Gone Girl by Kadyn Finished

by Rangerbabe21

This is the story Gone Girl as written by Kadyn in 2014. Now Bata'ed, edited and now finished. Ranger comes back from being 'in the wind' to learn there's a manhunt on for Stephanie Plum who's been missing for four months. When he learns she's on video surveillance the day before she disappeared stealing thousands from his company and that his daughter Julie is also gone. Babe

18. Chapter 52 Facing Legal

Gone Girl

Chapter 52 Facing Legal

A/N I actually had no plan or expectation in writing her dealing with her legal problems I just looked up the law and it just happens that New Jersey is very lax about speeding. There are no specific laws for going over any specific speed like there are in other states. In some states there is mandatory 1 year in jail for going over 100 MPH. YIKES! Speeding in new Jersey that doesn't cause an accident is considered to be a petty offense and if the officer wants to, he can give a ticket for reckless driving. I looked up the laws about reckless driving and with these basic guidelines I just let the chapter craft itself. Enjoy…

Chapter Fifty-two

Sunday April 13, 2014 - Day 152

Stephanie POV

Sunday was a quiet affair in the Haywood building. Julie and I got up early to work out in the gym. Of course, we got up at 8 am instead of 5 am like Carlos usually does. When we told him about our plan to head to the gym, he waited so he could go with us. There we were, all three of us, lined up on the treadmills. Julie and I did 3 miles and then hit the mats to do some Pilates Carlos ran 8 miles and then coaxed us to get on some of the weightlifting machines. After we showered, we had a peaceful brunch and went down to five to visit with the men who were not on duty. By now most of them had heard the stories about me and Julie, and we spent some time answering question. I told them about the air tank but to keep it quiet because that is not part of the official story and that if I had planned properly, I would have worn a wet suit under my clothes.

Sunday afternoon Julie and I went for a drive in my new Audi. While we were gone, I told her the story about the dress, the dancing, the singing and another proposal. She was thrilled. I told her I'd probably have to give the car away to the guy that we stole it from so we might as well enjoy it while we had it. Carlos, it seemed, had all my clothes and the car brought back from New York by the same black clad badass fairies who moved us to the other hotel. Ella went to oversee it all but used the guys as her muscle.

Sunday night brought a surprise party for me and Julie to welcome us home and to celebrate the successful Russian mission. Everyone was in high spirits. They all wanted to congratulate me because I went above and beyond to save Julie and myself. And the details of our but mostly to celebrate Julie and me. Our successful running and our spectacular return were talked about with awe and respect. Ella made a large potluck dinner that she set up in one of the conference rooms. She also managed to surprise us with a huge three tier cake that was decorated with lots of big butter cream roses just for me.

The room had been decked out in balloons and streamers. Lester and Cal ambushed me by spraying me all over with silly string. The party was just what we needed and a lot of the guys who live off site came to see us. Well me, everyone was there to see me and say 'hi' and wish Carlos and me well. News of our engagement ran through the building like wildfire. Everyone was thrilled for us and for themselves because a very uptight Ranger was much more mellow now that everything had been resolved. it seemed that me being home had finally mellowed.

I wasn't looking forward to Monday morning but all too soon it got here. It had been one hundred and fifty-three days since Julie and I left and now it was time to face the music. Ranger had tried over the weekend to contact the owner of the car, but his voicemail said he was still out of the country. Carlos suggested we take my new car to the police station and explain to the police chief that I was planning on giving it to the owner of the other car.

"It's good to see you alive and well Miss Plum." Police Chief Williams welcomed me warmly and shook my hand. "Ranger." He acknowledged him as he shook his hand. "Please have a seat," he offered as he waved his hand to the two chairs in front of his desk.

It was a standard office with a big wooden desk in the middle. Diplomas and certificates were framed and hung nicely on the wall. A big black leather chair that looked worn like he spent many hours slaving away behind this desk. Two plush chairs angled to face the desk and each other but they weren't leather, they were made of a heavy vinyl. Nice enough for the Mayor or councilman who may stop by to visit but easy to clean in case he needed to speak with a drunken, stinking, slimy scumbag who'd been arrested.

Once he got all settled, he started. "Miss Plum we were removed from the kidnapping case, but I have some personal questions about that to ask you if you don't mind. These tie into the part of the case we ARE handling," he stated.

"No, not at all." I shook my head. "Please ask away." I tried to mask my nervousness with a smile.

"To start with," he smiled back at me, "how did you know Julie was in danger?"

"Things happened over a two-month period. Ron her adoptive father started monitoring all her calls and texts. He would stand over her computer and watch her email me. Then Julie had overheard her parents talking about cashing in on her; to somehow use her to get one lump sum from Carlos. She investigated more and overheard them discussing her possible kidnapping. She found out about the two life insurance policies on her worth four-million-dollars. Then she went to her counselor at school and told her that Ron was planning on kidnapping her for the ransom. They called Ron and he came in and told them that she was delusional and heavily medicated and didn't know what she was talking about. So, she put a recorder in her parents' room and started recording their phone calls and conversations. Finally, she got Ron on a recording talking about her kidnapping, and how much money he needed. He said that afterwards her body needed to be found quickly so that the life insurance policies would pay out."

"Where is this recording?" he asked, seriously. Looking hard at me as if to make sure I was telling the truth. It was this look that probably had multiple criminals over the years rapidly spilling their guts and confessing their inner most secrets. But I was secure in what I was telling him and knew that the story I had to tell him today was the only one for me to tell.

