Chapter 23

RPOV

When driving my focus is always on the road and my surroundings. That's how I kept myself and now Steph safe. I knew that Steph found my silence difficult to cope with and would either be fidgeting or talking intently. Now though it was neither of those, she seemed hyper aware of what was around us. Looking in the wingmirror or ahead on the road. Her behavior was unusual for her and to be honest it was beginning to worry me.

"Babe, what's wrong?"

I took my eyes from the road for a moment to try and gage what her answer would be. The thing with Steph is that part of the way that she responds to a question can be seen through her facial expressions and body language and at the moment those were screaming out that she was on edge.

"I'm not sure"

Came her bland reply which meant that her spidey senses were probably responsible for her being so nervous. Steph's spidey sense had always been a mystery to me. When I first met her, I brushed it to one side as her just her being nervous or even flighty, now though, after seeing the times when her spidey sense had alerted her to danger, I wasn't going to ignore it and I was quickly talking to Tank through the blue tooth.

"Tank, be alert"

"Roger"

Was all that Tank needed to say for me to confident that he had my back.

"Hector and Tali are close by, I've asked them for backup"

I wasn't sure why Hector was with Tali but acknowledged that their presence would ease my mind. I indicated to exit from the highway that we were on, ready to slow down as the traffic merged into fewer lanes. As the traffic started to speed up, I could see Tank two cars behind us and another Rangeman SUV ahead of us. All we had to do was to get back to Rangeman and that was only a twenty minute drive.

I probably shouldn't have felt so optimistic because at the next set of lights I watched as Hector went through before I had to stop at the red light. I couldn't understand why the lights were only at green for a short time. As the lights changed and I set off I was instantly aware of vehicles heading toward us from both the right and the left. It was almost as though their lights were still on green.

"Look out"

Came from Steph as I hit the accelerator in the hope of being fast enough to avoid being hit. It didn't happen the way that I'd hoped because one of the trucks hit the backend of our car and spun us right into the path of the large SUV travelling from the opposite direction. I was aware of Steph screaming as we spun and felt us tipping over to the side and the sound of screeching metal on the road.

That was the last thing that I was aware of until the sound of voices and sirens brought me back to the present. I brought my hand to my head as pain shot through it making me grimace. That was when I tried to open my eyes to see what the fuck had happened only to find myself still behind the wheel of the car.

"Take it easy man, we need to free you to get you out"

A look to my right and the passenger seat was empty which had me panicking.

"Steph?"

I asked hoping that whoever had spoken to me would know.

"Tali and Hector got her out"

I breathed a sigh of relief at hearing that and felt that now I could focus on why I was stuck in this goddamn car. As I tried to move it became obvious that somehow my side of the car had been smashed which had pushed my seat at a weird angle against the steering wheel. The air bags had obviously inflated but were now laid torn at my side and in front of me. Looking through where the windscreen should have been, I saw Tank looking back at me. I felt a bit disorientated until I realized that the car had come to a stop on its side, with me next to the road.

"Brace yourself Ranger. They're gonna push the car back onto its wheels and then they can get you out"

I ended up gripping the steering wheel as I felt the car begin to move hoping that somehow, I could maybe push it out of the way. At least doing that stopped the thing from digging into my leg anymore and as the car righted, I felt that maybe I'd actually managed to give myself a little more room. The pain in my leg eased as I waited for the door to be removed. That done it seemed to take an age for the firemen to release the mounts that held the seat in position. Once that was done and my legs were free, I made to get out of the car only to find myself being held back by Tank.

"You need the hospital Ranger"

I shook my head and looked toward Tanks car that was parked just beyond the junction. At least Tank did as I asked, and I was soon sat in the passenger seat with Tank driving us to Rangeman. As he drove, I assessed my injuries, sore head and probably mild concussion. Some cuts from glass on my neck and a thigh that felt numb but not bad enough that I couldn't move my knee or ankle, so no broken bones.

"They knew we were coming"

I said out loud, mainly for me to here but of course Tank picked up on what I'd said.

"Why say that?"

"Steph. She felt that something was wrong and those lights, they changed too quickly back to red once Hector was through"

"Yeah, that truck and SUV came barreling out of the intersection"

"Did the drivers stay around?"

I asked knowing that maybe that would give us an indication if it was a setup or not.

