Chapter 11

SPOV

I hurt, that was what woke me, my head and my ribs hurt like hell. My last memory was of Ranger as I was standing on top of that roof. The roof, there were men there, had the police arrested me or had the bad guys got me? That's when I tried to move and found that I couldn't move one of my arms. As I struggled, I moaned with the pain that shot through me but suddenly my senses took over. I felt safe so allowed the swirl of darkness to take over.

I woke feeling comfortable and actually started to panic at where I was. My eyes shot open, and I looked around, immediately recognizing the room as being the one that I'd stayed in with Alex Ramos. A look to my right and I was looking at Mylo, also asleep but he'd decided to curl up on the bed next to me and had a tight hold of my arm. As I carefully pulled my arm away from him, I realized that he was the reason that I hadn't been able to move my arm before. The movement hurt so I lay still for a few minutes, trying to work out what the hell had happened to me.

I knew that I'd been to see Jenny and to talk to her. I ran through the events from when I'd got out of the car. The man from the pawn shop had seemed genuine and talking to Jenny had given me some more information. Not that it was any help for me to discover who had shot Charlie. In fact, I was beginning to wonder why the hell Ramos had sent me there. I shuddered remembering finding her dead on her living room floor. That she'd been murdered because she knew things seemed obvious to me. There were several things that didn't add up for me though. Who had shot me and why, was an obvious question to ask, and who were the two men on the roof? Were they the people that had killed Jenny? In some ways that made sense but something didn't feel quite right and seeing Ranger there, how did he know that I was there?

I turned to the door as it opened and saw Maria come into the room, smiling at me as she approached the bed.

"How are you feeling?"

I did a quick assessment before telling her.

"The headache is just a dull throb and my chest only hurts when I move"

"Good. The doctor thought that you'd maybe suffered a minor concussion and your ribs are just badly bruised, so nothing to worry about"

"How long have I been here?"

"A few hours. The little one was so worried about you. He wouldn't leave the room"

I turned back toward Mylo and ran my hand through his hair, maybe I needed to wake him up because I really needed to use the bathroom. As I made to move Maria helped me to sit up and that had the effect of waking Mylo.

"Bathroom"

I whispered as much for his sake as for Maria. Once on my feet I was surprised that I didn't feel worse, okay I knew from experience of cracking my head not to make any sudden moves or bend over too quickly. Looking down I was surprised to see that I was dressed in pajamas, but the look didn't go unnoticed by Maria.

"Don't worry, I made sure that there was no one else was in the room. I'll fetch some more comfortable clothes for you to change into and then I think Mr Ramos would appreciate seeing you"

When I returned to the bedroom Mylo was stood waiting for me with a big smile on his face and came up to me and hugged me around my waist. I closed my eyes for a moment, to ward of the pain that came from that movement but also because I was getting too attached to this little fella. At least I had kept my promise to him and made it back to him, just.

While changing I inspected my chest, surprised at the black and blue bruise over my right breast, remembering that moment when a sound had pierced the air and I'd felt a bolt of pain in my chest. I knew that I owed my life to Alex for providing that vest for me, though I could have sworn that I remembered seeing blood coming from where I'd been hit.

Once in joggers and a thin sweater I walked across to the main house, with Nico as my companion. As per usual I ended up in the kitchen and took a seat at the table. Alex soon joined me with a tray full of plates. It seemed he'd prepared some finger snacks for us to eat.

"You look better Stéfani"

I looked up from my plate to see Alex smiling at me.

"I feel better, though I am slightly confused with what happened"

"Nico saw you on the roof and was ready to meet you at the bottom of the fire escape. He heard the gun shot and saw you fall. The awning outside of the pawn shop broke your fall so he picked you up and went through the shop to the car that was waiting. You were extremely lucky not to have more serious injuries"

The way he said that seemed so matter of fact, but I suppose his men were prepared for dealing with incidents, they'd have to be working for Ramos.

"Why can I remember seeing blood?"

Alex was almost laughing as he finished chewing and swallowing his mouthful of food.

