***Sorry for the delay. I really tried to get this one up on Friday but I had far too many music commitments. However, as a reward, I have included more juicy stuff. I'm excited for the next few chapters!
And thank so much to all of you who have been so fabulous about sending reviews and support my way! It gets me in the spirit of writing! Language warning for this chapter.***
Previously....
Zero sucked in air, "Holy shit, Steph."
Stephanie looked from Zero's hand to Zero's face with raised eyebrows shaking her head.
"You were right. Grab some swabs and run them around the door. We need to get back to RangeMan."
Paige sat in a chair across from Chief Larson discussing the current movement of the case and any progress towards closure. Her phone went off and she furrowed her brow. She silenced the phone, sending the call to voicemail, continuing her discussion.
Joe sat at his desk waiting for Paige to return. He was still brewing over his encounter with Stephanie this morning. 'Who does she think she is, barging in like that this morning?' His phone ringing pulled his thoughts back to the present.
"Morelli. Yes? Really? Christ. What is it with these people? No, I'll take care of it, thanks." Joe snapped his phone shut and glanced up at the clock. Paige should be down any minute, her meeting wasn't suppose to go past one. Joe grabbed his jacket and walked towards the stairs, rounding the corner, he bumped into Paige. She grabbed his waist for support and gave him a kiss.
"Where are you going with that fine ass?" She smiled up at him.
"Tucker crime scene." He leaned in and gave her a kiss then slipped his hand into hers and led her up the stairs.
"Garvin Tucker?"
"Yeup,"
"Why?"
"Police got a call from a passerby that a man and woman showed up at Garvin Tucker's house over an hour ago and were doing "funny stuff."" He used quotes as he pushed the door open to the police parking lot.
"Okay, what kind of funny stuff? I mean, did this person mention anything else?" Paige walked around to the passenger side and climbed into Joe's SUV.
"No, just that they drove a sleek Dodge Charger in the color of black, and they were both dressed in black."
Paige shook her red hair and scoffed. "Seriously! Don't they have anything better to do than sneak around? Do you think it was Manoso?"
"No, he doesn't drive a black Charger, but I have a pretty damned good idea who the woman was." Joe turned the roads to Garvin's house and they both walked up the sidewalk to the crime scene. The yellow crime tape didn't look disturbed and the door was still locked, though this meant nothing with RangeMan involved. They rubbed the door and walked around the house and even went inside again to see if anything looked suspicious.
"I don't see anything, Joe." Paige said after twenty minutes.
"Yeah, I'll call over and see what they're doing and what evidence they collected. What a waste of time."
Paige stopped en route to the car and grabbed Joe's hand. "Hey," Joe turned around and felt a soft hand caress his face. "Are you okay?"
Joe felt himself relax and nodded his head.
"Do you want to talk about it, or anything else?" Paige's voice was laden with concern.
"No. It's better this way, Paige. I don't, I mean, it actually doesn't sting this time."
Paige gave him a nod of assurance and gave him a soft kiss.
"Let's go finish that paperwork from this morning. Maybe then we can start…other things?" Joe said. Paige lifted an eyebrow and Joe gave her a lust filled grin as he dragged her off to the car.
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"Wait, Zero! We need to stop by the hospital." Stephanie placed a hand on Zero's shoulder as they passed a blue "H" sign. "I promised myself I would, I'll be super quick."
Zero understood why and turned towards St. Francis. Stephanie hopped out and ran to the admitting desk. The woman informed her that Officer Costanza was currently on limited visiting hours and under constant police surveillance. Possibly next week he would be moved out of ICU. Stephanie thanked the woman and ran back to Zero.
"Everything okay?" He asked.
"Carl's been in ICU all week. They hope to move him next week, so my visit was very short." Stephanie slumped into the seat and Zero headed for RangeMan.
Apparently, RangeMan has its own sophisticated chemical laboratory that puts pharmaceutical companies and forensics departments to shame. Stephanie hadn't a clue this even existed. Actually, she still wasn't quite sure where it was located, but when Stephanie and Zero arrived at RangeMan, Zero went down several floors while she went up five. Stephanie proceeded to her desk and plopped down to finish her information on the skips. Ranger was still in his business meeting and the afternoon was mellow even for RangeMan. Stephanie pulled out her cell phone and crinkled her nose at the addition of missed calls and messages. Taking a deep breath, she pressed the voicemail icon and listened to the first message.
