Ranger left as I stewed over his comment. What did he mean by we needed to have a talk? About what? Ranger? Dickie? His situation?

Ranger had let himself out the front door and was headed towards a light green sedan (now that completely killed the Batman image) when a dark car pulled into the parking lot, cut him off, and someone jumped out and started yelling at him. Carmen. I could see her look as he turned to her and then stop yelling, mouth open.

Wrong Ranger.

He reached out a hand to her and I could sense that he was talking soothingly but I had no idea what he was saying. Carmen shook her head. No. She wasn't accepting that there was two Rangers and she was probably with the wrong one. Ranger reached out his hand and she shook her head very firmly.

I was wondering if I should intervene when Ranger got out his phone and spoke briefly. He gestured briefly to Carmen and she nodded and got back into the car. Ranger walked around it, got into the sedan and left. Carmen stayed parked in the middle of the parking lot until three minutes later a black SUV pulled up beside her, Lester and Bobby got out, Carmen got into the SUV with Lester and Bobby got into her vehicle and they all drove off together.

Well that was an eventful five minutes. If only I'd had some popcorn handy.

I went to get a Tastykake out of my desk. I knew that I'd left one in there but I had to rummage hard to find it. While I was searching for it, I came across the panic button that Hector had put in there when we were luring in Junkman. Huh. I thought that he'd gotten all of his equipment. I gave up on the Tastykake and went out on a doughnut run instead. I'd stock up on Tastykakes later.

I'd just gotten back with the doughnuts and started working when Mary Lou arrived.

Once we'd run through the morning gossip she'd acquired while on the school run, Hector arrived and dropped off equipment for Ranger. He came in with a laptop, printer, and two mobile phones and set them up in the back office. I showed him the panic button that I'd found in the drawer earlier that day and he nodded and put it back in the drawer.

What the heck was I supposed to do with that? Maybe Ranger would be back to get all his stuff later on.

Well, time to start work for the day.

I'd just gotten home and poured a glass of wine when my phone rang. It was a number that I didn't recognise so I answered cautiously but I knew the voice straight away. Ranger. And he sounded worried.

"Stephanie. I need your help. There's been a shooting at the Bonds office and Manny's hurt. They're taking him to St Francis but it's teeming with cops."

"What happened?" I asked, jumping up and grabbing my car keys.

"I don't know. I need you to find out for me."

"Okay. I'll call you when I can," I told him. I pulled up in the carpark outside St Francis and made my way to emergency. The waiting room was over flowing. At this time of night there were kids with sporting injuries from after school practice, worried looking moms, men with workplace injuries and a few oldies who were probably there for entertainment. I saw Sarah Silverman who I went to high school with behind the intake desk and waved to her as I slid past on my way to search for Manny.

Once behind the desk, I was stopped by another nurse, was luckily my cousin Brenda.

"Steph! How's it going?"

"Great!"

"Then why are you here?"

"Ah right. A friend of mine just came on in, Manny… something. Manny with a probable gunshot wound."

"Well you know I can't give our any information on any of our patients," she said, nodding with her head towards a curtained off area at the back. "Not unless you're a relative."

"Well I am here to see my husband. My husband Manny."

"Right this way then," Brenda said, leading me towards the back. She opened the curtain and then gestured for me to walk in.

"Congratulations Mrs Manual Ramos," she said. I looked at Manny. He was lying on the bed, his leg was wrapped up bandages and he was looking a combination of dazed and relaxed.

"Your last name is Ramos?"

"Yes."

"As in…"

"He's my uncle."

"Well he offered to make me Mrs Ramos, so I guess this is kind of fitting," I said. "I thought you were Italian."

"Half-Italian, half-greek. Ms Plum, no offense, but what are you doing here?"

"They wouldn't let anyone from Rangeman back here, so I had to sneak through. Can you tell me what happened?"

"I got shot."

Okay maybe not the best question there, Stephanie. Let's start again.

