Chapter 22

As I awoke, I was aware I was on my own, again. I sighed deeply as I moved from the bed, feeling slightly chilled. I was still wearing the clothes that I'd had on when I was practicing boxing so no doubt, I probably stank from all the sweating I'd done. I collected together some comfortable clothes to change into, knowing I had no intention of going out anywhere, and headed into the bathroom for a shower.

When I came out, I felt cleaner and definitely warmer, but my stomach was reminding me that I'd missed lunch. My intention was to go down to five and raid the fridge in the breakroom, a sandwich would fill the gap. As I entered the lounge, I was surprised to see that all of the furniture had been pushed to the edges of the room and that Ranger was sat in the middle of the floor. As quietly as I could I walked over toward him and sat down opposite him, interested in what he was doing.

At the moment he was knelt down to the floor with his head on the carpet and his arms resting on the floor. I mirrored his position and each time he sat up and resumed the position so did I. The next position was with him sat so that one leg was stretched out to the side while the other was bent at the knee, so that the foot was against his other knee. He then leaned forward so that his hands touched the foot from the outstretched leg. I copied him again and found it easy to do, in fact I could almost lay down onto the leg. We repeated that a few times before changing the leg positions and then he stretched out both legs apart and moved his body to the floor.

I really couldn't understand how these moves were doing anything to stretch his back, but I could see from his face that he was concentrating. I think just to piss him off, I moved my legs into the splits and then flattened my body to the floor, noticing that as I sat back up, he was watching me.

"You can do that without it hurting or pulling?"
"Yeah. I used to do these kind of stretches when we did gymnastics at school"

As he stretched forward again, I did the same but this time my hands were on top of his. I moved my legs so that I was laid on my stomach, my eyes constantly watching Ranger.

It was him who broke contact and the next I knew he was doing a head stand which he expertly changed into a handstand by pushing himself up with his arms. I wasn't so sure about the headstand, hell it had been years since I'd been able to do that, but I had a go. Once balanced with my legs together straight up in the air I felt my ankles being held.

"Push up with your arms Babe"
"I'm trying to, honestly"

Try as I might there was no way I could move myself up from the floor and for some stupid reason I began to giggle. As I felt myself become unbalanced, I tucked my head in and fell into a forward roll. I lay there on the floor tears in my eyes from the laughing, when I felt hands around my head. Looking up I was seeing Ranger's face above me, albeit upside down, as he bent down and kissed my lips gently. It wasn't a passionate kiss, but it felt spontaneous and dare I say affectionate.

"You are forever surprising me Babe"

"But I"

The rest of my sentence was silenced by someone knocking on the door. I watched as Ranger got up from where he was and went to see who was there. After a few minutes he came back into the room, but then went straight into the bedroom. I followed to see him pulling on a pair of cargos and a Rangeman T-shirt. From the drawer by the bed he collected two guns and a knife, making them disappear somewhere on his body. It seemed some kind of emergency had happened.

"Anything I can do to help?"
"No, the alarms just went off on one of our biggest clients"

I knew there was nothing I could do, and there would be several teams heading out to try and avert any problems.

"Is it a break in?"

"Looks like a gang hit several entrances"
"What does the business do?"
"It's a finance house, so lots of sensitive information"

As I thought through his answer, I realized that meant more than just the contents of the building, it could also mean sensitive information held on their servers. I followed him through to the front door and watched again as he laced up his boots. When he stood and made to leave the apartment, he hesitated for a moment and then took a couple of steps toward me.

"Don't go crazy"
"Don't get shot"

I heard the stairwell door slamming, signaling he was already gone.

I knew he could be out for quite some time, the culprits would need to be stopped, the police involved and then the owners would need reassuring and let's not forget the building would need to be secured. It was likely that Ranger would be gone for the rest of the day and probably night. My stomach rumbling reminded me of my original plan of finding something to eat so I went to the elevator to go down to five.

As I expected it was quiet as a lot of men would have been called out to support with the break in. I found a tuna sandwich and granola bar in the break room and was on my way to the room I was working in when I heard my name being called. Turning I saw Cal and walked to him, rubbing my hand on the tattoo on the front of his head.

