Chapter 6
RPOV
Five days after leaving Trenton I felt like shit. I was cranky, irritable and tired, bone tired and knew I had been responsible for hurting Steph. At the time I'd been so annoyed at the whole mess we'd found ourselves in that I'd taken all my anger and frustration out on her. Now in the cold light of day and having had time to really think through what I'd done I was totally regretting the words I'd said to her and how I had treated her. My mind went back to that fateful day as I played through in my head the events that had transpired.
It had taken a day in Trenton to try and sweet talk three big clients into staying with us. One had point blank refused but at least we still had the other two and the reason for that catastrophe was a breach of their security and break ins that hadn't been picked up through an alert at Rangeman. I'd spent the day cursing that Hector was away, visiting family in Costa Rica, visiting his mother who was ill. So, I'd had to rely on Mateo, a man whom we'd hired recently. He had come through from Central Intelligence and was apparently an ace with computers and came with excellent references. By the time I'd got back to the building the core team and Mateo were waiting for me in the smaller conference room to report what they'd managed to uncover. As I sat down, I started with how it had gone with the meetings.
"I've secured the contract with two of the companies, but Hastings won't have us anywhere near"
"Shit Ranger he was one of our oldest and biggest contracts"
"Nothing we can do Tank except make sure it can't happen again. I just hope word doesn't get out or we could end up losing more. Mateo what did you find?"
"I found a virus in the system that I think was responsible for the breakdown"
"How the hell did that happen?"
"Well it came in through a computer used for research. I'd say someone was possibly on a site they shouldn't have been on or they purposely uploaded it"
"Come on, everyone knows that's not acceptable and no one here would intentionally sabotage our systems"
"Surely the fire walls Hector uses would protect the system"
"Maybe, but there a lot of new and virulent viruses out there"
"Mateo who was logged into that computer"
"An S Plum, most of the day"
"But the breaches didn't happen until during the night"
"A virus can take it's time to worm itself into the system"
"Have you eradicated it?"
"I don't know"
Shit did that mean we could still be under threat and that the same thing could happen with other clients?
"Tank shut down all the systems except the monitoring system. Santos ask Miami to upload all of the information onto their computers using the backup from the day before and ask them to monitor for breaches from there, any problems then they can call here immediately"
"Ranger I can't believe Beautiful would do that"
"Maybe not but I can't have her in here if that's the result"
"Ranger you need to calm down before you go see her"
I'd stormed out of the office and made straight for the garage. I was furious, Rangeman wasn't just my life's work it employed hundreds of people. What the hell did she think she was doing, or was that it, she just never thought. By the time I arrived at Steph's apartment I was seeing red, had it been one of the men responsible I would have beat the shit out of them and shipped them to a third world country. But Steph, I knew I couldn't do that to her, but by god she would have nothing ever to do with Rangeman again. I used the key I had and walked into the apartment. I wasn't quiet as I approached her and watched as she turned and as her smile faded at the sight of me, or at least the sight of my expression. I didn't give her a chance to talk; that would have been unproductive and watched as her expression changed to confusion and fear and absolute sorrow. Yeah at the time I'd hoped she was hurting as much as she had hurt my company and to be honest me, because I felt that her actions were a direct betrayal of me. I thought I could trust her and that she had been so thoughtless with her actions brought a new wave of anger through me. Once I had the Rangeman fob I'd given to her and collected the keys for the SUV I'd lent her I had Hal collect the SUV from the parking lot and then headed back to Rangeman.
I had to do damage control which meant a lot of additional work, so I'd had to fly down to Miami straight away and keep an eye on the systems we were expecting to be run from there. And to be honest, there was no way I wanted any possibility of bumping into Steph. I really wasn't sure how I would cope with that and with the anger still coursing through me I might not be responsible for my actions. That Steph had been on a site or uploaded something on our system that allowed that to happen was still eating away at me and to further secure her from invading into Rangeman business I had put out a memo for everyone in the company to cut her off and even had Mateo shut down her trackers.
