We went into the room in the basement that had the wooden floor and no furniture. As we did, we passed a group of men and Julie watching a movie on the television. The men were providing a running commentary on the accuracy of the special effects, and Julie was laughing hard at their insight. Of course, they all looked like they were vying to be the person who made Julie laugh the most.
Ranger and I shut the door on the room, Ranger led me through some stretches, and then we started to fight. Ranger didn't turn it into a lesson. For the whole session, he let me fight freestyle and as hard as I wanted, and through it all I found my control and peace. We fought for an hour, and by the end of it I felt pleasantly tired and much more settled. I no longer felt like throwing up and I felt like I could smile. Once again, Ranger knew what I needed when I didn't.
As we did our final stretches, I looked at Ranger. "I'm not running on the treadmill", I said.
He grinned. "I wasn't going to ask you to. I figured you were having a bad enough day."
My eyes twinkled and I smirked. "I think I need a shower again."
Ranger laughed. "I think it will have to be a solo shower. I want to check in with Hal to see what is going on."
I immediately was interested. "Do you think he is finished now?"
Ranger's eyes twinkled. "Why? Are you interested in being on the call?"
I smiled slightly. "Maybe my shower can wait."
Ranger laughed again. "It's either that, or you'll be asking me to talk to Hal while you are in the shower."
"Is that an option?"
Ranger laughed again. "I'll wait five minutes to call Hal. Be quick, and you can have your shower and your curiosity appeased."
I opened the door and raced upstairs, surprising the men as I ran by. "Is she okay?" I heard them ask as I ran past as if the Hounds of Hell were chasing me.
I then heard Ranger laugh. "I told her that I was calling Hal in five minutes for a report and if she wanted to listen, she needed to have a very quick shower."
"Unlike your shower earlier?" said Eduardo.
I laughed as I heard Ranger groan. I could just imagine how red his face was, especially since Julie was in the room. He was, and always would be, a gentleman, and talking about your sex life at all, especially with your daughter in the room, he would consider a no-no.
I was glad about that. As much as I teased Ranger, I was fairly reticent myself, much to my friends' and - especially - my grandmother's dismay. I unfortunately knew other people who weren't like that, and I always thought that was a little uncomfortable to be around. My friend Mary Lou's husband was like that. Ranger refused to spend time with him. He said it was too hard to not smack him. He especially got that look in his eye that said a smackdown was coming when Lenny fantasized about what I was like in bed. The first time it happened, Ranger looked like he was going to blow a gasket. Of course, it didn't help that Mary Lou was feeling him up at the time. When I kneed Lenny in the crotch later on that evening, I thought Ranger was going to cheer as Lenny fell to the floor and threw up. I have never seen a bigger smile on Ranger's face, ever. He looked like it was his birthday and Christmas, all in one, and perhaps even the end to World War Three and the Fourth of July thrown in.
I hustled through my shower, dressed in a pair of flannel sleep shorts and a tank top and a hoody, and ran down the stairs to where Ranger was sitting in the dining room. "Four minutes", I said. "You waited for me, right?"
Ranger smiled. "I said I'd give you five, but in truth I would have waited six for you."
"A whole six minutes?"
"You're worth it." He paused. "But seven might have been pushing it."
I laughed.
"I made you peppermint tea. How's your stomach now?"
"Better, thanks."
"Good. I don't know if you want the rest of your food, but you might want to try the cake. It was particularly good."
"I just remembered", I said as I retrieved both my food and my cake, "that the sheriff was supposed to have come for dinner tonight."
Ranger smiled. "He did. He brought 'junior officer' badges for the kids. They were thrilled. He even gave one to Julie and said that he knew it was a little juvenile for her, but that he wanted her to have something that reminded her that, any time she wanted, he would give her a position on his force. She thought that was very nice of him to say, but I still don't know if she realized that he was serious."
"She's so humble, she probably didn't."
Ranger smiled. "That is one of the things that makes her nice to be around."
"Absolutely. She gets it from you."
"He actually talked to Julie for quite a while this evening. He was interested in the work that she was doing in the high schools and said, if she changed her mind about becoming an FBI agent, she could probably support herself by going from school to school to teach self-defense and deliver her speech on stalker safety. He said he knew that, if she was willing to come up to Vermont, he would pay to have her go into the local schools around here to deliver her speech and help train the girls."
I looked at Ranger, and I thought the pride on his face matched how I felt. "Does she want to do it?"
"No, but she felt good having the offer."
I nodded. I could understand that.
