I put my phone down with a smile on my face, when Cal called. "Hey, Steph. We are on our way back to the ranch, and we'll meet you in the lounge. Hopefully the Snug will be open and we can meet there. We've got all sorts of good things to tell you."

I grinned. "Excellent. I'll go up to the lounge now, and try to get to the Snug before anyone else does. How soon will you be here?"

"About half an hour?"

"Awesome. I look forward to seeing you." I grinned and put my computer to sleep, got up, popped my head into Miguel's and Dirk's offices to let them know that I was going up to the lounge for a lunch meeting. "Sounds like your research was invaluable", I said to Dirk.

"Excellent", he said. "The guy was an asshole."

I smiled. "I agree."

I walked quickly out of the department and travelled up to the sixth floor and took the bridge across to the other tower. I exited into the lounge and, since lunch was just beginning to be served, I got my choice of good things to eat.

With Ella having hired a few staff to help her, she was now offering five hot dishes and an array of premade sandwiches and salads and sides. The food, as always, was amazing and I had trouble selecting my choice for the day. I grinned at Ella. "I think you have outdone yourselves again."

Ella laughed. "How are you doing?"

"Excellent. I am meeting Joe and Cal here and they told me that they have good news on one of the cases that we are working on. I am looking forward to hearing it."

Ella laughed. She knew of my curiosity. "And they didn't even have the courtesy to give you a hint?"

I pouted slightly. "No. I think they did it on purpose just to torment me."

Ella laughed again. "How are the little ones?"

"Good. Growing like weeds. We were just in Philadelphia with Julie last weekend, but maybe this week we will be able to have you and Luis for dinner. I will talk to Ranger to come up with a couple of dates that work for us, and then we can sort something out. Not only would Ranger and I like to spend some time with you, but the kids have been missing you. Tia asked me about you last week. Tracy was sick. I actually almost brought them for lunch here just to see you, but then I thought you'd have three kidlets swarming you and that might not allow you to work your magic for the rest of the company."

"Another time, bring them. I can always use baby hugs. How is Julie doing?"

"She's doing really well, but she picked up another stalker. On Saturday, Julie and Ranger went to the police station to file a restraining order. On Saturday night the kid came to the door with his father to beg Julie to retract the restraining order and Ranger talked to them. What came out of that was the decision on behalf of his father to take his son out of school, send him for therapy, and encourage him to get a job to come up with the money that the father has paid for tuition. I'm happy. I ran a search on the kid today, and he apparently has done this before to another girl. HIs father is a Senator who is up for re-election, so Julie didn't want this blowing up in the father's face. But at the same time, she wasn't going to tolerate the harassment either. She and Ranger made it clear that they didn't want it to go further than it had, but they needed the father's help to stop it."

"How is she handling it?"

"Like a pro. She wasn't intimidated by what was happening. She was ticked and tired of it, but she wasn't scared. She has decided to talk to kids in the Philadelphia schools about stalking like she did in Miami. She thinks some kids haven't yet developed a good sense of what is appropriate and what isn't, and that can not only make them stalkers but in their ignorance can open themselves up to abuse. I think she has done a lot of good with her program, and I suspect that the Philadelphia police will be thrilled to have her guest speak for them."

"I am so proud of her."

I grinned. "So am I. She definitely is a chip off the old block."

Ella smiled. "People are starting to come in. What do you want for lunch?"

"Oh, God. It all looks good. However, I think I'll have some of your Mexican rice. It is, after all, one of my favorites." Ella laughed and put some on my plate.

"Steph, everything is your favorite."

"Only when you cook it. However, when I cook it? Nothing is my favorite. You know that you are a bad cook when you make peanut butter toast for the kids and they are surprised when it is tasty."

Ella laughed as she plopped a spoonful of sour cream on the side.

"Enjoy your meal, and I look forward to receiving dates from you to get together. Luis and I miss you."

