I went out to the doorway. Lester was out in the hallway.

"Hey Bobby, come out!" he yelled, knocking on the door next to mine. The door opened and Bobby walked out, shirtless.

It was official. All the Rangemen looked good without a shirt on.

"I didn't realise you were doing a comparison," Lester said, winking at me.

I have got to stop talking out loud. Bobby backed away into his apartment, shut the door, and then reappeared thirty seconds later with a shirt on.

"Sorry Steph. We're not used to having females on the floor," Bobby apologised.

"I don't think she minded," Lester told him.

Ella squeezed my arm in farewell as she walked past. Lester and Bobby chimed in with me in saying bye to Ella. It was obvious that they all adored her.

"Who lives in the fourth apartment?" I asked Lester and Bobby.

"Hector," Bobby told me.

"But he's hardly ever up here, because he'd have to leave his technology troll cave," Lester said.

I wondered if Hector knew how much Lester compared him to a troll. Probably not since Lester was still breathing.

"How is the investigation going? Any more leads?" Lester asked.

"I'm meeting Ranger for breakfast in the morning," I told Lester. "Other than that, no new leads. Morelli has said he'll keep us updated though." I promised to keep Lester and Bobby updated on any leads that came out of my meeting with Ranger. House rules, Lester called it, keeping your floor buddies updated on what was going on.

6.30am. Argh. This was too early, I thought as I knocked on Ranger's door. I'd had to get the control room to swipe me up to his apartment, so I was sure that he knew that I was on the way.

Ranger opened the door. He was already dressed for his day, wearing all black like usual. But not like his usual black – he was wearing black business dress pants, a black shirt with black cufflinks, black tie and had a suit jacket over the back of one of the dining chairs. He was also wearing the diamonds studs that I envied. His hair was styled back nicely instead of the rough ponytail he usually wore.

Business Ranger.

He looked amazing.

"Whoa," I managed to get out. He raised an eyebrow at me.

"I was aiming for respectable," he said.

"You might want to dial it down a little, you're set for stun," I said.

"Is the tie too much?"

"Yeah, the tie, that's it," I said.

"Come in, Ella has dropped breakfast off already," he said, gesturing to the table behind him. It was set with bagels, cream cheese, and fruit.

"What have you got on today?" I asked him.

"Business meetings for most of the day. Then in the afternoon I thought I'd take a visit to Rufus Caine. I thought I'd ask his opinion on the services of a certain law firm that I know that he deals with. He might agree to set up a meeting between me and one of the partners. I checked the paperwork and according to the firm's financials he paid them over a million dollars in legal fees last year," Ranger said.

"Who is Rufus Caine?" I asked Ranger.

"Middle management pharmaceuticals. He's in the Who's Who of Trenton crime. I have an existing relationship with him. If he's feeling generous, he'll answer my questions," Ranger told me.

"And if he's not feeling generous?"

"We have enough of a relationship that he'll just tell me to leave. I'll have Tank as back-up. Even Rufus Caine would think twice about messing with Tank."

"I want to be involved," I told him.

"No."

"You said that you'd keep me involved," I reminded him.

"I said that I'd keep you informed. You're not coming to this meeting. You're known as Dickie Orr's wife, and if they realise who are you, then they'd question why I needed them to make an introduction for me."

"Oh," I said. That made sense.

It was a long day waiting for Ranger to report back on his meeting with Rufus Caine. I was all up to date with mailing out orders so I set up in Ranger's office and tried to work from there. I noticed something familiar on his desk, and laughed. He had Aunt Tootsie's clock on his desk. At least someone was enjoying the wedding gift.

My phone rang mid afternoon.

"Hey Joe," I said, answering.

"Steph. I can't talk long. I just wanted to pass some information on. The guy in the warehouse was identified by his wedding band and key ring. It was Peter Smullen," Morelli said.

"Holy crap," I said. I was relieved that it wasn't Dickie. But each time someone associated with the law firm was confirmed as dead, I became more convinced that I wouldn't see Dickie again.

"Steph? You okay?"

"Is someone going to tell his girlfriend?" I asked.

"Ah… we don't have any records of a girlfriend," Joe said. I gave him the details of the apartment where she lived.

"Thanks Steph. I'll send someone out right away. Are you okay?" Joe asked.

"Yeah, I just… I really hate Dickie right now but I'm just so worried about him, Joe. What if he's the next body that shows up?"

"It'll be okay, Steph," Joe told me.

"You don't know that, Joe."

"Have a little faith, okay? I'm sure Dickie will be fine. I've got to go, Steph. I'll talk to you soon," Joe said, ending the call.

I sighed. I put my head in my arms down on the desk and accidently took a long nap.

"Knock knock Goldilocks, the big bad wolf is home," a voice sang out. I looked up, yawning.

