AN: I'm back! So here's some full disclosure for you. My parents are Audible addicts, and a particular series they enjoy has ended on a cliffhanger because the author died. For Christmas they have asked me to write the last book in the series for them. It's a medieval mystery and it's sort of my wheelhouse when it comes to writing, so I have been putting a lot of effort into it. That does not mean that I have abandoned this story. I like it too much and I wouldn't do that to you guys. I'm hoping to post a chapter every week or two but it's really going to depend on how much a roll I get on when I'm writing the other story. That being said, here is the next chapter, and I hope you enjoy it!

"You do have all of your shots right?" I asked while Ranger examined the torn sleeve of his t-shirt.

"If he'd touched skin, he wouldn't have teeth anymore," Ranger said. Now, this statement had a two-fold effect. One it shut Greg up, and he put his hands over his mouth, thinking that it might protect his teeth. Really, it would just have meant his fingers would have been broken in the process of breaking his teeth. The second thing was that it was bewildering to me. Ranger was wearing a t-shirt which means that Greg went for his shoulder. I mean what the hell kind of awkward place is that to bite? And plus also, Ranger wears his shirts like someone has painted them on. They exist only to save us all from going into cardiac arrest from seeing his nipples and belly button. So how the hell was it physically possible that he was able to bite Ranger on the shoulder hard enough to rip his shirt, and not come away with at least some kind of skin to incisor contact?

It's not like it's impossible to mark Ranger's skin. I've given him a couple of hickies, so I know. So like… what?

"How… Nevermind, I'm not going to ask."

I went back into the cage with my phone and started taking pictures. I felt like I was doing this a lot lately.

"You know what I'm thinking?" I said. "I should take a course on Crime scene photography and maybe a few forensics classes."

"Why?" Ranger asked.

"So I know what the hell it is I'm doing every time I pull out my phone, so I don't miss things."

"I don't think Crime scene photographers use their cell phones," he said.

"Well, it's handy. I could get a better camera."

"They are heavy."

"Have you lifted my messenger bag? It weighs as much as a Buick; what's a camera and a few dozen lenses."

"How is your back not completely fucked up?"

"Good genes."

"Do you want to take a class or do you want one of the men to teach you?"

"I think a class could be interesting," I said.

"Do you want me to find you one?" he asked.

"Sure," I said.

I finished taking my pictures and walked out of the cage as a guy in a suit arrived. He shook hands with Ranger, looked at the Muppets, and then back at Ranger to see if he was serious. Some silent communication took place, and he waved some guys in coveralls into the cage to start gathering up the suits.

"What's with Speak No Evil?" He asked Ranger. I looked at Greg, who was still covering his mouth.

"He wasn't thrilled with the idea of the Muppets being taken into police custody. He tried to hit her and bite me. I took exception to it."

"Does he have all of his teeth?"

"I haven't removed any," Ranger said.

He flipped open a pad, and pulled a pen out of his pocket, "injuries the result of self-defense." He flipped the book closed and looked at Ranger, "Pressing charges?"

"Yes," Ranger said.

"Locals can handle that," he said. "We'll drag him over for you."

"Thanks," Ranger said. He looked at the evidence bags, "Are they going to Trenton for processing?"

"Yep," the mystery man said. Here's the thing, Ranger almost always introduces me to people. He was very conspicuously not introducing me to this guy, who I'm assuming was a Fed. There had to be a reason why.

"Are you going to handle this?" Ranger asked.

"Fuck no," he said, "I was just handy. I'll pass it on to someone co-operative."

"Thanks," Ranger said. They shook hands and Ranger ushered me out of the cellar.

"So is Agent Jay going to wipe my memory because I've seen his face?"

"His name is Aslan Schimizzi," Ranger said. "He's different."

"How different is different?"

"Let's just say that our paths don't usually cross on US soil."

"What's he doing helping us out?"

"I called my usual handler and told him I needed someone to gather some evidence," he said, "He showed up."

Ranger and I went back to the truck, and we got directions to the pool, which is where we were informed that we could find Sadie Moore. She wasn't in the pool but rather, beside it, with a swim coach.

"You really think that this is going to make a difference?" The coach was asking.

"I do," Sadie said.

"The other suit is quicker," the coach said.

"She's more comfortable in this one," Sadie said. "That matters."

"It was her idea to get the new suit," the coach said.

