Roughly a week after I had mentioned it first, I was ready to go and visit one or two of the other offices in the franchise. I had decided on following Cal's suggestion and took Bones with me, as well as Cal of course. I had set my eyes on the Helena and Denver office and was looking forward to seeing how that part of RangeMan was doing.

I would technically have been able to leave sooner but running into troubles in regards of my K9 unit plans and several other meeting which had managed to pop up on my radar unexpectantly. But finally, Bones, Cal and me sat down in the company jet and made our way cross-country. I figured we'd stop by the Helena office first and made our way towards Denver in a few days. The cars, which would pick us up at the airstrips had been arranged – though I wasn't sure how that was done without anyone really knowing we'd be coming. But...well, Tank and Bobby had insisted that no one would be aware.

Six hours after we had left Trenton, New Jersey, we touched down in Helena, Montana. It was a pretty uneventful flight and when I wasn't trying to catch up on sleep, I was looking at files. I found it odd as well as amusing how my life had changed these past few months so drastically. It wasn't a bad change or awful, just unexpected and also refreshing in a way. For the first time in a long time was I feeling like I actually accomplished something and was doing something I actually really enjoyed. It wasn't like I hadn't enjoyed being a bounty hunter or even working for E.E. Martin wasn't something I enjoyed, but most days working as either I was glad when the day was over and I could fall into my bed. With my job as RangeMan CEO I was looking forward to each and every day and while there were enough days when I was feeling of being in way over my head, it was still a great feeling. I had all the support I could ever need and was never given the feeling of one of my questions being odd or stupid. Though, the amount of my questions had drastically reduced the past couple of months.

Since we had started our day before sunrise – which was even early by MerryMen standards – we reached Helena early as well. Once inside the car with Cal and Bones trying to argue who'd drive, I figured I just sit in the back and wait for things to come. And also made a call to Tank, letting him know we touched down and were almost on our way to the office. It wasn't required, but I knew he liked being kept in the loop. Also, I figured if I hadn't made the call, Cal or Bones would have sooner or later.

"Any problems so far?" Tank asked through the line and I shook my head.

"Not really, just that I really, really, really want a bed right now. This was a very early start into my day. I even heard Cal mumble a complaint about how early it was."

After a few moments of chitchat and what the plans were for me for the next few days, we ended out phone call and I was happy to see Cal and Bones having seemingly come to an agreement. Though I was almost certain Cal pulled rank on Bones. And seniority.

We drove for about half an hour from the airstrip and made it to a small office building in the middle of nowhere. Literally. There wasn't another house anywhere close and for a RangeMan branch this seemed a bit unusual. I had been to the Miami office years ago and knew from Collins that the Denver office was located on one of the busiest streets in the city. I heard similar things from the Boston or Houston office. So I had expected the Helena office to follow that general idea. But then again, Helena wasn't really a large city, so maybe things needed to be different.

Cal parked by the side and together we made it inside the building and were greeted by a rather grumpy looking guy at the reception desk who didn't even look up from whatever he was studying.

"How can I help you?" he asked, sounding almost bored. I knew reception duty was even in Jersey not really fought over and judging by the buzzing life of Helena it was maybe even quieter here, but the picture that presented itself to me and the other two was almost sad.

"We are here to see Monroe," Cal said as some form of introduction and the guy still hadn't looked up from whatever paper he was reading. Not looking too good.

"You have an appointment?" he said, moving his head slightly to look at a screen and clicking with a mouse a few times.

"Not really," Bones offered and looked as impressed as me and Cal.

"Then I'm afraid you wasted your time. Without an appointment you won't be able to make it further," he said, sounding even more bored now – if that was even possible.

"Maybe you could call someone? Preferably Monroe? I'd hate having wasted my time and needing to go back to Trenton, New Jersey," I offered with a voice as sweet as sugar.

"Why would you make your way all the way from New Jersey to Montana?" he asked, still looking at god knows what. Okay, this officially was starting to piss me off. I wasn't big on etiquette, actually couldn't care less about most of the RangeMan protocols, but this guy…

"Well, as CEO of RangeMan I figured making my rounds was appropriate," I said and saw him finally move away from his paper.

"CE-," he started and stopped a second later when he looked at me and realized who he had been ignoring the past few moments. His posture all of a sudden changed and he sat as straight in his chair as the military probably taught him.

