Chapter 28

RPOV

"Okay I know I seem to have been acting a little strange but there are things you need to know"

"How's Little Girl here Ranger?"

"How's not important but the reason is"

"Why have you still got men looking for her?"

"Because the problem we have is in Rangeman"

"One of our men, hell Ranger, how do you figure that out you've only been back a few hours?"

"Watch this Tank and then maybe you'll understand"

I opened the file on Steph's laptop and fast forwarded it to the time where Gauge had spoken to a man at the back of the church. Then watched the faces around the room as they watched that meeting. Surprise then anger swept across their faces and then I could see as they started to put together some of the things that had happened at Rangeman yesterday.

"Are you saying Mateo set up for the alarms to go off and then it was him who deleted the files from the server?"

"Yes. Steph recognized him and managed to get out before he could get hold of her. He followed her trackers even though they'd been disabled for anyone else to see"

"What the hell is he up to, is he responsible for what happened last week as well?"

"I don't think so, as to what he is up to I haven't a clue"

"So Steph being here should help us to work that out?"

"That's the idea Santos, but we need a plan of action"

"Why not just put him in the cells?"

"That wouldn't allow us to find out who he's working with or what the hell is going on"

"Ranger why Steph, why are people so keen to get to her?"

I looked to Ash as he said that starting to feel a little worried at what he'd said, mainly because I didn't like the idea of anyone being after her. If we knew the answer to that then maybe we could work out what was really going on.

"I don't know"

I looked down at Steph as I said that not really sure what was going through her mind, she had a worried look on her face and almost looked frightened. It was Ash who turned her toward him and started to talk to her.

"Steph this isn't your fault and that's not what I was implying. For some reason you're tied into this, so we just have to work out how"

It hit me as Ash said those words, she thought she was to blame, that everything that was happening was because of her, maybe it was, but no way could I let her think that anyone would be angry at her. I turned her to me, seeing some fear in her eyes. Shit what the hell had I done for her to feel like this, where was the Steph I knew and loved, that spunky fearless soul? I took her face in my hands and looked deep into her eyes hoping that the face she saw was showing her just how I felt about her. I'd noticed Santos signaling the others and knew Ash had stood up, where they were going, I didn't care, but was grateful for the privacy.

"Babe, never doubt yourself, because I never will. You are strong and resilient and the best thing that ever happened to me was when you walked into that diner and into my life. I know I've not treated you as you deserved, it's me who has the issues not you Babe, and I'm trying really hard to put them behind me."

As I said the words, I watched as tears came to her eyes and as each one fell down her cheeks, I wiped them away with my thumbs.

"Babe, I know I've hurt you in so many ways, but I promise I'll keep telling you for the rest of my life how important you are to me. You are the closest person to me, you are the best friend I never had, someone I trust implicitly"

I slowly moved forward and gently kissed her on her lips, teasing her with my tongue until she relented and gave me entry. Hell, how I had missed the sweet taste of her, the feel of her. I felt her hands come onto my neck and then thread through my hair, pulling the leather tie out, the intensity of the kiss deepening. My hand went to the back of her head with the other around her waist I pulled her to me, then as we both needed to breathe, we pulled apart as I held her face to mine.

"I've been so frightened"

"Tell me"

"I broke apart after you left me, I didn't know what I'd done, but suddenly my whole life just fell to pieces. I didn't care what those men did to me, I was hoping they'd finish what they started and take the pain away"

"Christ Babe, never think that again, I don't think I'd exist if you disappeared from my life"

"Do you mean what you said?"

"Every word Babe,"

I heard her laugh and pulled back to look at her face, tears were still there but now there was a smile on her face and for the first time in an age her eyes so blue, so loving were looking back at me. I felt as she suddenly turned to look around the room, frowning that there was no one there.

"Where is everyone?"

"I think they realized we needed some privacy and Tank, Les and Bobby are probably celebrating"

"Why?"

"Because they could probably see that we needed to talk and clear the air between us"

I stood and pulled Steph to her feet and then picked her up, pleased when her legs wrapped themselves around my hips. With one hand around her hips I sent a message to Tank "Meeting postponed until 1000hrs, lounge all yours" as I walked up the stairs and into what was our room, yeah, our room, where the hell had that thought come from. Something to think about later.

