Mistletoe Mayhem
Chapter Four
The next day Stephanie arrived at RangeMan, a nondescript seven story building on Haywood Street. No logo or business sign adorned the exterior of the building, and Stephanie briefly wondered if she was in the right place. She texted Les to let him know she was outside. Anticipation at seeing Ranger buzzed through her and she worked to tamp it down. This was about a job, one she needed. She had been pleasantly surprised when she checked her balance this morning and found RangeMan had already deposited money for last night's distraction. She might be able to buy peanut butter and hamster crunchies this week after all.
Les texted her back and the steel gate on the garage rolled up. She pulled her car down the ramp and into a vacant spot, hoping the toxic blue smoke that belched out wouldn't set off the fire alarms. Les was waiting for her at the elevator.
"Hey Steph." His eyes scanned her, and he gave her a curious look. She wondered if it had to do with Ranger or her grandma. The odds were pretty even.
Stephanie smiled back. "Heard you talked to my grandma."
Les groaned. "You have some scary women in your family. I'm pretty sure I'm scarred for life."
Stephanie couldn't argue that point. She wondered if Les lumped her in with the scary women comment. Probably, and it would be a fair assessment. Stephanie was way more like her grandma. Mentally and emotionally, her mother was on her own. Lunacy seemed to have skipped a generation and her mother was left to bear the burden of maintaining standards of decorum for the family. Stephanie and her grandma were the loose cannons. Stephanie's life would probably be greatly improved if she listened to her mother more, but then where would the fun in that be?
Les gave her his trademark grin, but there was an undertone to his words she couldn't quite place. "Ice cream do the trick?"
"Close enough."
"To think I got thrown over for another man." He clutched his hand over his chest like he was wounded.
Stephanie was pretty sure he meant Ben and Jerry, and not Ranger, but he wasn't entirely wrong about the Ranger part.
"Sorry Santos, sometimes a girl has to go with a sure bet." Stephanie grinned at him.
Les gave a bark of laughter and fobbed them onto the elevator. They got off on the fifth floor, and she followed Les to a row of offices along the back wall. Two smaller ones and a large corner office.
A guy Stephanie recognized as Tank sat behind a desk in one office. His massive frame dwarfed the desk as his sausage sized fingers hunted and pecked across the keyboard. His face screwed up in a mask of concentration. Les motioned her towards the next office, and she followed him inside.
Les took a seat behind the desk, and Stephanie registered he wasn't just some security specialist.
"You have an office." The minute it left her mouth, she realized how lame and insulting that sounded.
"I'm not just a pretty face." He winked at her.
"Sorry, I didn't mean it in a bad way." Stephanie gestured around the office. "I just always imagined you more in the field."
Les' shoulder tilted up. "I prefer the field, I'm not as good with the business side as Ranger."
"You and Ranger are..?" Her voice trailed off at the question. Why was she so interested in Ranger?
"Partners and cousins." Les confirmed, answering her unfinished question.
Stephanie tried to keep the surprised look off her face and failed. The family part, she had guessed. They looked alike enough to be brothers. The business partner angle was news.
Les handed her a key fob. "This will get you into the garage and the fifth and fourth floors. You have a designated parking spot near the elevator. The gym on the fourth floor is open to you. Unfortunately, the locker room is men only. I'm sure they'd be happy to share, but I don't think it's a good idea. If you need to change clothes, use the ladies' room here on five."
Stephanie was confident she was in no danger of using the gym, but she asked anyway. "Why is there no women's locker room?"
"RangeMan doesn't employ women."
Stephanie narrowed her eyes at Les. He held up his hands in mock surrender.
"Too distracting. We contract when we need them."
"Sounds like something else to me." Stephanie huffed.
Les gave her an amiable smile. "It looks like things might be changing. Ric is getting soft."
"Ric?"
Les ignored her question. "Ella keeps food in the kitchen at the end of the hall. There are always sandwiches, raw vegetables, and fruit. Sorry, but you will need to bring your own Tastykakes."
Les stopped for a minute, giving her an entirely unreadable look. "Or Ben and Jerry's if that's what you want."
Stephanie got the distinct impression there was a lot more to that statement than she was getting.
"Ella will order you some RangeMan shirts."
Les pushed some paperwork her way. "Standard paperwork. Read over it and sign."
Stephanie took a few minutes and skimmed over the paperwork. It gave RangeMan power of attorney over her medical decisions if she was hurt on the job and a waiver that said she understood the dangers. She thought it was a little overkill for running a few searches. At least, she hoped it was. Les passed her a pen, and she signed with a flourish.
Les handed her a laminated ID. It had her picture on it, and she vaguely wondered where the photo had come from, but she figured it was better not to ask.
"Come on, I'll get you settled." Les told her and Stephanie followed him out.
She couldn't help but glance at Ranger's office. It was still dark and vacant. Disappointment drifted over her.
Les led her to the fifth-floor control room.
