Ruining You – Chapter 3

I am not making anything but fun borrowing the characters from JE. Italics are internal thoughts.

SPOV

"Ladies and Gentlemen, this is the Captain. We are approaching a storm over Boston and experiencing some slight turbulence, so please fasten your seatbelts as things may get a little bumpy as we're making our final descent into Boston here."

I hate planes. I hate planes. I freaking hate fucking airplanes. I yanked on the tail of my already buckled seatbelt to make sure it was nice and tight. I shoved the files I'd been reading into my leather backpack and pushed it back under the seat in front of me. I gripped the armrest and tried to do deep breathing. Ugh, this was so not going to help my anxiety. Don't ask me why I can skydive and feel nothing except pure exhilaration, but if you put me on a plane, I'm a basket case. I pushed my head back into the head rest and gripped the armrests. Blessedly, no one was in the middle seat. I felt a tap on my shoulder and opened my eyes to see my row-mate looking at me with alarm. He'd already been seated and sleeping against the window when I took my aisle seat, so I hadn't paid much attention to him. Until now.

"Are you ok, miss?" he asked.

"Nervous flyer," I said. "I'll be fine when we're back on the ground."

"I'm Ethan," he said, pulling the air pods from his ears and placing them into their charging case.

"Stephanie," I replied, still gripping the arm rests. The plane jolted hard to the left, and I sucked in a breath.

"Nice to meet you Stephanie. What brings you to Boston? Is this home?"

"Work," I said. It should say a lot about the seriousness of this damn turbulence that I'd been reduced to 1-word "Ranger-like" answers to this kind stranger.

"So, Jersey is home?"

"Yep."

"And what do you do?" he asked. Jesus, he's like me on a distraction, keeping the conversation rolling no matter what.

"I'm in the security business," I said.

"Nice. Who do you work for? Trinity? Titan? Rangeman?" Why does he know the major security players in Boston? That should have prompted me to ask more questions, but to be honest, at the moment I was more concerned with getting to the ground safely.

"I'm a partner at my own firm," I said evasively. When in doubt, always go with a vague answer and redirect. "What do you do?"

"A little of this, a little of that. I own my own business, too. In fact, that's why I was in Jersey. I do all my pickups personally. But I've lived in Boston for the last 17 years." He glanced at his watch. "Hopefully we'll be able to land on time. I was hoping to catch the Bruins game tonight."

And with that statement, he successfully distracted me. "You're baiting me," I said in response. "There's a Rangers keychain on my backpack."

"I might have seen it," Ethan said. "But the Bruins have 6 cups to the Rangers' 4, so that's all I'm saying."

We volleyed back and forth, comparing hockey stats for the final 15 minutes of the flight. Thankfully, the storm didn't delay the landing, though it was raining when we pulled up to the jetway and waited for the captain to turn off the seatbelt sign. I immediately stepped into the aisle, pulled on my backpack, grabbed my suitcase from the overhead bin, and stood waiting for the other passengers to debark the plane. Ethan remained seated and pulled a large soft-sided fabric case into his lap. He peeked in but didn't open it enough for me to see what was inside. Definitely weird.

"It was nice to meet you," he said. "I do hope you have a good time in our city."

"Thanks for distracting me," I said. I really did mean it, even if I felt like something about this guy was bizarre.

He debarked the plane a few people behind me, and I made a quick detour to the ladies' room to splash some water on my face, and to ensure Ethan didn't see where I was headed. As expected, a black SUV with a cargo-clad Rangeman leaning against it was waiting at the pickup area outside the terminal with the limos and cabs. I approached and he nodded at me, immediately opening the door.

"Ms. Plum," he said. He was tall and broad with blonde hair and hazel eyes.

"Stephanie, please." I said, extending my hand.

"Tanner Ryan," he said. "Nice to meet you. Shall we?" He held out his hand for my suitcase, which I handed over and climbed into the passenger seat.

On the drive from the airport down to the office in the Financial District, I learned Tanner had been with Rangeman for a little over 4 years. He had wanted to go into the military but couldn't pass the physical. He'd been doing security and skip tracing for years when he crossed paths with Hal and ended up at Rangeman. I learned more about him in the 20-minute drive than I knew about Ranger in the entire first year I'd known him. He might just be in the running for chattiest Rangeman, if we ever decided to do Rangeman Superlatives. Rangeman Superlatives, now there is a great idea to keep in mind for the Christmas Parties. We pulled into the garage and made our way to the Control Room floor where I met the Boston Managing Director.