"I told you that it was a special vest. The outside contained pouches that are filled with an artificial fake blood. It comes in handy when we get caught in gun fights. The opposition just assume that you're dead"

Okay, I suppose that was a good use for them, but did that mean everyone thought that I was dead?

"What are people saying?"

"They're baffled but assume the worst because of where you were hit"

My head felt light as I thought of the consequences of that, would Ranger think that I was dead and what about my parents?

"Stéfani, they could be thinking that you're in a hospital somewhere. You should know how easily stories are spread"

"I know, but I don't want people to think that I'm dead"

"It will give you time without worrying that people are looking for you"

I suppose he was right and if I made some small changes to my appearance then maybe it would be easier to continue looking for answers.

"It seems Ranger is on the hunt, looking for you obviously, but Grizolli got word from Castillo and Juadyn that he's annoyed. It seems that someone has been trying to use Ranger's name and company to prop them up but that maybe Ranger is figuring that out now"

I looked at Alex, I'm sure with a frown on my face. I knew that Ranger would never knowingly support anyone dealing with drugs or even prostitution. Was that what was happening at that warehouse, were they trying to acquire security from Rangeman. Then I remembered that Charlie had mentioned someone in black securing equipment on those apartments and Jenny had mentioned them as well. Ranger wouldn't just be annoyed he'd be furious if he was figuring it out. Did that mean that Ranger knew what was happening, would he be in danger as well?

"Is there any way to get a message to him?"

Because I missed him. I always felt safer when Ranger was around. Okay the last time that I'd seen him had been a bit tense but that was probably on me. I was trying to figure something out and it had been Lula's idea to talk to Ranger. I'd probably not worded myself right and gave him the wrong impression. His last words echoed in my mind.

"You have things to sort out Babe. Let me know when you've reached a decision"

Like then his words were confusing to me. I had no idea what he had meant when he'd said to let him know when I'd reached a decision. At the time I'd assumed that he was talking about my job because of what I was trying to tell him, and I was honestly expecting him to hear me out and advise me. I knew that I couldn't ask him to do anything, that how I decided to work out what had been happening was up to me.

"Maybe. Do you trust him?"

Alex's voice interrupted what I was thinking but as I looked over to Alex I gave my answer to his question without even thinking about it.

"With my life"

"Interesting"

Was all he said before he picked up a napkin to wipe his mouth.

"What about the cop?"

I vehemently shook my head, no way would I trust Joe. He was too selfish, egoistical and demanding and I was pretty sure that he was very manipulating in trying to get what he wanted.

"Good. I never did like him. His relationship with that Gilman woman crosses too many lines for him to be trustworthy"

I could understand what he was saying, I mean how could a detective stay so close to what in effect was a mafia princess. Surely knowing her was a conflict of interest with his job. Not to mention a conflict of loyalty to me when he was so demanding that I packed in my job and marry him. No, Joe had gone too far for me to ever trust him again.

"I'll look into getting a way to communicate with Ranger, after all we don't know who we can trust"

That seemed to be the end of the conversation on the matter of Ranger, or anything related to what I was involved in. I'd expected Alex to grill me about my meeting with Jenny, but it never happened. Was I supposed to have volunteered that information? Not that I was going to tell him anyway, but I hadn't a clue what the etiquette was when dealing with a man like Alex Ramos.

Returning to where I was staying, I decided that I needed a break from all of the thinking that I'd been doing. I spent the rest of the day with Mylo, feeling very guilty that I'd seemed to have ignored him. Reading books, playing on the games, and watching some films was an excellent distraction for me and allowed my poor aching body some time to relax.

RPOV

It was very early as I sat in my office going through files. I hadn't slept well, dreams constantly waking me up. Dreams of Steph, but it was the replay of her getting shot and falling from that roof that constantly woke me. I'd already spent an hour in the gym and had the need to stay busy to keep my mind off the events from yesterday. At the knock on my door, I'd looked at the time, 0500hrs, wondering who the hell it was that was insisting on seeing me at this time. Shouting enter I was surprised to see Ram come into the room with a big grin on his face.