"As you can see, there are two banks of monitors," Les said, pointing to the wall. "Hal's watching the cameras in the building and listening to police scanners. He also watches the GPS screen that tracks RangeMan vehicles. Woody and Vince are monitoring private security systems. RangeMan provides personal, commercial, and residential security to select clients."
They watched for a minute. Les motioned with his head. "I'm going to give you the cubby on the far side of the room. It's the area we set aside for investigation, and it's a little quieter. Silvio will sit with you today and show you how to use the search programs. Make yourself comfortable. I'll send Silvio over."
With that, Les left and Stephanie's gaze followed him. Once again, she had underestimated him. Maybe that was Les' superpower. Everybody thought he was just a charming player when he was really plotting to rule the world. She knew he was good at his job; she'd just never thought of him this way. A business owner and a boss.
Stephanie checked out the cubicle. A workstation desk, a comfy-looking ergonomic desk chair, a computer that could probably e-mail Mars, a phone that had way too many buttons, a headset to go with the phone, file cabinets, in/out baskets, a second chair for guests, and a printer. All in, pretty standard stuff.
Stephanie looked in the desk drawers. Pens, sticky-notes, legal pad, stapler, Advil. The Advil might not be a good sign, but she ignored that little warning. She needed coffee, but she wasn't all that comfortable with any of the guys besides Les. She peeked over the top of her cubicle. Some of them looked like they should be wearing orange jumpsuits and ankle monitors.
Silvio arrived with a cup of coffee. "I brought you cream, no sugar," he said, setting the coffee on the desk. "If you want sugar, there are some packets in the left-hand drawer." He pulled up the extra chair. "Okay. Let's see what you know about computers."
Stephanie managed not to roll her eyes. Yeah, that wasn't going to take long. By noon, Silvio was confident he had sufficiently trained Stephanie not to create an international incident and left her on her own. Stephanie was familiar with search programs, but the RangeMan ones were downright scary. She spent the afternoon running all the searches stacked in her basket, marveling at the complexities of some people's lives. Hamster, crappy apartment, crappy car, crazy family, broken toaster. That pretty much summed up her life.
For kicks, she decided to see what the RangeMan programs said about her. Stephanie typed in her own name and waited. She peered at the wealth of information the program returned and almost swallowed her tongue. She definitely didn't have any secrets. The RangeMan programs were frighteningly invasive. Her finances, her medical history, her list of unimpressive jobs all laid out like a Christmas turkey.
Just for the heck of it, or maybe because she couldn't quite contain her curiosity, Stephanie typed in Carlos Manoso AKA Ranger. Really, why let a good search program go to waste? While her search history included her last trip to the gyno, Ranger's was virtually blank. She stared at the computer and tried it again. Same result. Ranger was a ghost. She blew a curl out of her face; she was going to get Les to show her how to keep her secrets off the internet. A few more clicks on the computer, and she still knew nothing about Ranger. Her eyes drifted to his office; it remained stubbornly dark.
"Ranger is in Miami." Stephanie heard Les' deep voice behind her. She gave a startled yelp; the man didn't make noise when he moved. It wasn't normal. People made noise, vampires didn't. Stephanie eyed him suspiciously.
"How long?" The question popped out before she could stop it. It was bad enough she'd been caught mooning over Ranger. Now she had to double down on stupid.
Les' shoulder tilted up and he made a who knows gesture. "A few days, a week, a month, indefinitely."
The indefinitely part of that statement made Stephanie's heart squeeze. She really didn't know what that was about.
"What's in Miami?" Stephanie winced. So not her business. A part of her didn't want to know, especially if it involved a woman.
If Les thought her questions were odd, he didn't let on. "He's at the RangeMan office sorting out a few things."
"There's a RangeMan office in Miami?"
Les nodded. "And Atlanta, Philly, and Boston. We do OK."
OK? That sounded like way more than OK.
"Come on. I'll walk you out."
Les motioned to the break room with his head. "Want to grab some dinner to take home with you? Ella always puts something out for the overnight crew."
Stephanie had seen the food in the break room, and if you weren't a rabbit, it didn't hold all that much appeal. Salad, grilled chicken, nuts, plain low-fat yogurt, and what looked suspiciously like tree bark. Ram had sworn they were some kind of protein bars, but there was no way Stephanie bought that. Then again, free food was free food, and her finances were still pretty limited. Maybe dinner was better than lunch.
"Pizza?"
"No." Les gave a negative shake of his head.
"Meatball subs?"
"Afraid not."
"Lasagna?" She asked hopefully.
"Grilled chicken and vegetables."
Stephanie's lip curled up and Les laughed. "I hear you, but Ranger's a bit of a hard ass about it. Ella used to set out trays of cookies and brownies, but we started to get fat, so Ranger banned them."
Stephanie's eyes drifted down to Les' washboard stomach. Fat? The man didn't have an ounce of fat anywhere on his perfect, swoon-worthy body. None of them did.
"He's a hard man." She conceded.
Les shrugged and gave Stephanie a look that said he didn't disagree.