So now I was sat here five days later in the office at Miami waiting for Hector to report to me as to how the system in Trenton could be cleaned up. There had been no more issues in Trenton hopefully showing that Mateo had been right with his time frame. All breaches, of which there were very few had been relayed to the patrol teams and been handled. Hector had spent all day accessing the shutdown system from an isolated set up that he'd put together running analytical programs and trying to discover just what had happened for something to override his programs. I'd actually been surprised when Hector was returning so soon but be to honest regardless of the reason, I was feeling less stressed. Though from the look on his face I'd say he was more than annoyed, it would take a genius to get past the firewalls and extra security he'd personally designed, and he didn't like the idea of that.
The problem was I was regretting everything to do with my actions with regards to Steph. I was slowly breaking apart, that she would ever do anything like this was totally against who she was, how the friendship I had with her was strong and as time passed I realized I may have let my temper cloud my judgment with how I'd attacked her. I couldn't even imagine that she would have done anything like this on purpose, maybe someone had threatened her into doing it, but I never even gave her a chance to talk. Thinking about it was pointless because I had to find out if there were any other patterns that would indicate why those three companies had been hit. I was going through some of the other contracts we had in Trenton and analyzing break ins to see if there was a pattern when Hector walked straight into my office.
"Hector?"
"That Mateo is idiota"
"Why?"
"No virus"
"So how the hell did those systems fail?"
"New code, overwrote original"
"How?"
"Not sure, but Estefania could not do it"
"Why not?"
"A genius was responsible, had to be to get through my security, she not that good"
"So why was her computer highlighted?"
"It where initial break through went in, but I check her log in for day. She worked all day but only on searches using our internal programs"
"No internet incursion?"
"No, she never went on any sites"
"Nothing uploaded?"
"Not possible"
"Then how?"
"Maybe some sort of sophisticated remote access"
"So why that computer?"
"There were few men in building so not many machines running, only hers on level five"
"Any from the apartments?"
"No, though I wouldn't pick up a phone connected to phone network and that wouldn't have any effect on our systems'
"Shit"
"Ranger she not responsible"
"Then how?"
"There is so much development, anything possible"
I stood up and rubbed my hands down my face, shit, I needed to get back to Trenton as soon as possible because I was just as annoyed as before. But now I was annoyed at myself. What the hell had I done, I'd jumped to the wrong conclusions believing Mateo and doubting my Babe, why the hell did I let my anger override all reasoning. Hell, she was one of the few people I trusted and I had barged into her apartment throwing accusations at her without allowing her to even talk.
The flight home was quiet and seemed to take an age if I closed my eyes all I could see were the looks that passed across Steph's face when I'd confronted her. Needless to say I didn't sleep and was thinking through all the things I would need to do and say to make things right with her, that's if she let me near her. I couldn't be worried that she would hate me now, but I wouldn't blame her for that. The problem I was having was a sense of loss that was crawling through me, hell I'd told her that all we could be was friends but somehow the feelings I had were hurting me far more than if she was a mere friend. Something I needed to think about later.
I felt the plane land and finding my bag was soon descending the steps looking for my ride back into Trenton. I'd used a private jet that Rangeman had shares in, so it gave us the opportunity to use it for times like this and I felt it only right that I used it today, because getting back to Trenton and talking to Steph was now a priority. Once on solid ground I saw that Santos was there to meet me and got into the front seat and waited while he started to move. He was a lot quieter than usual though, I know he was pissed when the order for no Rangeman to even be anywhere near Steph was sent through, but his animosity was palpable in the car. I decided that I wasn't going to talk through with him what I'd found out and simply gave him an order that I expected him to carry out without arguing.
"Take me to Steph's building"
"Why do you want to go there?"
Shit, I suppose Santos had to know why or he wouldn't allow me in the building.
"Because I owe her an apology"
"What?"
"It wasn't her, from what Hector discovered she couldn't have done anything. She was simply doing her job"
"So you just think you can just walk in there and everything will be all right?"
"I have to start somewhere"
"Well she's not there"
I looked at Santos trying to work out how he would know that, weren't my orders to totally ignore her.