SPOV

As I woke I felt disorientated as to where I was, I remembered I'd spent the night with Ranger and where we were. The night hadn't gone as I thought it would have done, yeah I know I expected us to end up in bed, which we did. But once I was firmly by his side, surrounded by him I fell into a deep sleep. But then a panic came over me as I questioned whether last night had been a dream, or whether Ranger would have left as he'd done before leaving me once again feeling so lonely and heart broken. My eyes flew open at the touch of a mouth on my neck and regardless of the thoughts a smile came onto my lips.

"You look so beautiful when you wake up"

I know I was blushing, come on how can anyone say that when my hair was probably stuck out in all directions.

"Babe, I want what we have. You bring a semblance of peace to me that no one else can"

I opened my mouth to say something but didn't know what to say, was what he'd said last night real, had I dreamed it?

"No dream Babe, I promise"

"We're good then?"

He nodded his head as he smiled and pulled my head down onto his chest. I felt better now that I had heard him say he wanted me around. Okay so maybe as his best friend but that was definitely better than where we'd been. Now I needed to ensure that I could keep that status quo without ending up pushing him away again. I just wasn't sure that resuming the benefits part of our friendship would be such a good idea. Before now my guilt over Morelli had buffered us from falling into a sex only relationship. The time spent in Hawaii had been amazing, but it brought home to me the limit of where Ranger stood with me. Had I only retreated back to Morelli because he was safer, knowing I could never have Ranger as I wanted him? Something to think about later.

I was half laid across him, the sheet covering us when Ranger started to get up from the bed.

"We'll need to get up Babe"

"Why?"

"I postponed the meeting to 10 this morning"

"Oh shit, I can't go down there"

"Why not?"

"They'll all think they know what we were doing"

"Babe, they won't, I promise. They know how close we are"

"Okay, I need to shower first, what state is the bathroom in?"

"Clean and the water's hot"

I could cope with that, after all it couldn't be any worse than the bathroom in my apartment, so I rolled over and got up from the bed walking into the bathroom. I sighed as I looked at how small the cubicle was. Once clean I came back out into the bedroom as Ranger stepped in, hearing him groaning out loud.

"First thing we're gonna do is put new furniture in here with a large shower"

It was strange to hear him say "We're gonna do" what did he mean by that? Was he determined that I would move in here? There was no way I would become one of those women who was only there when a man needed a booty call. I needed my independence.

I dressed in black cargos and a long-sleeved roll necked sweater and then decided to go barefoot. I watched as Ranger came out of the bathroom, appreciating the view of the towel wrapped low on his hips making me just want to go back to bed. I turned quickly before he realized I was looking at him. I wasn't going to allow my hormones to take control. No, I needed to take charge of my emotions and be the friend that Ranger needed me to be.

I hadn't realized some of the clothes on the rack were his and watched as he selected a Rangeman uniform and sat on the bed to put on his boots, even here he slipped a gun in the holster around his ankles and one at his back. I smiled as he came over to me and lightly kissed my forehead before we descended down the stairs and into the lounge. Everyone was here, Ash and Tank in the kitchen area, Bobby was talking to Zeph and Les was sat on the couch looking at his phone. Phone, I needed to charge up my burn phone so went to the side of the couch where my bag was and retrieved the phone. Les came up behind me and handed me a charger and my other phone. I was surprised that it hadn't been broken when Dillon had thrown it onto the carpark. With his hands on my shoulders he kissed my head.

"I'm really pleased you two eventually sorted yourselves out"

"We're just friends Les but maybe we've regained some trust that seemed to have gone"

"It'll work out Beautiful, you'll see"

I couldn't see that happening but didn't want Les thinking it through anymore.

"Maybe"

"Come on we need to get this meeting started"

I plugged the charger into a socket along with the burn phone and then sat down on the couch Ash brought me a coffee and a bowl of fruit sitting down next to me. Hell, it was as if we were back at the meeting last night, everyone sat in exactly the same places and Ranger was right, no one said anything or gave me strange looks. It was as if what happened last night was just expected and normal. Tank cleared his voice before he started to talk.