"I'm sensing a theme here. In the mood for Italian?" Les asked her. There was enough innuendo in that phrase to light up the empire state building. Was he really asking about her relationship status with Morelli?
Stephanie just stared at him; her mouth dry.
"Or maybe you're in the mood for something else. Something better." Like a seriously hot Cuban, even though he left that part unsaid, the implication was clear. His voice had dropped and was all sin and sex.
Playful Les was gone, and it was bad boy Les she was talking to. Stephanie sensed a shift in the space around them and little red flags went up.
"Want to go to dinner? We could do Pino's." The way he said it sounded way more like an invitation for dirty, sweaty, rough sex than food. Probably because it was.
Les was waving the promise of Pino's in front of her like a juicy steak to a starving dog and she was tempted to say yes, but she was afraid it wasn't just a meatball sub he was offering. In fact, she was pretty sure they might not even make it to Pino's by the way he was looking at her.
Stephanie swallowed with an audible click and worried her bottom lip. So many reasons to say no, but a part of her really wanted to say yes. The bad girl part of her that thought commitment was overrated. Her shower massager and BOB weren't doing the trick anymore. What would be the harm in one little indulgence, because let's face it, once would be it. Les always went home with the ladies, just never the same one twice. As long as neither of them got weird about the whole thing, it could be a fun night. One that promised multiple toe-curling orgasms and nothing more.
"Tempting." Her voice barely above a whisper.
Snap out of it. She gave herself a mental head slap. Danger, abort, danger went off in her head like a blaring siren. Why not? Ranger didn't even know she was alive. Cue the screeching noise. Whoa, wait, where had that come from? It was like she had just been dunked in cold water and her head snapped around, convinced Ranger was watching her. She reached up and rubbed the tingle at the back of her neck.
"My mom made pineapple upside down cake, so I think I'll head to my parents for dinner." She stammered and gave him a look like what's-a girl-gonna-do.
"Probably a good choice." That deep voice was a little husky. "Maybe some other time."
"Maybe."
Stephanie shutdown her computer and quickly tidied her workstation. Les' warm hand settled on her low back as he guided her to the elevator. Various pairs of eyes followed their progress. She knew she must be a curiosity, but she was feeling like a zoo animal.
"What's with all the staring?" Stephanie whispered to Les.
He smiled down at her. "Just so you know, all of RangeMan is wired for sight and sound except for the seventh floor, bathrooms, and locker room."
"What's on the seventh floor?"
"Ranger's apartment. Well, the one he uses when he's in Trenton."
"Oh." A beat went by as she absorbed the fact, she was just a few floors down from where Ranger slept. A little skitter went through her at the thought of Ranger, all sleep mussed alone in his big bed. But then what if he wasn't alone? She furrowed her brows.
"What's wrong?" Les queried.
"Is my cubicle wired?" Her voice was high-pitched and strained even to her own ears.
That was the far better question than does Ranger take women upstairs. She wanted to whack herself on the forehead and rattle her brain back into gear. Maybe a good whack to the head would make her slightly less stupid. The odds weren't in her favor.
Les grinned. "Yes ma'am, but don't worry. After the first time you licked your lips, I turned off the cameras. An axe murderer could have been on a rampage and nobody would have noticed."
"Because I licked my lips?" Stephanie gave Les a look that said men were dumb as rocks.
His eyes drifted down to her mouth. "They're pretty great lips."
His voice held a seductive quality, and the elevator suddenly felt small and stuffy. Stephanie resisted the urge to lick her lips. Les was a bad boy, but sometimes bad boys could be really good. The image that popped into her mind was Ranger. Ranger was a very bad boy, one that could turn this good girl downright wicked with just a look. Shit, she was so screwed. Stephanie sighed. Her Hungarian hormones were about to get the best of her.
Les gave her a knowing smirk and handed her a set of keys. Stephanie eyed them like they might explode.
"What's this?"
"Ranger wanted you to have a fleet vehicle."
That's when Stephanie noticed they had moved her current POS car to the far end of the garage and in her designated parking spot sat a shiny new Jeep Renegade. Stephanie didn't even want to contemplate how they had moved her car without the keys. Of course, she was pretty sure grand theft auto was on one or two of the RangeMan resumes.
"Why?"
Les looked at her for a beat. She could tell he thought the answer should be obvious, but it wasn't.
"Probably figured if someone saw you wearing your RangeMan shirt and driving that." He made a vague gesture towards her POS. "It would reflect poorly on RangeMan." Les teased.
She gave him a playful punch in the arm. "OK, wise guy." Stephanie gave him an exaggerated eye roll and headed off.
"See you tomorrow." Les gave a wave.
"Good night Les." Stephanie called as she climbed into her shiny new ride. It had that new car smell to it, and Stephanie couldn't help but smile when the heater came on and blasted warm air. Things were definitely looking up.
Now she just needed to keep her tongue in her own mouth and her hands to herself. Really, how hard could that be?