"The truck driver scarpered but the driver of the SUV, he was taken to hospital"

"Get someone to follow up on him. I want to know who it was"

Tank just nodded his head, so I knew that he'd be on to that straight away. As we pulled into the garage at Rangeman I needed to see Steph to be sure that she was okay and hadn't been injured. My leg hurt but not enough to stop me from limping over to the elevator. Tank got out at five while I carried on up to seven relief washing through me that we'd managed to survive that crash.

As I walked into the apartment something felt wrong, it seemed too quiet and to be honest empty. I scanned the kitchen as I walked through the lounge and into the bedroom, not surprised when Steph wasn't there but that had me worrying where the hell she was. I went back to the lounge and picked up my laptop, opening the app that would show where Steph's trackers were. Seeing their location, I slammed down the lid and was heading back to the elevator. Once on five I slammed open the door to Tank's office seeing Hector sat there.

"Why the hell is Steph not here?"

Hector turned, probably surprised at my outburst but was quick to tell me what had happened.

"We were followed, by a motorbike and another SUV. At first we thought it was one of ours, it looked like one of ours, but I caught a glimpse of the driver and it was one of those men who followed Estefania into that apartment"

Okay, so what had Hector done to ensure that Steph was safe? I didn't ask any questions and Hector knew me well enough to fill me in on what he'd done.

"We swapped out cars, Estefania went with Tali to her safe house"

I could just imagine what Steph would think about that. Not only had she been taken to a safe house, but she was with Tali. Hell, she'd be mad as hell about that.

"I'm going to get her"

That had Tank standing up quickly, so quickly his chair went flying backwards.

"I'll drive, you're injured, and we need teams with us"

I wasn't about to go rushing out there on my own and in some ways, it annoyed me that Tank would think that I would act so irresponsibly.

"Only our top teams"

I added because they were the only ones that I trusted enough. I heard Tank on his phone and watched as Hector disappeared from the office.

"I'll meet you down in the garage"

I threw at Tank as I headed toward my own office. Once there I collected two vests, one for Steph, and made sure I added another gun to the back of my trousers. I was still wearing the suit from visiting the hospital and knew that there were tears in it from the accident. No doubt I had blood on it as well, but I didn't have time to change and for some reason I felt that getting to Steph was important. For the first time in a while that feeling that Steph was in danger hit me.

Four teams left the garage, each of us taking a different route. The SUVs were off line so no one could track us. That had me thinking back to Steph and her reticence to use our systems, it made me edgy that somehow, someone had access to them.

"Bravo. We have a tail"

I knew that Santos would be able to lose them and wasn't surprised when I heard the com unit again.

"Delta. We have as well"

I made a decision as I heard that.

"Let them follow you. Team Bravo, lose them but then tail them. See where they lead to"

That left Tank and I with team Charlie, Hector and Cal, surely enough to enable us to get to the safe house and get Steph to somewhere safe. Maybe I'd take her to the house.

We drove past the safe house, a chalet styled house, to the end of the street. The street had several similar houses each with their own small area around them to afford some privacy. The house that we used as a safe house was well maintained and blended in and it was only if you looked closely that you could identify the security system installed. There were external cameras and sensors on the windows but no Rangeman box to identify who oversaw the security.

While Jayce and Tali had been staying here the external cameras had been removed from prying eyes at Rangeman and were overseen by the two women themselves. As we returned back along the street and pulled into the short drive that led down the side of the house, I could see a car and a van parked up so assumed these were the vehicles that Jayce and Tali would have been using. Hector and Cal remained further up the street to maintain surveillance while Tank and I went up to the front door.

What surprised me was that the security system accessed from the small keyboard by the door wasn't activated and the door wasn't locked. I immediately went into alert and had my gun in my hand as I entered the property. Tank was behind me as we moved toward what would be the living area. Taking the ready stance, I opened the door and we both slid into the room. It was obvious that there was no one there but the state of the room had me looking over to Tank.

"Shit. I'll check upstairs"

The place was a mess with chairs toppled over and the coffee table smashed. I quietly made my way toward the door for the kitchen and slowly pushed it open. As I looked around, I lowered my gun because again the place looked a mess but there was no sign of anyone here.

"Tank, downstairs is clear. Is there any sign of Steph?"

"You better get up here"

I'm sure my heart missed a beat at his words and was soon moving up the stairs as quickly as I could. The first door that I came to I watched as Tank was carefully laying Tali onto the bed. Her hands and feet were taped together but it was obvious from where I was stood that she was in a hell of a state.