"Stephanie, this is your mother. What's this about you and Joseph? I heard…" Stephanie pressed the delete button.
"Stephanie, this is your mother again. Mabel told me…"
"Stephanie, this is…"
"Stepha…"
Stephanie just kept pressing the delete button without even listening to her mother's rants. She did listen to one from Lula who was wondering if she was going to be getting it on with Batman. Resting back into her chair, her phone rang and buzzed in her hand startling her. She looked at the number and cringed. Biting her cheek, she pressed ignore and smiled. Turning to her computer, she brought up the screen with the information on Donald Creto. The phone at her desk rang and she absentmindedly picked up the receiver as she read a paper clipping.
"Yes?"
"Stephanie, it's Joe."
Stephanie snapped to attention and rolled her eyes. "What?"
"I got a call from a source saying there was some activity this afternoon in front of Garvin Tucker's house."
"Really?" Stephanie picked at her fingernails disinterested.
"Yeah, a black Dodge Charger and a man and woman were in front of the house."
"Huh."
"You wouldn't know anything about that would you?"
"Nope." Stephanie could barely contain her glee at her one worded answered. 'Holy hell, I bet this is how Batman feels with his one word answers.'
"Cupcake, what were you doing at the house?"
"Is this a question for information about the case?" Stephanie asked a smile creeping across her lips. She didn't hear Joe say anything, but she could hear him sigh. "Since you are asking a question about the case, I'll have to send your inquiry through Ranger. I'll transfer you now." Stephanie pressed a button on the phone and sent Joe to Ranger's voicemail.
"Ha, ha!" Stephanie burst out laughing and Tank popped his head into her workspace.
"You okay, Steph?" Tank said.
"Oh, yeah, I just sent Joe over to Ranger's voicemail."
"I'm sure that went well. Ranger mentioned you wanted to get into the good stuff to run your ATF search." Stephanie nodded. "Do you have time?"
"Now? Of course!" Stephanie scooted over to no avail as Tank took up most of her small desk space. For the next few hours Tank set up her security level and showed her how to access the inner realms of RangeMan searching. As they were going through the process again, Ranger stepped into Stephanie's cubicle. Stephanie reached back and scratched the back of her neck and kept nodding. He smiled that they hadn't acknowledged his presence. They spoke in hushed voices and were crowded around the screen. Ranger placed a hand on both of their shoulders. Stephanie and Tank both turned their heads like they had been caught with their hands in the cookie jar; Stephanie let out a yelp.
"Hey, man, what's with that?" Tank shrugged off Ranger's hand.
"Aware of your surroundings, Tank?" Ranger asked. Stephanie folded her arms and gave him a death stare. "Babe, about a message I received from Morelli?"
Stephanie's death glare turned to a 'you just gave me birthday cake' smile and she nodded. "Oh?"
"Babe, he wasn't happy. I called him back and let him know we have no information at this time. With that, I'd like for you two to follow me to Conference Room C."
Tank nodded and stood. "We were just finishing anyway." They followed Ranger into the conference room where the other "secret society" (as Stephanie dubbed them) RangeMen were waiting. An air of seriousness buzzed around and everyone watched the three newcomers walk into the plush room. The three took their seats and Zero nodded, immediately bringing up a media projection.
"Stephanie and I went to Mr. Tucker's this afternoon and retrieved samples from the front door and frame. I ran some preliminary results and everything on the door came back negative. However," he pressed a button and a new picture was on the screen, "after field testing a swab from the doorframe, we collected additional samples and I ran further tests at RangeMan's lab. The tests confirmed my original field test."
"Which are what?" Vince asked.
"Positive identification for white phosphorus."
Several men blew air out and a few rubbed their face.
"Sweet mother. WP? So what does this mean, Z?" Cal asked
"It means that whoever killed Garvin didn't want this to be found. Phosphorus is incredibly difficult to detect in the first place and by switching out the burned door, it removed most of the traces."
"What type of device was used?" Ranger asked.
