Chapter 8

Even though I still felt wired from the nights excursion I knew I had to catch some sleep. Once showered I sought the refuge of my bed, but sleep was hard to come by. There were so many questions that had been raised from what we had found, again with little to move forward with.

The biggest question being did I want the answers. What right did I have for chasing those answers when I might not like what I found?

"What do you want to do Ranger?"

I'd wrestled all night with that question and sat here after a debriefing meeting with the core team, I still wasn't sure. I had no desire to become embroiled with an FBI case and whoever had been using that warehouse looked to be long gone. I had to assume that Steph was somewhere safe with Morelli, which only left the mystery of that missing girl, Lainey.

"I promised Eula that I'd find out what I could about that missing girl"

From the looks I received at that there only seemed to be Santos and Hector who looked to be supportive. Tank grimaced, while Brown just shrugged his shoulders.

"Are you sure about doing that Ranger, she's a runaway, she may be long gone by now"

I understood what Brown was saying to me and could see that the task might be impossible to do, but I had promised Eula that I would try to find the girl.

"Go back to when Steph started her search and find the leads that she came across"

Came from Hector as a way to move forward. It was probably the only logical thing to do but I was aware that this was my quest to follow.

"I'll work on this. I don't expect any of you to get involved. Tank, all the paperwork is up to date, and I won't ignore any work that I have to do concerning the business"

It seemed by saying that to Tank that he accepted what I'd suggested and hopefully he wouldn't worry about what I was doing. I knew though that I would have to be very organized with my time to be able to cover the work here at Rangeman along with this new task that I'd set myself.

Tank and Brown were the first to leave my office, with Santos and Hector remaining behind. That didn't totally surprise me.

"Jeffe, I'll work with you in my own time"

"Same here"

Was echoed by Santos, though I wasn't too sure what either of the two men's motives were. Somehow, I didn't think that this was to do with finding Lainey. I was pretty sure that they were hoping to find some answers concerning Steph and Morelli.

That morning I did a site visit for one of the potential new clients, a family that had moved into the area and purchased a rambling old property. To be honest it would be a nightmare to cover for a few weeks due to workmen being in and out of the building whilst doing renovations. The only advantage was that any wiring we needed to do would be incorporated into the work schedule. That decided, I delegated that work to Miguel who would oversee the installation.

The afternoon gave me the time to start with my investigation, so I was going to be visiting the hospital. I had a copy of the photo from the bag on my phone and hoped that maybe there was enough likeness of either of the girls to jog someone's memory. It seemed my luck was with me as I entered the emergency department at St Francis and saw a nurse who I was familiar with, in fact I was almost certain that she was someone who knew Steph well. Hell, most of the staff here knew Steph well from her frequent visits for treatment. As I walked up to the reception area where she was stationed, I watched as she looked up toward me, a smile on her face.

"Morning. I was hoping that you could help. I'm trying to find this girl"

I read her name tag on her uniform and watched as Nurse Abrahms looked at the photo on my phone and frowned.

"I've seen this before"

I waited as she continued to look at it, hoping that she'd give me more information.

"Stephanie. She came in here a few weeks ago asking the same question. I told her that we hadn't had any admissions that fit that description"

"Could you check again, just in case she came in after Steph asked, please?"

Okay, I smiled at the woman hoping to use my charm on her and watched as she began a search in the hospital records.

The same answer again, which was logical if Steph had moved on to other places. I thanked the nurse and decided that the mortuary was probably the next place to visit. Anything could have happened over the last few weeks, a thought that didn't sit well with me. The medical examiner's office was next on my list but this time I would speak with the man himself. I'd had enough cause to know the man, Hendrick, having often brought bodies into him myself or had need to identify a missing skip.

Hendrick was in his office attached to the morgue busy with paperwork as I stepped up to his open door. I was actually grateful that he wasn't in the morgue, the idea of watching him as he dissected bodies wasn't something that I wanted to see, I had no desire to have any memories coming back to me.

"Manoso. Long time no see. Please say that you don't have anyone for me"

Entering the office we exchanged the pleasantry of shaking hands before I told him the reason for my visit.

"No, no dead bodies or FTAs to identify"

"Glad to hear, though at the moment I do have too many unidentified people"

That had me raising my eyebrow, so I removed my phone from my pocket to bring up the photograph.