"You're mixing your fairy tales, Lester," I told him. Ranger was beside him, smiling. I had to agree with Lester though, there was a resemblance to the big bad wolf there.

"I have to say babe, I preferred it when I was told you were asleep in my bed, not at my desk," Ranger said. I blushed. I wasn't awake enough to have a witty come back.

"How did it go?" I asked him.

"Rufus is meeting Victor Gorvich tonight at Domino's strip club. He's asked that we wait until he gets his package delivery before we approach Gorvich, but other than that, we're all set for the meeting."

"Morelli rang. The guy in the warehouse was Peter Smullen," I told Ranger.

Ranger gestured to the armchairs and couch by the window of his office. I yawned and moved to the armchair. Ranger moved to the other one, and Lester sat on the couch.

"Rufus told us that Gorvich supplies him with drugs. Rufus pays Gorvich for legal advice, billed through the firm, and Rufus receives inventory in return."

"That checks out with the client list from the firm," Lester said. "There was some well known drug dealers on there, gunrunners and agents for dictators. So Gorvich is shuffling drugs and guns around and washing the money as billable hours."

"No wonder the firm was so profitable," I said.

"The question is, how many partners were in on it?" Ranger asked.

"Smullen is dead."

"That doesn't mean he wasn't in on it," Ranger said. "It just means that they don't have to give him his share of the profits."

Yikes. Lester looked at me, and I could see that he was hesitating in saying something.

"Spit it out," I told him.

"Dickie Orr doesn't match up with a drug or gun runner, but his client was Alexander Ramos," Lester said.

"Ramos has his own way of distribution, he doesn't need Dickie Orr for that," Ranger said. We all politely didn't question how Ranger knew this. Ranger had his own relationship with Alexander Ramos that no one looked too closely at.

Ranger and I were sitting on his couch. We were watching a basketball game to fill in the time until we were leaving to stalk Rufus Caine's meeting with Victor Gorvich.

Ranger was relaxed, watching the game, meditative. I was on edge and not sure what I was doing. I'd asked if I could come along and to my surprise, Ranger had accepted my offer. I was told that I would stay in a car outside with Lester as a second set of eyes. Ranger had pointed out that if anyone with the firm saw me, they'd get suspicious so I needed to stay out of sight. Lester said that stakeouts could get boring and he was looking forward to having company.

I was wearing jeans and a hoody. Ranger had changed into black jeans and a black long sleeved collared shirt that he wore out to hide his gun. He put a second gun into an ankle holster.

"Anymore guns?" I asked him.

"Usually just the two. And a knife."

Huh. Two guns and a knife. Good to know.

We met the team down in the garage. Tank was going in with Ranger. Hal was going to wait in a car in the parking lot. Lester and I were on the street. Hal set off first in a black SUV, then Tank and Ranger followed in the Porsche. I assumed that Ranger's excellent parking karma would come into play and they'd have no trouble finding a car park in the lot of Domino's strip club.

Lester and I didn't have such good parking karma, so we had to circle the block twice before we got what Lester declared a good view. "We don't need a view of the front door because Hal is there," Lester explained. "We need a view of the alley way behind."

Hal sent a message just before 10pm to say that he'd seen Rufus Caine enter with a few others. A follow up message came fifteen minutes later that Rufus was leaving with someone who was already in the club when he got there. Tank suspected he was someone who worked for Victor Gorvich. Lester started up the car, and pulled out of the parking space to follow the car that Rufus got into, along with a blonde tall man who got into the driver's seat.

We followed along behind.

"It looks like we're heading for the firm's apartment building," I told Lester.

"Ranger will be following us through the track on the vehicle. They'll follow us there," Lester said.

The vehicle we were following pulled over outside the apartment building, and we saw Rufus get out and enter the building. The blonde man stayed in the car, and kept driving.

"We follow the car," Lester told me. "Hal is right behind us, he'll watch the building."

We followed the car a few blocks, then lost it in Stark Street. Lester rang Ranger to report in, and Ranger told us to head back to the building. We found a parking space in a side street and walked to meet Ranger and Tank outside the apartment building.

"Rufus hasn't come out yet and no one else has come in. Hal is watching the back of the building," Ranger said. We looked up at the building. The lights were on in units on the first and third floors. I pointed the third floor out to Ranger.

"The third floor is where Peter Smullen's girlfriend's apartment is," I told Ranger. "She said all the others had tenants in them."

"I told Rufus that I'd wait for him to come out before I made a move but this feels off," Ranger said. I started to ask Ranger what he wanted to do with Gorvich when he found them, but a noise made us all look up. A car screeched on to the road half a block away, and sped past us. There were two people in the car, the blonde driver and a passenger who I couldn't see. Hal was half a block behind him, and Tank jumped into the Porsche and set off after them. Ranger and Lester glanced at each other than set off running, with me puffing and panting behind.