"I'm not sure, but I'm guessing it was military. This type of chemical shit isn't really readily available to the public. Don't get me wrong, you could still get your hands on it, just not very easily."
"Your best guess."
"Smoke screen. Probably trying to lure out Mr. Tucker. Since it is highly flammable, it was meant as a distraction, not to burn the house down." Zero sat down in a chair.
"Trenton RangeMan is clean. However, Tank found someone trying to hack into our system to pull information on me. What is the progress?"
"I'm digging deep on Walker and got nothing. I was hoping there was some connection to her and the FBI, but I got shit." Bobby said shaking his head. "I'll search a few more FBI things, but I'm afraid Miami looks clean."
"With the exception of your brother, RangeMan is clean too. I haven't collaborated with Steph yet." Lester piped in.
"And?" Ranger gave Lester a serious stare.
"You already know about Anthony, there's no sense in beating a dead horse, you already did that." Ranger gave a nod as Lester turned his hands up.
"Cal? How's Miami PD looking?"
"Messy. I'm actually pairing with Vince on his Trenton search."
"Explain." Ranger turned his attention to Vince.
"Something's not right, Boss. It's…It's almost as if the paper trail is fucked up, Sir. We still need do a lot of searching, but…" Vince stopped and shook his head, "we're discovering conflicting dates."
"Understood. I'll be out the rest of the day, but keep me posted. Steph, Lester, get on the ATF. I want it started before evening. And Tank, let me know if you want me to assist with Trenton FBI. I'm going to be looking into Trenton's ATF division."
Everyone nodded their heads in agreement and understood the unspoken urgency.
Ranger steepled his fingers and looked at the where Zero's last slide was still on the wall."It is going to start now. Vince, Cal, I want your information about Trenton PD and Walker. Not the conflicting dates, I want the information Miami sent to Trenton. I'm going to send it over to Larson and I'll be sure to CC Morelli and Walker. Let's start the waves."
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"What the hell is his?" Paige stormed into Larson's office with a piece of paper crumpled in her hand. "Does RangeMan think that sending my information to the department is going to break this case? Give me a break!"
Larson held up a hand and Paige sat down. "It is just preliminary, Walker. I can understand RangeMan's suspicions given your history with this case."
Paige flipped her hair sassily and shook her head. "This is bullshit, Chief!"
"This is standard procedure."
"Did you ask them to look into me?" The chief shook his head and Paige locked her green eyes onto his tired gray ones. "Then why aren't we receiving anything pertinent to this case?"
"They have sent information we requested. I wouldn't get too worked up about it, Detective. Go finish this morning's file and maybe consider taking the rest of the afternoon off."
Paige nodded and stood.
"I got word that Slater will be back on Friday. Where you aware of this, Walker?"
Again Paige nodded.
"Good. When he arrives, you're going to be visiting with the coroner. I want you to thoroughly check the ME reports on the last few homicides." With nothing further, she sulked out of the office to the stairwell, the crumpled paper still in hand. As the fire door clicked closed behind her, she smoothed the paper and again read through the dates of her employment history. "Fuck." Paige closed her eyes and leaned her head against the wall. "I fucking hate RangeMan." She pulled another paper from her pocket with TPD's header and compared it to the facsimile from RangeMan. Satisfied, Paige proceeded down the stairs and walked to the desk she shared with Joe. She grabbed her jacket and picked up a file.
"Going somewhere?" Joe looked up from his desk.
"Your place."
"Oh?" Joe raised an eyebrow and closed the file he was writing in. "Still pissed off about Manoso?"
"You could say that." Paige said folding her arm across.
"So they were pulling up your record, it's nothing we don't already have on file, Paige."
Paige let out a laugh through her nose. "I suppose, but I just feel violated, like they're snooping on me. You know, prodding around without my consent type of thing?"
"I guess, happens all the time, especially around here. What do you say we pick up some sandwiches and call it a day? We'll go back home, kick it around all night, maybe become engrossed in other activities…what do you say?"
Paige smiled and sighed. "Sounds like a good idea. Let's blow this joint and come back tomorrow in better spirits. We've got a hot date with some reports tomorrow."
