Round Robin

Chapter 3 (txbabefan)

RANGER

The report landed on my desk with a thud. We'd had three break-ins this week, all of them needing a large chunk of my attention to complete the follow-ups with the clients and after-action reviews with the responding teams. It was days like today that made me wonder why I ever thought being a business owner was a good idea. Of course, it also allowed me to say no to jobs that didn't interest me and pass along shit I didn't want to do to the guys that work for me.

There were more reports to get through, but they could wait until morning. The sun had already gone down, and the large picture window behind me showcased the lit-up buildings of downtown Trenton. After leaving the Army, I'd settled here, close to my family in Newark, but far enough away that I wasn't sucked into their daily life. Trenton was a market ripe for security services and had enough crime to make putting down roots a smart move. As a bonus, it was located near enough to New York City, Philadelphia, and Atlantic City should I want to expand down the line.

I could head upstairs to my apartment, but there's nothing and no one waiting for me. Heading out somewhere for a drink was dismissed just as quickly. Maybe a trip down to the gym would be a better option. Just as I hit the stairwell, my phone rang. A sigh escaped; I really needed some downtime. The call was from an unlisted number, and I debated not answering for all of ten seconds.

"Manoso."

"Boss." Manny's voice carried through the speaker. "I have a woman on the phone for you. I was gonna take a message, but I got the feeling it was important. I have her on hold. Do you want me to transfer her to your cell?"

"Her name?"

"Stephanie Plum."

At the sound of her name, I stopped mid step. "Yes, transfer the call."

The next sound I heard was her beautiful voice. "Um, hi. This is Stephanie Plum. We met at the corner store on Grant a month or so ago. That thing with Arnold Bass..."

Her voice trailed off like she was unsure if she even wanted to be calling me. I've thought of Miss Plum plenty of times since that night, to the point that I wondered if she was going to be a permanent resident in my brain. With piercing blue eyes, wild curly hair, and killer curves, she was a pleasant package, for sure. But it was more than that. It was the way she handled Bass that had me intrigued. She'd shown no fear as she approached, and kept her movements and voice quiet and steady while deescalating the situation like a pro.

I was interested enough to do a bare-bones background search on her after she declined my offer of a ride home. Trenton born and raised, with no trouble with the law, and no overt "Family" connections. She worked at a salon as a hairdresser, making minimum wage. Hopefully, she made up for that with tips, otherwise, she was criminally underpaid. Her apartment building was crap, too, but was in line with her income.

Her voice was timid. "You gave me your card."

"I did." I wasn't sure she would ever use it, and I'm not sorry she's doing so now. "What can I do for you, Ms. Plum."

"Stephanie."

The noncommittal noise I made didn't get her to add anything else and the sound of an indrawn breath was the only indication that she didn't hang up. When she didn't offer up anything else, I asked, "Are you ok? Do you need assistance?"

"I think so."

Those three words had me tensing. "Are you in danger?"

"It's a long story, but I've had some…weird things happening lately. Today it was a note that I was being watched and when I got home from work just now my front door wasn't shut."

I was already moving to the staircase before she finished speaking. "Don't go inside!"

"I didn't!"

Under different circumstances, I'd have been amused by her immediate annoyance with me. "That's good. Where are you now? Have you called the police yet?"

"Down in the lobby, and I'd rather not."

Surprise had me stopping on the second-floor landing before I kicked myself back into gear. "Can I ask why?"

"I'm from the Burg."

Work takes me all over the city, so I've had some dealings with the generally narrow-minded residents of Chambersburg, a predominantly Italian section of Trenton that adheres to antiquated social norms of the 1950s. I was pretty sure I already knew the answer, but I asked anyway. "And that means you can't call the cops on a possible intruder?"

"The Burg lives for gossip. If I call the police and I'm wrong, everyone will accuse me of overreacting and that I'm jumping into the shadows. The busybodies will say that I should finally settle down with a nice man from the Burg instead of wasting the cops' time. And that's what'll happen if I'm wrong about someone breaking in. If the cops come and there's really someone up there, then I'll never hear the end of how this kind of thing would have never happened if I would have settled down and lived in the Burg. Calling the cops is a no-win situation I'd like to avoid. I shouldn't have bothered you. I'll just go check. It's probably nothing."

"Do not go back upstairs!" My voice was harsher than I intended and the weighted silence on the other end of the line told me I needed to tuck my frustration away. I might have found the focus on what her old neighborhood would say and not her own safety foolhardy, but I got it. I was a teenage troublemaker that got sent to live with my grandmother after I embarrassed my parents one time too many. I finally reached my Cayenne and told her, "I'm ten minutes out. Just stay in the lobby, preferably out of sight. Can you do that?"