"Look Ranger I don't give a shit what you said, she was in trouble and needed help"
"What sort of trouble?"
"I don't know, someone beat her up and dumped her in the parking lot at the back of her building"
"Is she okay?"
"She still wasn't conscious this morning"
"When?"
"When what?"
"When did you find her?"
"Old Mrs Bestler called me, I gave her my number and asked her to keep an eye on Steph, she called in the early hours this morning"
"Two days after the breach"
"Yeah, I think other things have happened as well"
"Why do you say that?"
"When Bobby was checking her over, she had lots of cuts on her"
"Do you know when she got them?" "
"She had them when she was working at Rangeman, I watched her on the camera feeds, a couple of times her sleeves moved up her arms, but she covered them back up real quick"
"Why were you looking at the feeds?"
"Because I didn't believe all the shit you were trying to have us believe"
"Where is she now?"
"I took her to my place, she had lots of bruising but no broken bones"
"So take me to her"
"If you start having a go at her I swear you'll regret it"
"No, I'm already beating myself up for rushing to conclusions"
The drive to Santos's place continued in silence, I was worried what she'd managed to fall into and whether it had anything to do with the breach so was relieved when he stopped in front of his house. As we walked in and he turned on the lights he pushed me to the couch.
"You stay here and let me check how she is. I'm pretty sure she won't want to see you"
I waited and felt a dread at what Santos had said, what if she never spoke to me again and I never got to hear her voice, her laugh or heaven help me the touch of her soft skin or the look of her blue eyes changing from blue to a deep blue? When I heard the slamming of doors coming from upstairs, I stood up watching for Santos coming back down the stairs. I knew immediately something was wrong when he stormed back down.
"She's gone, left a fucking note, I hope for your sake she's safe Ranger because what you've done to her is inexcusable"
I sat down heavily on the couch knowing he was right, as I wiped my hands over my face so many thoughts were flashing through my mind, had she run because she was afraid or because she didn't know what else to do, was she safe or had someone found her?
"The note?"
He thrust the paper into my hand and stormed into the kitchen leaving me to read it. On one side was a note in Bobby's writing "Rest, be back tonight" then I turned it over recognizing Steph's writing and reading the simple sentence that she'd written "Thank you. But I don't want you to get into trouble" Shit she'd left because she thought I would still be mad at her and that my men would have to face me if they disobeyed my orders.
"She took my hoodie and a rucksack"
I turned as Santos came through the door, I suppose she wouldn't have had any clothes here to wear.
"Check upstairs and see what else is missing"
As Santos went back up the stairs I turned and rested my hands on the wall next to me, my head against it, trying to work out what to do next.
"I think maybe some cycling shorts and a T-shirt and sweater. Hell, she took this as well"
I turned to see Santos looking at a frame that had nothing in it, totally confused with what had been there.
"It was a photo of the four of us just after we set Rangeman up"
I watched as he replaced the frame on the shelf and saw him turn another frame around.
"Good girl Beautiful"
A lifted eyebrow was all it took to get Santos to answer, though I saw the smirk on his face.
"She took some cash I had here"
"How much?"
"Only $200"
"Why have cash in the house?"
I saw him raise both eyebrows and smirk; okay he needed cash to pay some of the women he brought here, hell I hope Steph didn't make that connection, she'd be mortified if she knew.
"Can you message me with the description of her clothes and I'll put word out to look out for her, I'll also drop the "Stay away" order I gave"
"What are you going to do?"
"I need to find her"
"She won't want to be found and I don't think she'll go to her friends or parents"
"Morelli?"
"Moved to New York, she might ask him for help, but I don't think she'd do that"
"Her apartment?"
"I don't think she'd go there but I'll be the one to check it out"
Santos locked the house and as we drove back to Rangeman I sent a message to all staff telling them that they needed to be on the lookout for Steph because it seemed she was in danger. Hell, I just hoped she was found and quickly because I was sure that if she wanted to disappear she could, but she wasn't just hiding from me, no, she was hiding from whoever hurt her as well. What the hell had I done?
