Chapter 6

Having made what could be seen as progress I was extra vigilant as I left the station and headed for where my car was parked. I made sure that no one seemed overly interested in watching me or following me. It was as though I was carrying some guarded secret that needed to be protected. Driving back to Rangeman I decided that maybe Ram's lab would be the best place to start and look through the bag and its contents. He had large metal tables to lay things out on and it was a clean area so wouldn't pick up anything like dust or fibers. For some reason I felt that this bag was going to be important.

I messaged Ram to meet me down in the lab though didn't give a reason. He'd know only what I told him for now. I wasn't sure why I was hesitant to tell him the whole story of why I was going to be looking for this girl, that I was hoping to find more about where Steph was. Maybe I was unsure myself of my motive, then again maybe not. I wanted to find Steph, the reasons were something that I had yet to come to terms with and to be honest, I was back into self-preservation mode, those feelings of anger and hurt still close to the surface.

I went straight down the one flight to the lab finding Ram there waiting for me.

"What do need Ranger?"

He asked as he watched me place the bag onto the table.

"A young woman has gone missing. I told a friend that I'd look into finding her"

Knowing that Ram wouldn't ask me for any more information he passed me some gloves and with his already on, proceeded to unzip the bag. I felt consoled that he wasn't asking me for my motives in doing this, that he just accepted what I'd said, after all finding people was my speciality. We carefully started to unpack the bag, one item at a time and laid them out separately on the table before taking stock of what we had. There looked to be a spare set of clothes that looked worn and dirty consisting of a pair of jeans, a T-shirt, sweater, bra, panties and socks. These were laid out onto another table where Ram used an UV light to look for more information.

"Lots of stains from being worn. I can check for blood or other bodily fluids"

I nodded my head as I looked closer at the labels on the clothes, slightly surprised that to me they looked to be high end designer labels.

"She looks to have been petite, or maybe younger than you thought"

Yeah, I'd noticed that as well remembering that Eula had said that she was young. Anyone under 30 would be young to Eula but I was hoping that it wasn't a child that we were looking for. There was a hairbrush so maybe, if necessary, Ram could carry out a DNA test, but I'd reserve asking him to do that unless I thought that it was necessary. The rest of the contents weren't a surprise. A dirty towel, a hat and scarf and something that did surprise me. Holding it in my hand I realized that it was a well worn soft toy. It looked like an elephant to me, the ears worn down to the fabric below and a hole where an eye might have been. Hell, did this mean that this Lainey was just a kid. I was cursing for not asking more details from Eula.

I watched as Ram started to look deeper inside the bag and was surprised when he pulled out a photograph. It only looked to be about three inches square but was creased as though someone had handled it a lot. As Ram placed it on the table, I found myself looking at a family photograph, a man and a woman who could have been the parents with two children sat in front of them. The children looked to be maybe in their teens, two girls, but not knowing how old the photo was, gave me no clue as to how long ago it had been taken. Seeing as there were two children in the photo the dilemma became which one of them might be this Lainey.

"Leave these with me Ranger and I'll go through everything and run some tests. I'll send you an enhanced copy of the photograph, maybe I can work out how old it is or where it was developed"

I nodded my head at Ram, knowing that he would do an excellent job. He loved to do work like this, so I was confident that if there was anything to find then he'd find it. As I made my way upstairs, I knew there were a couple of things that I needed to catch up with. Knowing that, I came out on three and made my way to Hector's office, hoping that he was inside working.

Knocking and walking into his office I saw Hector picking up some papers from the printer so took a seat in front of his desk to wait for him to finish. He actually put the papers down in front of me before he himself sat down.

"I mapped out Estefania's trackers from after you left. Each map represents a week"

Looking at the first map I could see a pattern in where Steph had been. Always starting in the morning at her apartment and then travelling to the bonds office. There were times when she would visit an area in Trenton and then travel to the police station, so I assumed that was when she was taking in skips. A few occasions she was in the Burg, probably at her parents. I was more interested in where she had been after she had spoken to Eula and it was during the second week that I recognized her visit to the train station followed by a trip to the police station.