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Stephanie and Lester sat in Conference Room F which was a spectacularly oversized office that allowed employees to work together on multiple computers in private. Barely breaking for dinner, they were hard at work pulling information. Lester was running through the ATF database while Stephanie had up a similar site and was taking notes. A knock on the door pulled their heads up over the monitors.
"Hey, Vince, come in." Stephanie motioned him in and he pulled a chair up next to her. "You have something useful?"
"I think so, Steph. Santos, listen up. You found anything with your skips?" Vince asked.
"Well, aside from the fact that they were all bonded by Vinnie, no." Stephanie said.
"Yeah, I was going to run them through the ATF site for kicks and laughs." Lester added. "What do you have, Vince?"
"I think there is a deeper connection with all of Steph's skips. I went back to the first victim."
"Donald?"
"No, Before that. Glametta, the one that was floating in the river."
"Oh? But he wasn't a skip."
"No he wasn't, but I've been pulling all the dead people in Trenton the last several weeks."
"That's gotta be quite the shit load." Lester said.
Vince nodded and continued, "Glametta is the only murder that has been linked to the SA case. What if the murderer wasn't sloppy with leaving the bullet for forensics, but rather, wanted to make a point."
"Meaning?" Stephanie looked confused.
"Meaning, since the cartel has moved up to Trenton, there are going to be followers and minions. What if your skips were all involved with this SA cartel and our main person is doing a house cleaning?"
Lester took in a loud breath through his nose and nodded his head. "I think you're on to something. Maybe our leader has decided to cut their losses and the leader is eliminating everyone that is associated with the cartel; you know, people that could give a positive ID. We'll look into it. Thanks, Vince."
Vince left and Stephanie turned her attention to Lester. "Let's run these guys through ATF and see what we can pull up." Stephanie looked at the clock on the wall and grimaced. "Geez, it's already tomorrow!"
"Alright, Beautiful, let's call it a night and work on this tomorrow. Friday morning's going to be shot with the funeral, and Ranger's going to Atlanta tomorrow, well, I mean today."
Stephanie held a finger to her lips. "I'm not liking where this is headed, Les, especially with Pinkie still out there. You heard anything on him lately?"
Lester shook his head.
"Hmm. Well, maybe he'll pop up in the next few days. I'll be glad when this is over." Stephanie stood and stretched. "See you tomorrow."
Stephanie trudged off to her apartment on four and walked in to the melodious sounds of Rex's wheel. She flipped the light on and paused at the sight of a small velvet box on her counter. Apprehensively, she looked around as she walked toward the counter. Any girl who knows anything knew that there was something expensive in the box. She reached for the box and held it in her hands, contemplating opening it. As she took a deep breath and mentally prepared to lift the lid, a mocha colored hand came around her and clasped her hands.
"Ranger!" She gasped. If he wasn't holding her hands, she would have grabbed her heart. "You startled me!"
"Sorry, Babe."
"Where were you hiding? You know what? Never mind." She looked down at their joined hands and looked up into his soft eyes. "What is this? I mean, I'm assuming it's from you."
He nodded. She wasn't sure if it was signaling her to open it or that it was from him or both, so she complied. The lid softly creaked open and Stephanie sucked in a gasp. "Oh, Ranger. Th…they're beautiful. But, I…I can't. It's too much." Stephanie stared at the sparkling brilliant cut diamond earrings set in platinum. No matter where she turned the box, the light bounced off their surface shooting prisms and sparkling everywhere.
"Babe, I put a lot of effort into getting those for you."
"But…but why? I mean, I…"
"Please, Babe."
"I…well…" Stephanie felt torn between ripping them out of the box right there or handing them back to Ranger.
"They're tasteful. I didn't go overboard. One carat total weight. That's it. Don't get me wrong, I wanted to get more, but I wanted you to have something you could wear all the time."
Stephanie still stared at him, stunned. Ranger brought his hand to her neck, "Please?"
Stephanie gulped, "Well, when you put it that way." Stephanie began to remove the earrings from the box and place them in her ears. She felt giddy and touched her lobes. "Thank you, Batman."
