Chapter 48

As I woke, I thought that I was in the same position as when I'd fallen asleep. Maybe I was but instead of being laid over Ranger he'd been replaced by two pillows. I really needed to use the bathroom but was half afraid of how my stomach might react, so I very slowly left the bed pleased at not feeling nauseous. I wanted to go for a swim so with a swimsuit on and a towel wrapped around me headed down to the pool. After swimming more laps than usual I felt good with the distance that I'd covered and was about to pull myself out of the water when a hand appeared in front of.

"Looking good Beautiful"

Not wanting to believe that Les was making a comment about my appearance I went with a reply concerning my swimming and took his hand to allow him to help me from the pool.

"I like to swim and it's good exercise for me. This place doesn't really lend itself to running, plus it's too hot"

Les picked up the towel at the edge of the pool and held it out to me so I wrapped it around me while we walked toward the house.

"What did you find out up in Trenton?"

Because I was probably the only person who didn't know.

"Lukavic is at Markovic's house, but he had the place locked down tight. No visitors and we can't hack into any of their systems. When he leaves the house, he makes it impossible to follow him"

That surprised me because I always thought the Rangemen were the best at tailing people. Les must have noticed me raise my eyebrows because he laughed.

"Even me Beautiful. He'd park his car and then walk through a shop to another car parked up at the back or even drive to a street with a dead end and have a driver pick him up from an adjacent street. He seems to know where all the street cams are so even Ethan hasn't been able to figure out where he goes or who he meets up with"

The man was obviously being extra cautious making me wonder who he was trying to hide from and what he was up to. I was pretty sure that it couldn't be just us who were looking for him.

"Beautiful, I'm sorry I brought Ellie here. I really believed what she told me, but I will always acknowledge my mistakes to a superior researcher like yourself"

For an apology from Les it was actually quite sweet, okay maybe with a hint of sarcasm at the end, but I wasn't going to allow myself to trust Ellie just because Les believed her.

"How did you come across Ellie and Ethan?"

Because it seemed a hell of a coincidence to me.

"I went back to the cabin where we'd first been when we were carrying out surveillance on Markovic. Ethan was there, checking over the equipment. We met up with Ellie later in the day. They'd been staying in some cheap motel"

"I'll talk to her after dinner and see what else she has to say"

I left Les to go upstairs and shower, actually feeling hungry and wondering what we'd be eating for dinner. I didn't want to think about Ellie until I had to.

As I rested my knife and fork on an empty plate, I was feeling full to the brim. I'd enjoyed all of my meals today and was actually hoping that maybe with the right type of food the morning, well all day, sickness would disappear. I was ready to face Ellie again and said that to Ranger.

As we walked over to the boat house, I wondered how well she was doing being locked up inside the place. I should have realized that where she was didn't confine her to a small room. There was another door that was open when I walked into the empty room, so I made my way over to it and walked through. The building itself was bigger than I thought but where I was now looked to be on a decking area next to a dock. The whole area was surrounded by a high fence that also included a large section of water where I assume a boat could be kept.

Ellie was sat on the edge of the deck with her feet dangling into the water. Her hair was wet, so I assumed that she'd either been swimming or had just had a shower. A look to the side revealed another door so maybe the accommodation through there provided bathroom facilities and somewhere to sleep. I walked over and sat down next to Ellie before taking off my sandals and mirroring Ellie's position, it was only then when she looked over to me.

"I'm so sorry Steph. I know that I lied to you, but only at the beginning. I suppose I became embroiled in the cover story that Hubbert had me learn and to be honest it was easier to do that than try to explain myself. I didn't know you. I nearly told you everything when we were on Cyprus but when you started to tell me about Ranger, I suppose I was worried that you'd tell him"

I suppose it would be easy to get caught up in the lies and as she had no idea what was the truth or what were lies from Hubbert, I could understand her reasoning.