"I know," Sadie said. She put her stuff down and pulled out a notebook, "Look at this guy here. Batter J has an insane slugging percentage. You can pretty much guarantee that if there is someone on base when he's at-bat, that person is making it home. Pitchers hate it when he gets up to the plate, you see them get visibly shaken when the bases are loaded, and he's on deck. He gets an inordinate number of wild pitches sent his way. Last year, he had one that grazed his chin. A month later, he comes up to the plate wearing one of these chin guard things you see on the helmets. His idea. Says he's in his own head about the pitch that nearly hit him in the face. He cannot hit the broad side of a barn while he's wearing it. Whether it's because he's thinking about why he's wearing it, or if it's because it's uncomfortable, or he's just not used to it, who knows. He took it off a month later, and he has three back to back multi-homerun games. And his average goes up to what it was before he put the thing on."

"Baseball and swimming are different sports."

"Which is why I'm modifying the math, but the principals can be applied because, like baseball, individual performance is what matters. You can have an entire team that's on fire, and have one guy blow it for everyone."

Ranger and I approached, and they looked at us.

"Hi, can we help you?" Sadie asked.

"I'm Stephanie Manoso; I'm a private investigator," I handed Sadie my card. "Can we talk?"

"What about?" She asked.

"A missing person," I said. That she had no idea what I was talking about blew my mind. It would be the first thing that jumped into my head if someone told me they were a private investigator, and someone I knew had gone missing under suspicious circumstances. "Is there somewhere we can talk?"

"Do you mind if I sit in as well?" The coach asked.

"No," Sadie said. The coach called one of her assistants over to record times, and we went into the coach's office to talk.

"Can I just get your name?" I asked the coach.

"Oh yeah, sorry. Laurel Gulahorn." Laurel was about five-four and wearing a tracksuit and sneakers. Her hair was cut short and slicked back. She perched on the edge of her desk and put a hand on Sadie's shoulder in support. She knew why we were here. I'm sure of it. "I'm going to want your card. Just in case."

"Yeah, sure," I said. I handed Laurel a card, and she sized me up. I don't think she liked the look of me because she didn't relax her posture in the slightest.

"You said this was about a missing person?" Sadie asked, "And you think it's connected to me somehow?"

"It's about Waldo Dickerson," I said.

"Oh God has something happened to one of his students? If you think he's involved, you're dead wrong. He's a good man, and…"

"No we're looking for Waldo Dickerson," I said.

"He's not missing," Sadie said, clearly confused, "We're supposed to be having dinner together tonight. He just confirmed via email this morning."

"You're joking," I said.

"No," she said, "We meet once a month to talk about my research. Usually, it's at my mom's house so they can catch up afterward, and so we can use her pool. But Mom's in New York this week, so we decided to make arrangements to meet here."

"How often do you meet away from your mother's house?"

"I dunno," she said, "Three times maybe. I make an effort to go home because mom is lonely but sometimes I can't, so he comes here."

"You're sure he emailed you this morning to confirm?"

"Yes," she said.

"I think you had better sit down," Ranger said.

"What? Why?"

"Sit down, Miss Moore," Ranger said. I got Laurel's office chair and wheeled it around to Sadie. She sat, and Ranger crouched down to her eye level. "We have reason to believe that the man you are meeting with tonight is not Waldo Dickerson. A few weeks ago, he was taken against his will, and the last person to see him said he had sustained injuries that would suggest that it's doubtful that he will be found alive."

"What?" She said. "You're wrong. There must be another Waldo Dickerson."

"Have you actually spoken to him since the last time you saw him?" Ranger asked.

"No," she said. "We email."

Ranger showed her the picture of Dickerson from our file, and she started to cry. "What happened? Who would want to hurt him? He's a science teacher."

"I don't know," I said, "That's what we're trying to find out. The police have hit nothing but dead ends, which is why we're running down leads."

"What do you need from me?"

"Can you tell me how you know him?" I asked.

"He's an old friend of my mom's," she said. "They were engaged in college, but then he had his accident, and he broke it off. Mom was heartbroken and moved to New York as soon as she graduated. That's when she met my dad. When daddy got hurt during 9/11, he had to go to physiotherapy, and it turned out that Uncle Wally was in the same facility for rehab after shoulder replacement surgery. Dad was being a total bastard to mom, and Uncle Wally told him that one of the biggest mistakes he ever made was pushing mom away and told him to get his act together. It worked, and dad was better for a while, and then when he was dying, Wally hung out with me during all of his appointments, and he would come to get me when things were getting really hard, just to take me away from it."

