Disclaimer: All familiar characters belong to Janet Evonovich.

I promise all will be explained soon - how Steph ended up where she is, where Ranger is, etc. I made a mistake in Chapter 1 though, and thank you for pointing it out to me. Joe's eyes are brown not green, which is what I said - I can see how that may have made you think of Lester instead.

Danny's Point of View:

"Say it! Just say it!" Steve accuses from the driver's seat of my Camaro. The audacity!

"Steven! Eyes on the road please!"

Where did he learn to drive? Someone failed in teaching him how to drive decently. Why can't he just keep his eyes on the road?

"Danny, you obviously want to say something, so just say it!"

"Nothing! You don't listen to me any way. You run around this island like an uncivilized animal, holding people out of 12 floor windows, by nothing other than their belt! What would you have done, if he had fallen to his death? Do you think we would still have a job tomorrow? Do you think the governor would just sweep it under the rug and forget about? But why would you care – you could just go back to the Army. But think about the rest of us – I have a family to think about!" I could feel the rant starting, and I couldn't even stop it! Sometimes he is just so selfish.

"Navy, Danny!"

"Huh?"

"I worked Naval Intelligence and I was a Navy SEAL. Not the army."

I turn my body slightly to face the window. Out of all of that, he takes away that – the fact that I said Army instead of Navy. Most of the time I mistake them just to make him angry, but today, today I just forgot.

I pull out my phone and see 7 missed calls from Steph. Oh shit! Something must be wrong – we phone every Sunday morning without fail. It became our routine when I moved to Newark and then even more so, when I followed Gracie and Rachel to Hawaii. And today is not Sunday. I quickly hit the call button and wait. No answer. A knot forms in the bottom of my stomach.

"Danno, everything ok, buddy?" Steve questions.

"I don't know just yet." I reply as I hit the call button again. Still no answer.

Steve reaches out to put a steading hand on my shoulder. "Talk to me, Danny. Use your words."

I see the smirk on his face and I know he is trying to ease the sudden tension in the car.

"A friend back in Trenton tried to call me 7 times this morning. I missed the calls because I was trying to keep you from killing a guy."

"Is it Steph?"

"Yeah," I reply as I re-hit the dial button, "I spoke to her on Sunday and everything seemed fine then. It's very unlike her to phone me 7 times."

"Danny?" I hear a soft, hoarse voice come through the phone. The tension in my body immediately eases and I feel the wave of familiar comfort that normally falls over me when I hear her voice. We've been friends for over 20 years and there's an ease to our friendship that I have never experienced with anyone else before.

"Stephie! Man, it is great to hear your voice. Sorry, I wasn't able to answer when you phoned earlier, but Steve had this guy hanging from a 12th floor window, by his belt alone. I don't know what comes over him sometimes. I think this story might rival the one you told me about that guy named Tank throwing someone out the window. At least that was only the 3rd floor. But 7 miss calls is quite excessive for you. So, is everything ok?" When I start talking to Steph, it all just comes so easily.

"I have a favour to ask. You know I wouldn't be asking if I had another choice. So, please Dan! I need this."

In all the years I have known Steph, I don't think I've ever heard her beg. It's quite disconcerting and all that tension came back in multitudes. Something is wrong. Very wrong.

"Steph, what's going on? Are you ok? Where are you? What happened? What do you need? Talk to me, Stephanie!" I launch all the questions at her in rapid fire. I need information. I need to know what's going on. I spoke to her on Sunday and she seemed fine then. What happened between then and now? Mare hasn't phoned so she can't know about it yet.

"Danny, slow down." I hear Steph say through the phone. There is uncertainty in her tone that makes me nervous. "I need to get out of Trenton for a few days, maybe a week or two. Could you pick me up at the airport this evening and let me crash on your couch for a while?"

I look at Steve and I notice that he keeps glancing my way with a concerned look on his face. He raises a finger to show me that our ETA to HQ is about 1 minute. When Steph is involved, stories normally make the headlines in Trenton. So, I want to get onto a computer and see what I can find.

I school my voice before replying. I know she doesn't need someone that is judging or scolding her at the moment – no matter what's happened, so I go with a lighter, more joyous tone: "Of course, Stephie! If you're willing to get on a plane on your own free will, then this must be important. Send me the flight details and I'll be there. I'll see you later and remember, I love you!"

She quickly confirms that she will send me the flight details in a few minutes, and hangs up as we arrive at HQ. We get out of the car and head for the building and then the elevator.

"Everything ok with Steph?" Steve asks

"I'm not sure yet. She sounded so scared and uncertain of what she was saying and doing. It just didn't quite sound like her." I explain, a little confused myself. Something was different but I couldn't put my finger on what. Normally if Steph is in danger, she phones that friend of hers, Ranger; not me. "I want to get onto the computer to see what I can find, before I head home and then to the airport."