We didn't do grinning around here so to say I was surprised was an understatement. He also made sure that the door was closed behind him before walking around my desk to stand next to me. Something was on his mind.

"It isn't real"

He blurted out, which didn't help me in understanding what the hell he was talking about. A plastic bag appeared on my desk so picking it up I recognized the silk scarf folded into an evidence bag.

"I assumed you wanted me to run some tests on this, so I did"

The last time I remembered seeing this scarf was when I was in the conference room early this morning. I must have left it on the table. I looked back up to Ram for an explanation.

"It's not blood on there, which means Steph wasn't shot"

It took a bit of processing for what Ram was saying to fully compute, but once I recognized what he was saying I could feel the relief wash through me.

"What is it?"

"Artificial fake blood. It's used mainly in the movies or theater but if Steph wasn't actually shot then she must have been wearing a bullet proof vest. I've heard of those being used with this fake blood in pockets on the outside"

I suppose that would be handy if you needed to convince someone that you were badly injured or even dead, though I couldn't envisage me ever using one. It did make me wonder who would need to use them though and whether or not that might give me some ideas of where she was.

"Thank you for doing that Ram"

I noted the surprised look that he gave me making me realize just how ill tempered I'd been with the men. They didn't deserve having me griping at them, hell they were as concerned about Steph as I was. I really was thankful for Ram doing that test because it was something that I had not considered doing. Which had me puzzled as to why Ram had closed the door and approached me with his information in such a secretive way.

"Ram, who else knows this?"

"No one Sir"

"Why so secretive?"

As I watched Ram, I could tell that he was feeling uncomfortable, but I waited for him to collect his thoughts and words together to reply with.

"It's just that, well, I don't understand how those detectives got there so soon"

I sat back in my chair as I considered what Ram was saying to me.

"Are you thinking someone here?"

Ram stepped back probably thinking that I'd turn on him for thinking that, but I trusted Ram, he'd been with me on missions in the past. We'd watched each other's backs and trusted each other. That he still hadn't answered me, then maybe I needed to be asking the questions.

"The cameras for the jewelry store are monitored?"

"Yes sir"

"Who was watching them at the time that Steph was seen?"

"Woody and a new guy, Manning"

"Get Woody in here as soon as he comes on duty but don't say why"

As Ram left the office, I pulled up the file on Manning and started to read through it. He was one of the men we'd taken on because of the expansion in business. A military background with excellent references. Maybe I needed to use a backdoor to check on those references because to me they didn't quite match up with the man that I'd seen around the building. Or was I seeing things that weren't there. I'd made the assumption that maybe there'd been surveillance on the building where that woman had been. Hell, the last thing that I would have thought of was that we had a traitor in our midst.

On a whim I pulled up the monthly stock check that were completed for each month. This allowed us to ensure that when stock of a particular item was low then an order was placed to make sure that we never ran out. On another tab I pulled up a list of jobs that had been done, because this contained the equipment that had been used. This meant that we knew exactly what piece of equipment had been used along with the date of installation and any replacements. By comparing the two I was able to see from the numbers the discrepancy, in other words wastage. It happened. A faulty component or one damaged accidently, though Hector kept a tight check on things, testing out components before they went out on site.

What I was seeing was a loss for the boxes that we used as covers over the external alarm, not something that I would think would get damaged. Shit, was I reading too much into this as well or were there buildings around Trenton that looked as though they were being secured by Rangeman? I messaged Hector to see me, wanting to know his opinion, he'd have a better understanding of the figures that I was looking at and maybe there was a perfectly reasonable explanation.

I had the daily reports in front of me when there was a knock on my door and looked up to see Woody stood there. Nodding my head, he closed the door behind him and stood in front of my desk. Even at parade rest he looked tense, so I took pity on him.

"Sit down"

"Sir"

"Yesterday, were you on monitors for the midday shift?"

"Yes sir"

Then why was it a message from Hector that had alerted me to Steph's location and not someone watching the monitors?

