Chapter 4

Tank knew the moment he stepped onto the command floor that word had travelled about Steph. Binkie and Junior glanced worried in his direction from the bank of monitors while an expectant hush washed over the rest of the men, starting at the elevator and rippling outwards until the whole floor was silent. They were waiting on an update, straining their ears even if they weren't staring in his direction. He knew he wouldn't have to raise his voice to be heard.

"She's physically unharmed," he stated, not bothering to use her name. It was superfluous at this point. "Her emotional distress appears to have been caused by her mother."

"Typical," someone muttered inside one of the nearby cubicles, and Tank couldn't agree more. Helen Plum was a nightmare at the best of times, let alone when she, herself, was upset. It was a wonder Steph had turned out as well adjusted as she was.

"Frank Plum has been shot and is in hospital," Tank added. "We're investigating the situation and waiting on a medical report." And with that he strode straight to his office, slamming the door behind him. There would be questions, of course, but he had neither the patience nor inclination to deal with them at this point in time. He'd been over it almost since the second Ranger slid into the passenger seat of the car the government had sent to pick him up.

Almost three months. Ranger had been in the wind and out of contact for almost three months. ten weeks. Seventy days. And each one of them had been a little slice of hell for his second in command. Tank loathed paperwork, and computer work and – he shuddered at the mere thought – video conference meetings.

Don't misunderstand the situation, Tank was more than happy to partake of all of the above under normal circumstances, because not only was the load more manageable, but it was offset with ample time out in the field to burn off his frustrations. With Ranger 'out of town' the responsibility of not only running the Trenton branch, but overseeing the whole company fell on Tank's shoulders. And unfortunately, Tank was just as much a control freak as Ranger was and refused to relinquish even part of the duties to other members of the core team for fear that the quality of service they provide would slip. To cut a long story short, the second Ranger returned, and Tank had given his report to get the boss back up to speed, he was going on vacation.

But for right now, he had bigger fish to fry.

He'd just sat down at his desk, jiggling the mouse to wake up his computer when Hal's distinctively polit knock sounded on the door.

"Enter," Tank called, and he wanted to sigh, but thought better of it. He couldn't show that kind of weakness in front of the lower ranks. Not at a time like this. And really, he should have pulled Hal in himself to update him on the information they'd uncovered upstairs.

"Bomber's movements over the last forty-eight hours show nothing suspicious," Hal began the second he stepped inside. "Security footage at her apartment building, the bonds office and her parents' house shows no unusual activity or unexpected visitors. I had Cal obtain a list of her current FTAs from Connie and –"

Tank's hand flew out, palm up. "Gimme the list," he demanded, cutting off Hal's report.

As expected, Hal snapped is mouth closed and handed over the piece of note paper he held. "A couple of-" he tried to explain, but Tank shot him a glare across the desk as he pulled out his phone to check the list against the names he'd obtained from their Burg informant.

It took barely a second to find a match, at which point a menacing growl rumbled up all the way from his boots. "Jasper Norton was seen fleeing the scene," Tank grit out, thrusting the page back to Hal. "Find him, bring him in, I have a hunch he's responsible."

"That's what I was trying to say, sir," Hal said, studiously maintaining eye contact with the reflection of the overhead light on the top of Tank's bald head. "TPD have already identified him as a suspect and have him in custody."

Tank's eyes widened in surprise. "Already?" The Trenton Police Department was not known for their prompt and efficient action.

"Norton's not a smart cookie, sir," Hal shrugged.

That sounded about right. There was no way the cops would have haled ass the same way Tank had been about to mobilise a team. Probably, Norton had fallen into their laps by chance and now they were all back at the station congratulating themselves on some excellent police work.

The urge to roll his eyes let Tank know that he'd been couped up inside for far too long.

"Dismissed," he barked, opening a document on his desktop and starting to type in the latest information in the Stephanie Plum saga. It had become habit to provide Ranger with two separate reports upon his return: one for all the of Rangeman's official business, and one for the Bombshell Bounty Hunter. And Ranger usually demanded the second one first.