I grinned, then turned around and looked towards the Snug. A group of men were just getting out of it and I hurried over to it before someone else could take it. "Are you leaving?" I said. When they smiled and nodded I grinned and happily slipped into the booth.

I started to eat before my lunch got cold, and seconds later, Ranger called. "Hey, babe. Have you heard from Joe and Cal?"

"They are on their way in. We are in the Snug. They said they had good news."

"Awesome. I'll come down to hear it too. I also want to show you some pictures of some property that Tank and I were looking at that would be suitable for a training facility. If we can get the meeting set up, we want to go out to the property this afternoon and potentially snap it up prior to anyone else getting their hands on it. It will mean that you will have to cook dinner as I likely won't be home until the kids' bedtime."

"Oh boy. What did you take out to defrost?"

"Ground beef. I was thinking that you could make a meatloaf. I'll send you the recipe for a basic meatloaf this afternoon, and you could serve it with frozen vegetables. The kids like helping to make meatloaf as well, so that's good."

"That's okay. I'll look one up on the internet. At least I know now not to put cinnamon in it."

Ranger laughed. "I'm sure your cinnamon meatloaf wasn't that bad."

"I don't know. It was pretty bad. And the garlic chocolate chip cookies that I made the next day were worse."

"Okay, I will give you that one. I don't think garlic and chocolate go well together either."

I laughed. "You know I was just thinking that I should send Dickie a care package in prison. He might appreciate being there more."

Ranger laughed. "I'll be down in a couple of minutes. What does Ella have on offer?"

"Mexican rice."

"Make that a few seconds. I'm on my way."

Ranger must have run, as five minutes later he was sitting beside me in the Snug with his lunch in hand. He gave me a kiss. "How was your morning?"

"Enjoyable even if I didn't get a lot done. I emailed Julie. She's thinking after this go around with David that the talk that she did in Miami for the last couple of years would benefit the kids in Philadelphia, and she was thinking that she might volunteer with the police to go into schools again. She said that she would add a few paragraphs on the importance of respecting the word 'no'."

"I am so proud of her. If she needs to take five or six years to get her four-year degree so that she can offer programs to the schools, I hope she knows that I would support that. I know high marks are important to her, but I also know how much she had enjoyed doing the speeches and I think she gets a lot back from that. I would rather see her take an extra year or two than kill herself trying to get it all done."

"You should send her a message saying that. I think she'd appreciate that coming from you. I know that she said she felt like a victim again, and this might be one way that she makes herself feel better."

"That's true." Ranger smiled. "I am so glad that she is my daughter. She's a good person."

"Yes, she is."

Ranger sighed. "We have good kids."

I kissed his shoulder. "Yes, we do."

He pulled out his phone and opened up . "There is a three hundred and fifty-acre property located half an hour away that we thought would be ideal. It has a mix of forested and cleared lands, has a river and a couple of seasonal creeks, is a mixture of hilly and flat terrains, and there are two ramshackle buildings that we'd be able to use. We'd have to build some more of course, but Tank and I were thinking it could be good and, although it is expensive it would cut down on our current training costs. What do you think?"

I scrolled through the pictures. "That would be awesome", I said. "I know how much you would like to have a dedicated training facility. It would make your lives much easier."

"It would", said Ranger. "It would also result in much better trained staff."

"If you had wanted, you'd be able to rent it out on days it wasn't being used by us to organizations like the FBI and various SWAT teams."

"That's true. I hadn't thought of that."

"I think if you like it as much in person that you should go for it. It can only do good things for Rangeman."

"That's what Tank and I were thinking." He took a bite of his Mexican rice. "Damn, that's good. Ella is such a good cook."

"I was thinking we should have Ella and Luis for dinner soon. The kids were asking about them the other day."

"I'd like that."

"Come up with some dates, and I'll send them to Ella and see if we can work something out."

Ranger smiled. "Sounds good."

Joe and Cal slipped into the other side of the booth. Cal had a club sandwich - without the bacon - and a side salad. Joe had chosen beefaroni and a salad. They both looked incredibly excited as they looked at their lunch.

