check out the local marinas closest to Trenton and I'll start looking at some places further afield"

It took an hour for Santos to find where the Spirit Soul has docked, Belmar Marina, a forty-minute drive from here. Once we knew that piece of information we felt confident that Hugo had used the boat to transport Steph out of the area. The question was where had it sailed? Now we had to find its destination and unfortunately no matter that Hector was a genius with programming we had to input each city one at a time looking at each marina one individually. Santos looked south and I started with areas to the north. I started by printing a map showing us where to look and then got down to searching. We worked through the night only stopping for food and coffee and of course calls from the rest of the team asking for updates or giving us theirs. Though they didn't have much to report and by 2300 I insisted that everyone took time to catch up on their sleep. It was seven in the morning or there abouts when I hit the payload. Spirit Soul had docked at Marina Port Quebec 5 days after leaving Belmar. I wiped my hands over my face as some of the tension left my body but Quebec was a large area to cover and god knows where he'd gone from there.