I woke my computer up and started to research. First, I pulled my report that I had done in February and sent it to Nick. In it, I had identified the addresses for the four houses that Richard had owned previously. When I did that, I ran a report to find out the houses that the numbered company owned. There were a few of those too. When that was all done, I ran the report for Richard again. He had put all his money into the purchase of houses before he went into jail, and had bought two more. I sent the location of those houses over to Nick as well.

I heard Nick call Eli into Ranger's office, and minutes later I heard a "woo-hoo!" from Nick as he gave Eli a high-five. The two of them came to the door of my office, holding hands and with grins on their faces. "I saw it, Steph!" said Eli. "I saw the house that Brett is in." He was so excited he was just about hopping in place.

I smiled. "Good timing", I said. "Our staff meeting is going to be soon, and we'll be able to tell the team where to go." I turned to Nick. "Did you get the aerial pictures and the street view pictures copied off?"

Nick held up a sheaf of papers. "I sure did."

I turned off my computer. "Then let's get going. Our meeting starts in ten minutes."

"Do you need me to go?" said Eli in a little voice. He looked crestfallen.

I smiled and crouched down to give him a hug. "Thank you for volunteering, little buddy, but I'd appreciate it if you stayed home and played with everybody. By the looks of it, the other children would miss you if you were gone. They have been enjoying playing with you."

"Alix said that she'd teach me my numbers on the computer."

"That sounds like fun, and I think Alix will enjoy the company."

He grinned.

We walked out to the kitchen as Ranger filled two enormous thermoses of soup. "The kids worked hard on this soup, and I didn't want you to miss out because you were doing work. You can bring your lunch to the meeting with us." He looked at us and smiled. "You look like you had some success."

"With Eli's help, we were able to identify the house and the room in the house that Brett was in", said Nick. "We have enough to get a search warrant, and hopefully we will soon be getting Brett to the hospital where he will be taken care of properly. Eli was a good help and a good friend."

"Thank you, Eli", said Joe. "Brett is someone that I have worked with in the past, and I know that he is a good person who doesn't deserve to be in pain."

Eli started to cry. "Can you make sure he's okay? He's my friend."

Joe smiled and gave him a hug. "He's my friend as well." Eli looked up at him with hope in his eyes. "We'll do the best we can. And the Rangeman team? Their best is pretty darn good."

Eli nodded as Ranger handed Nick and me an exceedingly large thermos of soup each and a plastic zip-loc bag with a couple of scones and a spoon. I hadn't even realized that we had thermoses that large in our apartment. I looked at it doubtfully. It must be incredible soup for Ranger to think that I would eat that much of it. "Let's go", said Ranger.

A few minutes later, Ranger, Joe, Nick and I walked into the boardroom. Miguel had gone down to the reception desk to meet the police sergeant, and I looked around the room as I sat to eat my lunch. I took one mouthful of the soup and spat it out in the thermos. "What the hell is this?" I said.

Ranger laughed. "I think the kids stirred too much love into the soup. You two are the lucky ones. Joe and I had to eat ours. The kids were so excited to watch us eat the food, and are going to have their dinner later. I don't know what their reactions are going to be. You are the fortunate ones that can throw yours out and eat leftover Thai."

Nick took a cautious spoonful and quickly spat it out as well. "Did they use a cup of salt in this rather than a teaspoonful?"

Ranger laughed. "I don't know, but it was a little difficult to swallow. I have to admit I drank a lot of water with it, and I got full very fast."

"Kind of tastes like my cooking", I said.

Ranger groaned and Nick laughed. He knew that I said those kinds of things because it ticked Ranger off. Ranger hated me pulling myself down, and in his view I was a good cook. I just had a bit to learn still.

I had actually learned a lot over the years that I had been with Ranger. After all, I was the person who put garlic into my chocolate chip cookies when I was married to my first husband, and I would no longer do that. At the time, I had made a meatloaf the night before, and my mother told me to put my favorite spice in. My favorite spice was cinnamon. I thought the spices were pre-measured and I was supposed to put in the whole jar at once. The meatloaf was disgusting, so I talked to my mom to find out what I did wrong. She said I should have used garlic instead of cinnamon. So the next day, I was making chocolate chip cookies and it called for a touch of cinnamon. That caused a problem. I didn't have any cinnamon left, and I didn't know what a touch was...but I remembered that my mother told me to use garlic. However, I not only didn't know that when you make chocolate chip cookies, you should never put in garlic, but I also didn't know that, when you use garlic, you use one clove at a time. So I put in the whole bulb. Those garlic chocolate chip cookies were the most disgusting thing that I had ever tasted. Although, to be fair, the salt soup in front of me was a close second.