"The third week have her going to some unusual places. After the fourth week they stopped working and to be honest Tank told me to stop tracking them"

"Can you reactivate them?"

I asked hoping that maybe she would still have at least one with her.

"I did that but all of them are somewhere in her apartment, her phone as well"

Damn it, why would she purposely leave any trackers and her phone in her apartment? Unless she didn't want anyone to know where she had gone? That didn't deter me from wanting to know what she'd been up to before she'd left.

I needed to get a timeline sorted out in my head for when she'd been around and for when the news of her departure had happened. Taking a piece of paper and pen from Hector's desk I wrote the week number at the top of each map and then on the paper wrote down each week number as a heading, with the intention of adding details next to it.

week 7

Ranger returns

week 6

J Morelli transferred to Atlanta

week 5

Morelli and Steph move out of Trenton

Trackers stopped working and disabled

week 4

Steph around and about Trenton

Morelli looking for Steph

Morelli calls at Rangeman

week 3

Steph back & forth to train station & various places

week2

Eula to court house

week 1

mission started

I went back to the map for week 3 noting the places that she had visited quite sure that she had started to look for that girl.

"She made visits to the hospital and the police station"

I sensed from the change in Hector's tone that he might have been worried about why she'd been there, so I knew that I needed to update Hector about what I'd learnt from Eula.

"I spoke with Eula this morning. Eula asked Steph if she would look for a girl that had gone missing. She was probably checking the hospital to see if she'd been admitted there and then went to talk to one of her friends at the station to check out missing persons reports"

"Do we know who this girl was?"

"Only a name, Lainey. She was living on the streets and had latched onto Eula"

I watched as Hector pointed to other places that she'd visited, hearing understanding in his voice now that he understood what she was trying to do.

"Mortuary and these places here, here and here are shelters"

That made sense to me but what I wasn't seeing was where she could have found a clue to follow that she thought might lead to where Lainey was. Week 4 seemed even more random with visits around Start street and places down by the river. I pointed to the last place where Steph's trackers had been, before returning to her apartment, wondering what led her there and what she might have found.

"Maybe we need to visit here, the last place where her trackers were before she went back to her apartment"

It worked for me, but we would need more information on what the building was and probably a team in case there were people there.

"I'll sort out the blueprints"

Came from Hector so I added what my part would be.

"I'll have a team doing some surveillance and then we'll be able to plan our visit"

As Hector nodded his head, I was considering how the hell anyone would accept what I was suggesting. I knew they would do anything that I ordered them to do, but this was different. I knew that Tank and probably Brown would think that I was crazy for following this line of thinking and to be honest it was beginning to worry me where my thoughts were taking me. I was pretty sure that Steph had come across something and maybe told Morelli but by then someone wasn't happy with what Steph had discovered.

That could be the reason why they'd disappeared and left a false trail for where they had gone. Okay, maybe Steph really had decided that she wanted to be with Morelli. Hell, the number of times that they fell out, with Steph swearing she'd never let him back into her life. Had she relented again and got back together with him. I was really hoping that wasn't the case, that they were only together to keep each other safe. That new idea had the effect of raising my spirits and why was that, because I wanted her back here, with me.

Once on five I checked in with the men on monitoring duty and checked the reports that had come in from the teams out on patrol before heading to my office. It was then that I sent a message to the core team and included Ram and Hector. I was sure that we would need to add more men to the team later but for now I wanted to present my working theory and hope that maybe the others would recognize the necessity of the action that I was planning for.

30 minutes later I was prepared as Tank, Santos and Brown walked into the room. I knew that Hector would be bringing some papers with him but was surprised when Ram also seemed to have information already. As we took our seats at the round table in my office, I could feel the confusion radiating from Tank so decided to get down to business quickly.

"I know that you feel that Steph leaving with Morelli was final, a way for them to start a new life together. That might be the case but there is information that I've come across that leads me to think that they may have left because Steph had somehow discovered something"

Looking around the table I was aware that Tank and Brown were going to argue against me but Santos, he seemed to perk up with what I was saying. Of course, he already knew about the J Morelli in Atlanta.