"Ok."

"That's good. Keep talking to me. Walk me through your day."

As I exited the garage and took a hard right, I listened to her detail her morning walk to work through her crap neighborhood and tightened my hands on the steering wheel. No one should be walking around solo in that area. It didn't escape my attention how she glossed over getting deliveries at work and today's being different. By the time I was parking in the small parking lot adjacent to her building, she's told me about her lunch with a friend and working late with several difficult clients. I was grinding my teeth when she admitted that she felt like she was being followed on the way home. "I'm here, about to walk into the lobby. Where are you?"

She stepped out from an alcove as soon as she heard my voice, and I pocketed my phone. "Ms. Plum."

"Stephanie. I'm in 4E."

Without the distraction of Arnold Bass, I could take the time to appreciate the prettiness of Stephanie Plum. The spark of interest that was there in the store flared back to life as she straightened her shoulders and held out a hand for me to shake. Together we climbed the stairs to the fourth floor. As she'd said, the door to her apartment was slightly ajar. From behind me, she whispered, "Maybe I just didn't pull it closed this morning."

"Do you normally lock it with the key?" At her nod, I pulled my gun from my hip holster, causing her eyes to go wide. "I don't think—"

"Trust your gut. It told you something was off. Stay behind me."

Once she nodded, I nudged the door open with the tip of my gun. Nothing was amiss in the small entryway, and I watched in approval as she reached for a baseball bat and got a good grip on the neck. She stayed behind me as we cleared the small kitchen. The air felt heavy, and I wasn't sure I wanted her to see anything that might be waiting for us. "Crouch down and wait here. Swing hard at anyone that's not me."

Her blue eyes were still huge on her pretty face, but she nodded. Leaving her there didn't feel right, but I moved forward and cleared a coat closet and the living room. There wasn't much in the way of furniture in the apartment, but everything seemed copacetic. It took seconds to clear the small bathroom; the shower curtain was open, and the vanity was too small for even a child to hide in.

A prickle of unease ran down my back as I approached the bedroom. I entered the room low and fast, scanning for threats. There was no one here, and I barely spared a glance at the bed. Clenching my jaw at what I did see, I moved slowly toward the closet. The bifold doors creaked as I opened them, but the contents of the closet were sparse, eliminating hiding spots. Satisfied that we were alone in the apartment, I moved back through and cleared the area on my way to shut the front door.

Stephanie was where I left her, her grip still tight on her bat. There was only a small tremor when she asked, "No one here?"

"All clear, but you're not going to like what I found in your bedroom." She aimed a nervous glance in that direction before squaring her shoulders.

"Was it bad?"

"Wasn't good."

I turned to head back for a closer look, feeling her crowded up close to my arm. She sucked in a shocked breath as soon as she entered her bedroom. There was an open box of chocolates on the nightstand, and the light grey comforter had been pulled down haphazardly and hung off the end of the bed. Centered on the sheet was a lacy, blood-red teddy with a butcher knife plunged through the bodice. My everything was messily written in paint on the wall above the headboard and a photo of a smiling Stephanie was placed on the pillow.

I barely had time to catch her after she muttered shit and her knees gave. I half-steered, half-carried her to the couch, and sat her down. "Maybe you should start at the beginning."

She grimaced and leaned back, cradling the bat and her oversized purse in her lap. "It all started with a red rose, delivered to the salon where I work. I'm a hairdresser."

I didn't let on that I knew the basics since I had no real reason to run a search on her. The last thing she needed right now was to think I was a stalker, too. "What did the card say?"

"No card. Then a week later was a box of Boston Cream donuts with a note that said, "For Stephanie."

"Did you eat them?"

The look she gave me screamed you're an idiot. "They were Boston Creams." She said it like it explained everything. I shook my head. "Any other gifts?"

She bit her lip and crossed her arms. "Yeah, once a week. Long stem red roses, a candle, a spa kit. Then last week…"

"Last week what?"

She heaved a sigh. "It sounds stupid saying it, but I got a pretty diamond and silver necklace. It had a note that said, 'to my favorite' and 'my everything' and talked about us spending time together. That one kind of freaked me out."

I could see why. It was a clear escalation from small trinkets to more meaningful gifts that spoke of a relationship. "Did you wear the necklace?" She shook her head no. "Anything this week?"

