Chapter 9

RPOV

I had two important things that needed my attention; one was to find Steph, which to me was crucial, and the second was to get to the bottom of how our systems had been compromised. Hector was flying back early in the morning having told me there was one more thing he needed to do while in Miami. So until he returned here I was not going to make progress on identifying how our systems had been infiltrated but there was maybe the work I had started to do in Miami that I could finish.

The atmosphere on five was tense, a lot of the men were avoiding me which really didn't surprise me, I knew they liked Steph and I suppose the way I'd reacted hadn't sat well with them. That said I felt that everyone was on board with finding her. In the morning briefing I would try to explain my rationale for the conclusion I'd jumped to and how Hector now had some new evidence that exonerated her from blame. It was late now, too late to start talking to the people I wanted to see, so on an impulse I walked into Tank's office and sat in the chair in front of him.

"Ranger you and me need to meet on the mats"

"Why's that?"

"Because you well and truly fucked up"

"I was annoyed and given the evidence that Mateo presented I acted"

"Yeah impulsively without thinking it through"

I raised an eyebrow at that.

"So did you read it any differently?"

"I would have found out more first. You know dam well that Steph would never do anything to hurt you or this company"

In my heart I knew that, it was my head and the thoughts going through it that had led my anger to be focused at Steph. I knew there was nothing more I could say to Tank, I'd meet him in the morning and take his punishment because I knew it was due.

"0500hrs Ranger"

Back in my office I pulled up the work I'd been doing while in Miami, looking at an analysis of break ins over the last year. The spreadsheet I'd put together gave the name of the company, the type of business, location and then the date, time of an alert with response time and outcome. The outcome detailed how the property was broken into, who was responsible along with what happened to them, what was stolen or damaged with a final column reviewing what action had been taken by us to ensure the property was secure and safe for the future.

There were a lot of incidences where we had responded, I discounted those where the fault lay with the owner, when the wrong code had been entered or in some cases, they forgot to input the code at all. From the rest there were instances of family or friends who didn't know an alert would go out, kids who had sneaked out of houses or wives trying to catch their husbands alone at the office, no doubt thinking the husband was up to no good with a female employee.

Next to go were the cases where young kids had vandalized a place and we provided their names to the owners for them to deal with. Finally, I was left with organized break ins, thieves after something valuable but in most cases we had caught them in the act and handed them over to the police. There were no patterns that were evident, no inkling that the break in had anything to do with Rangeman and certainly there was no inkling of suspicion of fowl play from us.

I closed my eyes as I thought about the properties where we'd had a run of thefts and no obvious answer as to how they'd been broken into. Thinking of how Steph had been the one who had identified how we were being duped and how she was the one to find those kids that had thought they could get the better of us.

Shit Tank was right, Steph would never do anything like this, she'd do her best to help prevent it. In fact as I thought through all the times I needed someone it was Steph I'd turned to. She was there for me when Ramos had been murdered. She'd been the only person to believe in my innocence. Then Scrogg. I knew then that having her close to me would attract danger to her but somehow I just couldn't let her go. Having her in my arms was just too tempting.

After Hawaii I knew I couldn't continue. I was getting too emotionally attached to her. What I never thought about was how it affected her but continued to keep her at arms length.

As I looked at the clock on the wall, I realized it was late but was now so worried as to where Steph was. Thinking of how she'd been hurt I was going to visit the bonds office in the morning and take a look at the skips she had taken in or ones she had the files for. She could attract so many lunatics thinking that hurting her would stop the court system from eventually pulling them in. I showered and changed in the office and then rested on the couch, I needed some sleep before my meeting with Tank, I would take his beating because I knew I deserved it, it was the images of Steph's face when I'd last seen her that caused me far more pain.

"Enough"

Was what I heard as I lay on my back looking up at the ceiling in the gym.

"He'd let you kill him"

That was so true at the moment, which was why I hadn't really put up much of a defense when Tank had started on me. The fact that Santos had taken over and there seemed to be others lined up didn't go unnoticed by me. The physical pain didn't take away the guilt that I felt, that could only be done by the woman I had hurt so badly. I felt Bobby checking my ribs and shoulder wincing at the pain it brought.

"You're lucky Ranger, I don't think anything's broken"

"Hey, I wanted to inflict pain not damage him"

I opened my eyes to see Tank looking down at me, the bastard was smiling, something he rarely did.

"You feel better Tank?"

"A bit, but now I want to see you getting your shit together and finding our girl"

He disappeared from my view and I raised my right arm to Bobby to help get me up from the floor. Shit the low blow he'd given me to the groin hurt like a bitch, he'd pay for that, especially as it made walking difficult. I took the elevator straight up to seven needing to shower and change and stood under the spray of water hoping it would relieve some of the aching. I was a mass of bruises on my body but as I'd hardly made the effort to fight back my hands and knuckles weren't too bad.

As I stood in front of the mirror above the sink to shave, I decided to give that one a miss. What with the start of bruising and a cut above my eye maybe the growth on my face could cover up what was bound to be an unsettling sight, besides my skin was too sore to contemplate running a razor over it. Once dressed in a Rangeman uniform I went down to five, the men would expect to see the impact on me from Tank and I needed to get my shit together and start getting some control back of the situation we were in and as Tank had said, getting Steph back.