"Hey Cal"
"Steph, there was a message left by your grandmother. Something about a parcel for you being delivered"
"That's good, thanks Cal"
"Are you going to pick it up?"
"Yeah, I need to, it has all of my personal cards and phone inside"
"Take Hayes with you"
"Are you sure, I can see everyone's busy"
"I'm sure, he's on rota"

I had no idea who Hayes was, probably someone new. I followed Cal back into the monitoring room and saw him talking to a man sat in front of a computer. As he turned, I almost groaned out loud, it was the man from the breakroom who had thought it was appropriate to call me the Bombshell Bounty Hunter, great, just great. I watched as he listened to Cal and then turned around and looked at me. I could see the look he gave me, somewhere between a grin and a leer which didn't bode well for him if I had anything to do with it.

In fact, I wondered seeing as he knew so much about me if he knew about my grandmother? Yeah, that was definitely a plan if he pissed me off. I looked down at what I was wearing and seeing as I was only travelling in a car and going up to see Grandma I thought the joggers and T-shirt would be suitable. What I did need though was my gun and watch.

"I just need to go upstairs first"

Once in the apartment I actually changed into some black jeans and put on my cat boots and a jacket. I had the gun in my pocket, just in case, along with the watch on my wrist. Once down in the garage my intention had been to take my own car and have Hayes following me but then as I looked around I realized I had no form of transport, damn, I really needed to find out where my car was.

Hayes was stood at the far end of the garage, the keys to a car hanging in his hands. I looked around as I heard a blip of a vehicle opening and was surprised when it was coming from a blue 2 door Nissan. I looked around the garage, surprised that he was going to be using a car like that but seeing as most of the cars were out on surveillance or at the break in it seemed there wasn't a lot of choice.

"Are we going?"
I looked at Hayes stood beside the car so walked over and opened up the passenger door. Once in and buckled up he started the engine and started for the exit. It was a manual car and even I knew he was over revving the engine as he changed the gears.

"You like the car?"
"I suppose so"
"It sure beats the wrecks that you drive"
"Maybe, but I don't want to stand out and this car is too, err, stand outish"

"Sure is"

I wondered if he realized that there was only one car in the world that I loved. The smell of it and the sound that it made, but most of all I loved the man who drove it. I came out of my daydream as Hayes took a corner wide and the sound of horns blared behind us. I looked across at him as I hung onto the handle above the door.

"Slow down, you're going to get us killed"

"We're almost there, see I can take care of you and show you a good time"

I looked at him as we slowed down to go toward the back of my apartment building, really looked at him. He had short brown hair that looked to have been gelled, causing it to spike up slightly and a face that really was forgettable. That sounded awful coming from me, I suppose he had a good profile and his nose was straight and in proportion to the rest of his face. He was wearing a five o'clock shadow that took your eye away from his thin lips. I didn't find him at all attractive and as for his macho actions with the car, well he certainly didn't impress me.

His luck with parking seemed to be the same as mine, parking at the back of the lot by the dumpster. I really didn't want him coming upstairs with me, no, he wasn't a Merry Man that I wanted my Grandmother to meet. As I opened the door, he didn't make a move to get out, which surprised me. Then again maybe he'd heard all of the rumors about her and decided he didn't want to meet her.

Once inside the building I stood and waited for the elevator, pleased when Mrs. Bestler greeted me.

"Going up, travel operators"
"Travel, are you going somewhere Mrs. Bestler?"
"No not me, Edna left a couple of hours ago"
"Oh, she asked me to pick up a parcel"
"I know, she left it with me"

"Where is she going?"
"Florida I think she said. Her daughter decided it was time for them to have a vacation"

I was so surprised with that news I didn't know what to say. I had no idea that Mum and Dad were thinking of going away, but then maybe she wouldn't know how to get in touch with me and would assume that I was out of town working. As the doors to the elevator opened Mrs. Bestler came out with me and we walked down the hallway to the door that had been my apartment. Pinned on the door was an envelope with my name written on it. I took it down and read the letter inside.

"Baby Girl. Got to go. Your mother is taking me down to Florida so I can visit an old friend. Your parcel is with Mrs. Bestler. Love you and talk to you soon"

As I turned around Mrs. Bestler was stood behind me holding out a brown paper package. I took it from her, looking at any writing that was on it, but all it had was my name and the address of the apartment. Maybe if Grandma was going away for a while I could maybe move back in temporarily? The thing was I didn't want to, realizing that this was the first time I felt like that.

