Chapter 29

I was still blinking my eyes trying so hard to make out what I was seeing, and I was cold, so cold I was sure that I was shivering. I moved my hand expecting to feel the soft fabric of the couch under my touch but could only feel a soft dampness. That was when a rolling cramp took over my senses and my stomach heaved its contents up my throat. I was coughing to get rid of the awful taste and burning sensation from my throat. Pushing myself up onto my hands I was surrounded by darkness and what looked like grass. Cool, green grass, that had been cut short.

I wanted to get up from where I must have been laid down, but the nausea overcame me again, and I was once more trying to heave up the contents of my stomach. I felt like shit, my head was hurting and spinning at the same time. Looking further I found that as my eyes became accustomed to the darkness that I could make out the outline of trees and from a distance hear the occasional sound of a car travelling. I couldn't work out where the hell I was and began to worry. Memories came back to me of my meeting with Lawrence and the realization that he'd drugged me and then dumped me. I felt around my neck for that black box pleased when it wasn't there. What was it he'd said, the box stayed, or he'd have my clothes removed? Why would he say that? Trackers. I was an idiot for not thinking that one through. He probably thought that I'd have trackers on me so had used something to jam their signal. The problem was that I had no idea if I had any trackers on me. I'd chosen my clothes from the closet, not my usual combination, and I hadn't had my bag with me because I'd left it in the car when I visited grandma's grave.

Shit. I had to move and find out where I was and then work out how to get back to Rangeman. Would Ranger want me back? After all the trouble that I'd caused him? Was he okay after Lawrence's men left? Getting up onto my feet just wasn't going to happen. My head was swimming and every time I tried, I collapsed back down onto my hands and knees with my stomach doing somersaults. I dry heaved, feeling that foul taste in my throat again but knew that I needed to keep moving.

Hands and knees were the only way that I could manage any type of movement. Even then my head was spinning so it was probably slow going. As I reached forward with a hand it hit something solid which had me recoiling backwards until I was kneeling. A large object loomed over me, and it was when I tried to focus on it that I realized where I was. Stumbling forward I knelt, leant against the rough stonework trying to use it to steady myself, but the effort of doing that was taking its toll on me. I was suddenly feeling hot and sweaty from the exertion so with my head resting against the pitted surface of what I now recognized as a stone statue of an angel, I rested. I wasn't sure if the sounds coming toward me were real or if the flashing of lights were just my imagination. If it was the prelude to me being in danger, I couldn't do anything about it anyway, so closed my eyes and tried to ignore what was around me.

A sudden movement of being lifted upright had me falling and my stomach heaving once again. I wasn't on my hands and knees again which surprised me until I felt myself being supported, leant forward.

"It's okay, Babe. I've got you"

I'm sure that I moaned loudly, relief that Ranger was with me and embarrassment flooding through me.

"Get her to drink some water. If she doesn't stop vomiting, I'll give her something"

I felt the top of a bottle at my lips and the cool clean taste of water as it slid into my mouth. Just small amounts felt cleansing on my throat, but I was tensing, waiting for my stomach to object to the invasion. Surprisingly it didn't, so I allowed more of the water to be given to me.

"I'm going to lift you up slowly"

Came through the fog enshrouding my senses so I closed my eyes and tried to relax. Ranger must have carried me like a fragile object because I wasn't aware of any fast movements. In fact, I felt cocooned and safe only aware of a steady thudding sound by my ear. It was the sudden downward motion that had me trying to sit up, a hand over my mouth as the rolling of my stomach warned me of being sick again. I took in deep breaths trying to combat that feeling because no way I was going heave up on Ranger.

"Okay?"

I nodded my head slightly, confident that I'd managed to control my stomach's instincts. I still didn't feel very well but had to admit that I felt better than I had done. Now all that I wanted to do was to sleep.

It seemed that was what I ended doing because the next time that I became aware of being awake I was laid down on my side. I had a slight pang of fear go through me as to where I was but opening my eyes and focusing ahead of me, I became aware of my surroundings. I turned onto my back so afraid that I'd be sick again so was pleasantly surprised when the only feeling coming from my stomach was an ache. My head was pounding though. I became aware of the rustle of fabric and felt the bed dip beside me so looking that way I saw Ranger sat next to me, looking at me intently.