As I waited for the men to file in and take their seats it was quiet, not the usual banter being thrown around. I was even more worried for Steph now, she'd been missing for over a day, I could only hope that she'd found somewhere safe to hide out in.

"Mateo, you have some explaining to do"

Yeah, he looked embarrassed as everyone looked at him, I just hoped he felt as bad as I did about what he'd implied.

"I spoke with Hector last night and looked through the report he sent of the comparison of our systems before and after. I honestly don't know why the system failed other than the original theory I gave to you. We were overridden somehow, even Hector agrees with that, but how it happened is still a mystery. The computer where Miss Plum was working still seems to be the site of incursion"

"Mateo you realize that she was never using anything other than the programs she needed to do the searches"

"Yeah, I know that now. Santos here made me watch the video feed and Hector sent through a history of her logins and work she did that day"

"Santos"

"I checked her apartment out, I think Rex must have died well I hope so, the tank was empty and had been cleaned out but broken, the whole place looked like it had been ransacked, cushions torn and drawers emptied out. I'd say someone was looking for something"

"Any ideas on what that could have been?"

"Maybe it was what she used to get into our system with"

The looks that were aimed in Mateo's direction were enough to have him pale and slink down in his chair. He had no idea how these men regarded Steph and I now knew there was no way she would have done something like that. I ignored his comment and turned to Bobby.

"Bobby"

"Mrs. Bestler called Santos which is how we knew Steph was in trouble. She saw a dark van pull into the parking area next to the dumpster. She went down to check what they tipped out onto the ground and called us immediately when she saw it was Steph. Steph was covered in bruises, but no injury that was serious, I'm worried about her though, she won't have eaten or drunk much and with her metabolism she'll be weak"

"Hal"

"All quiet, alerts are coming in through Miami, but nothing unusual. Patrols have been vigilant with all clients, I've added more teams for that to happen"

"Tank"

"No sightings at all, we have links into the town camera systems constantly scanning but nothing so far. No electronic trails to follow, her phone was in her apartment along with her bag and trackers, no withdrawals or movement with her accounts"

The problem was Steph knew how we operated and would know how to keep under our radar; maybe by doing that she would be able to keep away from whoever it was that had hurt her.

"I'm going to visit the bonds office this morning to see what files she had and find out which skips she's brought in recently. Hector should be back today, so the meeting is at 1900hrs"

As the men got up to leave Santos hung back, he knew I would need backup for going out, not that I particularly wanted it.

"I'm with you Ranger, Tank has everything under control here, we made the decision to stall on any new contracts until we knew what the hell is going on"

"Do we have many?"

"Just one new one, but Miguel is taking the install slowly to give us some time"

I collected my weapons from the safe and pulled on a jacket to cover them up then we made our way down to the garage. I drove us in my truck, slipping into my zone as we travelled the short distance to the Bonds office. As we stopped, I turned to Santos as a thought began to niggle me.

"Do we know anything about who it was that stole Steph's car?"

"Police haven't said who it was, just that it was some kid from out of town. There wasn't a lot to go on since the body was fried to a crisp"

I parked just down from the office, noting that Lula's Firebird was parked outside and opened the door into the office. Lula was as usual laid out on the couch, reading a magazine. Why Vinnie paid her to work here I could never understand. I saw her react to our entry by sitting up and then walking behind us as we approached Connie at her desk. Connie looked up from working on the computer not able to stop the look of shock from seeing me cross her face.

"Connie, what files did Steph have outstanding?"

"Humph, we could have got that one if she'd waited for me, she sure as hell annoyed me when she went out without me, I'd ha got him in"

I ignored the comment from Lula and was still looking at Connie, waiting for an answer.

"She only had one file, quite a high one as well, but I just got notice that the charges have been dropped"

"Explain Connie"

"Adrian Buckley was charged with fraud and because of the large sums of money involved he was given a high bond. The thing is that the company he worked for and made the complaint, found the money in another account they had so the charges have been dropped"

"Did Steph try to track down Buckley?"

"Yeah, she said he wasn't at his house, but then his house burnt down a couple of nights later so she was going to look for other places he might have been hiding"

"Did she say if she found somewhere?"

"Not to me"

"An she sure hadn't talked to me, hell he was a big bond, I could've used the money from that one"

"No others?"

"No, her and Lula had brought in Mr Hindley the day her car was stolen but he's an old guy who walked out of a store with food for his cat and forgot to pay"

"Cameras at the back?"

"Not working, I didn't realize Vinnie moved it to change the angle and pulled one of the wires out. I've already told the police about that"

"Would you print me what you have on Buckley, maybe he's cleverer than he makes himself out to be"

I waited as the printer finished and Connie placed the papers in a file, Lula hadn't moved from behind me and to be honest she was pissing me off.

"Do you know where Steph is Ranger?"