"I'm looking for a girl who's gone missing"

As Hendrick took a look at the photo, I saw him shaking his head.

"No. I've no one that could be her in here"

"She's probably older, this is an old photo"

I said as I realized that he would be seeing a girl who was younger than who I was looking for.

"No, I'd remember a pretty one like that. Most of mine are homeless folk. Some left to the elements before they were found so it doesn't make it easy to find the cause of death or when they died"

I was aware of the fatality of these people who for one reason or another ended up living on the streets. Most died from disease or infection or because of the effects from alcohol or drugs.

"What with the hot summer and the damn rodents it makes my job impossible"

With that thought in my head it was time to leave. Santos was doing a visit to the other mortuary at Mercer County, though I doubted that he'd have any better luck than me.

Those two places visited I returned to Rangeman and as I promised Tank and Brown settled to complete the contract from the mornings visit. It was a few hours later as I was contemplating grabbing something to eat that Tank came into my office.

"We've got a location for High bond FTA that we've been looking for"

I took that to mean that Tank wanted my company and to be honest I was actually looking forward to capturing the man. Rangeman had been looking for him for several weeks. I suited up and followed Tank down to the garage taking the file that he handed to me. As he drove, I read through the file to reacquaint myself with the man we were about to go after. Glaston Reed or Glassy as he was often referred to, was one mean SOB. He'd been nasty as a kid when he'd started to steal and torture neighbor's pets. After various stints in detention, it seemed that Glassy had transferred those urges onto people, abducting and keeping them prisoner before he'd had his fun and moved onto the next victim. Somehow the victims survived but it was the death of the last one that had finally caught the attention of the police. To give the police their due they'd found some of the previous victims who were too scared to come forward, so now they had enough evidence to put him away for life. It always amazed me what the judge had been thinking when he'd released him on bail.

Glassy was elusive but through searches and speaking with acquaintances a pattern had begun to emerge. Glassy would hide in derelict buildings or where the homeless those homeless folk were more scared of him than they were of us, word had come back to Rangeman that he was currently holed up under the arches of the railway track,. We had four teams to surround Glassy, each team approaching from a different direction, because the avenues of escape were too numerous for this to be a one team takedown. I just hoped that no one got injured during the process.

"Teams are in position. We're going in through that broken fenced area"

I turned on my mic and ear bud as we exited the car and seeing the break in the fence headed over that way. Beyond the fence were old cars and remains of rubbish making it difficult to move without making a sound. What looked like an old cardboard box shuddered slightly and squatting down I could see the dirty face of a young man. His eyes were huge as he looked to his right, before he withdrew into the safety of his makeshift home. The direction that he'd indicated to us had a rusted out truck, so maybe Glassy had decided that was a safe place for him to hide out in. The tires had long gone with the truck leaning to the side, broken glass and rusted metal littering the floor.

A sound had us both stop still and as it continued, I could see the smile spread across Tank's face. It seemed that our man was a heavy sleeper and a very loud snorer.

"Look out for traps"

Came to me as we approached the truck so taking that on board, I was squatted down looking over the ground. Sure enough, there was a fine wire stretched across our path. After a hand signal to Tank, we were close enough to see into the truck and to see the two shotguns attached to the wires. Looking beyond the truck I could see two of the teams approaching, thinking through how we were going to get this man out of the truck.

"Crossbow on this side"

Came from Cal. Making me think that we needed Glassy to come out to us. I backstepped away from Tank and made my way toward a particularly smelly pile of rotten food and waited patiently for my little helper to appear. Five minutes later I was throwing a rat through an open window to land right on top of Glassy. Stepping beyond the range of the traps we waited, not for long, before grunts and screams sounded from the truck. Glassy was quick to push the groaning door out of his way before he started to move quickly away from the truck.

"Oh yeah"

Came from Woody as the sound of the crossbow releasing its arrow reached us, followed by screams and swearing from Glassy. The stupid SOB had triggered his own trap so when I reached the other side of the truck he was face down on the ground, cuffs around his wrists and an arrow stuck out of his backside.

"We'll take him in, you secure the area and get rid of the traps"

I said as I hoisted the man onto his feet. There was no way that I was taking him to the hospital, he could be dealt with at the station or better yet in prison.