His mouth moved a few times between open and closed and open again. "Oh my, I'm… Oh god," was finally all he could stutter. When his hands seemed to reach for the phone I waved him off.

"Don't bother, just patch us through the door and we'll find our way to Monroe, who hopefully is a bit more accommodating than you were."

"I'm sorry, I… I'm not really sure how to explain myself to be honest."

"No need to. Your actions explained a whole deal to me. So… the door?" I asked, looking at a heavy and most likely locked door in front of us. I heard the buzz a moment later and let Cal and Bones open the door for me. This didn't look like I'd be able to actually push it open by myself, so I was more than happy to let my guys go all out on their chivalry.

The inside was calm and serene as you'd expect from a RangeMan facility. It was a bit dark for my taste, but I wasn't the one working here, so who was I to complain? The entire floor was empty which was odd, but a moment later I realized why. To our left was what seemed to be a meeting room which seemed filled to its capacity with Helena MerryMen probably having a morning briefing. Perfect time for my introduction.

I walked past the floor and towards the glass doors of the meeting room, knocked a time of two and before I even heard a reply opened the door. I felt a bit gutsy this morning.

Being greeted by a lot of unknown faces and men, who at first looked somewhat irritated at me before their expression changed to surprise was a bit nerve-wrecking.

"Stephanie," someone spoke and got up a second later. Franklin Monroe had already been dashing whenever he was popping up on my screen weekly for the video conferences. But in real life he was… even more mesmerizing. His steel-blue eyes and blond hair made him look more like a model than some ex-military guy who'd probably seen his fair share in horrible stuff and was in his forties.

"Franklin, it's good to see you in person for a change," I smiled and saw everyone in the room get up as well and making room for me and offering me their chairs.

"Is… Sorry, I'm just caught slightly off-guard and am a bit surprised by your visit," he said apologetic and I needed to laugh.

"As I'm sure doesn't happen very often. But I didn't mean to interrupt by much, so… please continue and I can wait in your office."

"Absolutely not," Franklin replied and for a moment it seemed like he had managed to find his composure again. "We were almost finished anyway. And the rest can wait. Guys, for all of you who don't know, this is Stephanie Plum, your bosses' boss and CEO from RangeMan, residing in Trenton, New Jersey."

I wasn't entirely sure what to do or what was expected so I waved stupidly and smiled. "These two are Cal and Bones," I introduced and saw a head or two nod, assuming these were the guys Bones could maybe know? "We are actually only in town for me to look at different offices and get a feeling of how things are done outside Trenton. Don't feel surveilled or anything. This isn't a performance review. Just… my curiosity and need for understanding things better."

"And with these words I'd say our meeting is done," Franklin said a moment later before motioning to me. "And we can have a conversation in my office?"

"Sounds good," I offered and turned towards my companions. "I'm sure you'd like to catch up with people Bones, so feel free to."

A moment later everyone in the office started moving until it was only Cal, me and Franklin in the room.

"Do I need to be worried?" Franklin asked and offered us a cup of coffee a moment later.

"No you really don't," I assured him. "This is really just me being curios about things and the general operations."

Franklin just nodded but looked very unconvinced which made me smile. "Look, I get how it looks when the boss walks in unannounced and just wants to look at things. But you know that I have literally no idea about how things work when I started this position. I'd like to think that I managed to get a hang of things by now, but it was because of a lot of help from people at the Trenton office. I don't want to end up being one of these people that run a company but have no idea what's going on everywhere. And who can't name one single employee in another office. I won't be that kind of girl."

"And here I thought the point of the Monday morning video calls was so that you could get an idea of what's going on in the other offices. Also, I would gladly have sent you a file of each and every employee here with a picture and their name, if that's what you wanted," he smiled at me which made laugh once more.

"I'm almost certain you know what I meant."

"So, what would you like to see, know, learn? Want me to give you a tour of our humble grounds? It isn't as big or mighty as HQ in Trenton, so I'd ask you to curb your enthusiasm."

"I promise I'll oh and ah at the right moments," I laughed, finished my coffee and was guided through the door a moment later.