As he typed, Tank considered their options moving forward. With Norton already in police custody, they couldn't question him themselves in their own environment and with their preferred methods, but that didn't mean it was a complete wash. They had contacts. They could make arrangements.

With that in mind, he snatched up his phone where he'd left it on the desk and glared at the screen as he navigated to the appropriate contact and hit the button to connect a call.

"What'd she do now?" the tired, gravelly voice of one Joseph Morelli questioned, having clearly recognised the number calling and jumped to conclusions as Burg-dwellers were apt to do.

Despite animosity between Morelli and Rangeman, he was still their strongest link to the TPD. Nobody liked it, but when the need arose, they could work fairly harmoniously on common goals. Hopefully this would be one of those times. Surely Morelli understood the bond Steph had with her father and the devastation this incident will have caused her. He may not be willing to bend the law, or take matters into his own hands, but he was the most likely to turn a blind eye if Rangeman chose to do so.

"Not Steph," Tank bit out, already battling to keep his legendary calm in place. "Jasper Norton, the guy who shot Frank Plum."

He sensed the cop's eyes narrow as he countered, "The guy suspected of shooting Frank Plum."

It took all of Tank's control not to crush the phone in his grip and storm the station to gain access by force instead. "He's one of Steph's skips," he said evenly, glaring at the opposite wall of his office.

"We're aware."

"I require access to question the suspect," Tank stated firmly, being sure to choose his words carefully. He figured Morelli was smart enough to read between the lines and infuse his own meaning anyway, but he had to at least maintain the appearance of civility. "I'm sending over Hank Greeves and Zero-" he paused realising he'd given the second man's nickname and wracking his brain to bring up the name that would match the man's driver's licence. "John Willow."

"You can't just-" Morelli protested, but Tank cut him off.

"You still owe us for the Stark Street Pokémon Killer," he reminded him pointedly. "Either you let my men interview the suspect, or I talk to Juniak."

He didn't bother waiting for a response before hanging up and surging to his feet. Thanks to the Rangemen's efficiency, the task that he'd come downstairs to complete was done, and he could now returne to the seventh floor to check on Steph and see if Bobby had a medical status for him.

"Hank, Zero," he barked, stepping out into the hall. The two were the most respectable-looking, and well mannered of their rather motley crew, making them the first choice when liaising with the official entities like this, especially when Ranger was away. They could be trusted to gather and convey the right information in just the right non-threatening manner to achieve Rangeman's goals in delicate situations. They'd been pivotal in gaining necessary insights in several historical investigations. For today's mission, though, he had a special message he wanted them to convey: if it turned out that Jasper Norton shot Frank Plum, and Frank Plum ended up succumbing to his injuries, Norton's days were numbered.

Tank gave them their orders, fielded a few questions and was about to escape back upstairs when his phone trilled out the most annoying sound known to man. In retrospect, maybe letting Lester assign the squeaky toy sound to the Boston manager's contact information wasn't the best decision he'd made. Now, instead of being instantly annoyed the second he heard Hugh's voice on the other end of the line, the agitation started before he'd even looked at the device. He made a mental note to return the assigned ringtone to the generic one he had for most other contacts, sighed, and pressed the phone to his ear.

"Speak."

As Hugh's voice filtered down the line, Tank once again fought the urge to roll his eyes, only this time it was coupled with the compulsion to strangle someone. And by 'someone' he meant Hugh. No other Rangeman employee could inspire such a visceral reaction from the large man. Not even Lester, and that was saying something. Of course, Hugh had a crisis that needed to be dealt with right now when Trenton's whole population was holding it's breath for Steph and her father. Ordinarily, he would have told Hugh to fuck off and figure it out himself, but with Lester dealing with Steph's emotions, Bobby waiting on a report from his hospital contact, and Hank and Zero on their way to deal with Norton and the police, Tank had to acknowledge that he found himself at somewhat of a loose end. There wasn't much he could do for the situation right at that moment, so he supressed a long-suffering sigh and trudged back down the hall to his office.