"Do you know who shot you?" I asked him.

"He looked exactly like Ranger. But he wasn't Ranger. It was so weird. Maybe it's these pain meds that they're giving me. But it was freaky," Manny told me. I squeezed his hand.

"Okay, Steph, you're going to have to wrap it up," Brenda said. She was acting as look out. "He's not going to be able to talk to you in a minute anyway, his meds are kicking in."

"You need to find this guy, Steph. Something about his eyes were so weird. He just stared me down and then shot me. Tell Ranger, okay?" Manny said.

"I will. Take care, Manny. I'll visit you tomorrow, okay?"

"Okay wifey," he said, drifting off to sleep.

The waiting room was filled with men in black when I walked back out. Bobby grabbed me.

"How is he? What was his condition? I haven't been able to get hold of his doctor and they won't let me go back there yet."

"He was pretty drugged up. Looks like he was shot in the leg. I didn't see his doctor but it sounded like they were getting him ready for surgery. My cousin let me back there but wouldn't tell me any details," I told him.

"Thanks Steph. I'm going to wait here. Lester, can you walk Steph to her car?" Bobby asked. Lester nodded and stood up. I thought about protesting that I could walk myself out, but also wanted to see if I could get information out of Lester.

"Is Carmen okay?" I asked him.

"She's okay. She's at Rangeman. She's pretty confused. We think her husband is that one that shot Manny. He broke into the Bonds office and set off the alarms. It looks like he took some files too. Carmen said that he was a bounty hunter, had his own office and everything. He disappeared one morning and she came to Trenton because he told her that's where Rangeman was based."

"So he really was pretending to be Ranger? That's so weird."

"Yeah. We're sure he's the one who took Julie. And shot Manny. We need to find him so we can rescue Julie."

"She must be so scared," I said. Julie was around the same age as my niece Angie, and I'd hate to think of Angie being taken by someone, scared and alone. Julie had been missing for days now. Her mother must be so worried.

"She's a tough kid. She's more like her dad than he'll admit. But we need to find her soon. Rachel can't take much more, she needs to know that she's safe," Lester said.

"Let me know if I can help," I told him.

"Thanks Steph. And thanks for coming in tonight. Have a good trip home," Lester said. I got into my car and drove off.

I was stopped at a traffic light halfway home when the car door opened and a man climbed in. I yelped.

"Weren't you supposed to work on that situational awareness?" he asked me.

"Jesus, Ranger, you scared the life out of me," I said.

"How's Manny?"

"Way more relaxed than me at the moment," I told him. The light turned green and I started driving.

"Stephanie," Ranger said with an edge to his voice. I glanced over. Rachel wasn't the only one who needed to know that Julie was safe. Ranger looked like he was about to quietly explode.

"He said he responded to a break in at the Bonds office. Someone who looked like you came up to the window as he was checking it out, and shot him. He said it was freaky because he looked exactly like you but he wasn't you."

Ranger clenched his fists.

"Manny was on heavy pain killers. He didn't know anything else. I said that I'd visit him tomorrow," I told Ranger. He nodded.

"Thanks. Pull over."

"Do you want me to drop you anywhere?"

"Here," he said. I pulled over and he got out and disappeared, like mist. I wanted him to teach me how to do that. It would be handy the next time my mother was nagging me. I'd just disappear into the furniture, taking my plate of meatloaf with me.

I'd spent so long at the hospital that Dickie was already home when I got back.

"Where were you?" Dickie asked.

"Visiting a sick friend at the hospital," I said.

"Oh anyone I know?" he asked.

"No, just an old friend from the Burg. And I saw my cousin Brenda while I was there. Oh and Sarah Silverman, you remember her, she's married to Simon Silverman who Valerie and Joe went to school with, and her daughter Stella goes to school with Mary Alice. I always thought that was weird because they all have S names," I said to Dickie. His eyes glazed over and he turned back to the TV.

Mission accomplished. Ranger wasn't the only sneaky one.