This story is based upon characters created by Janet Evanovich. I don't own them, I only play with them, and for entertainment purposes only.


A/N

Hello again! There's a lot of information presented in this chapter, though there are probably more questions that come about because of it. I hope it makes sense and that I don't lose anyone due to sloppy writing or weird conclusions. Please let me know how this works for you or where it is confusing so I can try to clear it up on the next chapter. I truly appreciate the reviews, so keep them coming! Thanks, Chica.


We spent the next six hours learning everything we could about Raymond Alvarez. It was amazingly frustrating to find so many dead-ends. The address listed on his bail application led us to a home improvement store, and his listed phone number was answered by an Armenian man who hadn't ever heard of him. I had my doubts as to the business practices of my cousin's bonds office; why would anyone have approved Alvarez's bond without as much as his address checking out? To top that off, his history didn't even begin until about six months ago, so we knew that his name was an alias. Unfortunately, knowing about the existence of an alternate identity, and actually finding it, were two very different things.

After spinning our wheels all morning, we decided that a lunch break would rejuvenate both our bellies and our spirits. Ranger had to meet up with a big client and wouldn't return until around 3:00, so the guys and I were going to order something to be delivered. We were just discussing our options when Les walked into the conference room carrying eight large pizzas from Shorty's. I looked at him incredulously, trying to figure out why he would have purchased eight pizzas for only seven people. To my immense surprise, not a single slice remained by the time we were finished eating. These guys eat like teenage boys on a growth spurt, and yet, not an ounce of fat could be found on any of them! I was shaking my head in wonder when Cal caught my eyes. "Rangeman employees commit to a very strict diet and exercise regimen." He said. "We may go a little overboard on occasion, but we'll more than work off the extra calories in the gym." He gave me a smile and a wink, and I blushed in reply, embarrassed that he could read me so easily.

When all the pizza boxes and paper plates were cleared away, my attention returned to Alvarez. So far, our attempts at finding a connection between me and Alvarez had proved to be fruitless. Since the address and phone numbers were determined to be fake, Ram contacted Connie, the office manager for Vincent Plum Bail Bonds, and asked why a bond had been approved for Alvarez. She said that his employment had been verified at a clinic downtown and he had used his car as collateral.

"Seems like our next stop should be to contact his employer," I said. "Maybe they have better information on him."

"That's a good idea," Junior replied. "If they don't have different contact information for him, they might be able to tell us about his personal life, known associates, that sort of thing."

With a few clicks of his keyboard, Hector had the contact information for the Highbury Medical Center off Broad, displayed on the large TV monitor. I dialed their phone number on the conference-style telephone on the middle of the table. I noticed Cal and Ram exchange a grin; I assume they were surprised by my quick action.

"Highbury Medical Center, Vivian speaking, how may I direct your call?"

"Hi Vivian, my name is Stephanie Plum and I'm trying to find some information about your security guard, Raymond Alvarez."

"Oh, hi Stephanie. I guess you didn't hear, but the police just found his body. He was murdered!" She said conspiratorially. "Do you lose out on your commission since you didn't bring him in?"

Every eye in the room turned to look at me in confusion. It was obvious that Vivian knew that I was after Alvarez, but how did she know? Had we already spoken about it, or did she know of me and assume my reason for the inquiry?

"I'm sorry, Vivian, but have we spoken about Alvarez before?" I asked.

"Geeze, Steph, your memory is getting to be as bad as my mothers, and she has Alzheimer's." She replied. "I have to say, I was surprised when I didn't see you, even though Doctor Perrington gave me an unexpected afternoon off, with pay, as a reward for all the extra hours I'd been putting in. I figured that if you ended up stopping by like you said you would, and I wasn't in, that you would have called me back or come in another day or something. I never heard back from you though; what happened?"

My mind was spinning with the implications of Vivian's statement. Not only did we appear to know one another, it seemed as though I had made plans to be at the clinic recently to discuss Alvarez. "Vivian, what day was that?" I asked.

"It was two weeks ago yesterday." She said. "You OK, Steph?"

"No, actually, I was in an accident and have some memory loss," I said seriously. "Do you think I could still get that information from you?"