"Which monitors were you covering?"

"13 through 24, sir"

So he wasn't the one covering the cameras from the jewelry store, that meant that Manning was, which was what the daily report was telling me.

"You had a busy morning, I was reading through your report"

"Yeah. A couple of private residencies with wrong code entries and then a fire alarm went off that needed a team to secure the place. No actual break ins just shit happening at the same time"

"Manning seemed to have a quiet morning. Do we need to rearrange the accounts more evenly across the monitors?"

"I don't think so, yesterday was unusual"

"Did Manning help out covering your screens?"

It could be possible that Manning was aware of how busy Woody had been and tried to cover some of the accounts for Woody.

"No. Permission to speak sir?"

I nodded my head at Woody, sure that I wasn't going to like what he was about to tell me. Woody was another of the men who'd been with us for a long time, he came on board not long after we started to build up the accounts. Maybe he had an unusual way about him, his drawl and his demeanor could be misleading, but I knew how sharp he was and that he very rarely missed anything.

"Manning, he aint focused. It's like he's just passing time"

"He doesn't take the job seriously?"

"He's smart and he's learnt quickly, out on patrol or installations he looks to be busy and into what he's doing but, I don't know. It's just a gut feeling"

I watched Woody as he told me what he was thinking but he was getting more nervous as he spoke, and that meant only one thing. There was something else that was bugging him, but he wasn't too sure if it was his place to say it.

"Spill it Woody"

"He should have seen Steph, hell he was watching those screens"

"Maybe he doesn't know her well enough to recognize her?"

Woody shook and lowered his head before he looked back at me.

"We have a book with photos of her, different hair styles, dress, moods. He was always looking through it"

The fact that Woody flinched in front of me meant that he'd seen how annoyed I was with that. The idea of the men looking at photos of Steph set off something inside of me. I did not want anyone looking at photos of her. Then I thought about why the album was there and then the fact that I'd asked the men to be on the lookout for her. So of course, they'd need to know what she looked like. I leant forward onto the desk with my elbows and wiped my hands down over my face. Looking back at Woody I sighed, yeah actually sighed before I let him know that I was okay with it.

"It was a logical thing to do"

Even though I didn't like it.

As soon as Woody had left the office Hector slipped through the door before it had even closed. I think the look on my face told him that something was wrong. I turned the screen for the computer around for him to look at. Hector wasn't slow at seeing what I wanted him to see, in fact he saw more than I had done originally.

"Someone is syphoning materials and equipment"

He continued looking at the screen and then had a pad in front of him.

"The jobs where it went missing, Miguel, Slick, Santos, me. Valentine, Manning or Roberts were working those places"

There was that name again but before I read too much into what I was thinking there was one thing that I needed to know.

"How was it that you sent the message for Steph's location?"

If Hector was wondering why I was asking he didn't say, in fact what he did say made perfect sense to me.

"All camera feeds are fed through the face recognition program. An alert came through directly to me. I knew you were with Tank having a discussion with Juadyn"

I leant back on my chair and handed Hector the rota for the men who were on monitor duty at the time that Steph was stood in front of the jewelers and waited as he read through the names.

"Me, my money is on Manning"

"Is he on duty?"

As Hector shook his head, I knew there were a few things that needed to be done before I brought the core team in to plan our next moves.

"Sweep the building"

I had no idea what the hell Manning could have done. Was his priority to steal equipment so that they could be used on other buildings, was he here to sabotage the business? Was he using his position here to help other people find Steph? What the hell did Steph know or have that was so damn important? And how was it that she could always find herself in the middle of chaos like this? As I said it, I almost smiled, because I wouldn't have it any other way. It was who she was but hell she scared the shit out of me, and I was really hoping that by the end of this she would have made her choice but now I knew I'd have to exert a little pressure.

Two hours later I was with the core team and Hector in my apartment, thinking that it wouldn't raise any questions. No one said a word until we were all sat down, and they were quiet as I passed around a report that I'd put together.

"Shit"

Yeah, that would express nicely the position that we were in.