"I'm sorry"

Just came out, maybe an inbuilt reaction for all the problems that I'd got myself into.

"For what? Some maniac taking you and drugging you?"

Okay, I could see why he was saying that, that he was trying to deflect my thoughts away from blaming myself.

"You got hurt"

Remembering seeing him laid on the ground with that man bent over him.

"No. They used a fast acting tranq dart, but by the time we all came round you were gone"

So there had been a shadow team with us and they'd been targeted as well. Lawrence had been well planned and mobilized his men quickly.

"How did he know I was there?"

Because surely, he hadn't had someone sat watching the cemetery just in case I turned up.

"The grounds keeper. He was asked to phone a concerned relative if a young woman visited Edna Mazuur's grave. We lost contact with your tracker so had no idea where you'd been taken so we had to rely on a note on the car windscreen that said that you'd be returned"

Lawrence was nothing but efficient at keeping himself from being seen.

"How were you at the cemetery?"

Because I could have turned up anywhere.

"Tracker came back on. Hector found a jammer at the other side of the cemetery. When you moved away from it, we were able to locate you"

So I could have been there for hours or even longer had I not crawled away from it. Clever, because Lawrence's men were probably miles away when that happened.

"It was Lawrence Peralta. He wanted a conversation with me. Apparently grandma somehow ended up with something that he wants"

I looked away from Ranger and up at the ceiling as the ramifications of what he'd threatened came back to me. Maybe Ranger took my silence as me not wanting to talk, or not knowing anything else because I was aware of him disappearing. Moments later he was back, stood with a tray in his hands.

"Sit up. Let's try and feed you and then you can tell me exactly what he said"

Chicken noodle soup and fresh bread tasted good and was light enough not to upset my stomach anymore. In fact, even the headache that I'd had seemed to disappear. As Ranger removed the tray and empty bowls, I made a quick visit to the bathroom, actually feeling so much better. Whatever Lawrence had laced my drink with must have been wearing off. I didn't want to ask how I was dressed only in one of Ranger's T-shirts and panties because somehow, he could seemed to be able to make that magically happen. Finding some jogging trousers, I wandered into the lounge area surprised to see Bobby and Hector sat at the table. Was there going to be a meeting again?

There was but I was led to the couch with Ranger as the two men came over and sat down in chairs.

"How are you feeling Steph?"

"A lot better, thanks, Bobby"

A quick nod of his head had Ranger sat sideways next to me on the couch.

"What did Lawrence Peralta want, Babe?"

I was aware of everyone looking at me and whilst in the past I might have only told them some of the story I knew that they needed to hear it all.

"Lawrence Peralta wants me to find a tie pin that his brother had. He said that it was a family heirloom that his brother wanted to take to his grave, so to speak. He's sure that somehow my grandma had it, maybe it got tangled on her when Trevor's casket fell over"

"A tie pin?"

I shrugged my shoulders because there had to be more to it than that, somehow it wasn't just an ordinary piece of jewelry.

"He told me that I had to find it or else"

I faltered finishing the sentence because the words just got stuck in my throat.

"What did he threaten Babe?"

I looked at Ranger, my eyes watering as the full ramifications of his threat hit me.

"He said. He said that he'd start killing women as a message for me"

Ranger's hands came to the sides of my face and his thumbs wiped away the tears as they fell. He was annoyed, I could see it in his expression. The way his eyes changed, and that blank expression that clouded his emotions and it was all because of me.

"That bastard knows just how to hurt you doesn't he? What else was said?"

Shit, this was the part that I dreaded having to say because it had sounded like a good idea at the time, now not so much.

"I, I agreed to look for it but. Well, I err, I told him that he had to find out who set my car on fire"

I tried to say that quickly hoping that no one would actually catch on to what I'd said and even tried to look down at my hands as a way of avoiding the look from Ranger. Didn't work because my face was being lifted until I had no choice but to see his face.

"A clever idea as long as he doesn't kill the person responsible. I assume that he'll be annoyed at that person for what happened to your grandma if she was the one who knew where this tie pin is"

That had never entered my head at the time, and it should have done. If it had been Crocker, then he was already dead but if it was someone else, I could have just signed their death warrant. Another person whose death I would be responsible for. I closed my eyes as that horrible feeling of guilt swept through me. I really was a horrible person.