"Oh my God!" she shrieked. "I'm so sorry about the memory loss joke, Steph, I didn't mean anything by it. Me and my big mouth. I…"

"Vivian," I interrupted. "It's fine, really."

"I really feel terrible," she said. "What can I do to help, Stephanie?"

"Well," I replied. "Can I still get the information you were going to give me? And can you tell me a little about Alvarez?"

"Of course," Vivian said. "But you'll still need to come by at my lunch hour because there isn't anyone else to cover the phones until Pam starts at 2:00. Once she gets here we can sit in the back office and no one will disturb us until my break is over."

I looked at the clock on the phone and saw that we had only fifteen minutes until Vivian's lunch break. Given the entourage that was required the last time I left the building, I didn't think we'd be able to get that many people together in that short a time. Not to mention, Ranger would shit a brick if I left without him. No, clearly meeting up this afternoon wasn't going to happen.

"Vivian," I said. "Can I meet up with you tomorrow?"

"Yeah, of course," she said. "So I'll see you at 2:00?"

"Sounds good." I replied.

"And Steph, I really am sorry about the memory loss thing."

"You couldn't have known, Vivian." I said. "It's all good. I'll see you tomorrow."

"See you tomorrow. Bye, Steph."

I hung up the phone and ran my fingers through my hair. "Well, that was interesting. I wonder how I know her." I mused.

"I think the better question is, what were you doing before you were forced to evade our Bronco driving friend?" Junior asked. "Steph, you were chased into the river on a Tuesday, two weeks ago yesterday. That was the same day you were supposed to stop at the clinic."

"Su tracker esta localizado cruzar la calle de la clínica, justo antes de su llamada de auxilio." (Her tracker was located across the street from the clinic, just prior to her call for help) Hector said, without even looking up from his computer.

I looked over at Hector in confusion and then looked to the other side of the table, hoping that one of the guys would translate for me. One of these days I think I'll have to learn Spanish; it would certainly come in handy around this group. Fortunately, Ram responded without further prompting.

"He said that your car was tracked to a location across the street from the clinic the day of the accident, just before your call to Ranger." Ram looked at me with something like guilt. "I'm sorry, Steph, we didn't put two and two together because you had parked on the street in front of a Cluck in a Bucket. We assumed you had stopped there for lunch."

"I don't understand." I replied. "Are you saying that I encountered the Bronco guy on my way into the clinic? Do you think he and Alvarez were working together? Maybe Alvarez somehow found out that I was going to his work and hired the Bronco guy to kill me?"

"I doubt it." Junior said. "According to his file, he hadn't shown up to work since two days before his bond expired. It seems odd he would know what was going on at the clinic a week later, not to mention, it would be completely foolish for him to feel threatened enough to put a hit on you. I would be surprised if he even knew who was looking for him."

"There probably isn't a connection between them. It seems most likely to me that you were going to the clinic to get information on your skip when you encountered the Bronco guy." Les said. "There's no reason to believe that one thing has anything to do with the other." He paused to grab my hand. His eyes conveying sympathy. "The Bronco guy is probably working for Mendez."

"But Alvarez was executed." I said. "Why would someone have killed him the same day someone tried to kill me?"

"It could just be a coincidence," Les replied.

"That'd be a pretty big coincidence," Cal returned. Looking at Les he said, "I think Steph's right. For some reason, they were both targeted that day. Perhaps Alvarez witnessed the attack on Stephanie and was killed so that he couldn't identify her attacker?"

We all sat and let that idea soak in. Looking around the table I could see that we were all thinking the same thing… that this was the most likely scenario. And yet, in the back of my mind was a nagging suspicion that we were wrong, that we were overlooking something obvious. The only thing that sounded out of place with that scenario, at least to me, was the fact that I was still alive. If Mendez sent one of his guys to kill me, I doubt I would have had the chance to get away.

"If you were a professional killer, would you have given me an opportunity to run away?" I asked the room in general. "Or would I have even seen the bullet coming?"

"She's right," Junior agreed. "It was sloppy."

"Maybe Mendez isn't even involved." I said.

"The guy who attacked you in the hospital, Javier Acosta, is one of Mendez's guys," Cal said. "Mendez is definitely involved."