"Okay gentleman we need to put together some plans"

I sat back as the guys looked at each other all probably waiting for what the other would say. Of course, it was Santos who broke the silence.

"I'd like to beat the shit out of him but that probably won't help us to identify who's been trying to screw us over"

"Tailing him won't be easy, he knows most of the men here"

"Electronic surveillance?"

Brown asked looking at Hector.

"He's not stupid, He knows his way around electronics"

That meant we probably wouldn't get away with bugging him or his personal car and no doubt he had a burner phone that he'd use to contact anyone.

"Get Jayce and Tali down from Boston"

I looked at Tank as he said that. Jayce and Tali were the only women that we employed in Rangeman who worked the field. They were efficient, effective and dangerous. Employing them came at a cost, but I suppose that it had been worth it. The cost had been that we had to employ both of them and that they worked together. I'd been opposed to the idea because I'd never believed that two people who were in a relationship should partner each other. That was until those two women came along. Their looks betrayed their abilities and they'd brought all of the training and skills learnt from the army with them. They came to me because they saw no future for themselves in the army. They were women and they were a couple.

"I like it, some of our guys know them but haven't worked with them. We'd have to make sure those guys knew not to say anything"

I could see that Santos was totally in favor of what Tank was suggesting. I needed to think about it because I wasn't too sure how having the two women here would be any help.

"What exactly would we be asking them to do?"

And that was why Brown was so integral to this team, he looked at the details and would consider how the job would affect the people who did it and whether or not they would cope.

"I don't think that having a woman hit on him would work. Manning would see it"

"Tailing them, using a parabolic mic. Those girls are good. They've used hi tec so are familiar with the Black Hornet Nano"

Tank just looked at Hector probably because he didn't know that we had a few downstairs. I'd acquired them over the years after using them on missions, my excuse to the men responsible for their safe return was that they were damaged during a job. I had to admit that I'd never found a use for them here, but yeah, a military micro unmanned aerial vehicle would be an excellent way to keep an eye on Manning (UAV). Maybe Tank's suggestion wasn't such a bad idea.

"Santos, you talk to them but emphasize that it's a voluntary job. If they're up for it get them down here ASAP and let Reg know. Tank, bring together teams Bravo, Charlie and Delta. They are our most trusted men. I want them to scour Trenton for any buildings that are not official clients for any Rangeman equipment or signage"

"I'll fill them in on the girls at the same time"

"Any news on Beautiful, Ranger?"

Looking at Santos as he asked that, I knew I had to tell these men what Ram had found out. Santos was a good friend to Steph, they had a similar sense of humor and found it easy to get on with each other. There were many times when Santos would chat with her or keep her company, so I knew he was worried about her.

"Ram analyzed a scarf that Steph had on her when she was shot. He says that what looked like blood was artificial. That she must have been wearing a vest under her coat"

"Thank god for that"

Came from Santos with Brown nodding his head at the sentiment. It was Tank who thought beyond what I'd said.

"Where the hell would she get a vest?"

"And one that had pouches of pretend blood?"

That was a question that I was still asking.

I stayed in my apartment after the men left, showering and changing before I was going to go back down to five. It was as I came out of the bedroom and into the lounge that I realized that Ella was stood in the kitchen, as though waiting for me. I saw a domed plate on the worktop and to be honest was expecting a lecture from her about me not eating or resting enough. As I approached her, I noticed an envelope in her hand.

"Carlos, when I went to my normal store to pick out the fresh fruit and vegetables a man passed by me. He bumped into me, which I was sure at the time was an accident, but when I looked in my shopping bag when I got back here, I found this"

I took the envelope from her outstretched hand, seeing my name written on the front. Carlos Manoso, in writing that I recognized. I was about to remind Ella of the protocol of keeping her bag fastened up and the man with her close by when she started to walk away from me, muttering under her breath.

"I know, keep the bag fastened up and the Rangeman next to me"

I almost replied to her but didn't. If she had have done, then I wouldn't be looking at the words that I was sure had been written by Steph.