Christopher Fuller – or Fuller as he introduced himself – was at least 6'4" and had dark brown hair, olive skin, and eyes the color of milk chocolate. He had a thick scar running from his left ear all the ways down and across his throat and an aggressive stance that almost dared a person to try something.

"Ms. Plum, it's a pleasure," he said, shaking my hand firmly and looking me in the eyes.

"Nice to meet you, Fuller. Please call me Steph or Stephanie. Where would you like me to set up?" I asked, expecting a conference room or cubicle to be set aside for me.

"We've outfitted the second's office with three desks, ma'am. I'd like you to work with Zach and Ace this week, if you don't mind. They'll benefit the most from watching your methods I think."

"Sure," I said. "Whatever you think is best." I followed him to the large office next door to his own and found 2 men standing at parade rest outside the door. They straightened up when we approached.

"Men, meet Stephanie Plum. As you know, she's here to give you a hand on the two outstanding that we've stalled out on. Stephanie, Ace and Zach."

Zach and Ace introduced themselves and we made our way into the office where 3 utilitarian desks were sitting in a U shape in front of a white board on the wall. There was a Keurig tucked on a small rolling cart in the corner with a stainless steel tree holding a of variety k-cups. There were already Macbooks sitting on the 2 outside desks, so I made my way to the desk in the center and pulled the files and my laptop out of the bag. I tossed it onto the floor and slid into the chair.

"Where should we start?" I asked, trying to get a feel for how they liked to do things. There were 2 cases in particular that had brought me to Boston, but sometimes there were other things they wanted to go over first.

"You've looked at the cases," Zach said. "Where would you recommend starting?"

"What we think obviously hasn't worked on these, we'd appreciate your suggestions," Ace added. Color me impressed, boys.

"Thanks for that," I said. "I don't want you to think I'm some skip-tracing Rainman or something. I just research and do a lot of legwork. And sometimes, yes, it helps that I tend to look at things a little differently than others might."

"Well, we're both glad you're here. I'm thrilled for the chance to meet you in person," Ace said.

"I think we have a good apprehension group," Zach said. "But I'm sure we can improve, and I'm hoping you can help us go to the next level." Are Boston boys born with extra respect or what?

"Talk me through the Sanders case, then," I said.

"Emmett Sanders, age 38, arrested for fraud and money laundering. Has been tied to more than a hundred bogus businesses and corporations in Boston and throughout the state. We tried running them down, but after the first few dozen were empty lots or abandoned offices, we quit pounding the pavement," Ace said. I paged through the papers on the desk, and briefly glanced at the glossy 8x10 photo of an average looking man with his hair in a short buzz cut.

"We tried following some of the money, but it just bounces around from shell to shell and we couldn't keep a bead on it," Zach added. "What should we do next?"

I nodded, showing I was tracking with them. "You won't like my suggestion, I'm afraid," I said. "But the best leads we have – unless you've seen this guy at the gas station recently – is to keep running down the businesses." They both groaned. "Zach, Have IT run a report, mapping them out by proximity, and we'll do a grid pattern. And Ace, get a comfortable fleet car, because we're going to be in it for a while."

"What are you doing?" Ace asked when I stood.

"Getting us coffees to-go," I said, popping a pod into the Keurig.

We met in the garage a half hour later, with a black Lincoln Navigator parked beside the elevator. I handed Ace and Zach each a go-cup of coffee and climbed into the front passenger seat. I had no desire to drive all over the countryside of a city I wasn't familiar with, but damned if I was sitting in the backseat. I left them to sort out which one would drive. After a brief conversation they both turned to look at me. I tapped my Apple Watch dramatically and raised my eyebrows. The universal signal for let's get fucking going. A few more exchanges between them, and Ace walked over to the driver's seat while Zach climbed into the back behind me.