"It would be all my fault. Women dying and someone being killed. I can't"

"Stephanie!"

Hearing my full name only had me thinking that Ranger agreed with me.

"Just take me back to my apartment and then you won't have to be associated with me"

I didn't expect to be pulled forward and be held by Ranger, my head being held to his chest as though he was holding on to me or preparing to agree with me?

"No chance. I told you that I would be with you, and I won't let this whole clusterfuck bring you down like that. None of this is your fault, blame Lawrence Peralta or his family but do not blame yourself. Do what you do best, be strong and we'll work through this"

Wow, talk about being told, but it did make me feel so much better and he was right. I hadn't done anything that warranted being to blame but I knew that I had to be strong and solve the problem that had been landed on me. I felt myself being turned to see that Bobby and Hector were still sat there. Ranger still had a tight hold of me, I suppose giving me the support that I valued so much from him.

"Angel, we're with Ranger with what he said. No blame and no guilt, comprendé?"

Maybe they were both right, so I said nothing and just listened to what the men were reporting back to Ranger.

"The jammer, cheap piece of equipment available from anywhere"

"Those darts were a bit more sophisticated and not easily available. I'm researching where they could have come from"

I wasn't sure what Bobby meant by that but would accept what he'd said and trust that maybe he could find their origin, though I wasn't sure what the point of that would be. We knew who was responsible for using them, so I knew what I needed to do next.

"I'll try and find a photo of that piece of jewelry and think of places where grandma might have hidden it"

Though knowing her it could be anywhere. At least she knew that it was important to Lawrence so wouldn't have thrown it away.

"Any ideas on where Lawrence Peralta might be?"

Both men shook their heads at Ranger's question. I'd read through the search on him and to be honest I hadn't come across any properties, which now that I thought about it was a bit weird. Then again, his prior lifestyle could have warranted him having properties that weren't registered to his name.

"I find him"

I wasn't sure how Hector would do that but from the tone of his voice knew that if anyone could then it would be him. Hector had all sorts of contacts on the streets that would be sure to give him some clues as to where Peralta would be. When the two men stood to leave Ranger remained sat with me and it was only after the door shut behind them that he started to talk to me.

"I'm sorry that your visit ended so badly"

"No, I had some private time to talk to my grandma that had me feeling better. I'd like to live my life with no regrets and be thankful for every day that I'd had with her, remembering the good times"

Now I just had to make that happen. Who would have thought that the mess that I was in wasn't actually my fault?

I ended up back in Ranger's office with a renewed enthusiasm to find something. I went into a search program that covered news items and qualified the search to look for photos and then added two names. Albert and Trevor Peralta. Before I hit the return button to start the search, I added Samuel Chiconi into the mix because I was sure that he was involved somewhere in all of this. The program would take time to come up with what I'd asked for, so I looked at the paper that was sat in the printer waiting for me. Hell, it seemed like an age since I'd sent those names to the printer, and I suppose that a lot had happened since then.

Those officers turning up to talk to me and then visiting the cemetery only to end up in Lawrence Peralta's company. I was curious with what those officers would find and what they would make of what I'd said. I also wondered if they'd try and talk to other people. Lula and Connie would be obvious ones to me but then I had a sudden thought and dreaded what came to my mind. Would they try and talk to my parents? I sincerely hoped not because I was sure that all they'd get would be lies from my mother. She'd make me out to be the bad one and have Joe stood on a pedestal. I needed to stop thinking about that before it had me feeling more annoyed with her, so I picked up the list of names and began to start searches on them.

Kenny Laborni, Matthew Burns and Jimmy Salowski were the three men who had cropped up as being in cahoots with Samuel Chiconi. They all had wrap sheets and had been in and out of prison for most of their lives which had me wondering how Chiconi had avoided the same fate. Then again Chiconi probably had Albert defending him and ensuring that he was never charged with anything. They followed a similar lifestyle to Chiconi, a lot of thieving. Unfortunately for them they weren't as lucky as Chiconi, maybe they weren't as clever, who knew. They'd been a similar age to Chiconi and it looked as though two of them might have been in the army at the same time as him.