"That went easier than I thought"

I heard from Tank as we walked Glassy back to the SUV. It had certainly worked out far better than I'd hoped for.

"Yeah, I really wanted to beat the shit out of him"

That got a smile from Tank as he secured the leg shackles on Glassy, who by now was shouting and screaming at us.

"I need a hospital, you've got to get me medical attention"

I didn't think so, thinking about the pain he'd put his victims through. Once parked outside the station both Tank and I held Glassy as we walked him inside. The arrow had broken off so I was hopeful that the metal tip would be causing him a lot of discomfort.

"Nice one Ranger. That man is a sick SOB"

I turned to see Eddie walking over toward me and raised an eyebrow at his comment.

"You got a minute Ranger?"

I left Tank to complete the paperwork and found myself at the far end of the room with Eddie stood in front of me with his arms crossed over his chest.

"What's wrong Eddie?"

Not knowing what the hell was with him, because he had never displayed anger toward me before.

"Sorry. I'm pissed off with Morelli and I suppose Steph as well. I want to know what the hell they're playing at"

"No idea Eddie. They'd gone when I came back"

"Her mother is constantly calling me as though I should know where they've gone"

"I thought she heard from Steph and was pleased that they'd eloped"

Maybe there was a touch of sarcasm in my voice but hey, I was the one left here to find out through rumors that she'd gone.

"She did and she was, until folk started to ask the inevitable. Like was she pregnant and surely her mother should know. Mrs. Plum is probably more annoyed with the rumors than the fact that she left"

As I made to turn to leave Eddie and find Tank, Eddie caught me on my elbow so begrudgingly I stayed to see what else he would have to say.

"Morelli, he aint down in Atlanta. I made a call to an old friend to give him some grief at having Morelli there only to be told that it wasn't our Morelli"

That wasn't new to me and I found myself repeating what others had said to me.

"Maybe they didn't want people to know where they'd gone"

"And leave the rat behind? Steph would never abandon that damn rodent. Plus, Morelli was really pissed at Steph because she was refusing to talk to him. I'm just worried that he hasn't dragged her somewhere to make her change her mind"

I'd never put any importance to Rex still being in her apartment and was chastising myself for not seeing the significance of that, I should have. Steph never went anywhere and left him behind, hell, he even came to Rangeman when Steph stayed with me. I was aware that Steph was avoiding talking to Morelli. What that was about I had no idea but the idea that Morelli would take her somewhere just so that he could make her change her mind actually annoyed me.

"Why do you say that?"

Because I was sure that Eddie wouldn't say that unless he had a good reason.

"He's tried it before and was going on about it being time to set her straight. That he was the man that she would marry, and he'd make sure of it"

I know I was frowning when Eddie mentioned that Morelli had done that before, because I knew that I wasn't aware of it happening, certainly Steph had never mentioned it to me before.

"When, when did he do that?"

"After that whole incident with Scrogg"

That was a couple of years ago now and I knew from my family that Steph had spent a lot of time at the hospital. I hadn't seen her after I was released because I had to make peace with Rachel, my ex wife, and ensure that Julie was okay. It also gave me an opportunity to ramp up the security provided through the Miami branch to ensure that she was never kidnapped again. It took time, but once I'd returned to Trenton, the old familiarity and friendship with Steph returned, even with me being reticent at dragging her into more of the shit that seemed to follow me.

"Any idea on where he would go?"

Hoping that if he knew then at least I could make sure that she was alright.

"No. He used some cabin in the Pine Barrens before, but I, err, checked that out"

I almost smiled at how proactive Eddie had been, realizing that he really was a true friend to Steph and seemed worried about her. Seeing as I was talking to Eddie, I pulled out my phone and showed him the photo of the two girls.

"Any ideas on who these girls are or where they might be?"

Eddie didn't spend long looking at the photo and this time it was his turn to frown at me.

"No. Steph asked the same question a few weeks ago. One of them FTA?"

I shook my head as I said "Missing" and walked away from Eddie. What he'd told me about Morelli was worrying me now and I was ready to hit something as the guilt flooded through me. I should have known that Steph would never disappear without telling someone and I'd spent the last week being angry at her when I should have been looking for her.