We headed out of the garage into the dreary day – it was still raining from the storm that caused all the turbulence on my way into the city. It was nearly 30 minutes before we made it to the first "stop" which, wasn't actually a stop at all, but a bus terminal on the outskirts of a neighboring suburb. After two hours, the coffee was gone, we'd checked 8 sites, and had not found a single actual business. I could tell the guys were getting frustrated, but damn, did they expect the skip to just come out with their hands up? Most of the success I'd had while I was working for Vinnie was because of my dogged persistence and relentless curiosity. We continued chit-chatting as I learned about Ace and Zach's backgrounds and likes and dislikes. We stopped in a local diner for dinner, ordering sandwiches and soup, and the guys assured me this was the BEST clam chowder in the entire city. The creamy soup was just the perfect thing to warm me up, since it was still rainy and grey outside. It was a little after 7 when we exited the diner and climbed back into the Navigator.

"Let's try two more and call it a day," I said. I'd been up since 5 that morning and was ready for a little downtime and a hot shower in my Rangeman apartment. We drove through the streets as the sun was beginning to set and finally pulled into a small strip mall.

"This looks promising," Ace said from the backseat. He and Zach had switched driving duties after dinner.

"Agreed, what's the suite number?"

"1360," he replied. Zach slowed the car and we crept past the shoppes.

There was a Foot Massage place, a vegan baby food shop, a women's boutique, a Verizion store, a Subway, and at the very end of the strip, a store with a bright yellow sign that read Bird Fever. The door of Bird Fever held the suite number 1360, and listed hours of operation of 11am-7pm weekdays, and 9am-9pm on the weekends. The windows were dark, as it was nearly 8pm.

"I can't believe we found one!" Ace said.

"It's a good start," I said. "I guess we'll plan to be back tomorrow when they open. I'm going to take a quick look in the window though."

Ace got out of the car with me while Zach kept the car idling at the curb in front of the store. I tried the door, just to make sure they hadn't decided to stay open late for some reason. It was locked tight. Inside the windows I could see lots of cages filled with birds of all shapes, sizes and colors. There were shelves filled with ropes, balls, what I assumed were bird toys, and bags and bags of seed. To the left just by the front door, there was a display of large, soft-sided fabric carriers. I paused as I felt a jolt of electricity run down my spine. Something about that was familiar.

"What's wrong?" Ace asked. I was impressed he'd caught my moment of hesitation.

"Nothing. Just something about those cases by the register that ring a bell. We'll figure it out tomorrow I guess." The rain was coming down harder than before, so we quickly loaded back into the SUV to head back to Rangeman. I decided there was nothing in my backpack that couldn't wait until tomorrow, so I bypassed the office floor and headed straight to my visitor apartment. My suitcase was waiting inside, sitting on the bed in the 1-room studio apartment. There was a trey on the counter in the kitchen that caught my eye, and I walked forward to investigate. It was a small package of Pepperidge Farm Milano Cookies and a note from Fuller.

"Welcome to Boston, Ms. Plum. Please don't hesitate to let us know if you need anything at all."

Opening the package, I made my way to the couch and decided to Facetime Ranger. He was doing paperwork in the Penthouse. He told me about his day, and I updated him on the futile search so far.

"Should I expect a full house in the gym tomorrow morning?" trying to change the subject.

"They're all very curious about you," Ranger replied. "It's a good guess since you were in the field most of today, the men are probably hoping to catch you there. You've earned a good reputation since Miami," he said, referring to my time as Interim Managing Director of that branch. We talked a few more minutes and I noticed he had moved into the bedroom and pulled off his tee shirt. I almost dropped the phone.

"What are you doing?"

"Getting a shower. Want me to prop the phone on the counter so you can watch?" he asked with a smirk.

"I'm fine. I have Milano cookies," I said airily.

"Babe. I could make you forget about the cookies."

"True, but since you're in Trenton and I'm in Boston, I'd rather you not."

"Touché," Ranger said. "Night, Babe."

"Night." I disconnected.

I changed into a sleep shirt and remoted the television on and settled in on the couch with a blanket. I searched and found a hockey game, just ending the intermission before the 2nd period. The teams took the ice, and with a jolt I realized it was the Bruins game.

And just like that, everything tumbled into place – the soft sided carriers in the store were just like the one the guy on the plane had been carrying. I pulled on pajama pants and stuffed my feet into my running shoes and jogged downstairs to the offices. It was after 10, so the graveyard shift had begun and there weren't a lot of guys milling around. I dashed into the office and rifled through the file for the Sanders case. I took one look at the photo and felt my spidey sense clanging in my brain. Add brown hair and a goatee, and Emmett Sanders was Ethan, the chatty guy from the plane today.

Holy shit.