By the time I got to the third floor, Ranger had kicked the door open to the apartment. I could smell gasoline, charred meat and forest fire. The apartment was cleaned out – Rita must have decided to move on quickly after she was told that Smullen was dead.

The only thing left was a large couch which was the source of the smell. Either end of the couch was intact but the middle was burnt. There were two bodies in the middle of the couch, unrecognisable. The wall behind the couch was burnt. This must have been what Lester had witnessed in the warehouse.

"This is just like the warehouse," Lester said, echoing my thoughts. "There's probably a bomb in here set to go off."

Ranger grabbed me and shoved me out of the apartment. "Get down to the first floor and get everyone out of the building," he told me. Lester run past me on the stairs and started banging on the doors on the second floor. Ranger and the tenant from the other apartment on the third floor came running down the stairs when I was halfway through getting the first floor evacuated. Ranger kicked open the remaining doors and ordered everyone out. Lester had finished the second floor and ran down the stairs behind the tenants, carrying a toddler clutching a blanket.

We had everyone on the street and sirens were wailing in the distance when flames shot out of the windows to 3A. The fire raced through the structure and Ranger and I ran to the neighbouring building. We'd started banging on doors when the fire alarms were set off from the smoke.

"Fire! Get out!" Ranger yelled, and the call was echoed through the building. The fire department and police arrived, and we went back outside and faded into the background. Lester was talking to the fire officers, the toddler he'd carried down the stairs still clutching tightly to his arm, while her mother tried to comfort her baby.

I was sweating from the horror of what I'd just seen and the heat of the fire, and I was shaking from the adrenalin build up.

Ranger pulled me into a shadow and wrapped his arms around me, holding me tight. I grabbed hold of his open jacket and tucked my face into him. I was trying to breath, to stop my teeth from chattering, and keep from trembling. Ranger wasn't doing any of that – he was calm, composed. His breathing was normal.

"Breathe," Ranger said, his voice soft against my ear. "Breath, babe." I stopped trembling but started crying. Ranger kept holding me while I cried. I calmed down slowly, breathing in, tight against his body, until I become more aware of where I was and what I was doing. And to be honest, how good Ranger smelt and how good his body felt against mine.

"I'm good," I said, pushing away from him.

"You sure, babe?" he asked me.

"Yeah. I feel like an idiot though."

"It's just a let down from the adrenaline rush. It's normal," Ranger told me.

"Then why aren't you letting down?"

"I'm not normal," Ranger said. "I want to talk to Tank. Stay with me."

"I thought I'd go and wait in the car," I told him.

"Not yet. You can go with Lester when he's finished up, but for now, stay with me."

Ranger put his arm around me, and we walked over to where Tank and Hal stood together. There were two other men in black with them. Lester was talking to the police officers now, toddler now asleep on his shoulder. Most of the residents of the building had left. It was too cold to be outside at night for so long.

"Hal saw the car leave the back of the building. There was a rope hanging from the third story window. Looks like someone rappelled out."

"I lost the car. He was driving too fast, it was too dangerous to follow," Hal said. Ranger nodded.

"Did you get a plate?"

"It was stolen," Tank said.

"I'm going to take Stephanie home. Stay here a while long and let me know if anything happens," Ranger said. Tank nodded.

"What about Lester?" I asked. They all turned and look at Lester, toddler asleep on his shoulder, baby in the arms of the woman next to him. He was finishing up talking to the police officer. Ranger sighed.

"The safehouse on third is free," he said. Hal and Tank nodded. I didn't quite follow and must have looked confused.

"If that family is still standing there, it's because they don't have anywhere to go," Ranger said. "Lester isn't going to leave two babies knowing that they'll sleep in the cold. Our abuela would never let us live it down."

Ranger got the keys to the Porsche from Tank, and we got into the car to go home to Rangeman.

Ranger called Morelli on the way back and filled him in on the night's adventures. Lester would have given the police a full statement but Ranger wanted to make sure that Morelli was kept fully informed.

"Do you think one of the bodies was Rufus?" I asked Ranger.

"Yes. The other would be someone associated with the firm. I think Gorvich is cleaning house," Ranger told me. We were quiet the rest of the way.

"Are you hungry?" Ranger asked as we got out of his car in the Rangeman garage.

"Yeah, but I've got some snacks in my apartment. Do you want a peanut butter sandwich?" I asked him.

"No. I'm going to go upstairs and research flame throwers."

"Ugh."

Ranger dropped me off at the apartment door on the fourth floor, then continued upstairs. I thought about pulling him into my apartment so I wouldn't have to be alone, but I wasn't really sure that was a good idea.

I made a peanut butter sandwich, washed it down with some wine and fell asleep dressed in my softest pyjamas.