It was another forty minutes before Tank managed to escape the phone call from hell and return to the seventh floor apartment. The second he stepped inside and heard the familiar sounds of Ghostbusters playing on the entertainment system, he knew some progress had been made on Steph's condition since he'd left, but having been out of contact for almost an hour, he was still on edge.

Everyone knew that Ghostbusters was Steph's comfort movie. She watched it when she was upset, so the fact that it was on indicated that despite Lester and Bobby's best efforts, she was still low, probably out of her mind with worry. He hoped that whatever condition her Dad was in, that he would pull through, because Tank was pretty sure Steph's heart couldn't handle the loss right now.

Stepping into the living room, he found Lester and Bobby on either end of the couch with Steph curled between them, her head in Lester's lap while her feet rested in Bobby's. She was dressed in one of Ranger's old army shirts and a pair of well-worn sweats, her hair looking like a ball of fuzz where it was gathered on top of her head.

Lester brought a finger to his lips, meeting Tank's gaze briefly before nodding his head toward Steph. Apparently, she was asleep. Probably a good thing. Crying always seemed to sap all of her energy.

Tank crossed to an armchair and lowered his large frame into it with an uncontained sigh. "How is she?" he asked quietly.

"She's choosing to remain in the dark about how bad Frank's injury is," Bobby explained, absently rubbing Steph's lower leg. "Didn't ask questions when I told her he was still in surgery."

"Which could be a good thing, because things aren't sounding good from what Bobby was just telling me," Lester added, his normally jubilant energy dull and flat. He, too, was worried about their friend. "Close range gunshot wound to the chest, penetrating the chest cavity."

Tank hissed in a breath. He didn't need a fancy medical degree to know the chances of survival weren't great. He'd been right to relay his threat to Hank and Zero, because if the time came that he'd need to follow through, he didn't want to have to waste time explaining why Jasper Norton would be receiving the beating of a lifetime that may or may not lead to the end of his life. A burning rage was already forming in the pit of his stomach, and he knew it wouldn't take much for him to snap. And if he did, Norton had better count himself lucky that he was currently in police custody.

"What about you?" Bobby asked after giving Tank a moment to process his emotions. "What did you find out on those two guys?"

Tank explained everything he'd learned from the quickest search he'd ever conducted, not even logging into his computer before he'd been presented with the necessary puzzle pieces to fill in some of the holes in the picture.

When he was finished, Lester let out a low whistle, slowly shaking his head. "Do you reckon Steph knows, and that's why her guilt over her Dad is so bad? Did someone tell her Norton was involved?"

"It would make sense," Bobby reasoned. "Even with her Dad in hospital, I wouldn' think her reaction to her mom's blame game would be this extreme. I mean, she one-hundred-percent was at least involved in actions leading to the funeral home being blown up, and she still claims it wasn't her fault. Not only that, she's been learning to take her mother's words with a grain of salt."

"I don't know," Lester countered. "Steph's a Daddy's Girl. There's every chance that just the fact that he'd been badly hurt put her into a spiral, and her mother's guilt trip – a default reaction whether it's Steph's fault or not – only exacerbated the situation. There's every chance that Steph doesn't know that one of her skips could be responsible."

Bobby nodded his agreement. "We need to plan what to tell her."

Tank, who had been bent forward, massaging his temples while he listened to Lester and Bobby's opinions, jerked his head up to stare at the medic. "We tell her the truth," he stated flatly, leaving no room for arguments. "Just because we want to protect her doesn't mean we keep information from her. We start lying and hiding things from her and not only is she going to be able to see through our blank expressions and call us out, but we'll lose her trust, and once it's gone, I'm not sure we'd ever be able to get it back. We tell her the truth and we let her know that even this information doesn't make it her fault, and that we're here for her."

Lester stared at him for a long time and Tank was half afraid he'd disagree with his explanation. Lester's relationship with Steph had been gearing more toward protective older brother of late and it would track that he'd be opposed to the idea of laying all this information out there while she's still in a vulnerable state. As it turns out, though, Tank had nothing to worry about except the arrival of yet another smartassed comment from the resident jokester.