"Next door. Jayce"

Had me moving to next room. Looking around the room I quickly found Jayce in a similar condition to Tali and carefully pulled the tape away from her mouth. She was breathing and groaned slightly as I carefully lifted her onto the bed where I started to cut away her bindings. Her face had a small cut on her lip and the start of bruises on her face, there were small lacerations on her arms that had stopped bleeding, but I was sure she would have other bruising on her body. Once she was free of her bindings, I searched the rest of the room finding no sign of Steph.

"Hector, get in here"

I shouted into my mic, because we needed to move these women back to Rangeman for Bobby to treat their injuries. Tank was carrying Tali down the stairs as I came out of the room, so I checked the last door on the floor. As I entered the bathroom my heart fell as I caught sight of clothing in the tub, sure that they were the clothes that Steph had been wearing. I lifted them out sighing as her watch fell into the tub, at least there didn't seem to be any signs of blood but that accounted for why her trackers had put Steph here at the house.

While Cal and Hector transported the two women back to Rangeman, Tank and I did a thorough search of the house and yards. There was no sign of Steph anywhere and the downstairs rooms indicated that there must have been a hell of a fight in them, evidenced by the blood that stained the floors.

"Security system?"

Tank asked me as I closed the small door that housed the system.

"Destroyed and whoever did it removed the hard drive that would have had any data from the cameras or sensors"

Was my reply as I picked up a chair and threw it across the room. All we could hope for was that Santos had been able to follow one of the cars back to where they were based.

"I'll get Ram in to do an assessment and collect any evidence. We need to head back to Rangeman. Bobby is there treating the girls so maybe they can fill us in on what happened"

I nodded to Tank, knowing that there was nothing more that we could do here. Whilst Tank drove, the events leading up to now went through my head. Obviously that damn accident had to have been planned. Maybe the idea was to grab Steph then and when Hector and Tali had intercepted and removed Steph they'd been followed to the house.

It was the only thing that made sense to me, but how did anyone know that we'd be travelling on that road? As we entered the garage my first act would be to talk to Tali, how the hell had she allowed herself to be followed? She was better than that. I limped over to the elevator, the effect of the accident suddenly catching up with me and was surprised to find Brown inside waiting for me.

It seemed I'd been ambushed and between Brown and Tank found myself inside the infirmary with Brown dealing with the injuries to my head. Tank wasn't going to be staying, which was probably a good thing, but I have to say that I was surprised when he told me that we had a core group meeting on seven in 30 minutes. As Brown worked, I took advantage of the situation to ask about the women.

"Tali and Jayce, Brown?"

"Jayce took a hell of a beating. Cracked ribs and a concussion along with defensive wounds. Jayce has a bad head wound where it looks like she was knocked out and defensive wounds from a knife on her arms and legs. Both have bruises to their faces and body"

At least then they had tried to defend themselves.

"Are they conscious?"

"Yes. They're in an apartment on four, resting. Tali's very upset at what happened while Jayce has been very quiet"

That's where I would go to next.

"I've glued the wound on your head but I'm sure you have a concussion. Drop the trousers and let me check your leg"

If I stared at Brown it was intentional, because even I knew that it wasn't serious but the way that Brown stared back at me, I knew I'd have to allow him to examine it. I dropped to the floor from the bed and did as he asked before sitting back down again. The bruising was already turning an area on my thigh blue with areas of swelling. I felt as Brown poked and prodded but refused to exhibit that it was painful.

"Okay, nothing looks broken but there is deep bruising in the muscle. I suppose if I said to elevate and rest it, you'd probably ignore me"

I nodded my head as I pulled the trousers back up and was soon heading away from the surgery. I took the stairs up the one floor to where the apartments were and was soon knocking on the door of the only apartment that I knew had been empty.

It was Tali who answered the door and for once she didn't have anything to say to me. Instead, she turned and went and sat down on the couch. I followed, but to be honest I wasn't in the mood for pleasantries, so instead of sitting down I rested against the worktop of the kitchen, keeping a distance between us.

"What happened?"

"I'm not sure. One minute we were sat in the kitchen and the next three men had barged into the house. We were caught totally unaware. I know that I set the alarm when Stephanie and I went into the house. Both Jayce and I tried to fight them off, hell, even Stephanie did her bit, but the last thing that I remember is being hit across the back of my head"

"They must have followed you"

I said, because that would be the only way that knew where Steph had been taken. I watched as Tali looked over to me, her face looked annoyed at what I was suggesting, and she was quick to throw back an answer.