"Ranger gave the recording to the FBI," I explained. Knowing Ranger, I'm sure he gave the original recording device to the FBI but surely kept a copy. I would have to ask him.

"Damn, I would have liked to have heard that," the Chief wished and it was something that would probably get me out of trouble the fastest because it was the best proof – if someone believed that the recording was Ron – that Julie had really been in danger.

"I can email you a digital copy of the recording," Ranger offered. Oh great! I thought and I should probably get a copy for myself too.

"Absolutely, it will help our case in supporting Miss Plum. To break it down easily Miss Plum, no charges have been filed against you, yet. We have the possibility of grand theft auto, reckless driving and speeding over 100 mph. You were clocked going 145 mph down I-95. We haven't been able to talk to the owner of the car because he is out of the country. But we did pull that car out of the river and we know it was hotwired. You didn't have keys for it. Can you explain to me how you got possession of a hotwired car?" He leaned over his desk, staring down at me.

This was going to be the biggest hurdle to overcome. Even if the owner of the car didn't press charges the police could still press charges. I had to walk this line delicately.

"Chief Williams I can't say that I am not to blame here but we never planned for the car to get damaged. We thought we would be able to return it in good condition. Since the car was destroyed, I have purchased an Audi R8 to replace it when the owner returns," I said kinda sheepishly hoping we could smooth this over.

Ranger stepped in, "He has his choice of an almost new model with low miles, where his Audi was four years old, or we can give him cash for the value of his car. Either way we are ready to reimburse him for his loss. We don't need to waste the courts time with this. Stephanie is here to admit that she did the wrong thing. They were in a hurry to get somewhere safe because there were people trying to kill her and Julie; so, they took this car that was sitting outside the airport. Unfortunately, Agent Luent saw them and started to chase them. He shot at them. Fortunately, he was shooting left-handed out the driver's side window and was a terrible shot. Then he rammed their car sending them into the river. The car started filling up with water. They each took big breathes and Stephanie got Julie to the surface and then swam under the bridge before she came up out of the water." Ranger's face was blank, but he sounded solid and stoic like he believed everything he was saying was the truth.

"Thank you for that Ranger but we are here to listen to Miss Plum explain her actions. Miss Plum," he turned to me, "why did you run? Why not come out of the water with Julie?" He looked like he really wanted to know the answer.

"Honestly, Chief Williams, I was worried that if I went to jail with a two and a half million hit hanging over my head I would get killed before I could clear my name." I took a deep breath and tried to center myself. I was hoping I was keeping the fear and worry off my face and mostly portraying confidence. I looked over at Ranger who had his blank face in place trying his best to mediate this meeting on my behalf.

"See, I had to take Julie in order to save her life. Ron had paid off her psychiatrist to say she was delusional and heavily medicated, so no one would believe her if she told them what he was trying to do to her. Ron paid off the FBI agent to cover up the financial proof that Ron had emptied all of Julie's accounts. We just didn't have the proof to clear my name, so I felt I was better off working to clear my name from the outside rather than sitting in a jail cell." I continued hoping he would accept my story and let me off the hook with some kind of warning or a stern lecture and not just chuck my ass back in jail.

Chief Williams gave one big sigh. "I'm not going to dismiss the auto theft charges until the owner comes back and is happy with the way it all gets resolved. If you're throwing money at this to make it go away, you might want to throw in a little extra for his time and trouble."

"Yes sir, we will make it right with the owner," Ranger promised.

"Miss. Plum, I have to tell you that you are lucky you pulled this stunt in New Jersey. In some states, excessive speeding – that is going a specific mileage over the speed limit, in some states, is an arrestable offence that carries a mandatory jail term. But here in the Garden State it is legally seen as a petty offence and doesn't carry any legal charges."

This was good, we were getting to the meat of things and he was saying I wasn't going to have to go to jail. In fact, if I understood him correctly it's not even illegal to speed that far over the speed limit here.

"The maximum penalty for reckless driving is up to 60 days imprisonment, a $200 fine and possibly a 6 months suspension of your driver's license," he continued, looking very sternly at me.

Oh shit, he was talking jail time and losing my license for 6 months would really suck because here every cop knew me and would pull me over if they saw me driving while my license was suspended. I started getting really scared and just kept remembering that Ranger promised me he would get me out of jail and have the charges thrown out.

"But I honestly I've never heard a better excuse for driving so fast in my life." He chuckled. "Well in my entire career and believe me I have heard some doozies. But you were literately running for your lives and you were trying to protect Julie. As fast as you were going, it wasn't fast enough because one of the people who was here looking to kill you, found you, and almost succeeded in doing away with you."

Okay this was sounding better like maybe he was only going to let me off with a stern warning or at least no jail time.

"I'm not going to do anything today about the stolen car because we know you didn't steal it. You just took it for one hell of a joy ride. We do have on tape the video of the man who shimmied the door open and hot-wired the car. The FBI still hasn't shared the tape of you getting into the car, stating it is part of their investigation into a kidnapped and missing child. You make things right with the man – one Ocalli Ben Makton who owns the car and I'm not going to pursue charges against you."

Oh phew! That was a big load off. No jail time for me – today. Well at least not yet we still had to deal with the FBI, but Carlos has assured me he has already paved the way for that to go smoothly.

The chief pressed a button on his black multi-line phone. "Please send in Officer Gazzara," he said to the person on the other side of the line. Oh good, Eddie was married to my cousin Shirley the whiner and he likes me. He's especially happy with me when I volunteer to babysit his little monsters, but no matter what the cost of the ticket, it would be better to pay it rather than babysit again. I shuddered at the thought. The last time I babysat for them they cut my hair and set the kitchen on fire while I was in the bathroom looking at the damage.