"And he and your mother are just friends now?"

"Yes," she said. "I'd love it if they got together, but mom says they aren't like that anymore, and he loves Bernadette so much."

"The last time you saw him, did he seem upset about anything?"

"He corked the wine, and it pissed him off," she said, "But he seemed normal. He seemed like he always does when we are working."

"Why is he advising you? Shouldn't you be under the supervision of one of your professors?"

"Oh, I do have a professor looking over my shoulder. It's just that Wally is the one who developed some of the math I'm using, and why read about his work when I can get it from the horse's mouth? You're sure he's not just hiding somewhere?"

"There is a very slim chance he's hiding, but the odds are against it," Ranger said. "And I say this, knowing that I'm speaking to a statistician."

"But he emailed me yesterday. He answered a question not just anyone could answer and he… He's a science teacher. He's never hurt anyone and…"

"We're trying to get to the bottom of it," Ranger said. "Knowing what we know, I don't like that someone is arranging to meet you. I'm the owner of a security firm. I'd like to put some men on you to see to your protection."

"You don't think someone is trying to hurt me, do you?"

"I think something about your relationship with Dickerson has them concerned. It could be that he's alive and they want to use you as a way to pressure him because they can't get at Bernadette. I don't know. I don't want to take the risk."

"What about mom?" She asked.

"I have a branch in New York; if you call her and let her know they are coming, I can have men protecting her in less than an hour," Ranger said.

While they were making arrangements, I looked up at the coach for the first time since we started talking to Sadie. She was doing an excellent job of remaining stoic, but she looked shaken. I caught her eye, and she nodded at the door. We slipped out of the office and into the empty corridor.

"Did you know Dickerson?" I asked.

"Yes," she said. "We were students here at the same time."

"Wow," I said, "It's one big happy family here."

"When we started school here, it was really small. There was no anonymity, all of the professors knew all of the students, and we all looked out for one another. There are quite a few of us from that era who ended up on the staff in one capacity or another."

"Why didn't Dickerson?"

"Because he said that he would never step foot on this campus again after he graduated," she said.

"Why?"

"Because his accident wasn't an accident," she said. "You're looking for people who want to hurt him?"

"Yes," I said.

"Ed Settle, John Lewis, Gary Gadsden, and Jerry Caruso," she said. "You're going to want to look into them."

"Why?" I asked.

"Waldo's research wasn't for any assignment. I guess he got really into baseball stats thanks to the influence of a surrogate father figure he had growing up. Anyway, this guy liked to talk player stats, but his application of them was kind of, well it was more guess work than anything. Waldo got really into doing the deeper analysis stuff, and that's when he got into sabermetrics. When he got to University, he used to watch everything about himself that he could get his hands on. He'd watch footage of himself when he played, and he was always tweaking things based on what he saw, in himself and other players."

"That's good right?"

"Yeah, but the other guys on the team razzed him about it because he was always arguing with the coaches when they'd tell him to drop an elbow or adjust his stance, or whatever. One night, we were hanging out at someone's house, and we were watching Eight Men Out. There had been a lot of drinking going on, and they got into a heated discussion about the Black Socks Scandal. Waldo said that if he could get his hands on their statistics from that season, he could prove once and for all if they were playing to their full potential. They bet him that he couldn't. The pot got up to $200, and Waldo spent two weeks going over data and then testing his math against dozens of teams. They took it to one of his professors, and he said that the Math was sound. Waldo exonerated the Black Socks posthumously. I think someone else did it years later too, but Wally did it first. Anyway, when he did that, a couple of his teammates got interested in what Wally was doing with his math. He explained how it worked, and he decided hell, maybe he could help the entire team. He did, and he ran the statistics, and realized, that something was fishy. Our guys were dominating that season, and we weren't losing games, but he knew something wasn't right. At first, he thought some guys were just phoning it in, saving their energy for the playoffs, but he came across proof that they were cheating."

"Do you know what?"

"No," she said, "He agonized about it for days. Poor Abby didn't know what to do with him and said that he was an absolute wreck. In the end, he told the coach?"

"What happened?"

"Nothing," she said. "Absolutely nothing. Then a week later, Wally's car was pushed into oncoming traffic, and he ended up in the hospital. He nearly lost his place in the school because he'd missed so much time. They said he failed all of his classes. It wasn't until his lawyers threatened to sue the school that they let him back in, and they reinstated part of his scholarship."

"I was told that a car drifted into his lane," I said.