"Do you deliberately save up your words so you can come out with these Ted Talks, or is the longwinded outburst a side effect of biting your tongue all day that you can't control?"

There was nothing that inspired the need to throttle something as much as Lester Santos breaking a serious and tense moment by cracking a joke. Tank found himself clenching his fingers around the arms of his chair to stop himself from launching across the space. Anything he did to Lester would disturb Steph, he reminded himself, casting his gaze to her serene face. Instead, he sent a narrow-eyed glare in Lester's direction and bit out, "Fuck you, Santos."

His returning smile was not the response Tank desired from the statement, but he had to admit, he wasn't surprised when Lester's nonchalant reply floated across the dimly lit space. "Thanks for the offer, but you're not really my type."

Tank did roll his eyes, then, deciding to drop the line of conversation lest he be drawn into a discussion of what, exactly, Lester's type was. He knew from past experience that it would take very little prompting, and quite frankly, it was more information about Lester and Bobby's relationship than he would ever need. He'd accepted that they were together when they'd announced it several years ago and had done well at avoiding unnecessary details about it since, but something about the direction of this conversation just put up red flags in Tank's brain. Wrong way! Turn back! It warned. So it was time for a topic change.

"How long has she been asleep?" he asked.

"Barely made it through the opening credits," Bobby said. "She's in deep."

Tank considered how far into the movie they were as to just how deep Steph was into her sleep cycle. "We should put her to bed and discuss a contingency plan," he murmured. He knew they could just as easily discuss such things in their current formation, but he didn't want to risk waking her and having her dropped into the middle of a dialogue about what steps needed to be taken if Frank didn't make it. He would much prefer to have her cross that bridge only if it became necessary.

The other two nodded their agreement and Tank moved to scoop Steph's slight form up from the couch, carrying her into he bedroom where Bobby hurried forward to pull back the covers so he could set her down. Tank had a good idea of which side of the bed Ranger slept on thanks to years of observation, so he'd deliberately chosen the opposite side of the bed to deposit Steph on. The second he released her, though, she inhaled deeply, rolled over and pulled the pillow from the other side of the bed into a bear hug, settling contentedly into it.

"God, that's cute," Lester groaned from the foot of the bed.

"You don't think it's cute when I steal your pillow," Bobby pointed out with a slight pout and a sidelong glance.

Lester grinned and pulled him into a one-armed hug. "That's because I'm usually trying to sleep on it at the time," he pointed out.

"Touché."

Shaking his head, Tank took a moment to pull the covers up over Steph and flick on the bedside table lamp before leading the way back out of the room, nudging Lester and Bobby along with him.

As far as contingency plans went, the team could do better. Until they had confirmation of Norton's guilt and solid information on Frank's condition, there wasn't much they could do besides make sure Steph knew they were there for her, which they thought they'd don a pretty good job of so far. They'd talked in circles, trying to cover their actions inn any given outcome, but really, they all knew that with Steph involved, their plans would be nothing more than hopeful guidelines held together by the same piece of tape that had already been used in the last three Code Blues.

In the end, they'd agreed to reconvene in the morning when they could have a clearer picture of what they were dealing with. Frank would be out of surgery and hopefully Steph would been in a much better mood. Maybe she'd be back to her usual contrary self, and they could help her storm the hospital and stick it to Helen Plum by defying her selfish 'stay away' orders.

Tank parted ways with Lester and Bobby on the fifth floor, leaving them to continue on to their shared apartment on four while he made his way back to his office. It was well after the time he would usually call it quits for the evening, but there was a little voice in the back of his mind telling him he couldn't go home yet. So he slumped into his ergonomic chair, checking his email and then staring blankly at the screen while his mind replayed everything he'd learned in the last three hours. He hated seeing Steph so broken and hurting without the one person who could always make her feel better.