"As the Chief, I no longer have a book to write tickets. I'll tell you now that at the speed you were going – I'm going to require an automatic ticket for reckless driving to be given at the same time. But since you can afford a replacement for the car a couple hundred dollars in speeding tickets won't be a problem. What you must watch for is the points. Any more tickets in the next year, Miss Plum," he leaned forward over his desk and looked sternly at me, "and you will lose your license. I advise you to take a traffic course because if you think you can drive as fast as a car can go you need to examine your driving habits."

"You are right Chief Williams. I will drive more safely from now on. That night got crazy. We were being chased by police and helicopters and I was just trying to get Julie safely back to Ranger," I said in a rush, trying to excuse my behavior.

"Still, if anything happened at that speed you would be dead. I don't ever want to hear about you going that fast ever again. Especially because I know for a fact that you were going faster than 145 MPH because at some point even the helicopters couldn't keep up with you. But that is what you were clocked at so that is what the ticket will say." he sternly returned.

At that moment there was a knock on the door and Officer Gazzara stuck his head in. His face lit up like it was Christmas and there was a million dollars under his tree.

"Steph!" He crossed the room and pulled me into a crushing hug. "I read the story in the paper and I saw your interview on the news. I can't believe it!" He mimicked my mother as he pushed me further away, holding me by my hands, arms outstretched to give him more room so he could scan me up and down. "You look great! I was worried about you, all those months on the run had to be hard. But you look GOOOOD!" He emphasized the last word.

The chief put up with this for a moment and then interrupted. "Officer Gazzara, I called you in here on official business."

"Sorry Sir," he said as he stepped back from me.

"I understand that you were one of the officers who tagged Miss Plum speeding on the night she went into the river?"

"Yes. Sir. I got her on radar going 143 MPH." Eddie was all business now.

"Please write her a ticket for speeding and one for reckless driving."

"Sorry Steph," he said as he pulled out his book. "I need your driver's license." He held his hand out to me and I handed it to him.

"Um Eddie, I'm no longer at that address," I tried to tell him.

"That's okay, it's the address we have legally on record. I advise you to go down and get it updated before you go to pay the tickets." We were all quiet while he was busy filling out the forms. "Um Steph, I have to get the tag off the car. If you're done Chief, they can walk me out to the impound lot and get it," Gazzara said

"Sure," the Chief said, as he held out his hand to me and shook my hand and then Ranger's. "Miss Plum, Ranger, thanks for coming in and getting this all cleared up."

"Thank you, Chief Williams," Ranger said. Then we followed Gazzara out to the lot.

"I've got to say Stephanie that was one hell of a swim. I don't know how you did it." He turned to me as we walked.

"I was scared to death and I held my breath till I thought I was going to explode. I wasn't worried about being arrested per say, but with a two and a half million dollar hit hanging over my head, I knew that if I was in jail, I would be a bigger target and I wouldn't last long." It was getting old repeating this, but it was the best story and it needed to get spread around.

"That's true, you would have had a line of people ready to do you in. But you look good. We were all certain that you had drown. Julie told us you were right behind her and she kept trying to go back in the water. That was a bad night for us all." His voice dropped off at the end.

"Yeah, really sorry to put everyone through that. I didn't know that everyone thought I was dead till the news the next day." This was also part of the story I wanted spread around.

"I think the news services made it worse, but after the ME refused to issue a death certificate, we all got to thinking like him. That if Julie could make it to the surface you probably could have too. Some of the guys were waiting for your body to float ashore or to be found in the water. Anyway, I'm glad to see that you made it." He threw a smile at me.

When we got to the lot Eddie flashed his badge and said we were with him. He led us to the third row of cars and there it was the little Audi with a big dent in the rear bumper where Luent had hit us. It didn't feel like that hard of a hit looking back but it was a foot-long dent and went into the body of the car quite a-ways.

"I don't suppose you had any kind of car insurance when you took your little drive?" Eddie slyly questioned.

I pointed at the car. "I don't think that my car insurance would pay for a car like this." But he was right, my car insurance had long expired before we stole that car. I wanted to look at it to see what kind of shape it was in but the whole car had been covered with a tarp. Only the license plate and the back end was visible. Eddie jotted it down and handed me two tickets.

"Pay those on time. You don't want to pay the late fees and you must know that the Chief is going easy on you. He could have slapped you with more fines and tickets – like no insurance and suspended your license. Take his generosity and be thankful for it."

Eddie walked us back out of the lot and said his goodbyes. Ranger put his arm around me as we walked back to my car. "That went very well. The Chief is on board with us resolving things with the owner of the car and you didn't get charged with anything." He said as he opened my door and ushered me into the passenger's side. I was starting to think that secretly he liked driving my car. I texted Julie as soon as we were on the road, telling her how it went. She was happy for me.

It was a three-hour drive normally to Washington DC, but with Ranger driving more than 90 MPH the whole way, we made it in two and a half hours. We were early to meet Agent Fuller, so we stopped at a little bistro for lunch. At 12:45 we went through the screening process at the FBI building.

Carlos cleared the way by removing all his weapons and placing them in a lock box that I didn't know he brought with us. He held it out for me to add my weapons. I think it turned him on to see me pulling a gun out of one boot, a knife from the other, and a gun from my hip. After he locked our weapons away; he slid the box under the seat.

