Round Robin

Chapter 17 (SiennaS)

RANGER

Two days later, I sat in my office trying to focus on paperwork, but my mind continued to wander back to the sweet curly haired brunette tucked away in my bed two floors above. When I'd pulled myself from under the covers, she'd been sleeping soundly after a long night of love making.

God, she was so sensual and responsive in bed. The first time she cried out my real name during the throes of her climax, caused my heart to clench in a way I'd never experienced in my life. Possessiveness and an overwhelming need to protect her, swamped me until I felt as if I was drowning.

My gaze shifted from the line I'd now read for the third time, to out the window. It landed on the river in the distance.

Long ago, I told myself that love wasn't something I could ever allow in my life. I mean, don't get me wrong, I love my family, but out of necessity, I've created a distinct barrier between them and the life I've forged for myself. I've made a lot of enemies in my military career, and a few of those adversaries would just love to get their hands on someone close to me. Someone they could use to hurt me. So, I'd made it my edict to never fall in love.

Yet, here I was, madly in love with one Ms. Stephanie Plum. The blue-eyed beauty was a riddle wrapped in a gorgeous package. Stubborn and fiery, yet sweet as the pie with which she shares a name. Poor, but fiercely independent and determined to live life on her terms. She wasn't afraid of honest or hard work.

I tossed my pen onto my desk and leaned back in my chair, using the arms to rest my elbows before I steepled my fingers under my chin. For God's sake, focus, Manoso! I was acting like a fucking love-struck teenager. Of course, in a way that's exactly what I was…love-struck.

Never in all the years I've enjoyed women have I ever told one I loved them. That's a word I've carefully guarded with my life. Yet, with Steph, it rolled off my tongue as if it was the most natural thing in the world to say.

I know it's only been a couple of months, but even in that short amount of time I've come to realize she's also not like any woman I've ever met. Pretty much from day one, she was never afraid of me or my men. In fact, she's provided a level of friendship to many of them they haven't seen since before their military careers. That's another aspect of her personality which makes her such an anomaly. She's selective of who she chooses to call a friend, but if you make her cut, she becomes intensely loyal and protective of that friendship

Hell, most of my men have a healthy fear of Hector, our resident ex-gang banger. After all, there's a reason he has two teardrop tattoos on his face. Not Stephanie, though. Nope. The first time she met him, she walked right up, stuck her hand out and introduced herself. I couldn't help but admire her for her ability to see past not only our skin colors and menacing looks, but all our faults and foibles.

Deep down, I know the right thing to do would be to let her go. My life, such as it is, doesn't really lend itself to relationships. Still, even the idea of letting her go, creates such a deep swirly grief inside me I feel as if I can't breathe. Yes, I have enemies that would love to use her to hurt me, but with each passing year those enemies become fewer.

Plus, it's not like she doesn't have her own stalkers. After all, that is what brought us together.

I shook my head as I battled with my deep-seated desire to abandon my work and head back upstairs to her. I'm capable of protecting her and I plan on keeping her for as long as she'll have me. In the meantime, my team and I still had her stalker to catch.

I'd just picked up my pen to resume my work when a knock had me looking up. Cal stood in my open doorway, the expression on his face one of concern. "Uh…Boss?"

"Problem?" I asked, already knowing by the look on his face something was up.

"Um…Eddie Gazzara is downstairs," he said.

My brow knit at this information. What in the hell was officer Gazzara doing here? I know he's a friend of Stephanie's, but I didn't realize he knew she was staying here. "Did he say what he wanted?"

"Zip said he asked to speak with only you."

My frown deepened at his statement. "Why didn't Zip just call up to tell me he's here?"

"Eddie asked for us not to use any communication that might be able to be tracked. He keeps glancing over his shoulder out the door and is acting paranoid, as if he's worried that someone might be following him."

His statement now had me intrigued. Just why would an experienced TPD officer be acting so afraid? "Okay, show him up."

Cal nodded and immediately disappeared. While I waited, I slid the paperwork back into the folder and placed it inside my desk drawer. The last thing I wanted was Gazzara seeing my payroll numbers. How much money RangeMan spent, or I made was nobody's business but mine and the core team.

A few minutes later Cal re-appeared with Eddie Gazzara in tow. I motioned to him to enter. "Thank you, Cal. That will be all."

Cal nodded at me again and started out the door. "Pull it closed," I ordered.

Once the door was shut, I turned my attention to the man in front of me. "Officer Gazzara." I motioned to the chair across from my desk. "Welcome to RangeMan. I understand you wanted to speak with me?"

He glanced at the door, then back to me. "Can I trust that your men won't tell anyone from TPD that I was here?"