"So, you've had me on the edge of my seat", I said. "What happened today?"

"I don't know", said Joe. "I think we should wait until after our lunches to talk about business." I looked at him, and his eyes were twinkling.

"That's true", said Cal. "It has been a busy morning and we did accomplish a lot. It would be nice to take a break." I looked at him, and he was having trouble wiping the smile off his face.

I sat back in the seat and groaned. "You're killing me, guys." Joe laughed. "I will get you back, you know."

"Oh oh", said Joe. "That never bodes well for me."

"Hooyah", I said.

Ranger groaned and Cal grinned. "Glad you have the saying right", he said. "Everybody knows SEALs are the most elite in the military. No namby-pamby Rangers would ever make it on our teams."

"Oh yeah?" said Ranger with a grin. "I'll remind you that the namby-pamby Ranger signs your paychecks."

"Hooah?" said Cal with a laugh.

Ranger laughed.

"Seriously, what happened?" I said.

"We went to see Todd's mother this morning, and it reminded me to never get between a mother bear and her cub. We explained why he had been avoiding her, and we explained about the money trail and what Richard is trying to force Todd to do. And then we asked her what happened", said Cal. "And, like you predicted, she buckled when she heard what was happening to Todd."

"It was lucky that I had taken a pack of tissues in my pocket today", said Joe. "She went through the whole pack. And then she started talking. She said that Richard had always been jealous of her husband. People naturally liked her husband. He was a good man, a good friend, naturally charismatic. He had strong morals and he loved people and would do anything to help another person. She had been shocked when Richard offered to help them with their expenses, because she knew that he didn't like her husband. However, they didn't have much choice and accepted the gift. It never occurred to them that he had stolen the money.

"In return, her husband stepped down from the running out of gratitude, and her brother was happy. He won the presidency and was nice to them, but when people wouldn't listen to him and continued to listen to her husband - despite the fact that he wasn't the president - Richard got mad. He called them out to headquarters one night and, when they got there, an excessive number of drugs were in the building. It was their largest load, and Charlie and Sandy were horrified. They'd been trying to move the club away from drug distribution and they didn't know how the drugs got there. They had just figured out that Richard was involved and, as the police raided the building, they realized that they had been set up. The last thing that Charlie said to her was to let her brother win, or else he was jealous and vicious enough he would hurt Todd. She was devastated that their sacrifice was all for nothing. Todd was hurt anyway."

"So we played the tape that we had taken of Todd talking to us last Friday, just like you suggested, Steph", said Cal. "That brought on a lot of tears as well, but she looked happy too. She looked relieved when he talked about how close they were as a family, and when he said he didn't want to sell their house because of all the good memories, and how upset he was to have blamed them for something that wasn't their fault. She said that she didn't realize how hard it would be to be separated from her family. She missed her husband and she missed her son. So Joe looked at her and said that we had what she said on tape, but asked whether she would be willing to get up in a courtroom and talk about what happened. He said he had a lot of respect for Todd and thought he was in an awful position, and he thought the only way Todd could be saved was by putting Richard in jail. She said that she would do whatever it took to clear the air and get her son back. So Joe told her that he thought Todd would be very proud of her, and that he personally would contact Todd and let him know what she was doing."

"She asked me whether she had another chance with Todd", said Joe. "It was sad. She was almost begging me. I had to tell her that I didn't know Todd well, but from what I saw she had done a good job raising him and that he missed her greatly."

"She cried at that as well", said Cal.

"We have enough with her testimony and Dirk's analysis and Todd's statement to arrest Richard", said Joe, "but we are going to the husband's jail this afternoon anyway. We'd like to hear what he says as well, and we would like to ideally confirm what Sandy said. It should be an interesting interview."

I smiled. "I know that I said you could sell it using Todd as your leverage, but you could also sell it using Sandy. From what I could tell, they had an excellent marriage and I'm sure that they will enjoy getting back together."