We stood in front of the receptions, waiting for her to find her words. She was staring at Carlos, flustered by his presence. I stepped closer, taking his hand in mine to show her that we were together. Her adoring eyes turned to daggers as she looked at me. But she regained her feminine wiles, batting her eyes and simpering when she focused on Carlos again. While she tried her best to be noticed, Carlos blatantly ignored her, which made me feel a little bit better. It made me aware that he is a highly sought-after prize and I had a lifetime of glaring other women down as they try to get his attention.

Her multi-line phone beeped. She picked up the well-worn handset to say, "Yes, of course." She paused for a few seconds and added. "Right away." As she put it back on the receiver she glowed up at Carlos. "Agent Fuller can see you now."

She got up to show him the way and opened Agent Fuller's door leaning way over to give Carlos a shot of her ample endowments. To his credit Carlos turned away from her and ushered me into the office first. She closed the door behind him and I couldn't help smiling as I imagined her huffing her way back to her desk, disappointed.

Agent Fuller stood to greet us with an out-stretched hand. "Miss Plum, Mr. Manoso, glad you could come." He waved a hand towards the two chairs that were stationed in front of his desk and then took his own seat behind his desk. He cleared the shabby well used desktop calendar that was half covered by pens, pencils, paperclips, a calculator and the keyboard that went to his computer; whose monitor was set at an angle so visitors couldn't see the screen.

"Well Miss Plum, we are glad to see that you don't seem to have any residual complications from your swim?" He started out jokingly.

"No, I made it safely to shore," I said.

"I asked you here today to put this case to rest. Officially, there are still kidnapping charges against you, but we have enough evidence to support a claim that Julie was in danger and we are working on getting them dismissed. What I need from you is a detailed account of what you knew, why you didn't come to any law enforcement agency with the problem, and why you took it into your own hands to kidnap a minor and take her out of the country." He sounded a little harsh at the end and I started to get even more nervous.

"Well, Agent Fuller, I've known Julie Martine for over a year. We've talked on the phone every week since she was returned after her first kidnapping. Sometimes we even spoke more than once a week, but about two months before she contacted me about Ron, I started noticing a difference in her tone and her attitude. It made me wonder if she was having a problem." Before he could ask me to give him specifics, I continued. "She started cutting our calls short and sometimes not answering when I called. Also, when she emailed, they were really short messages instead of the three-page long ramblings that told me everything that was going on in her life."

I took a deep breath, hoping that he'd see these as the red flags they were, because I didn't have any solid proof. "I chalked it up to her being so busy. She's a pre-teen and maybe wanting to talk more to kids her own age. Unbeknownst to me, during this time, Ron had gotten a prescription from her psychiatrist. He would stand over her every morning, forcing her to take the pill. They made her woozy and feel weird, so she started spitting them back in her milk and washing them down the drain. She had overheard Ron talking about using her to get a lump sum payout from Carlos. So, she started listening to her parent's conversations. Ron was worried about getting money. She heard him talking about life insurance policies and planning a kidnapping. She hid a recording device to record his phone calls but didn't get anything right away."

I was watching him closely hoping he was believing my story but he was just blank faced and looking like he just wanted this to be over. So, I pressed on, "Julie was really worried. She tried to do what they tell you to do: when you have a problem talk to a responsible adult. So, she talked to her school counselor. Instead of believing her, this lady called Ron and spilled everything. Well Ron came to the school and told them Julie was heavily medicated, delusional, and didn't know what she was talking about. But on the way home he was pissed," I just continued, "and tells her point blank that if she doesn't cooperate and behave; instead of being returned after her kidnapping she would wind up in a ditch somewhere. This was the Friday before we left."

"Feeling desperate, she got her mom to let her spend the night at a friend's house. Saturday from her friend's computer she made a new secret email account and emailed me to tell me there was a problem at home. She explained that Ron had taken her phone and she would buy a cheap throwaway phone and call me the next day. Then when she called me, she explained everything that had happened with Ron, and her concerns for her safety. I agreed with her that it sounded like she was in danger. So, I agreed to take her away until Ranger came home and could deal with the situation." I hoped I was making the point that she knew she was in danger and needed help but from the blank face Agent Fuller was sporting I didn't know if anything I said was getting through to him.

"Ron telling her that after the counselor's office was what had convinced me. I knew if he was calling her a bitch and saying she wouldn't be returned after her kidnapping that it was the way it was going to happen. I had to protect her from that. So, we made plans to run away."

"Well, Monday night," I told him because this was important since he had the copy of the recording. "She recorded Ron discussing the kidnapping plan and the next day after school she made copies of the life insurance policies and the tickets to Cozumel. They were dated for the next weekend. They were set to leave in a week on Friday, and the kidnapping would have happened Sunday morning. The tickets returned back Sunday night; that is was just a little weekend getaway." It had sickened me when Julie showed me the plane tickets because to me that was absolute proof that he was going through with it and I had saved her in the nick of time.

Even though Agent Fuller knew all this, I spelled it out for him anyway. "On Wednesday, I flew down to Miami to meet Julie. She got away from her teachers and met me outside of the Science Museum. That night, we got on a cruise ship, and four days later we were in Puerto Rico." I took a breath, hoping he would believe me and know that I did the best thing for Julie. I mean, what else was there to do? I couldn't stand by and hope things weren't as she feared and that she was going to be okay after her kidnapping.

"Yes, I've seen the photos. But the question remains how did YOU know she was in danger?"

I frowned while I tried to process is question. How did I know? How did I know? Didn't he just hear everything that I said? She told me and I believed her. That was how I knew.

I was able to calm myself enough to answer him. "Well, over the phone I could tell she was freaked out and scared." I thought this was obvious, but I guess not. "That was my first clue. The night we got on the cruise ship she played me the recording and showed me the life insurance policies. That convinced me that there was a real threat to her life."