"No. No one followed us, I made sure of that"

"Then how do you explain those men knowing where you were?"

Tali stood up from the couch and started to pace in front of it, obviously trying to decide how a mistake had been made.

"We weren't followed. I'd know and besides Stephanie said she had no inkling of that happening. Whatever she meant by that"

I paused for a moment to consider what Tali had said knowing how reliable Steph's spidey sense could be. If those men hadn't followed Tali's car, then how else would they know where Steph was and where that safe house was.

"Where's Jayce?"

I asked surprised that she wasn't with Tali.

"She's resting, she feels awful about what happened. We've gone over everything Ranger and neither of us can work out how we were found"

That had me wondering if someone had managed to get into our systems and piggyback the program that Steph's trackers were logged into. I needed to talk to Hector. Leaving the apartment, I knew that I needed to calm down, I was too annoyed and tense to think straight and at the moment I needed to get my head straight in order to find Steph. I felt the vibration of my phone in my pocket and was surprised as I read the message.

"Ranger I'm so sorry"

The message from Tali didn't make me feel any better and certainly didn't take her off my shit list. Her and Jayce were supposed to be good, so how the hell had they failed to notice that the security system was off, and three men were entering the house. Something just didn't add up.

I used the elevator this time and made my way up to seven. Once in the apartment I quickly showered and dressed in my Rangeman uniform. I couldn't understand why a core group meeting had been scheduled to take place in ten minutes or why someone would think it needed to happen in my apartment. Coming out of the bedroom I wasn't surprised to see the five men sat waiting for me. Something was wrong and for the life of me I didn't know what and felt annoyed that this was happening. I needed to be looking for Steph because this time I was more than worried about her. Taking a seat in one of the chairs I waited for the conversation to begin.

"There are a few things that aren't adding up Ranger"

Came from Tank as he looked around at the men sat with us. I raised an eyebrow again waiting.

"There are only two ways that someone found out where Steph was. Well one really. Someone had managed to access her trackers"

I looked to Hector as Santos said that because he was the one who managed our systems.

"There have been no external infringements of our systems"

That meant only one other possibility.

"Could we have another person inside Rangeman?"

Shit, that was something that I'd toyed with not long ago. I'd looked into the other new hire but there hadn't been anything to find.

"Someone who has excellent IT skills, good enough to think that they can cover their tracks"

Now all of us were looking at Hector as he dropped that on us. That meant that it could be someone who I'd trusted, that had worked here for a while. Did Hector know who, he did say that they thought they were good enough to cover their tracks.

"Do you know who Hector?"

Hoping that by finding out that they may know where Steph was. To say that I was disappointed was an understatement as I saw Hector shake his head.

"I found a signature but now I need to decipher where it came from"

"How long Hector?"

A shrug of his shoulders was all that Hector would give us. It didn't help us in finding Steph so now we needed to focus on that.

"Where would they take Steph?"

I asked looking again at the men sat around me. In my head I was going through the properties that we'd already discovered but logically if we had someone who knew exactly what we were doing then they'd know we'd look at those first.

"It won't be any of the properties that we know about"

I nodded my head though I wasn't going to take any chances just in case that we were wrong.

"Santos, check out the warehouse on Lamberton Road"

"Tank get Cal to cover the electronics company Orbinto"

"What about the gambling place?"

I looked to Tank as he said that wondering how the hell we could do that. The place probably had a lot of people working there, that's if it was up and running because I was sure that on line gambling happened 24/7.

"I can hack into their systems. I left a keylogger plug between the CPU and mainframe. I can activate the cameras on the screens and take a look around"

I hadn't known that Hector had done that, and I had no issues at all with what Hector had done. I wasn't sure about the building where the hookers hung out but there was also the apartment above the restaurant.

"Ranger, I'll check out the building where the ladies hang out"

Everyone turned at the sound of the voice and watched as Tali walked into my apartment. I just looked at her wondering what the hell she was doing here.

"Don't give me that look Carlos. I hate what happened and I feel responsible, so I am going to help look for Stephanie"

I looked to Brown wondering if she was fit enough for that and then looked back at Tali.

"I'm fine. I've taken worse"

"Where's Jayce?"

Came from Santos because even I knew that usually the two women worked together.