Laborni had never held down a job and had never married. He'd died of cancer when he was 70, in 1998, and had died with very little money to his name. He'd rented out single rooms in New York City between being inside prison and as the last job that he'd been convicted of was in 1970 I doubted that he'd kept up with a friendship with Chiconi. As a thief he'd managed to feed the habit of gambling and drinking. Now Burns and Solowski were a different story. Burns had been sent to prison for murdering Solowski and then had died in prison. Why would Burns have done that when they'd been good friends? I went back into Solowski's search and extended the search to bring up his police records. As I expected he was in and out of prison a lot, but he had married when he was just back from the army. It must have been really hard for his wife to live with a husband who was never there and was always in trouble with the police. They never had children either but what was interesting was that the wife Shona, had led a very comfortable life for the last years of her life. In fact, the change in her circumstances had occurred when Solowski was murdered. Did he have a large life insurance policy that she benefited from?

I went back to Solowski's police record curious with the notations that had been added to a report just before he had died. He'd been offered a deal but there was no mention on what the deal involved or what it was referring to. I sat back and propped my feet on the desk to consider that. To me if he was offered a deal then that meant that he was prepared to divulge information to the police that they saw as really important. Did Burns kill him because it might have been evidence that would compromise him? That made the most sense to me, so what had the two men got involved with that was so serious?

The sound of my other search beeping had my immediate attention. That was far more important than looking into the history of Chiconi and his so called friends. The first series of photos were old and in black and white and focused mainly on Albert. There were a lot of him stood on the steps of a court building but to be honest the images were grainy and not very clear. I continued to look through those of Albert as they obviously followed his career as a defense lawyer. I just couldn't see him wearing something that was so important when he went into court. I had no idea if this heirloom that Lawrence had spoken about was from a prior generation or not and to be honest, I wasn't even going there. Having three of the Peralta family to look at was enough, even for me.

Any of the photos that I looked at for Albert, including his wedding photos and all of the ones where he attended social functions gave me nothing. If Albert had possessed some family heirloom, then he never wore it in public. I moved onto Trevor next because Lawrence had said that he had possession of that tie pin and again was looking through loads of photos of him as a celebrated lawyer. I'd almost given up hope of ever knowing what that pin looked like when a photo of him appeared with what I was sure was tie pin in place. It had been when he had opened his new business, when he had changed the type of clientele that he worked with. So why then? Had Trevor had the pin since his father had died and decided to wear it as a celebration?

I magnified the image to show the pin more clearly surprised that it looked so ordinary. Okay, it was probably made from gold. I tried to magnify it further and could swear that it almost looked like four oblong blocks. Maybe it was unusual because of its simplicity?

At least I now knew what I was looking for but that wouldn't help me to find it.

I couldn't decide why Lawrence had said that it was a family heirloom or why Trevor had refused to pass it on to him, surely a family heirloom would go to the next of kin. So what was so important that Lawrence had to have possession of it? There was definitely more to this story than I was seeing but for now I had to try and work out where grandma would have hidden it. She wouldn't have put it anywhere near my parents, they were too nosey and no doubt my mother would have found it after grandma had died.

That had me thinking about my apartment. When I'd left Trenton, I hadn't been anywhere near it for nearly a week. The clothes that I'd left my parent's house in had already been there, old ones from an age ago. The bag and rucksack had belonged to Lula so there hadn't been a need to go there. Besides once Lula had found me, I'd gone to her place before we hit the bank the next morning. Lula had told me that the apartment would be the first place that Joe would go to looking for me. Lawrence had said that he'd searched the place and from what grandma had said in her message I doubted that she would have included me by using my apartment.

"Deep thoughts Babe"

I smiled as I looked up to see Ranger stood leant against the door frame. I could honestly say that I had no idea that he was there or how long he had been watching me for.

"What happened to my apartment?"

I sensed that he was the bearer of bad news but to be honest I was expecting it. I'd basically abandoned it, leaving everything that I owned behind. The rent had been paid up for the next month, but I was sure that Dillon would have emptied it and relet it by now.

"When we knew that you'd disappeared Les went over there and tried to collect together things that he thought were important to you. Someone had already been in and ransacked the place and then we heard that it had been emptied and Dillon had a new tenant"

Which was what I thought would happen, well except for Les trying to salvage some of my personal things.

"What did Les keep?"

I dropped my feet from the desk because I was really interested in what Les would see as important to me. Ranger walked up to me and taking both of my hands pulled me to my feet.

"Why don't I show you"