"But before you left there was no proof," he insisted.

What did he mean there was no proof? I just told him about all the proof. Maybe he just didn't understand the situation because sure a lot of kids would want to run away from their lives for the fun of it, but Julie wasn't one of them.

"Agent Fuller, Julie is a good, stable kid with good grades and a lot of friends. She didn't have any problems in her life. I knew that if she said the threat is real, the threat was real. I knew that she wouldn't just ditch everything and run away if her life wasn't on the line."

"Miss Plum," Agent Fuller started again. "How about we say that she played that recording to you over the phone before you left?" he offered.

I just sat there stunned that this federal agent was telling me to lie. "I..I don't understand." I finally got out. The only cop to ever tell me to lie was Joe, but most of the time that was to keep him out of trouble as much as for my sake. Was he trying to pin this on me another way? Catch me in a lie so he could say I gave false evidence or charge me with something else? He didn't know me from Adam; what was the game here? I sat forward in my chair putting on what I hoped looked like a brave face and tried to focus on what he was saying.

"We need to show that you knew there was real danger; that you were taking Miss Martine away for her own good. The word of an eleven-year-old is not enough. But I've heard the recording and she said she recorded it Monday night. I'll just put in my official file that she played the recording to you over the phone before you took her away." He could tell that I was hesitant to agree. "Miss Plum, officially and legally you are not Miss Martine's guardian, correct?"

"Well not yet…" I hesitated not knowing how much to share, "as soon as Ranger gets legal custody of her and I marry him, I will legally become her mom." I smiled inwardly at that, but I didn't dare smile outwardly because Agent Fuller seemed very serious.

"At the time you took Miss Martine away from her parents and out of the country, you were not her legal guardian." He huffed sternly.

Well Duh that's why they call it kidnapping. I tried to smile at him, but he was looking very seriously at me and I guess wanting me to take this seriously too.

"Correct." It was all I could say. I was practically shaking in my boots because he was being so stern and looking like he just wanted to shake some truth out of me when I was telling him the truth and he was telling me to what? To lie? To a federal agent. What was he really getting at here?

"So, no matter how I spin it, even if she went with you willingly, legally, what you did was kidnapping a minor. Do you understand?"

"Yes," I guess, he was being very serious here.

"So, to have legal justification for what you did, I'm going to put in my official report that she played the tape to you over her disposable phone and that was the evidence you had to prove she was in mortal danger and the reason you took her away from her father. Agreed?"

He sounded like my 3rd grade principal chewing me out for putting gum on Joyce Barnhardts seat. Even though she was the one with the gum and the teacher told her to get rid of it. Well, coming back from recess, I saw her stick it on my seat, so I quickly removed it and when she went to sharpen her pencil, I put it on hers. Regardless I was the one to get in trouble and just like back then I found in the face of such authority that I lose my voice. He waited for an answer from me but all I could do was nod my head.

Carlos squeezed my hand and interrupted. "Babe, what Agent Fuller is trying to do is justify your actions legally and officially. To protect you and get you out of trouble. So, he's going to tell you what to say and then he's going to put it in his report and if I'm not mistaken, he's going to ask you to sign it. Is that correct Agent?"

"Yes, that is exactly what needs to happen. And this will be your official story from here on out. If any other officer of the law: any police question you or any other FBI agents questions you, this is the story you are going to tell them. Julie played that recording for you over the phone and that's why you knew you had to help her run away." Agent Fuller was looking almost pleadingly at me.

Everything was clicking into place for me. Just like I didn't tell the police we drove into the river on purpose this was the story that would get me out of trouble. "Got it." I sounded more secure now. "Julie played that recording over the phone to me and that's how I knew she was in danger and needed to get away."

"Perfect," Agent Fuller said. "Now this next part is a little trickier. If you knew she was in danger, why didn't you go to the police or tell anyone at RangeMan?"

I leaned forward in my chair to listen and give him the best answer that I could. I had caught on to this game now. Get Stephanie off the hook by making up the stories that will make her innocent. I had already been playing this game with the Chief today so I could keep playing with him. "That's easy. Ron had set it up that if she told anyone all they had to do was call her therapist and he would tell them she was delusional and heavily medicated. Like her school counselor, no one would believe her."

This was easy and obvious. Ron paying off her therapist to tell everyone that she was drugged and suffering from severe PTSD proved to everyone what he was really doing.

"Good that's perfect. Finally, there is only one more hurdle and it is a little more obvious. Why did you take her out of the country under a false name?"

Answering that was easier and harder than he realized. There was no place safe in the country for Julie anymore. But once I took her away and we left the country there was no place safe for either one of us. "Simple, if anyone found us, she would be returned to her parents and I would go to jail. We had to get far enough away where nobody knew us, and nobody could turn us in." This was the truth, but it was also the story that would get me out of trouble, so I had no problem telling him this.

"Excellent. I'm going to type this up quickly in my official report and have you sign it. But before you go, I wanted to ask you a question. This is totally off the record because the car crash is not our investigation: but how did you get away without anyone seeing you?"