I could now cook basic food. It wasn't the swoon-worthy food that Ranger produced, but it was edible and healthy and it filled the tummy. But I still liked to make fun of my past failures.

"This is worse than the fish soup that my kids made me for dinner a couple of weeks ago", said Nick.

"Oh oh", I said. "What happened?"

"They took goldfish crackers, put them in a bowl, added water, and handed me this globby mess. They were so excited to have me eat it and quite frankly, eating soggy fish crackers that had the look and texture of vomit was not fun."

I laughed. "You ate it anyway, didn't you?"

Nick grinned. "Of course. It was worth it to see the looks of pride on the kids' faces."

I pushed aside the soup and, as Miguel wasn't yet there with the police sergeant, Nick and I went down to the break room and pulled out some Thai to eat. Both of us were too hungry to wait until it was heated up. We brought our containers of food back to the boardroom and sat down. Ranger looked at us with a laugh. "Enjoy", he said. "I gave you particularly large thermoses of soup to use it up. I figured you had the ability to throw it out, and Joe and I were very envious of that."

I grinned. "I have never been so happy to have an excuse to miss our meal."

Ranger laughed again.

Miguel escorted the police sergeant into the boardroom, and Joe introduced everyone around the table. That done, Ranger took control of the meeting. He apologized for the last-minute change in meeting time and explained that we'd been able to get some good intel from Eli and that was why we'd delayed it. He then went around the table for the reports. Tank gave an overview of what happened on site during the takedown. Hal gave an update on the status of the victim that they found in the basement. I was happy to find out that the man was in the hospital and would be okay. There was an officer guarding him and would be ready to talk to him when he woke up from the surgery. Ranger then turned to Joe and asked him for an update on what Eli said and passed around the picture that Eli had drawn. The meeting members were impressed. It was rare to see such artistic talent in a six-year old.

Ranger then turned to me. "I'm sorry to interrupt your most excellent meal", said Ranger with a grin, "but would you mind giving an overview of the research you did?"

"It's okay", I said. "That was my last bite anyway."

Ranger laughed. "You're slowing down, Steph. It took you ten minutes to eat your dinner. It normally takes you three." The men all laughed.

"I was interested in listening to what other people were saying." Ranger's eyes started to sparkle as I could see him gearing up to ask me if I wasn't normally interested in the conversation. I figured that I'd better move on and hope he didn't ask. "Besides, I only take three if I take my time", I said with a smile. "If I am rushed, I can eat that sucker in one. Unless it's cabbage rolls. Then it takes me four hours." Ranger and Joe both grinned. I had frequently told my mother that both those people hated cabbage rolls. It ensured that they were never served when Joe or Ranger came to dinner. Since I hated cooked cabbage with a passion, I would use any excuse that I could. I put my fork down. "I researched all the locations of houses that Richard had, got the address to Roscoe's house, and the locations of the houses that the corporation owned. Nick took those addresses and searched their aerial views and street views on Google Earth and compared them to the picture that Eli drew. When Nick came up with a contender, he had Eli confirm that it was the same house. At the same time, Eli pointed out what room in the house that we'd be able to find Brett. The house that he identified is owned by the Death Dogs organization itself."

"Okay", said Ranger. "Let's make a game plan." He turned to Hal. "I will lead the team this time. You are too visible since you were involved on the original takedown and, if I remember correctly, it is Amelia's birthday today and I am sure that Tank would appreciate being at home. If you could staff the command center instead, Hal, I would appreciate it."

Hal smiled. "Absolutely."

"Thank you", said Tank. "I had been looking forward to giving Amelia the present that Michael and I picked out, and Michael is almost bouncing in excitement about it."

Ranger smiled. "You can't miss that." He turned to Flynn. "Is your team ready to go again?"

Flynn smiled. "Absolutely. My guys are chomping at the bit to take this sucker down."

"Great." He turned to the police sergeant. "Can you get that search warrant for us as quickly as you can? For every minute that the judge delays, it means that there is one more minute that is putting a police officer in jeopardy."

"I hear you", said Drew. "I'll get that as soon as I leave here."