We finished our lunch and split up to go our separate ways. I went back to my office and looked up recipes for simple meatloaves, and I finally found one with few ingredients that looked like even I could make. While I did that, I listened to the interview they had done with Sandy. They had done a good job. They were gentle but firm, and very humane in how they treated her. I had to admit that I couldn't have done a better job myself. And with that thought I realized that, like Ranger, I was a control freak. I liked to be in on the action just as much as Ranger. Maybe that was why I understood him as well as I did.

Something about this case affected me more than many. I think it was the selflessness of the parents, and the sheer bastard-type actions of the brother. Families were made to support each other. It was one of my fundamental beliefs. I don't know if Val or even my grandmother would, but the rest of my family would support me, no question about it. So would Ranger's and, for that matter, so would our adopted family of Tank and Amelia, and Joe and Tracy. If you couldn't count on family, who could you rely on?

I did a few capture plans, which made me feel better about my less-than productive morning, before Joe and Cal came into my office with cups of coffee. They were grinning. "That looks like good news", I said with a smile.

"He confirmed everything", said Cal. "All we had to tell him was of Todd's experience, and he started to cry as well. Before we went to the jail, I bought another package of tissues, and that was a good thing. He said that he had been really upset about his son not talking to him and, when we told him why, he opened up on what had happened. It matched what Sandy said. I taped it as well, and I'll shoot that over to you this afternoon."

"After getting his statement", said Joe, "I played Todd's testimony that you taped on Friday. He cried at that as well. He said that tinkering on his motorcycle with Todd and sitting with his family at the dinner table are some of the things that he has missed most. He said he thought he was doing the right thing, but he didn't realize that it would be so fucking hard."

"I can understand that", I said. "What are the next steps?"

"I'm going to arrest Richard right now. It's time to put that asshole behind bars, where he belongs."

"I hope Charlie will be able to turn the club around to one that is legal", I said.

"I made the suggestion that Dirk made", said Cal, "the suggestion that they buy houses and rent them out. That would be a good source of income for the club, and it is legal. Charlie looked very interested in that."

I smiled. "I'm glad. I wish them well."

"I told them to go to the IRS and be upfront as to what happened. I told them that there would probably be an audit and they would have to pay back taxes, but by going to them first they would hopefully be able to avoid another jail sentence", said Joe. "I asked him why he hadn't done taxes. He said that Richard did them for them and Richard told them that he was filing the taxes as well. He also said that he has all the paperwork in the attic of his house and can show it to the IRS. He said that he had never had a refund, but he had also never needed to pay either."

As the men finished their coffee and left to arrest Richard, I sat back and pulled up the tape of their interview, listened to it and smiled. I loved it when a case closed satisfactorily. I hoped that Charlie and Sandy would be able to be released soon. I just had the feeling that the Rowse family deserved to be back together.

I clicked on the job posting website and found a listing for a motorcycle mechanic's position, working at the TPD. I sent the job posting to Joe with the suggestion that it might be a good job for Charlie. I would love it if we could help the family get their lives back together and help them recover and knowing Joe, he would like that too.

My text message buzzed. Joe said that he had arrested Richard, and Richard was currently in docketing. I smiled. It had been a successful day.

I looked at the time. The recipe said that it would take an hour to cook the meatloaf. That meant that I had better leave so that we could get the loaf mixed and in the oven. I turned off my computer and, as I stood to leave the office, my phone rang. I sighed and, as I picked it up, I sat down on my chair again. "Hi, Grandma."

"I did it, Steph. I reversed the statement that you did plastic surgery on Alix to make her look different than Grace, and I reversed the statement that you did plastic surgery on Alix so that she looked like Ranger."

"That's great. How did you explain the difference in looks for the two girls?"

"I explained to everyone that you had a threesome with Joe and Ranger, and Alix is Ranger's baby and Grace is Joe's. It's a much more believable story anyway. What time should I show up on Friday?"

"Grandma!"