I debated for a split second before telling him an extended version of the story I told the police. "Well, you see, we knew that Agent Luent was dirty. A friend of ours put a tap on the Martine's home phone and on Ron's cell phone. They would record every call to a file that we could access and listen to over the web. We recorded several conversations between Agent Luent and Ron. One of the calls had Agent Luent blackmailing Ron. He tells him that he knows Ron took all the money out of Julie's accounts, he knew about the life insurance policies, and he talked to her therapist and guidance counselor. He tells Ron that he has to pay him $25,000 if he wants him to keep it quiet. Then a month later we recorded one where Ron agrees to pay him one million dollars to get rid of Julie. The problem is that the recordings were not obtained legally so they are not admissible in court. Since we knew that Agent Luent was in Trenton trying to find a clue as to where to find us, we decided to lure him to RangeMan in order to out. We knew he had a burner phone he'd been using to call Ron, but once we found him, traffic was crazy, and he started shooting at us. We weren't expecting that. I was just trying to get away from him when he rear-ended us. I think he was hoping to cause us to fatally crash. I don't think he was expecting us to go in the water."

I took a breath and sat back in my seat with my hands in my lap, relaxed. This story was getting easier to tell. "Anyway, Julie wanted to get Agent Luent's phone so we could prove that Ron paid him off to keep quiet, but it turned out better than that. He got the payment for killing me. Which answers why he was not in the water trying to save either one of us. He was hoping it was going to be his big payday. Two and a half million for killing me, two million for killing Julie plus another million from Ron for killing Julie. Julie knew he had to be stopped. It was just blind luck." And a lot of very careful planning, "that we both made it out of the water and Agent Luent got caught." I finished and smiled at him.

"Yes, but Stephanie, there were cops down by the river with flashlights. If you had come up anywhere in the vicinity, they would have seen you."

Yep, they would have which was why as soon as I got her to the surface, I couldn't stay anywhere nearby because they would be searching even harder for me. But I couldn't say any of that to the agent. "Actually, they didn't because I came up right as they were fishing Julie out of the river and then I went back down and swam away."

"You came up right there and they missed you?" He looked like he didn't believe me.

Well I thought that sounded plausible, but I added more bull to the pile to make it more believable. "No, I was thirty feet away under the bridge, behind a main support pillar when I came up and I don't think they were looking that far away at that time."

He still looked like he wasn't sure if he believed me, but he was still law enforcement and I wasn't going to tell him anything that was illegal, or he would have to lie about in his report. Finally, he stood. "Well, if you two would like to have a seat out in the waiting room, I will bring you the final copy for you to sign."

"Sure," I said and followed Carlos into the waiting area. The chairs out here were more utilitarian and less comfortable, but Carlos held my hand, playing with my ring as we waited. "I'm glad you clarified what he was doing in there. I don't normally have law enforcement officers telling me to lie and I was thinking he was trying to catch me somehow to get me in trouble."

"Yeah, I could tell what was going on in your head. But Agent Fuller's a good guy and he is just trying to wrap this up for everyone."

"You said Agent Luent is back in jail?"

"Yes, he sold his car to get some quick cash then bought a bus ticket to leave the state and that violated his bond. They grabbed him as he was boarding the bus. He has requested a new bond hearing because he is being harassed in jail but so far it has not been approved."

Fifteen minutes later Agent Fuller came out and handed me my statement. After reading it, and deciding it was exactly what we discussed, I signed it. He left and came back with a copy for me. "This is your official statement now. This is the story you must tell everyone." He was very firm, making sure I understood clearly.

"I got it," I responded, "thanks for all your help Agent Fuller. We appreciate all you have done on this case."

"Stephanie, I can't officially condone what you did, but unofficially, I want to thank you for believing Julie and taking her away. I deal with so many missing, and stolen children who are never found or worse, they're found dead. Julie could have become one of those sad statistics and her father might never have been found out as the culprit. So, thank you for saving her life."

"I would do anything for her," I said solemnly, and with that he walked back into his office.

When we got back to the car, I called Julie to her to let her know things went well, and that we would be back in time for dinner. She was excited for me.

Once we were rearmed and headed out of Washington, Carlos turned to me. "Your coming back to life seems to be going well. Your family is glad to have you back. So far all you have gotten is two speeding tickets from the police. They are not pressing charges for the stolen car or for destroying it."

He smiled big. "You know I would have liked to be in that car with you. In fact, that whole trip…" He got quiet and I looked at him for a minute, but he just stared at the road.

Then he started talking again but his voice was thick with emotion. "When we discovered that Julie was in danger and that you took her to save her." He cleared the obstacle that had been building up in his throat. "I just kept thinking that I should have been there with you. Julie is my daughter; I've always felt it was my job to protect her."

Several minutes went by as he collected himself and then he turned to me before he focused back on the road. Moments passed by and then he continued. "I thought I was protecting her from my life by staying out of hers. It just seems like, as she's gotten older, the more I visited the more she wanted to see me. After Scrog, I started calling Rachel every week to see how Julie was doing. The third time Rachel just put Julie on the phone, and it turned out that she wa s as worried about me as I was about her. We talked for a while and I had been calling her regularly since. It was one way I felt I could be in her life without putting her in more danger. She cried when I told her I was going on this last mission and I promised her I would be okay. I even agreed that this summer she could come visit me in Trenton if her parents agreed."

He went quiet again and I just waited because rather than slipping into his driving zone he seemed to be seriously contemplating things so I just waited. "Babe, I keep thinking that if I had been here instead of going on that last mission, none of these things would have happened. Ron wouldn't have pulled anything like this with me here. It's true that he was setting it up with the therapist while I was here, and I think he would have tried to have her kidnapped. But with me talking to Julie regularly she could have told me right away when Ron started being weird or drugging her. I feel like I abandoned her to a monster that I allowed. That I approved of. I signed the documents that made him her father. I subjected her to that and well in so many ways you got yourself in trouble doing what I should have done - protect my daughter. I feel like it is my job to get you out of trouble and give you your life back, because you gave it up for me."