"Probably shacked up with the cop, dumb bitch always goes running back to him"

I turned at that outburst from Lula and then watched as she swaggered her way out of the office, her large breasts just about falling out of her sky blue tank top and her fat ass straining against the seams. Yeah I'd call her fat, hell how Tank had ever seen anything endearing in her I would never know.

"Take no notice of her Ranger, she's just annoyed at the world at the moment"

"Why's that?"

"Well her hot date wasn't that hot and I think he told her some home truths she didn't like, plus she's always been jealous of Steph. I think if she doesn't get a cut from Steph it crimps her spending"

"Have you heard anything from Steph?"

"Her mother's been the usual, telling everyone that she's going to follow Morelli when he's settled in his new job, but that won't happen"

Maybe I did need to follow up with where Morelli was, maybe Steph would think being where he was might be a safe option. I picked up the file and turned to leave hearing Santos in my ear.

"I'll check him out, but I don't think she'd go up to New York, her phone didn't have any evidence that she'd been in touch with him, in fact she hadn't used her phone for a few days"

I nodded as we got back into the truck and I drove us back to Rangeman, thinking through what to do next.

Hector had managed to get back to Rangeman and wanted to meet with just the core team after our meeting with the men. That meeting didn't really go well in as much as no one had anything to report aside from a couple of alarms that had gone off and they were easily resolved. I waited in the conference room as the other men left, leaving the four of us to hear what Hector had to say.

"Hector, anything new?"

"Not really, I confirmed when the system took on a life of its own, it only really happened for maybe an hour and apart from the override of those three accounts there was nothing more. The system seems to be working fine, I've checked and rechecked the programming and everything looks to be as it should be"

"So can we take back control to here?"

"Si, I've added a program that will alert me should anything be changed in any of the programs we run"

"Do that then and maybe keep Miami online at the same time just to have a backup"

"It'll be up and running by morning"

"Ranger I checked on Morelli, he's living in an apartment close to the precinct he's working out of, but I'd say he's already back to his old tricks"

"Old tricks?"

"Yeah, the cameras on his floor show a couple of women going in and out. There's no way Steph is there"

"I'm going to start looking at the man Steph was after, though he's no longer FTA because the charges were dropped. I'll take any calls for tonight, you guys take some down time"

"Fine by me"

"Okay, we'll pick up again in the morning"

I followed as they left the room, conscious of any information we'd collected and had pinned to the boards. Considering we were supposed to be so good at finding people there was hardly anything there to even give us a clue as to where Steph was. I headed to the monitors where Junior and Cal were on duty and let them know I was in my office and then started to find any information I could about Buckley. I opened the file that I'd got from Connie and started to make some notes as I read through it.

Adrian Buckley was in his fifties, long grey hair and glasses, looking at his photo and reading the description he didn't look to be a physical guy. Apparently, he'd been accused of hacking into a company's computer system and transferring some of their money across into his own bank account. It didn't help that he'd worked there and that he'd been fired so was a prime suspect. I set up a search for him and then looked to see where he'd lived.

He had a small detached property out of town, maybe I needed to go there and take a look around. As the search completed, I read that the house had burnt down leaving little behind. Apparently the fire chief put the cause of the fire down to an overload in the electrical wiring due to the number of computers and machines he'd been running at the same time.

With that in mind I started at the beginning of the search looking at his history. His education was an eye opener; he'd been a child prodigy, a genius in maths and science and had managed to graduate from Harvard with two master's degrees by the age of 22. He'd done a lot of moving about as a young man from one company to the next and then when he was 38 there was a very large gap in his employment history. His parents had both died, in an accident where the gas installation in their home had put out carbon monoxide into the atmosphere. Apparently the detector system fitted by a company had failed at detecting the buildup of gas so both parents were found dead in front of a fire on the couch.

Buckley inherited a large amount of money and was also awarded compensation through the company that installed the detectors, but to be honest he was already comfortable for money before that. He may have been a genius, but he also seemed to carry the characteristics of a recluse and had patented many inventions that were commonplace in the market. His penchant seemed to be in the field of sensors and the technology needed for the data collected by them to be electronically analyzed through computer programs. Hell, I wondered if some of the systems we used originated from his ideas, something to ask Hector.

What I wasn't finding was any record of any recent employment, which was strange when the file from Connie had said that it was a past employer who had fired him and charged him. The company recorded in the police report was called Herichlon Industry. There was no name given for any individual, so that went into my next search. The company had only been in existence for a year and had been liquidated on the same day as we'd had our problems, the same day that the charges against Buckley were withdrawn and the day before his house burnt down. Now don't get me wrong but in my line of business there's no such thing as a coincidence.

I shut down my computer and went into the conference room, studying the printouts as I pinned them to the board, it was late and I was starting to ache from sitting for too long, dam Tank and his way of making sure I wouldn't forget his payback any time soon.

The floor was quiet as I checked in with the guys on monitors, so I decided to head up to seven and shower, changing into a clean uniform in case any calls came through. I found a bowl with grilled fish, brown rice and roasted vegetables sat on the side, yeah Ella knew I would skip meals if I was busy, so it was in plain sight as a reminder to eat. I sat at the breakfast bar trying not to stop the worry that was building up inside of me, it would be two days since Steph had disappeared.