I handed the aerial shots and pictures of the house to Flynn, and showed him where Brett was in the house.

"Okay, it's four-thirty right now", said Ranger. "Let's aim for a five-thirty muster time, and that gives Drew time to get the search warrant. Luckily, Eli said that Brett is too bulky for Roscoe to carry down the stairs. That means that Brett will likely be in the same place as he was left when Eli left the house."

"Is there anything you want Research to do?" asked Dirk.

"I'm going to play Murphy's Law", said Ranger. "I'd like the Research Gurus to stay for a while. If Brett isn't in that location, we will have to find him and that will require your help. I really hope he is there, but Murphy's Law says that, if I send you home, he won't be. If I keep you here, Brett will be there. Although Murphy had a unique and illogical way of looking at the world, he was often right. I'm hoping you'll be home by six. Otherwise, it will be another long night."

"Fair enough", said Dirk.

"What do you think about us filling our time by doing in-depths on the other Death Dogs gang members?" I said. "I don't know about Dirk and Miguel and Nick, but I know the people that I have researched have been ripe for being arrested and we have pulled up the information needed to issue an arrest warrant on each of them. Would it be a good idea to take the whole gang down and decimate them from the ground up? It just seems a shame that some of the gang members would be allowed to walk and continue their reign of terror when they are just as vicious as Roscoe. Additionally, if we don't take them down, my concern is two-fold. First, someone will just slide into Roscoe's position and life will go on and the gang will continue to terrorize the city, and second, that Eli and Brett will be taken and retribution will be made. Eli reported to us that Brett was the only person who did not sexually assault him in the gang. These are not good men. These are all men who deserve to spend many, many years in a prison jumpsuit."

Ranger looked at Drew. "What do you think?" he said. "I agree with Steph in that, if we don't take them all down, this won't be over and retribution will be made, whether that is on Eli himself or on Brett."

Drew sighed. "I don't have approval for this, but I'm going to say to take the whole gang down. Brett is the nephew of our State Senator and I think there is already going to be political backlash from what has happened. The more we can be proactive, the better it will be for us."

Ranger turned to us and nodded his head. "You heard him. You have your work cut out for you and again, this will be a priority. When we hit them, we will want to go in hard and fast, take the houses and the people and quickly move on to the next one. We'll want to take them all on the same day."

"I can stay overnight again", said Dirk, "if I can grab a catnap upstairs like I did last night. I want to see these guys go down."

"I agree", said Miguel. "It worked last night, and I'd be happy to stay."

"I'd like to stay but I'm not sure if Tracy will be willing to look after seven kids again", said Nick.

"I'll ask her", said Joe. "However, she was being serious when she said she was having a good time, and I suspect that she'll say that she would like us to keep investigating. Like me, she will want to see the bastards stopped permanently."

"It may be good for Eli as well, to have the kids there to play with. My impression is that he has to learn how to play, and he has never really had kids to play with before", I said.

Nick looked relieved. "If Trace doesn't mind, that would be wonderful. I always think that it is good for my kids to get together with your kids", he said, "and I am sure that they will see a kindred soul in Eli. They've both been through abuse in the past, and because of that they might inherently understand each other. Besides, for me personally it would be a good thing to see these assholes go down. They are just as heinous as some of the terrorists I shut down when I was overseas. They just act on individuals rather than large groups of people."

Joe looked up from his phone. "Trace says that it would be just fine. She said the kids are having a very good time, that they are incredibly good kids and are a lot of fun, and she didn't know how we ate the soup and is just glad that we took particularly large thermoses with us for dinner. The kids pronounced the soup to be yucky and are in the process of making tuna melts and cut vegetables for dinner."

Ranger laughed. "Just tell her we are military men, and we've been trained to take all manner of torture."

Joe laughed.

"What was wrong with the soup?" said Dirk.

"I think it called for a teaspoon of salt and the kids used a cup", said Nick. "Be glad you went to the lounge."

Dirk laughed. "Kind of reminds me of a banana split the kids made me a few years ago. They wanted chocolate cookie crumbs sprinkled over top. However, they didn't have chocolate cookies. So they used dirt. I figured it out when I saw the half of a worm in the concoction. I have never been so full in my life, and to this day I don't think I want to know where the other half of the worm went. It was a waste of ice cream – and it was butter pecan! Tears came to my eyes when I threw it out."

I laughed. I could empathize completely. I would cry if I had to throw out butter pecan too.