"Is everything alright dear?"
"Sorry, yes everything is fine. Did my Grandmother say how long she'd be away for?"
"Oh, I don't know that she did"

"That's okay, I'll call her and talk to her"

I actually took the stairs back down, I didn't want to think too much about my apartment being empty. As I came out of the door into the parking lot Hayes was stood by his car waiting for me. This time he actually opened the passenger door for me and waited until I had fastened my seat belt before moving the car out of the car park.

As he drove, I opened the package pleased to see my wallet that had my cards and id inside. My keys were there but I had no idea where my car was now and maybe I'd be needing the keys to my apartment, who knew what might happen. At the bottom of the bag was my phone which I powered up straight away, surprised that the battery was still fully charged.

Of course, it spent ages telling me I had lots of messages and I decided I couldn't be bothered to listen to them now so powered it down. I put my phone, keys and wallet in the pocket of the jacket, by which time I looked up and out through the window. I had no idea where we were and certainly didn't recognize that this was the way back to Rangeman.

"Where are we going?"
"I thought maybe we could go to this bar I know"

I turned and looked at him to see if he was just joking with me, but he wasn't laughing or saying anything to imply he was joking, in fact he looked totally serious. He was driving quickly now, and I had the feeling we were nowhere near Trenton let alone Rangeman.

"No, we go back to Rangeman, now"

"Chill out, we're almost there now"

I watched as he pulled the car into a parking space in front of what looked like a run down bar. A look down the street showed that there very few places lit up in fact the whole area looked derelict. There was no way I was going in there with Hayes. I watched as he opened his door and got out, I opened mine just a fraction. Of course, he thought I was getting out but as soon as he closed his door, I closed mine and hit the locking mechanism. I could see the annoyance on his face when he couldn't open the door, but he held up the keys to the car in his hand and pressed the fob that would open the door.

Shit, I hadn't thought of that and as he opened the door I tried to move across to the driver's side. I had totally forgotten that I had my seat belt still fastened across me, so that stopped any movement I wanted to make. I felt his hand on my arm, and then as he wrapped his arms around my waist. What was wrong with him, why would any man want to drag a woman into a bar?

"I only want to take you for a drink, get to know you better"

I heard the seat belt release and was soon being physically lifted from the car. He made a mistake though if he thought I would go with him quietly. There was no way I would let a man manhandle me, not after the experience I'd had with Jack.

I tried kicking and screaming hoping for a passerby to stop and help me, but the neighborhood we were in, I didn't think that would happen. I wasn't sure if he was getting annoyed at me or if I was turning him on.

So I did what he least expected, I went totally limp in his arms. As I felt his grip around me relax, I sprang forward away from him and just started to run. I remembered I had on my panic button so pressed the button, just praying that there was someone still at Rangeman who would notice it. I could hear footsteps behind me and shouting as he followed me.

"Hey, I like women who put up a fight. You can run but I'll catch you"

This man was mad, why the hell had he been employed at Rangeman? Ranger would never have someone who was so blatantly aggressive with women, or was it me? Why was it that I seemed to attract the crazies?

I was too busy running to really listen to what he was shouting out and turned to head down an alley way. I was dodging rubbish bags and old dumpsters, turning first right and right again when the alley split up into several directions. I thought that maybe I'd lost him, but the sound of footsteps continued to follow me, making me wonder how the hell he was able to do that.

As I felt him close behind me, I took out my gun, thinking that maybe I could frighten him away. It was then I saw a place that maybe I could hide in, so ran up some steps that led to a door. It was as I was trying to open the door, when Hayes shocked me when he grabbed hold of my arm and turned me toward him.

"I'm sorry, I thought you'd appreciate someone else to . . . ."

His sentence was cut off by the sound of a shot being fired. I watched horrified as blood started to spurt out from his neck. As he started to fall his grip slid down my arm to my wrist in a last desperate bid to hold onto something, I felt the pain as his hand grasped at my watch and the strap broke.

I watched as he fell down the steps, frozen into place, but then jumped as a shot rang out hitting the concrete near to me. I was so desperate to get the door open, that as I turned to use both hands I dropped the gun, I'd wanted to retrieve my watch but now I was afraid of being shot.