"She said she was going to go back to the house to pick up some clothes and stuff"

"Why don't we partner up then Tali, remember policy is not to work alone"

I looked to Santos wondering what the hell he was up to, he normally partnered with Ram.

"Okay, you and I will take a closer look at that rental house and the judge's"

Tank nodded back at me understanding my need to be out doing something and we hadn't given these two places enough attention.

"Brown how's Watson?"

"The doctors believe he has severe amnesia and maybe some damage that's affecting his speech. He didn't recognize Mylo though was okay with him being in the room. I left Mylo with Ella"

There was nothing more to say so as the men left, I went through to the bedroom and collected a jacket and extra ammo.

Whilst my leg felt easier, I let Tank drive, okay maybe he didn't give me a choice about it. The first place we went to was to the rentalhouse. I'd downloaded the information from the search on the current resident, a Dr Nazari, who was currently working as a trauma specialist in the E & E department at St Francis. His history had no brushes with the law, in fact he'd spent a lot of time abroad working with various medical groups, from Africa to the Middle East and down to South America. He was single but even in his early fifties he still saw himself as a ladies man. Chances were, the man would either be working or on a date, well that was what I was hoping for.

As we approached the area for where Nazara lived, Tank pulled off the road and down a winding track that would lead us to the back of the property. Leaving the SUV, we were going the rest of the way on foot. As we reached the boundary of the property there was only a wooden fence so gaining access was easy but that didn't mean to say we were any less vigilant of what we might find or who.

There were lights on in the downstairs rooms but as we crept up to the windows there was no evidence of anyone being inside. As I picked the lock at the back door, Tank kept look out and we were soon walking into the kitchen. For such a large rental property it had the feel that maybe it needed some updates. The kitchen units were shabby with some of the drawers not closing properly though as I opened the cupboards to look inside there was very little in the way of food.

As I walked through into the hallway Tank was coming down the stairs and shook his head to let me know that there was no one upstairs. As Tank took the lounge, I walked into what looked to be a library or maybe an office. The shelves were empty, so I sat down at the old wooden desk and absorbed the items scattered on the surface. There was a large pad that caught my eye with lots of writing on it, not seeing anything as obvious I used my phone to photograph it and ended up taking shots of everything.

Next were the drawers, that held absolutely nothing. No papers, not even stationary. I walked around the desk to the garbage bin and took it through to the kitchen and then finding a new bag emptied both the bin from the office and the one from the kitchen into it. As I finished Tank came down and opened the back door, I knew it was time for us to leave. Once back in the car and on our way to the judges house, we took the opportunity to discuss what we'd found.

"It was as if he hardly spent any time there. Some clothes and wash gear"

"He does tend to up and leave for months at a time"

I suppose that was a reasonable explanation for what we'd found.

"They won't take Steph to any of the buildings that we were aware of, they'll have nothing inside that would be incriminating. They've changed their bases"

I agreed with what Tank was saying about Steph but wasn't too sure about the second thing that he said.

"They put our security on those buildings for a reason Tank"

"Shit we have nothing then"

As we came to the house where the judge lived there were lights on in a downstairs room so finding somewhere to park the car, we made our way over to a spot where we would get a visual. Settling behind the cover of some trees I used binoculars to scour the building. Our security system was visible which gave me that one piece of information. The judge was definitely involved but it also had me thinking in a different direction.

"Just a housekeeper clearing things away"

So where the hell was the judge? After an hour with no evidence of anything happening, we did a quick reconnaissance of the place from the outside. Making our way back to the car I was becoming even more worried about where Steph was and knew we had to find her quickly this time.

The first place I went to was the conference room once back at Rangeman, but looking at all of the information that was pinned to the boards it occurred to me that whoever had managed to get into our systems would have all this as well. The only information that wouldn't be accessible was what Steph had collected together and that was upstairs on the bedroom floor. I just hoped that Ella hadn't moved it as I used the elevator to go upstairs.

Once there I went straight through to the side of the bed pleased to see two files sat neatly on the floor. I sat down on the floor in the same place as I had done last night with Steph, trying very hard to blank my mind to what had happened between us. That was hard to do, very hard. The way that she had taken control, moved over me was way beyond sex and it brought such intense feelings inside of me. It was making love to my soul mate.

I shook that thought from my head because it wasn't being productive and wasn't helping to get her back. I started at the beginning of Watson's writing and would look at the photos as Steph had found them.