"Anything you need, you let me know." Steve offers.

"Thanks, man. Appreciate it!" I reply as we part ways for our individual offices.

I drop my badge and gun into the top drawer of my desk and start up my laptop. Damn it! An update is in progress. My temper starts to flare and I need to take a minute before this laptop takes a dive right out the window. I place my head back and close my eyes. Different scenarios start running through my head and each one is a little worse than the previous.

Stephie and I have been close friends since 7 or 8 years old. We grew up down the street from each other, and our dads' spent most of the waking hours at the lodge together. My parents are the overly loving, excessively huggy type of people. Almost the exact opposite of her parents. This often meant that when her mother got too judgemental and Steph, subconsciously, of course, felt unloved or unwanted, she would sneak out of her bedroom window and come to our house. Turns out that Steph's dad did really care about her - we found out years later that my dad and her dad had an unspoken agreement that when Steph arrived at our house upset from something her mother said, my dad would text her dad to say she was there, and he would actively keep her mother busy and occupied so that Steph could have that time alone and away.

By the time Steph became a bounty hunter I had already transfer to the Newark Police Department to be closer to Racheal. Needless to say that I tried to convince Stephie to choose any other career, but she would have none of it. I learnt a long time ago that when Stephanie Plum puts her mind to something, she is going to do it. So, shut up and support her because there is no talking her out of it. From the stories I've heard and the statistics I've seen, she is amazing at capturing her man, even if it does require a little more of an unconventional method. I just wish she would put a little effort into taking precautions and take those amazing friends of hers up on their offers to train her. I often find myself comparing her and Steve and seeing so many similarities in the way their brains work, and the way they operate.

I can't wait any longer for my laptop to start so I head out to the ball-pen and start up the smart computer table thing. Within seconds, Junior and Grover have joined me at the table.

"Danny, move over! Let me do this before you break something," Junior says while gently shoving me out of the way. "What are you trying to do?"

"I want to see all the news articles for the past 24 hours in Trenton, New Jersey." I ask.

I see the concern on Grover's face before he can even form the words "Everything ok back home?"

"I'm not sure yet." I answer as simply and honestly as I can at the moment. My nervousness, anxiety and concern levels rising second by second. Not knowing what is going on has never sat well with me. Add in the fact that this is about one of my closest friends' that constantly finds herself in trouble and danger, and I feel like I'm crawling inside my own skin.

Junior starts typing away and within seconds we have results coming up.

"Can you narrow it down for us, Danny? We currently have 1000s of results."

"Show me results where a female bounty hunter was involved," I clarify for Junior and he turns to put the new information into the computer.

"Ok, let's see… I don't have any results for the last 24 hours … I have extended the timeline…. let's see what we have for the last week… ah, there we go… female bounty hunter… a Stephanie Plum, aka Bombshell Bounty Hunter…¨Junior mutters to himself as he types and retypes pieces of information into the computer. "Here we go, Danny. A female bounty hunter named Stephanie Plum, aka the Bombshell Bounty Hunter. Is that her?" Junior flipped a photo of Steph up onto the big screen, wearing a short, skin tight, dark blue dress that fit her like a glove and emphasised her most amazing features – her blue eyes and her curvy hips.

"Damn, I can see why they call her that!" Grover quipped under his breath. And Junior leaned across to fist bump him. Steve made his way out of his office gaping a little at the screen.

I smacked Junior on the shoulder, before adding, "That's actually not why they call her that."

Junior, Grover and Steve raised an eyebrow in unasked curiosity.

"It's a long story but Steph has a bad habit of things blowing up around her, whether it's her cars, or funeral homes, or her apartment, or buildings. Things just keep blowing up around her. After the funeral home explosion, which wasn't actually her fault, the newspaper nicknamed her the Bombshell Bounty Hunter and it kind of stuck." I explain.

"I have so many questions…" Grover says before turning back to the screen.

"Ok, it looks like her car blew up when one of her FTA's through a Molotov cocktail into the open window on the passenger side. That happened about 6 days ago." Junior explains as he opens and closes different news articles looking for descriptions and photos of the attack.

"Then about 2 days ago, oh dear, this is embarrassing." Junior says without continuing. I look up to see this mouth dropped and his free hand covering his mouth.

"What? What happened? … Junior, come on, man!" I beg. Bile rising in my throat as I quickly imagine all the things that could have gone wrong.

Junior draws a deep breath and continues, "This article says that she was chasing an FTA through a dark alley. As she came around the corner onto the main road, she tackled who she thought was her FTA and landed in a pile of garbage, on top of the FTA. She slipped a few times while trying to get up, pushing her so-be-FTA further into the garbage; before eventually cuffing him. When she turned him over, she saw that it was in fact the Chief of Police that she had tackled by accident - he was out for a run with his young son."