"I'll be back tomorrow night around 2300." Ranger placed a kiss on her head and left her room. Stephanie smiled at the closed door and skipped off to the bathroom. The diamonds were certainly sparkly and beautiful, she deserved them, right? She smiled into the mirror. Satisfied, she retired to her bedroom and collapsed onto her bed.
Up on seven, Ranger smiled to himself.
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The alarm beeped loudly and Stephanie groaned. The end of the week was rapidly approaching and it seemed that the case was starting to snowball out of control. Prepping for the day, she fed Rex a few Cheerios and decided to eat whatever Ella had out on five.
"Whoa! Aren't those lookin' good on you?" Lester gave Stephanie a big smile. "I hope you didn't get all dressed up for me, Beautiful!"
Stephanie felt herself blush and she immediately thumbed her earlobes.
"I'm just joshing with you, Steph. They are perfect on you."
"Thanks, Les. They're from Ranger."
"Who else would they be from? Besides, he had to spend most of the afternoon getting those things for you."
"Yesterday?"
"Yeup. He wasn't actually in a meeting all day and he also went out after the meeting." Lester grabbed her shoulders and steered her towards the break room.
"Mmmm, do you smell that? Holy cow! Look at all this food! Coffee cake and pastries. Is that real coffee?"
"Ella's gotta have her release somehow. We're not the only ones who enjoy some Ranger away time." Lester poured himself a cup of coffee and handed Stephanie a slice of coffeecake. "So, shall we begin?"
Stephanie grabbed a homemade blueberry scone, an éclair, another slice of coffee cake and a piece of lemon poppy seed pound cake. She nodded to Lester and they walked to Conference Room F were they worked all day plugging information into the ATF web site. Occasionally they collaborated with Bobby and Tank, but mostly they stuck to their task at hand. Off and on they took short breaks to see what new creations Ella brought to the break room. After dinner, they still felt unaccomplished.
"Shit." Lester slapped his hand on the desk startling Stephanie. "This is going nowhere. I've thoroughly ran that Tucker guy and came up with nothing. We've wasted a whole fucking day on him."
Tank popped his head into the room and Lester motioned him in. "You're not going to believe this." Lester and Stephanie perked up. "Zero's been running information on the phosphorus and got a hit."
"You're shitting me?" Lester walked over to read the paper in Tank's hand.
"Look for yourself. He found it while running shipping records. There was a freightliner that stopped in Trenton on Sunday to make the drop off."
"Was it illegal." Stephanie asked.
"Not exactly. Everything was documented, but the cargo was not declared. The liner came from somewhere south and it is still traveling north. Trenton was a pit stop." Tank said.
Lester contemplated the information. "What about other cargo? Anything else inventoried during the dock here?"
Tank cleared his throat. "Not exactly."
"Not exactly?"
"Zero rounded up a dock mate that disembarked here and he told him that they had some "last minute cargo" that avoided inspection and documentation."
"Shit. SA's?" Lester asked.
Tank nodded.
"Does Ranger know?"
"Yes, and he already landed at Newark about twenty minutes ago. How's your search coming?"
Stephanie looked up and shook her head. "We've only ran one through and came up with nothing. Blew the whole day on Garvin. I think we'll run the rest tomorrow afternoon, after the funeral. It should go a lot faster since we finished the local stuff on them today, too." Stephanie gave a chagrined look and slight grimace.
"Sounds like a plan Steph. Why don't you call it a night? Tomorrow's going to be a very full day."
Stephanie nodded and excused herself.
Lester turned to Tank after Stephanie stepped into the elevator. "What the fuck is going on, Tank?"
Tank shook his head, "I don't know, Santos. I wasn't expecting Zero to come back with anything so soon on the WP. Because of his efficiency, we now have a solid link now between the SA's and our killer."
"Fuck, man. This is military grade shit. The phosphorus, the SA's."
"You think I don't know that? This person is good, Santos. Do you think it's Pinkie?"
Lester shook his head. "No, too sloppy. Unless he has some secret military background or training we don't know about. We still need to find him though. What do you think?"
"I think we need to find the connection with the bitch, double time."
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Thoughts...yay/nay? I hope you all like the direction this is going. The more I think about it, the more I think Paige needs to get what's coming to her, but I'm torn! I don't know if my heart lies with her being good or being nasty. Thanks for reading!