"Bad news Ranger"

"What's happened?"

"Mateo has disappeared"

"When?"

"He left the building at the end of his shift, I had Miguel and Cal following him, but they lost him"

"Shit, I suppose it was something that he would do, he'd be worried that we'd find Steph"

"So now what Ranger?"

I felt more confident this morning, as though being with Ranger had given me confidence and a sense of belonging again.

"We start at the beginning"

"Where's that Steph?"

"I think Buckley is the key to this, I think he had developed something that was so technologically advanced people were after it"

I looked to Ash as he sat forward, Ranger had said he was as good as Hector if not better, maybe he had an idea of what Buckley was doing.

"I did some research last night on Buckley and analyzed the direction that his work seemed to be taking, he was very driven with the idea of an intelligent computer, even to some extent robotics"

"What makes you think that?"

"He spent a lot of time years ago developing a computer that could play chess, he wanted the computer to be able to formulate decisions, the problem became that the program he used to do this became the limiting factor"

I watched as everyone including me was trying to figure out where this was leading. I mean for me visions of "I Robot" and "Exterminator" came into my head and Les obviously had the same thoughts as me.

"You mean like Sonny in "I robot"

Ash laughed at what Les had said but that didn't make me feel any better.

"Well maybe not as free thinking as that, a robot that could learn and develop an ability to compute ideas to solve a problem or situation"

"Ash how far away is the research on this?"

"Not as far off as you'd like to think, but it doesn't stop people from researching it. There're rumors of using robots for security and even as front line soldiers but at the moment any use of robots is strictly controlled by an operator"

Oh shit, is that what Buckley meant, that in the wrong hands it could be too powerful.

"Buckley said it was his lifes work and he didn't want it to get into the wrong hands, that it was too powerful"

"Babe you mentioned something about a microchip?"

"Yeah he said that they'd taken it but I couldn't make sense of what it was"

"Okay, Ash can you go to Buckley's old house and see if there's anything that could give us a clue. Gauge is involved with Hastings and turned up at Buckley's funeral, Santos work with Zeph and see if you can find out what they're up to there"

"Ash, anything else you could do?"

"I'm best trying to hack into Hastings"

"Herichlon, maybe that place as well"

"Hector's on that"

"I know Tank, but Ash has some tricks that even Hector doesn't know about"

"Why don't we bring Hector in?"

"We could, Ash?"

"Okay with me"

"Babe see if you can find anything on Mateo, Tank send the application we have and the search you did"

"Babe?"

"Safenet?"

"Yeah, there's something going on there, Tank have the teams picked up anything on them?"

"Not that we're aware of but now we have some faces maybe we can see if any meet up"

"You mean Mateo?"

"It's a possibility"

"He knew you were putting surveillance on them Ranger"

"Shit Bobby, you're right. He was at Safenet when Steph went missing and he knew we were going to that house where Steph was with Buckley as well"

"Ranger we have enough for now, how secure is this place?"

"Is it safe for us all to meet here?"

I saw Ranger think about that and I knew he was worried for me and wouldn't want anyone to find the place, maybe the team could meet up at Rangeman?

"Ranger why don't we just work from Rangeman, Mateo's gone?"

I watched as Ranger took in what I'd said, and he was obviously thinking it through, the thing is I didn't want anyone to find this place and the more people who came here the more that was likely to happen.

"Maybe you're right, there are always men there and the security is good. Ash could you work with Hector to ensure that?"

"No problem, but the sooner the better"

"Okay we'll head out then"

I stood and made to go upstairs but Ranger caught my hand.

"Where're you going Babe?"

"To pack"

"No need, there are clothes at Rangeman"

I didn't ask how that was possible but seeing as clothes just seemed to appear wherever I was I wasn't going to ask. I picked up my bag, the phone and charger and followed Ranger through the door that led down to the garage, surprised when there was only two cars parked there and Les was waiting next to a black SUV.

"You taking the Merc Ranger?"

"No, I'll leave it here"

I climbed in the back of the SUV as Ranger opened the door and then he was sat next to Les, driving of course, but there was one thing confusing me.