"A no ser que estamos viendo esto desde el ángulo equivicado." (Unless we are looking at this from the wrong angle) Hector said. "Quizá Angelita fue testigo el asesinato de Alvarez, y el ataque a su era impeder su desde la identificacíon de ellos." (Maybe Angel witnessed Alvarez's murder, and the attack on her was to prevent her from identifying them)

The room got quiet again and I looked to the guys once more for translation. This time Junior volunteered. "He said that maybe you witnessed Alvarez's murder and that's why they tried to kill you."

I sat quietly for a moment while I considered what everyone had said. The initial attack on me was sloppy. I was shot at, but not hit, and I was chased around town where lots of people could see us. If someone had planned on killing me, they most likely wouldn't have been so public about it, and they wouldn't have missed because I wouldn't have known to run. If Mendez sent his man to kill me because of my witnessing Alvarez's murder, then it had nothing to do with Ranger. At least Ranger can rest easy knowing that he doesn't have a leak within his team or the men he reports to.

"OK," I began. "Assuming that I saw Alvarez murdered, and Mendez sent one of his guys to kill me, how do we learn who he sent or even where Mendez is?"

"Well," Les said. "If we find out what Alvarez was into that got him killed, maybe we can track down the people he was involved with. I think our best plan at this point is for you to meet Vivian tomorrow and to find out as much as you can about him. I'll start putting together a team and a plan of action to run past Ranger when he gets back." With that, Les got up from the table and left the room.

Hector was typing furiously on his computer and I could only guess as to what research he was currently doing. Since he was the one to suggest that I had witnessed Alvarez's murder, he was probably looking for information that would support the idea. Ram, Junior and Cal had started flipping through their notes and were typing on their computers, so I assume they were doing more of the same. As always, Rodriguez hadn't made a peep during the entire conversation and was just working away on his reports.

I looked at the bulletin board again and tried to see a missing link among all the pictures, notes, and theories presented. Unfortunately, there were more mysteries than solutions at this point. We still didn't know the identity of the Bronco driver, or how he knew that the Bronco wouldn't be reported stolen when he took it. We didn't know with any certainty why he tried to kill me in the first place, even though we had a pretty good theory to go by now. But that new theory brought on questions of its own. Why was Alvarez killed? Who killed him? Why would they have killed him in or around the clinic that I happened to be visiting? The questions seemed endless, so I decided to switch gears and try to solve a different mystery.

"I'd like to review some of my former skip files," I said. "Do you have a list of those?"

"How far back do you want to go?" Junior asked. "It's a pretty big list."

"Actually, there are only a few specific files I want to look at to start, but I don't know how far back they go," I replied. "Can I just look at the list and mark the names I want?"

"Sure," Junior replied. He looked at me quizzically. "Who are you looking for?" He slid me a few pieces of paper that had been stapled together. Listed in chronological order were all the people that I had been assigned during my time as a BEA.

"I've been remembering random events surrounding some of my former skips, so I wanted to look over their files to see if they are somehow connected or if there is a common thread between them that my subconscious is trying to clue me into." I said. Looking it over I found that the list included the name of each person I had been assigned to bring to jail, the date they were assigned to me, a brief description of the charges against them, and the date they were captured. "Where is the list of the people I couldn't find?"

I saw four heads pop up and look at me with smiles on their faces. I didn't see what was so funny, so I continued to look at them with a bewildered expression. "Angelita," Hector began. "There are none."

I don't know what was more surprising, Hector speaking English in his heavy Spanish accent, or the idea that I had captured every single person I had been assigned to bring in. "None?" I repeated.

"None," Cal said with obvious pride.

For all the crazy events that have revolved around me, it was deliciously gratifing that I wasn't a total liability in my job. While I didn't like the track record for violence, destruction, and general mayhem that I'm apparently involved with on a regular basis, this was a record I could be very proud of. I smiled back at the guys and started highlighting the names for the files I wanted to review. I was hoping the files would clue me into the reason for the seemingly random memories I'd been having since I woke up in the hospital. Though I was confident that I would eventually regain all of my memory, I was hoping that looking through these files would jump start the process.