"I really wanted to put everything right. Petco, well he frustrated me when he'd talk in circles, I think he liked you better. I was too focused on finding out what the big secret was that Hubbert had illuded to. When I learnt how Markovic had stolen Petco's ideas I realized we were into something that could be dangerous, and it had me questioning Hubbert even more"

Being involved with something dangerous was an understatement. Would I have willingly gone with Ellie had I known what we would be doing? I don't know.

"Ellie, how did they find us in Guatemala?"

"I don't know"

I had to strain my ears to hear her whispered response. Was I expecting her to say anything different, probably not? If she had been responsible for me being taken, then I doubted that she'd admit to that.

"When we came back to the hotel it was Lizbeth who raised the alarm. The room was a mess with all your stuff tipped out, phones were broken, and the garden doors were open. We spent all night searching for you but by morning knew that you weren't near. No one thought that you'd walked out on us, besides, when we spoke to the barkeeper at the bar across the street, he thought that he saw two men hanging around. Ethan searched through all of our things for trackers. He destroyed our rings, phones and bank cards, just to be on the safe side. We were worried in case they might come back for us, but most of all I was worried because of the laptop"

I watched as Ellie pushed herself to her feet and went inside the second door. A few minutes later she sat down with the laptop on her knee.

"Ethan checked that there was no way that this could be tracked. Hell, it's probably dead by now because I've never switched it on. All this over this ancient, outdated piece of equipment. I thought we were saving the world"

Yeah, I suppose I did as well. Were we that naïve to think that we could that? To make the place safer?

"I think Lukavic has the other laptop, but he knows that I'm the only one who knows the passwords"

Ellie half laughed as she placed the laptop behind her.

"Even we don't know which is Petco's decoy. So it was him, he was the one that abducted you?"

I nodded my head and watched as tears came to her eyes. We sat in silence for a while, each of us lost in our own thoughts. Minutes later Ellie wiped her eyes with her hands and looked at me. She had that look about her, one that I'd seen before when we'd been in Serbia and doing those jobs. Determination.

"The three of us managed to hitch rides and use buses to get back to the states. To be honest I wasn't too sure what we were going to do. We couldn't reach Stanley so had no idea what had happened to him. I wanted to go back to Trenton to where Markovic had lived, you know go back to the beginning. Lizbeth wanted to find Stanley and see what her father had been up to, so we parted ways"

"How did you know where Markovic lived?"

I knew that Ethan had come back with Ellie after she'd dealt with Markovic so I was asking myself the question that I should have asked then.

"Ethan, I suppose"

That had me trying to remember when I was first aware of Ellie knowing where Markovic was. Either she was lying to me, or she'd forgotten because I was pretty damn sure that Lizbeth had told me that her and Stanley had watched Correll, while Ellie had been watching Markovic on that fateful day when Raynor had hijacked Ranger.

"Try again Ellie"

I watched as she frowned and shook her head, looking as though she was thinking hard about what I'd said.

"No. How else would I know?"

"How about when you bailed me out on that road. Lizbeth told me that you had been watching Markovic while Stanley and Lizbeth had watched Correll"

I saw her frown as she thought through what I'd said before giving me her answer.

"I was with Stanley. Stanley was watching the office where Correll worked, and I was keeping an eye on his apartment. Hell, I even managed to break into the place after he left and have a look around"

Could I have been wrong? Could I have mixed the two up, I suppose I hadn't been feeling too good when we'd first arrived at the beach. Then I was trying to remember who it was that had told me that, Lizbeth or Ellie.

"Ellie, you went back there. to err, you know. How did you know where he was, who told you?"

If it was possible for Ellie to go pale then that was what came across her face, as she started to speak and then stopped, it was as though she was trying to put together a sequence of events.

"Lizbeth. She told me that she'd watched his house and she was the one who told me where it was. That was how I knew where to find Markovic and that was how I met up with Ethan"

Someone was lying but I think our minds went to the same place, but it was Ellie who voiced my concern first.