I arched a brow at his question. "Of course. I trust every man in this building with my life. Which means you can trust them with your secret, but I find myself asking, what's with the cloak and dagger theatrics?"

"I was planning to come talk to you anyway, but I've heard through the grapevine that there have been some developments in Morelli's murder. I'm pretty sure you know nothing about them since Farnum and Jasper are assigned to the case."

"You're probably correct. There's no love lost between Farnum and me. If it wasn't for Juniak, they would have cut RangeMan out of this investigation already."

He nodded. "I know. Farnum is running his mouth about you down at the station. Thankfully, most of us know the truth about you and RangeMan."

"And what truth is that?"

"That you guys aren't the thugs and criminals he's trying to make you all out to be."

I smirked at his statement. Quite a few of the detectives seemed to take that point of view about me and my company. I'd long ago chalked it up to posturing and insecurity.

"However," he began again before I responded. "I had originally intended to come here to ask what your intentions are toward Stephanie."

His question had me immediately going on the defensive. Nobody except Steph's family got to question my intentions with her, and even then, they were only allowed to take those questions so far before I'd cut them off. "I don't see where that's any of your business," I replied.

"I assume that you know she's family."

"I've heard," I replied. "Why don't you clarify that for me?"

"I'm married to her cousin Shirley, which as far as I'm concerned makes Steph my cousin too. She's also been a close friend of mine since childhood. As both her family and a concerned friend, I think I have a right to know what's going on with her. Especially since you seemed to have her locked away here like some prisoner."

I leaned back in my chair and sighed. "She's not being held prisoner. She is under my protection and we're using the building as a safehouse for her."

"Rumor has it that this is about more than just protection. Some have said she's become the object of your affection."

"That's not a rumor," I replied.

The way he sat on the edge of his chair made me think he would rabbit at any time. My statement only served to straighten his spine more. "She's a sweet woman and doesn't need to get jerked around. She's already had enough of that in her life."

"I have absolutely no intention of hurting her."

"Are you sleeping with her?"

"That's none of your business, but if I told you, and you didn't like my answer, what exactly do you think you could do about it?"

He sighed as he finally sank into the chair. "Look, I'm not here to have a pissing match with you, Ranger. From what I know about you, you seem like a decent guy."

I didn't bother to hide my smirk. "Sounds like you got some bad intel."

"Hardly," he replied. "I know you're ex-military, and served in the Army Rangers, running special ops missions, for years. You have more balls than most of the members of the TPD combined. You started this security firm from scratch and have made it a huge success. Unlike some of the cops down at the department, I see the benefit of having you guys working with, and not against us."

"None of that really tells you what kind of man I am," I replied.

"No, it doesn't, but Steph did tell me that when she called you about her apartment being broken into, you dropped everything to come to her aid."

"I'd do that for any client."

"She wasn't a client of yours at that point."

"True, but I did owe her a favor."

"Yeah, she told me about Arnold Bass. Still, everything you've done for her so far goes well beyond repaying a favor." He cocked his head to the side and shot me a pointed stare. "Are you in love with her?"

I thought about the threat I'd received. This would be a good opportunity to test him, so I didn't bother to deflect or lie. "Yes."

Several seconds of silence fell between us before Gazzara finally blinked. "Well…okay then."

"You're fine with it?" I asked, more out of curiosity of his reaction and not because I really cared.

He shrugged. "Why wouldn't I be? I mean, if you really love her and you make Stephanie happy, then who am I to stand in the way?" He narrowed his eyes at me. "However, if you hurt her-"

I cut him off with a laugh. "Yeah, I know, you'll either make me disappear or you'll kick my ass." I motioned toward my closed door. "You'll have to get in line behind my men, because I'm pretty sure if I do anything to hurt her, each one of them will systematically dismantle me before you ever hear about it."

His brow winged up at my statement and after a moment he gave another nod. "Okay. Now that's settled, I want to tell you about what I heard down at work."

"Juniak said he'd keep RangeMan in the loop on all new information, and I haven't heard anything from him."

Now it was Gazzara's turn to smirk. "Juniak is busy trying to mitigate the disaster that is unfolding in front of him."

His statement pulled another frown from me. "What kind of disaster?"

"One that could ruin TPD's reputation and Juniak's career."

Fuck! I had a feeling I wasn't going to like this. "Spill."

"Okay." Gazzara leaned forward as if he was about to whisper some big secret to me. "So, ballistics came back on the gun that was used to kill Morelli."

"And?"

"And it was traced back to a Smith and Wesson nine mil, used in a gang shooting on Stark during the turf war, four years ago."

"Why is that news?"