She reached into her bag and pulled out a manilla envelope. She did an admirable job of keeping the fear off her face, but it still leaked through. By the way, she leaned back away from me, I'm sure I didn't do as good of a job hiding my anger as I took in the multitude of pictures of her going about her daily life, both here and at work. By the time I got to the card, I knew the right thing to do would have been to call the police and get the threat on record. Because that's what the card was, even if it was more of the implied nature. "I can understand not filing a report before now since there's not a lot they could do. But the card and photos paired with breaking into your apartment to leave you a message, that's actionable."

Her nose was scrunched up in a grimace. "I talked to a friend on the force today. He said there's not a lot they could do about the photos at this stage, especially since both my boss and I handled them."

"And you don't want to call him about this?"

She shook her head no. "Not really. He's married to my cousin, Shirley the Whiner. It would be all over the Burg before the ink was dry on the report."

"I get that, but shouldn't your safety take priority over gossip?"

She muttered, "You'd think" under her breath. I moved closer and placed my hand on her arm, quickly pulling it back when it felt like a spark of lightning pulsed through me. Stephanie was frozen, sitting ramrod straight and staring at my hand.

Confused, I kept my hand to myself when I leaned forward to get her attention. "I think the smart move would be to call the police, but if that's a hard no, then I can call my guys to come document the scene so there's at least a record of it."

I was distracted by the way she bit her lip but still noticed that she darted a glance my way before looking at the floor. "I don't have the money to hire you. I can't pay you."

I already knew that, but honor, and maybe something more, wouldn't let me just say "Good luck!" and walk away. Not able to stop myself, I reached out and hooked an errant curl and tucked it behind her ear. "Things had gone to shit with Arnold Bass before you stepped in. You helped me, now I can help you."

"I didn't really do anything."

Normally, women went out of their way to accept help from me. But not Stephanie Plum; I got the feeling she wished she hadn't called, even if she was scared. "He had me at gunpoint and you talked him into giving you his gun, freeing me up to disable him. That's something, and then you didn't even let me drive you home."

She didn't look convinced, so I crossed my arms and pointed out the obvious. "You basically have three options here. Call the police, let me help you, or ignore it and hope it goes away. I think you know the odds of the last one happening is pretty much zero. So that leaves the cops, or me."

She opened and closed her mouth a few times, while I tried to examine the disappointment over my help being rejected. By the heaviness of her sigh, I assumed she'd made a decision, and it shocked me when she asked, "Your guys can do fingerprints and stuff?"

"Some of the men are certified to collect evidence. It helps when we're called to help other agencies for mass casualty events and large-scale crime scenes."

"Ok."

Unprepared for her to agree, I was slow to pull my phone out. She bowed her head and fiddled with her purse strap. A call to my second in command, Tank, got the ball rolling. We sat in silence until a knock on the door startled her. When she made no move to get up, I walked to the door and peered through the peephole. It was just as well that Stephanie stayed on the couch; two of the three-man crew that Tank sent over were large and intimidating. Once the door was opened, I waved Hal, Bones, and Cal into the apartment. To her credit, Stephanie didn't have any reaction other than taking a quick glance at the flaming skull tattoo on Cal's forehead before standing and stepping forward to introduce herself and thank them for coming. None of my men knew how to take that; Hal and Cal, twin towers of silent menace, stared at her for a moment before nodding. Bones bounced from foot to foot, taking off when I pointed toward the bedroom.

From the living room, we could hear them muttering about sick fucks, but otherwise, they worked in silence, collecting evidence and dusting for fingerprints. When Hal came out to dust the door, I waved him over to bag the envelope of photos, as well. Through it all, Stephanie watched with quiet detachment.

"Do you have somewhere you can stay tonight?"

It was easy to see that my question startled her. Her eyebrows drew together, and she hunched in on herself. "I'll be fine here."

"Not a good idea. He's already shown that he can break in here. Can you stay with family?"

She shook her head no, and I started to wonder what gossip she was afraid of. Obviously, there was more to Stephanie Plum than met the eye. "I have an empty apartment in my building you can stay in tonight," popped out before I could stop it, but once it was out there, I realized I wasn't sorry. She'd be safe, and maybe I could learn a little more about her. "It's usually used by contract workers. You'd be safe there and have some privacy."

A myriad of thoughts and emotions flew across her expressive face in a matter of seconds. She opened her mouth to answer when we were interrupted by a knock on the door. I unholstered my Glock with one hand and pushed Stephanie behind me with the other. Once Cal and Bones were in place, Hal inched forward to look through the peephole.