I shovelled in the rest of the food and moaned. Ranger's food was always good, and I often thought that, if the security thing hadn't worked out for him, he could have followed in the family business and become a chef. HIs parents said the same thing. Of course, his parents didn't have any idea as to how well the security business was working for him. Like Julie, Ranger was humble and his family had no clue that he was as wealthy as he was. In fact, most people didn't. We had only told Julie a few months ago. She was shocked. She knew that Ranger was doing okay, but she didn't know that he was a billionaire. However, when she found out that he donated ninety percent of his annual income? She was incredibly proud. She said that she was so grateful that he was her father - not because he had money but because he gave so much of it away. Like Ranger, Julie had always thought that was important and had been donating much of her babysitting money when she was in high school.
I pushed aside the empty plate and turned to the cake. Ranger had saved me a large slice - I guess he knew that I was probably going to be unsettled, and he was trying to be proactive. I took a bite and moaned. It was definitely not a day-old cake. It was moist and chocolate-y, and everything a good chocolate cake should be. Like the cake, the icing tasted homemade and as though it was made with butter rather than oil or bought pre-made. I thought that I could come to Vermont for one of their cakes alone. I had always thought the Tasty Pastry cakes were good, and I now had discovered a new favorite.
As I popped the last icing flower in my mouth, I sighed in pleasure and Ranger picked up the phone and texted Hal. Seconds later, he got a return call. "I would have called you earlier, Hal", said Ranger, "but Steph was moaning over the chocolate cake that I had bought, and I didn't want you to get the wrong idea." He grinned as I groaned and turned red in embarrassment.
"That's my boss, Ranger", I said with another groan.
Hal laughed. "Things are going exceedingly well here. How are things going there?"
"Good. The kids haven't had any nightmares yet, the guys are entertaining Julie and making her laugh, and the local sheriff came for dinner tonight and told the kids - jokingly with the little ones, but seriously with Julie - that if they ever wanted a job on his force to let him know."
Hal laughed. "I wish I would have seen the intruders' faces when the kids beat them up."
Ranger grinned. "It was pretty sweet."
"Enough!", I said. "We talked about this earlier. We haven't talked about what is happening there. So what the hell is going on?"
"Patience, patience", said Hal. I could hear the laughter in his voice.
"Hal! I am not a patient woman."
"You're feeling better."
"Hal! If you aren't careful, I will short-sheet your bed and maybe sprinkle rice in it."
Hal laughed again. "No, no! Anything other than that! Please!"
"Then get talking."
"Yes ma'am." He turned serious. "So Nick sent us the draft report and highlighted the names of the FBI agents that he thought were on Lilith's payroll. I recognized the names of the agents as the two who were in our room getting ready for the takedown. So I sent a message to all the men and let them know that we had a problem, and as the men were answering their texts I asked to see the agents' ID and told them that I wanted to take a picture of their ID to add to our file. I did, but at the same time I was able to confirm that they were from the Maine office and were the same people identified by Nick.
"I created our game plan and texted it to each of the men, and sent a text to the local FBI head office. I talked to the head person and explained the situation, and he said he'd send two agents over. So now I had the six of us, the two dirty agents and the two good agents. It was a crowded hall when Lilith opened the door, but she was captured, clean as a whistle, largely because she saw the bribed agents there. When we captured the bribed agents, she looked a little more panicked and you could see her plotting to try to get out of the situation.
"Ramon and I escorted Lilith into the station and, while we did, we interviewed her in the car. She didn't know we were taping it. We didn't have to apply any pressure at all - she spilled on the local detectives that the kids had caught earlier today and told us that the local detectives were working in conjunction with Nick, which didn't make any sense at all, and that she was running for her life and the lives of the children. She spilled on the Maine FBI agents. She asked what would happen to the children, and said that they needed her to take care of them, that they had no one else. I said that their father could take care of them now that he would be released from jail. She said that their father would be dead by the end of the day. And then she cackled. I have to tell you that she actually sounds like a witch. It's kind of creepy. Anyway, I had great joy in telling her that she should talk to her flunkies more. They had been arrested and if the local sheriff let them live, they were going to be charged by the FBI for their crimes. I said we had proof of her whole network, the crimes that she had committed, and the people she had killed. She started crying and said that she hadn't done it. The detectives in Maine had killed those people and they supposedly said that they were going to kill her too, and that was why she was running. So I asked her why she had called them six times in the last three weeks if she was terrified and running from them. By that time, we had reached the FBI office and we handed both her and a copy of the tape over to them. I met the head at the same time - he seems like a good guy - and he arranged to meet our team for breakfast in the hotel tomorrow morning. He said he will give us an update on the case at the time, but he seemed to think that karma was a surprisingly funny thing sometimes, that the Hostage Rescue Team would be on a training exercise in just the right place to take the dirty agents and the mastermind down. We left as the other guys were bringing in the dirty agents, and we waited for them. Apparently they had done the same thing that we had done - asked for a confession in the car and taped it. So we handed them the people and the case, all tied up. Our team is feeling pretty good about things.