"Because we caught that shooter, and the weapon has been in our evidence locker for the last four years. The Chief was convinced it had to be some mistake, so he sent Farnum and Jasper over to evidence storage to pull everything from that shooting. When they got there, they found the seal on the storage box broken and the gun gone."

My spine straightened with that information. "Correct me if I'm wrong, but only a handful of people have access to evidence storage."

Gazzara nodded. "There are not quite a dozen people who work in that department. Even detectives must be accompanied when they go there to retrieve evidence."

"So, the only way for that gun to go missing-"

"Is if it's an inside job," Gazzara said, finishing my sentence.

Shit! While this was a break in the case, it wasn't good. If a cop was the stalker, he'd know how to continue to cover his tracks and it would be a lot harder to catch him. Especially, if TPD decided to sweep it all under the rug in order to try and save face. I leaned back in my chair and steepled my fingers. "You're putting your career in jeopardy by bringing this to me," I said. "Why would you take that risk?"

He met my stare and didn't blink. "Like I said before, Steph is my friend and she's family. I love her dearly and I can't stand the idea of something bad happening to her. Plus," he leaned forward again, to rest an elbow on my desk as he lowered his voice. "I'm also not stupid. I know everyone is a suspect on your list."

"And you want to eliminate yourself from that list," I replied.

"I do," he agreed. "But my gut tells me that Steph is running out of time, and I want to help you narrow the list."

I reached for my phone as an idea came to light. "I know just how we can start."

"How?" he asked as I punched a button on the keypad.

A moment later Hector answered. "Si, jefe." (Yes boss)

"I need you to get me a list of all the contacts from Stephanie's cell phone."

"Dame diez minutos," he replied. (Give me ten minutes)

"Make it five," I corrected. "And bring it to my office." While Hector might not speak English, he did understand it.

Five minutes later Hector arrived with the list.

"What exactly are we looking for?" Gazzara asked.

I eyed him for a moment as my instincts warred with my need to protect Steph. Could I really trust this man? From the few interactions RangeMan had with him, he appeared to be a good cop, and he seemed genuine in his intentions toward Stephanie.

Many times, in my life, my instincts had been the only thing that kept me alive. Right now, they were telling me I could trust him, so once again I'd listen. "One of the gifts Stephanie received came with this note." I pulled the image up on my computer screen and turned it toward him. His eyes widened as he silently mouthed the words while he read them.

To my favorite

My favorite pair of eyes to look into.

My favorite name to see appear on my phone.

My favorite way to spend an afternoon.

To my everything

"That's fucking creepy," he finally said as his attention shifted from the screen to me and back.

"Tell me about it," I replied. "But if we analyze the words, it appears her stalker is someone she has talked to on the phone and has spent time with."

"So." Gazzara pointed a finger at me. "If the stalker is someone inside TPD, then we could cross reference department members against the names in her cell phone and see if we get any hits."

"And those are the ones I'll be running searches on first."

Gazzara leaned back in his chair and sighed. "You'll still have to add me to that list."

I arched a brow at him. "If you really have nothing to hide, then it will just be a formality."

"True," he replied, then motioned to the list. "Why don't you start reading the names and we'll see what we can come up with?"

Ten minutes later, we had a total of eight suspects, including Gazzara. A few of the names I expected to see, like Gazzara, Robin Russell, and her Godfather Joe Juniak. Since Steph grew up in the burg, I also wasn't all that surprised to see names like Carl Costanza, Big Dog, and Steve Olmney, but I was more than a little shocked to see Benny Gaspik and Mickey Bolan in her contacts. Everyone except Gazzara, Olmney, and Juniak had an asterisk next to their name.

"I wonder what that means," Gazzara pointed to the symbol.

"Only one way to find out," I replied as called Steph's cell and put it on speaker.

"Hey handsome," she answered, and I didn't bother to hide my grin.

"Good morning, Babe. Did I wake you?"

"No, I finally climbed out of bed about an hour ago. It was starting to feel a little lonely without you."

Her statement confirmed for Gazzara what I hadn't earlier, causing him to pale.

"Uh…Babe, I have you on speaker, so you might want to be careful what you say."

"Is there someone else there?" she asked.

Since Gazzara came to me in secrecy, I didn't think he wanted to Steph to know, so I answered with a simple. "Yes." Hopefully, she would just assume it was one of my men.

"Oh God, Carlos. Why didn't you tell me?"

The embarrassment in her voice had me chuckling in response. She's just so damn cute when she gets worked up. "I promise, it's okay, Babe. We were working on your case, and I just had a question for you."

"What's that?"

"Some of the names in the contacts on your phone list have asterisks next to them. Why?"

"That's how I keep track of who is a customer and who's not."

"A customer at the salon?"

"No," she replied. "A customer who likes to buy my jellies and jams."