"Where did the others go?"

It was Les who answered me.

"They parked away from the place and they'll take different routes back"

It wasn't too long before we were parking in the garage at Rangeman but to be honest I was feeling a bit nervous at going upstairs to five. Would the men be annoyed that I was just walking back in or had someone told them what had happened? In the elevator with Les and Ranger I saw that Les had hit the button for five, shit, it looked like I was about to find out.

The floor was buzzing with the men moving back and forth, some didn't seem to see me, too busy reading as they walked past but of those who saw me were keen to talk with me, stopping me on the corridor to give me a hug. Les disappeared and Ranger let go of my hand with a smile and went into his office.

"You okay Steph?"

"Yeah, thanks"

"You did really well to get out of here and hide"

"Thanks Cal"

"Estefania, you good now"

I was never sure with Hector if he was asking me a question or telling me something, so I just nodded back to him and smiled. Then jumped when Hal and Miguel appeared from behind me.

"Way to go Steph"

"Yeah I never did like him"

I didn't know what to say to that, but I felt so much better now that I was here and having the men talk to me so kindly. Tank came out of his office and handed me a file, presumably on Mateo.

"You know if you worked here the loonies wouldn't get past you"

"Tank I'm not that good"

"Oh yes you are"

He turned and went back into his office before I had chance to reply so I continued to walk down the corridor. I had the file for Mateo McGannon in my hand as I walked into the workroom I now saw as mine. Taking a seat, I started by reading through the papers inside.

According to his application he was 35 years old and had come from a government department that specialized in intelligence. His reason for applying to Rangeman was the boredom of analyzing data that was part of his job and that he wanted to make better use of his computer skills and have the possibility of field work. On the surface it seemed like a good enough reason, so why hadn't he simply requested a transfer? I looked through the search that Tank had done and to be honest didn't find anything unusual, and probably that was what I didn't like about it, it was just too ordinary. So now to do the work needed to find out exactly who this man was. I input the name of the college he said he went to, DigiPen, which was apparently a highly rated college located in Redmond, Washington in the Seattle Area.

It was a small institution with an enrolment of 964 undergraduate students and admission was fairly competitive. I then started to explore the yearbooks when Mateo would have been there. Interesting that in these yearbooks there was no mention of a Mateo McGannon so choosing the one that would have been one year before he left I started to go through each photograph of the students one by one. It was in the yearbook two years before he said he'd left when I found a photo that definitely looked like him. I should have known he wouldn't venture too far from the familiarity of his name, thank god he still carried the same looks as he had when he was younger. Matthew Gannon aged 37, hmm, interesting that he wanted to be younger, had left with a Bachelor of Science Degree in Computer Science in Machine Learning, and a Masters in Computer Science. I input his name into the search program and let myself relax a bit; I needed coffee and probably food seeing as it was 1 in the afternoon.

The break room was where I needed to be and I really hoped there was something left that I liked but when I came into the room I saw that Ash was squatted down in front of the fridge with a frown across his face.

"Nothing there you like Ash?"

"Not really, hell it's all healthy stuff"

"That's Ranger's doing"

"Know anywhere I can get something decent to eat?"

"Probably Pinos would suit you"

"You want me to bring you something back?"

"Oh god yes, a meatball sub"

"Okay I'll find someone to take me"

"Take you where Ash?"

We both looked at the door to see Ranger lent against the doorframe and I'm sure from the smile on his face he'd heard every word we'd said. Ash didn't look embarrassed as he walked over to him.

"How about we call at Buckley's house and then you can show me what's so good about this place Pinos that Steph suggested to get some decent food"

"Let's go then. Babe you okay?"

I nodded my head because I knew it wasn't wise for me to go anywhere but I wasn't too sure how long I'd manage being cooped up inside. Ranger came over to me and bent down kissing my head and to whisper in my ear.

"I'll take you out tomorrow evening, I promise"

"Thank you"

Because that meant so much to me, knowing how he would understand how I would be feeling. I watched as they went through the stairwell door and out of sight, deciding that they'd probably be a while and I was still hungry. With a fresh coffee and some cereal bars, I went back into my workroom to finish the work I had started.