"We returned to the suite to find Grant sitting on the sofa with the three kids having climbed on top of him. They were sound asleep, all three of them sucking their thumbs, He said they had cried for awhile and, when he told them that their grandmother had done bad things and was going to be punished for them, they asked if that meant that they wouldn't go back to her again. Grant said that they wouldn't. They cried harder. He apologized, and the oldest said, 'I never want to see that bitch again.' Then he looked scared that Grant was going to hit him for calling her a bitch. So Grant talked to them for a little while, and they told him of how they'd been treated. They'd been abused, Ranger, in ways that no child should have to live with. They are going to have scars on their bodies for the rest of their lives.
"They asked Grant where they were going to live. Grant explained that they would be living with their father. They said that their father was a bad man, and that he was in jail. So Grant explained to them that their grandmother had done something bad, had blamed their father and had put him in jail. However, he hadn't done it and was now in the process of getting released from jail.
"Grant said the oldest one is very angry and hurt and confused, but the youngest ones are looking forward to seeing their father again, especially after Grant promised them that their father would never yell at them or hit them or hurt them like their grandmother had.
"After the kids had all cried themselves out, they fell asleep on Grant's lap. We carried them to bed when we got in and had a team meeting, and we just finished our team meeting a few minutes ago. We are planning on having a slower morning tomorrow. We want to let the kids sleep as long as they can, and will phone the head of the FBI office a half hour before we have breakfast so that he can meet us at the restaurant. If the kids are uncertain, we will have breakfast in the suite. I expect that we'll be on the road around eleven, and we'll do the trip in two days.
"You need to warn Nick that the children are traumatized and terrified that he will be as cruel as their grandmother was. The three-year olds, of course, don't remember him. However, the five-year old does and doesn't understand why his father didn't come and rescue him. He said he prayed every night for his father to come. So Nick is going to be in for a rough road, but him returning to his kids will be the best thing for both Nick and them. I'm looking forward to seeing his family restored. Both Nick and the kids deserve to have loving support with each other."
"What happened to the kids?" asked Ranger. "I think I should warn Nick."
"They've been burned, whipped and cut. Their bodies are a mass of scars and injuries. They are essentially okay, but Grant is more worried about the trauma their minds have gone through. Apparently they said they got whipped or burned or cut whenever they made a mistake or did something wrong. He suggested a lot more time spent on physical exercise to get out their aggression, and creative exercises to soothe their minds. He also suggested that maybe Julie could work with all the kids to teach them self-defense, as it might give them more of a feeling of control and less of a feeling of helplessness. As he said, it is hard enough feeling helpless as an adult - but it is even worse as a child, as there is literally nothing they can do to help themselves."
"Okay. Thanks for the update. I'll let Nick know. Talk to Grant about the idea of setting up a phone meeting with the kids and Nick tomorrow. Maybe that could help ease their minds?"
"I'll ask him and let you know tomorrow."
"Thanks, Hal. Your team did a good job, and I look forward to seeing you here again in a couple of days."
"Tell Steph that I have already bought the Dramamine."
"I heard that", I said. "I was just about to remind you."
"Funny", said Hal. "After the first six times you reminded me, I remembered to go to the drug store."
I laughed.
"How are you doing?"
"Better. Ranger made me practice self-care. We had a swim, I had a nap, I ate, and we did some sparring for a while. I feel much better, much more stable, and I can only hope that I don't have nightmares tonight. But if I do? Julie is taking the kids for a sleepover in her room, and I won't have to worry about waking up the kids. I will be able to take care of myself."
"That's important. Did you talk to Livy?"
"I did. I'm going to text her tomorrow as well. She said that, even though it was Saturday, she wanted to know how things were going."
"I think that's a good idea. Again, if you ever want to talk, let me know."
"Thanks, Hal."
"I'm going to go. Everybody is bunking down. It's been a full day, and tomorrow could be just as long. Take it easy."