Franklin wasn't kidding when he said that this was going to be a humble ground. Compared to the size and grandness of the Trenton office this was small and almost cute. It was three stories tall, which surprised me since that was a small number for the usual requirements of a RangeMan building, seeing that they needed to host car parks, gyms and employee accommodation as well as obviously office space and meeting rooms and the likes.

"Well, we are very few around here compared to Trenton. And since don't have a lot of walk-in clientele and work less in regards of community safety we need less space for meeting rooms."

"What about the employee accommodations?" I asked curious, looking at the gym on the second floor which was well equipped but once again rather small.

"While employee apartments are a thing in almost every other office the need wasn't given for them here. Most of us have our own places in the city with a house or an apartment that grants us a bit more access to other people than RangeMan employees," he grinned. "When we started it was a general idea of having them on offer, but interest amongst us was very little. So we have two or three in the neighbouring building, but that is mainly used by newly relocated RangeMan employees or guys that are on call. Or… um… when the boss comes for a visit. Though, Ranger usually parked himself at the local Hilton when he was in town."

"I… I haven't even thought about accommodation while here. I guess… we… um… need to figure something out. Good that you mentioned it," I said almost ruefully. It wasn't like I had expected to just get here and get an apartment for the time we were here, but…. Truth be said, it hadn't also crossed my mind. All the other offices had tons of apartments for employees and as far as I could remember and the few times I actually had been told, Ranger usually stayed in one of these when he was doing his rounds of offices. But I never actually heard of him going to Helena, so….

"Tank actually made arrangements as far as I know," Cal said next to me. "He booked us two rooms with connecting doors in …the Hilton."

"How could I not have thought about that myself?" I said, rubbing my hands frustrated over my face.

"Probably because you were trying to coordinate six million meetings, two hundred quotes and 50 or so MerryMen," Cal just smiled and I heard Franklin behind me ask 'MerryMen?'

"Um, yeah, that is her nickname for us at RangeMan. We are basically her MerryMen, like Robin Hood I guess," Cal explained a moment later, saving me from having to explain that. I had never really spent much thought about that nickname in all fairness, or whether the guys actually wanted me to 'spread' it. I knew they were cool with it and actually loved the name, but I had never really thought about whether or not they wanted the name to be spread in other offices. In Trenton all of them were my MerryMen and all of them equally were part of it, but maybe they found it embarrassing in front of others that weren't Trenton based.

Before I could try and explain anything really and save the Trenton's guys faces, Cal went on. "It's an honorary title that isn't obtained easily." And was that pride I heard in his voice? Franklin at least looked like he was a bit envious after that statement.

After a continuation of the tour we came to an end after about another ten minutes and I had even more questions about everything we saw and that was explained to me. I found the setup of the Helena office impressive despite the small size and the fact that it was something entirely different than the other branches of the franchise.

"I know this isn't really any of my business, but… can I ask you a question about employees?" I asked after we had made our way back to Franklin's office and Franklin had handed me a stack of files they were currently involved with and working on. A lot of the alphabet agencies from both sides of the border.

"Sure," he said, sounding surprised about my question.

"The… front desk… is it… I know it probably isn't really exciting, especially since you don't have a lot of walk-in business, but…."

Before I could finish my sentence or even form a question I heard Franklin sigh.

"You don't need to go on, I know what will come next," he surprised me with his reply. "The thing is… we are understaffed. Montana is not really a Marine's or Army Ranger's first choice in location when they decide on leaving the forces. There are a lot of well-trained people around here, but most of them decided on joining some militia group, fighting the system and the man. We try to – or rather we have to – outsource as much as we can, so that we are able to run this office efficiently. The front desk is one of these positions, but I know they are less than stellar. The thing is there is a roster of I believe a handful of people that come in and man the desk and the phone. Some of them are really good and do an amazing job. Others …aren't. And as frustrating as it is, we have little to no choice. In the beginning we were rigorous in regards of people and if they didn't perform the way we needed them to, they were gone and replaced by someone else from the agency we use. But after a while… we ran out of people and …now we try to work with what we have and do the best that's possible."

I could see Franklin's frustration dripping from every pore of his body, but also understood his point. Ranger always took pride in having the best of the best work for and with him. In Trenton where talent was easily available and not an issue, it was easy. But out here, where you'd have problems recruiting you sometimes needed to work with what was given to you. Not everything was as easy as things were in Trenton.