He reached across the center consul and took my hand. He lifted it up to his mouth and kissed the back of my hand and then looked at me with a smile. "I'm proud of you Babe. Proud of what you have accomplished. Proud of who you have become." He squeezed my hand. "Babe, you amaze me and as much as I hate to do it, I'm going to have to give Anton an 'I'm letting you off the hook just don't cross paths with me again, phone call.'" He smirked as if he was thinking of something funny and I felt I had to remind him.

"You know Julie's plan would never have worked out if Anton hadn't gotten me that outfit and that gun." He looked seriously at me. "Plus, he agreed to take me, and he did an excellent job playing my beau and then dumping me," I continued.

"Babe, he knew that was going to be the last time he could get close to you. He's half in love with you and would take any scraps he could get until I kicked him out of your life. Do you even know why he came to Russia in the first place?"

"No, I just expected him to come." I was shocked at the thought that he wouldn't have come because he had promised me, he'd help me get rid of Ivan.

"Sure, before I got involved. But he told me that he promised you he would help you take out Ivan and he was going to go to make sure the threat to you was removed. I told him he was not needed, and I would take care of any threat to you. He still insisted that he needed to come, and I think it was just to stay as close to you as he could until I kicked him out of your life."

"Seriously? You think he was hanging around like a lovesick puppy?" I couldn't believe it. Anton had made a big show of being an asshole to us the whole time he was training us. Putting us down for everything that didn't succeed and riding us hard to accomplish all he was teaching. He flirted with me, sure, but never as much as that last night we had been together, and he did seem to want to kiss me on the boat. I was glad that it had never happened because I was so cold, I'm not even sure I could have slapped him if he had. But seriously I couldn't imagine Anton as a lovesick lothario crossing continents to stay near a woman who didn't want him.

"Babe, he stole two point five million dollars and gave it to you. You obviously haven't thought about this but the kind of people who steal money out of an account like that don't do it for free."

He looked over at me and he was right I had never thought about it. I knew that Anton had some good hacker skills because he set up the taps on Ron's phones. He got Agent Luent's phone number and hacked his phone. He told us the day we left that the phone wasn't password protected. I didn't know how he could know that unless he had hacked the phone and disabled it himself. But when it came to the money – that required mad hacking skills to hack a bank's firewalls and I didn't think Anton was that good. In fact, I was remembering him saying he had the money removed, which didn't sound like he had done the removing himself and the person who did it surely didn't do it for free so Anton must have paid to have that money removed and gave it to me.

Ranger glanced back over to me I looked at him. "Honestly, I never thought about all the details of it," I explained.

"People who steal money like that usually require you to provide the Bank's routing number and the account number and then they take a third of what is being stolen. If you don't have the Bank's info, they will still do it but then they take half. So, on top of giving you all that money, the car, the make-over, and the clothes, he had to have paid $830,000 to have it done. Babe that means he spent over three and a half million dollars to try to get your affections."

Wow! That was a lot of money. The amount was actually staggering to my mind and I had to wonder why he would spend so much money on me when he knew I was in love with Ranger. Plus, everything else he had done for us over the last four months. He made me pay him for all the ID's he made for us. But he paid for all his own airfare and the cars he would rent and the explosives he used and all the equipment he brought that he used to train us with.

"I was wondering why you didn't just box up your clothes and stuff and mail them to yourselves like you did the money?" he asked, but I felt like it was rhetorical because he already knew the answer.

"He told us to leave everything and the guys that were after us would think that we were returning." At the time, I thought it made sense.

"Maybe. Or maybe he thought that once Julie was out of the way he could have a chance with you. Babe, Anton is rich. He's richer than me by many millions because he has been killing people for money and doing covert ops for the CIA. He gets his money in a lot of ways – like stealing the two and a half million dollars. It's not the first time he has stolen money – large sums of money - from people who can't go to the police because the money was ill gotten gains. He transfers it into his over-sea's accounts. Still he was willing to spend almost three and a half million dollars on the chance to be with you. Babe, that's more than puppy love." He looked seriously at me and I had to consider it.

Anton never acted rich or flashy, but he did buy me that car and I had never thought about how – he had the 2.5 million dollars taken out of Agent Luent's account or what he paid to have it done. When I asked, he just said he had it removed before they locked down the account and put in my account or accounts in my name that he must have set up in advance. It takes days to get a debit card with your name on it mailed to you. So, he must have started setting up those ID's at least two weeks before we left. That would make sense because it took him several days to make an ID for me. He must be really rich if he didn't mind giving me that car, the make-over, and the clothes, but I guess he liked me more than I realized for him to give me the whole 2.5 million dollars.

"My point," Ranger said, "is that I wanted to make all your legal problems go away and I wanted to smooth the way with your family. Luckily, it's all gone better than I expected." He smiled. "I'll gladly pay those tickets for you and I'll make things right with the absent car owner." I started to object, but he kept going.

"I'm going to offer him this car. So, you may end up paying for it anyway. But there is something else I'd like to discuss." He paused for a moment. "A long time ago I told Tank that you were to always be taken care of. That if I was gone and you needed money, he was supposed to offer you a job. Nobody knows this. It wasn't a company policy; it was just something I told him. I also went to your super and told him that if you were ever going to be evicted to come to me or RangeMan and I would take care of it. In November Dillan didn't do anything because you had paid the rent, but halfway through December he called RangeMan and talked to Tank. To make a long story short, your mom said your apartment was gone because Dillan called them first to see if they had some way to contact you, but it's not. Tank has been paying your rent for the last many months and I'd like to go by there and see if there is anything you still want. I mean none of your old clothes are going to fit you, but maybe there is something there that you still want."