He mulled over the thought for a second and realised that it was worse than that. There were two men in Steph's life that she could always rely on. The first was her Dad, her rock in the storm that was her mother's disapproval. He'd supported her quietly from the sidelines for more than thirty years. The second was Ranger. Not to sound like a sap, but Ranger was basically the wind beneath Steph's wings. He'd taken her from an confident-lacking, under-skilled lingerie buyer masquerading as a bounty hunter to the competent woman she was today. Sure, she still occasionally rolled in garbage, or had spaghetti sauce thrown at her, but she didn't let it get her down anymore. She took it in her stride, and almost always got her man. And she probably never would have had the wherewithal to get to that point without Ranger's encouragement.

When Lester had relayed Steph's words fromth e rooftop about wishing Ranger was there – the first time, to Tank's knowledge, that she'd openly admitted to wanting or needing Ranger's unique brand of comfort – his jaw had clenched with something he wanted to label as anger at his best friend for insisting on upping his contract that 'one last time' when the rest of them had gotten out of the system so that the government still had the power to steal him away from his life whenever they wanted. A point he used as an excuse not to give in to the feelings he clearly harboured from Stephanie Plum. In reality, though, the ache that settled in his chest was something more akin to a heart sickness he didn't believe himself capable of. All he wanted was to see his friends happy, but the universe appeared to have other ideas.

Snapping himself out of his melancholy thoughts with a thump of his oversized first on the solid oak desk, he stood, launching his chair back into the wall behind him, and marched purposefully out of his office and all the way down to the gym.

The treadmill didn't dare groan under his weight or whimper out feeble protests as he set a punishing pace. It knew better, had seen far too many men with that look in their eye to think that Tank might be open to the subtle suggestion that he might like to take his frustrations out on a different piece of equipment. Instead, it accepted it's fate and grit it's wiring so as to ensure all the electronic functions held out. It was only fifty minutes of interval running that the treadmill was finally granted a reprieve.

The gym doors burst open admitting a frazzled-looking Zip. "She's on the roof!" he exclaimed the second he spotted the man in charge. Never mind the fact that the length of the entire gym still separated them. "Steph left the apartment and is on the roof. She looks upset."

Tank lumbered from the treadmill without sparing a moment to shut it down, a snarl already pushing up his throat, past his ragged breathing, as he made a bee-line for the door. Steph was on the roof, in the middle of the night, during a heightened period of stress and emotion, and Zip had wasted the time to run all the way from the control room on five to the basement where the gym was located to tell him?! "Why didn't you call me?!" he demanded as they both mounted the stairs to start their ascent.

"We tried," Zip explained. "It went straight to voicemail."

His phone had been low on battery, he recalled. It must have given up while he was preoccupied. "Please tell me you didn't just leave her alone up there."

"Hector's with her," Zip confirmed. "Sir, she looked like she wanted to jump."

Tank was pretty sure his heart stopped at Zip's words. It wasn't until he'd barged through the door on the roof to find Steph securely bundled up in Hectors arms, sobbing loudly and struggling to break free, but alive and well, that he felt it start beating again.

This reaction didn't gel with Lester and Bobby's reports of her state of mind last time they spoke to her, which meant something must have happened to push her back to the edge she'd been on when Hal first found her, and then given her one last shove to send her over the edge just like she'd apparently attempted to do with the roof.

"Shhh." Hector was murmuring in Spanish against her hair as her fists pummelled his chest, and Tank paused his approach to listen, hoping to gather information on what had happened from Hector's words. He told her that the price she'd paid for her mistakes was large, but that she shouldn't give herself away because of it. That her candy-coating hid a razor-blade, and she should use it to cut herself loose and use the rage bubbling inside her. It was a lot of metaphors, almost as bad as Hal's usual efforts, but the fact that he was speaking in a Spanish and using a calm tone seemed to be calming her somewhat.

Unfortunately, the ex-gang member's words did nothing to illuminate the reason for Steph being so distraught. Tank waited for her punches to peter out, and her sobs to slow before stepping forward, intending to ask a few of the millions of questions filling his throat when pounding boot-steps from the stairwell, followed by the door bursting open with a clang interrupted the moment.

"Babe!" Ranger yelled, his face twisted with undisguised worry as she sprinted to where she and Hector were huddled by the wall.