"We all knew Steph well"

"Hell Ranger, she was like a little sister to me"

I looked at Tank and understood how he was feeling, hell, everyone was feeling the same so why the hell hadn't they got together and questioned what had happened instead of just accepting it?

"Just disappearing like that isn't Steph. Her Grandmother and Lula are devastated with the way that she left, just as we all are. I wanted to make sure that she was happy and that it really was what she wanted, so I went to Atlanta to talk to Morelli"

Brown probably summed up exactly what everyone else was thinking when he spoke up.

"Brave man Ranger. Did he kick your arse when he saw you?"

I knew what they were thinking, that I would be the last person Morelli would want to see, that he'd be livid if he thought I was going to interfere between him and Steph.

"He wasn't there, never has been. A Jonathan Morelli is detective there"

Yeah, that had their attention.

"Maybe he said that to keep people, well you, from following them"

If I glowered at Brown, it wasn't totally intentional because yes there was the seed of that thought that wouldn't relinquish its anchor from inside my head.

"Lula told me that Steph was doing a favor for a friend. There weren't many skips, so Steph was keeping herself busy doing that. The favor was to find a girl that Eula said was missing. She's still missing, and I told Eula that I would look for her"

As I finished that I noticed Hector passing out papers to each of the men. As I looked down at them, I recognized the maps showing where Steph had been, through her trackers. Hector had now added the names of the places for where she had been and also included the simple timeline that I'd started to put together. I waited and watched as the men went through the information, hoping that they would see what I'd seen.

"We don't know what Steph might have found but I think we need to pay a visit to the last place where her trackers put her"

I was pleased that Tank seemed to be on board and in line with what I was wanting to happen, though I wasn't sure if it was because he believed that Steph's disappearance was questionable or if this was to find that girl. Whichever one it was I wasn't bothered as long as we were working as a team. We spent the next hour planning how we would tackle the job, starting with surveillance of the place. From the map provided by Hector it looked to be an old warehouse and the schematics supported that. Two floors with a loading dock onto the river from a large storage area with smaller rooms upstairs. Santos and I would take first watch with Hector and Tank relieving us. Brown and Ram would do the early morning shift by which time we would have an idea if there was any movement inside or around the building.

As the men left, Tank remained behind, which surprised me as I was keen to get suited up and leave.

"I'm sorry Ranger"

I turned from my desk where I was collecting a camera and binoculars wondering why he was saying that.

"I never considered what you're suggesting. I was too annoyed with what we were being told and never thought that maybe she was in trouble"

"She may not have been in trouble Tank, but her leaving without saying anything to anyone isn't her"

"You mean her leaving without talking to you or at least getting a message to you"

I nodded my head as I looked at Tank, it was as though he could read every thought that I'd had or was having, that he understood me better than I understood myself.

"You know that you two have something special between you. We take people for granted on a daily basis, always with the assumption that whenever we need them, they'll be there. We did that with Steph and it's only now that she isn't here that we really miss her and realize that she was an important part of us"

I was hearing what Tank was saying to me and as he walked out of the room, I started to understand what he was really trying to get me to see. Yeah, I had taken Steph for granted because she always there, always willing to help with whatever was asked of her. She was always there even when I didn't ask.

I'd kept a distance between us, maybe because I'd told myself that being involved with a woman wasn't a good idea. I had so many demons inside of me from the things that I'd had to do, which had me so worried as to what someone would think of me. That I might not return from a mission or the enemies I'd made would come after me didn't help with my mental health. I could never inflict that onto someone else. I had no right to any expectations from her and whilst I saw her relationship with Morelli as being unhealthy, he did actually care for her, but nowhere near as much as I did. And that was why I felt hurt and angry because in some ways maybe I did see her as my woman.

For now though, all I wanted was for her to be happy and safe, regardless of whether I liked where she would be or who with. I would continue to be her guardian angel or as she liked to call me, her Batman.