"Really, he's been paying for my apartment?" I was surprised and shocked. I just figured my apartment was long gone and everything in it had been thrown away.

"Well, not the utilities. There won't be any lights or running water, but everything is still there." Oh, my goodness. Everything is still there! I didn't care about my 2nd hand furniture or my bathroom stuff, but my bed was practically brand new, and I had some clothes that would fit me now. "Wow, yes there are some things I want, and you know what? I had some clothes, most of them were brand new that I bought thinking I would lose ten pounds and could wear them. Well, they probably fit now." And the diamond earrings he gave me would still be there. I could afford bigger prettier earrings now but those had sentimental value and trackers. It was time to let Carlos track me again.

Once Carlos had his final destination set, he slipped into his driving zone and we cruised in companionable silence with some light jazz playing in the background. I realized that it was not the radio, but that he must have brought a CD with him.

When we got to my apartment, I looked at it through new eyes. It was small by American standards, but it was nicer than some of the places we had stayed in the past few months. It was actually bigger than some of the little two-bedroom apartments we rented. But it was home for me, and I had a lot of memories here. The first thing I did was check in my bathroom. I had 4 packs of birth control pills that I had stopped taking when I broke up with Morelli. I checked the dates on the back, noting that they were still good. I held them up so Ranger could see. "It's only been two days since the end of my period. If I start taking these now, we can stop using condoms in a week! I said excitedly. I loved making love to Ranger and this last week of being on my period sucked except we hadn't used condoms till these past two days. I loved feeling him move inside me without a layer between us and once I was on some birth control I wasn't going to ever go off.

He looked thrilled at me. "I knew you had been on some before you left but I figured you weren't on any while you were on the run."

I still couldn't believe that Ranger knew when my periods were and when I was on the pill. The man had a way of knowing things he really shouldn't know. "Yeah, it would have been too much and there was no point. I've always had regular periods and taking pills didn't change them that much. The only reason to take them was double protection," I assured him.

Because honestly taking the pills were more of a pain when I wasn't having sex. When I wasn't having sex I would forget, miss a pill or two and suddenly I was having a period in the middle of my cycle. It sucked, so when I wasn't having sex, I didn't take the pills. But maybe now that I was going to be having sex all the time; I should get on something more reliable like the shot.

"Double protection?" Carlos seemed curious.

"Yeah, I always made Morelli use a condom because he had been a man-whore in his life and I didn't want to get whatever crud he may have picked up over the years. Plus, we were always breaking up and there's no saying what he did while we were broken up," I explained.

Yeah because he never seemed that upset when we couldn't be together, or I put him off for several days. I think now that he always had backups or fall back women who would sleep with him at a moment's notice.

Carlos smiled at me. "You know he used to go get tested every six months?"

What?! Morelli was getting STD tested EVERY six months and he never said anything to me about it. That means that there weren't clean tests and that he had something some of the time or he would have protested using a condom all the time.

"Nope and he never told me. Which tells me now that the tests weren't clean, or he would have shown me and insisted we go bareback," I voiced my thoughts out loud.

"I could get copies for you," Carlos offered.

I had to think about it for a minute. I would love to know what he has or has had that I was protected from but honestly it would just make me mad and it didn't matter anymore, I was never going to sleep with Joe ever again.

"No thanks. Joe is in my past and I'm never going to be sleeping with him again," I confirmed.

Carlos grabbed me, pulled me close till we were melded together and said, "Babe you're never sleeping with anyone else ever again." Then he kissed the baggeezes out of me and I forgot where I was for a moment. When I came back to reality, I looked around my room at all the stuff again.

With those special packages secured, I went through my jewelry box and found the earrings Carlos gave me. I had some other cheap jewelry that I thought I might wear but I knew I had the necklace and earrings Carlos had bought for me the night we got engaged and I could put them in here. So, I packed up the whole jewelry box to bring. I found an old suitcase and packed the clothes I wanted. Laughing to myself because these used to be too small and now, I thought, they would be my fat clothes.

I stood in the bedroom remembering my times there. The good, like the amazing night with Carlos and the bad – like Scrog shooting Ranger or everyone else – Jimmy Alpha, Homer Ramos, and that stupid banker guy - Allen Shempsky breaking in and holding me at gun point.

Those things would never happen now. Anton taught us how to boobytrap and secure windows and doors so people couldn't break in without us knowing. Plus, I always had a gun on me now and unlike when Homer Ramos broke in; I knew how to use it. I don't know if I could ever stab someone with a knife, but Anton taught both of us how to throw them and that is something I could do.

All my furniture had been replaced multiple times with thrift store furniture, so I didn't really want any of it. I would have kept my mattress because it was new, but my new mattress was nothing compared to Carlos's glorious bed. Carlos had a phone in his apartment, but I grabbed my portable phone thinking we could put it in Julie's room.

I turned around again in my apartment and all I wanted to do was throw Carlos down on my bed and make some more memories. I looked at him with smoldering eyes and his were mirroring mine but if we gave into our passions now, we wouldn't be home in time to have dinner with Julie. So, Carlos picked up my suitcase, and I carried the phone and jewelry box home with me. Home that word had new meaning now. My home was where Carlos and Julie were.

To be continued…

Side Note - this was my first really long chapter (10,000 + words). If such chapters are too long and I need to cut them down into two smaller chapters PM me or leave it in your reviews because later on some chapters I have written are even longer. Thanks