"Shit. How would she know that?"

I had no idea, but it did have me worried. If what Ellie had told me was the truth then there would have been no way that Lizbeth would know where Markovic lived, unless Correll had found out and told her.

"I have some research to do"

Ellie seemed far more composed today and in some of the ways that she acted and spoke I was seeing the Ellie that I had come to know. Maybe she felt more at ease with what we were talking about and the fact that we were both possibly thinking along the same lines, that it could be Lizbeth and her father who were the ones that had conspired against us.

I knew that Ranger was close by, but he must have moved like lightning because he was suddenly behind me lifting me to my feet. I was annoyed, mainly at myself. Why the hell hadn't I taken more notice of those initial feelings about Lizbeth. I mean it made sense that she would know where Markovic lived because it was information that her father would be able to find. Could he be the one that had found the information about Ranger and Miguel and passed it on? Could he be the traitor in the FBI? Surely Ellie would have recognized him though even behind a disguise? The problem that I was having was that I felt so confused. I had two people who I'd seen as friends and one of them had lied to me, but I had no idea which one it was.

I was surprised when I actually took note of where I was to find myself on the beach. I wasn't aware of putting my sandals back on and seeing them in Ranger's hands it seemed that I hadn't. I was wearing a short sundress so stepped into the foaming water, watching as the small waves lapped around my ankles. I felt Ranger behind me, his arms encircling me and while I tried to calm myself.

"I can't believe Lizbeth would be the one to betray us. Stanley will be so hurt if it's true"

I was pretty sure that Stanley had seen her as the daughter that he never had.

"What if she had no choice. Lukavic plays dirty Babe"

I knew that was true, hell he'd try to use Ranger against me. Could he have Stanley somewhere and was using the threat of hurting him to blackmail Lizbeth? I felt as though I'd moved two steps forward and three steps backward today and to be honest, I still didn't have a clear understanding. Maybe we needed to find another approach to resolving this. We had one of the laptops so maybe if we finished what we'd started and neutralized those EMPs then Lukavic would have no need for me or for the passwords. Markovic was dead so hopefully no more could be made and surely whichever government official had organized him coming to the states would have those designs locked up somewhere safe and secure.

"I need to open the program on the laptop"

"Why?"

I was hoping that Ranger would understand my reasoning and agree with me because otherwise I couldn't see a way out of this.

"Maybe we need to confirm where the devises are and to finish deactivating them. That way Lukavic won't be able to use them, so will stop coming after me"

I waited, unsure, as the sound of the waves became the predominant sound around me. I even became aware of the pelicans bobbing up and down on the larger waves further out to sea. I had never been good at waiting, hell everyone knew that, especially Ranger, but I wasn't going to push him for a response.

"Okay"

I was convinced that I hadn't heard him right and then convinced that I'd misunderstood what he'd said, so turned around within Ranger's hold to face him.

"Okay?"

Was he actually agreeing with me? Wow, all I had to think of now was what the catch would be. I was about to ask what his terms were when I stopped myself. So far, I had been the only one who had looked inside an EMP and removed those circuit boards. Okay I'd worn a small cam recorder on my jacket so that the others could see what I was doing and Ellie had been due to go to Washington, but now I was pretty sure that I wouldn't be allowed anywhere near one.

"You need to decide who will be there when you open the program, maybe give them a heads up on what to expect"

I stood up on my tiptoes and kissed Ranger's cheek before turning back around to watch as the sun started its slow descent into the sea. As the light faded, I knew that we needed to be inside. Okay, Hector had told me about a machine that was here that kept any biting insects away from us, but I wasn't too sure about how it worked. It seemed that I was one of those people who were like a magnet to all things that bit. As I turned, I felt my legs being swept from underneath me and was soon being carried from the beach.

"Tomorrow"

Was the last I heard as I became lost in the touch of Ranger's mouth on my face, down my neck and on my collar bone.