"No," she said. "Some asshole drove up the shoulder and pushed his car into oncoming traffic. The only witness to the accident was the driver of the car he collided with, but the man was in absolutely no condition to testify to that. He suffered from severe head trauma. Wally was lucky."

"He told you about the other car?"

"He told his girlfriend," she said. "And he told Calvin Darren."

"Who's that?"

"Calvin was the assistant pitching coach at the time," she said. "He and Wally were close, and he was one of the few members of the team that visited him in the hospital. Calvin hit the roof when he found out that they were going to kick Wally out of school. He's part of the reason why they backed down. He wrote a signed letter to Wally's lawyer telling him that he'd just sat through a meeting where they discussed expelling him before he had a chance to blow the whistle on the cheating scandal."

"Do you know where I can find Mr. Darren?"

"He's head of athletics. He has an office on the other side of this building."

Ranger came out of the office, looking grim.

"We can't reach Mrs. Moore," Ranger said. "Green is on his way here to pick up Sadie. I want to stay here until I've got a team ready."

"I should go in and sit with her," Laurel said. She went back into her office, and I looked up at Ranger.

"Were you expecting any of this?" I asked.

"Nope," he said. "But we need to get Sadie to safety."

"You don't want to use her as bait, try and draw out whoever this is?"

"Given the heat they were packing at the warehouse, no. I don't think the risk is worth it. What I am regretting is that there are not more women in my employ."

"Why?" I asked. "Besides the fact that you should have way more women working for you."

"Because my men stand out," Ranger said. "Even dressed casually, they are threatening. I need someone less conspicuous to sit around and watch the bar for anyone suspicious. I'd use you, but they know you and Connie. I could ask Molly, but I don't think she'll go for it."

"I have more questions to ask around campus," I said. Ranger bent down and drew his backup weapon from his ankle -holster, and handed it to me. I put it in my bag, regretting that I'd chosen to wear a dress today.

"Be careful," he said. "I'll be watching."

I nodded, and he looked pointedly at my watch. He'd given it to me in Florida, and in addition to being a GPS tracker, it had an emergency beacon that would broadcast to all of Rangeman if I was in trouble and another little feature that would transmit to Ranger only. He pulled an earpiece out of his pocket and put it in his ear, and then I pressed the button that got him only.

"Do you think Abby is in trouble?"

"I don't know. But I will rest easier when one of my men has eyes on her. I want to take them both into protective custody."

"See if she'll go for it," I said. Ranger gave me a subtle thumbs up to let me know the sound check was working. I walked away and thought about the first time we'd done a sound check before a job, and sighed. "The watch takes all of the fun out of being wired."

I'd like to think I made Ranger smile, but I was too far away to be sure.

Calvin Darren wasn't in his office when I went looking for him. One of the batting coaches saw me knocking on the door to his office, and led me to the dugout, where Darren was laughing with some of the other coaches. If I had to guess, he wasn't that much older than Dickerson was.

Darren was about six-four and had arms that appeared slightly longer than was proportionate to the rest of his body. He had the same sort of stalky build that my father had, suggesting that he was relatively fit, but had enough of a gut on him to let you know that the only six-pack he was worried about was the one in his fridge and not the one that used to be under his shirt.

"If you're here looking for one of the boys, you're out of luck. They know better than to even look at a woman during practice. They'll all be at Spud's bar later," Darren said when he saw me.

"I'm going to pretend that means you think I look young enough to be an undergraduate," I said.

"Well you can start university at any age, can't you?" He said, with a genial smile. "Calvin Darren, what can I do for you?"

"I'm Stephanie Manoso," I said. "I'm the private investigator who's been hired to look into a missing person case, and I was told you might have a lead for me."

"You're a private investigator?" He said incredulously.

"Yep," I said. I guess that phrase carried more weight when I had Ranger behind me, looking scary. "I work for a private security firm in Trenton, and one of our clients' husbands has gone missing under suspicious circumstances. The police have run out of leads, so she's asked us to do what we can."

"Can I see a card or identification of some kind?" He asked.

I handed him my card, and he looked at it.

"Well no shit," he said. "I've actually heard of these guys."

"The boss will be happy to hear it," I said.

Something caught his eye, and he looked out onto the field, "Dammit," he said and turned to the guy he'd been chatting too. "I think Vern's shoulder is acting up again; want to go remind him why we have trainers on staff, and that if he doesn't handle it, it's only going to get worse?"

The guy jogged out of the dugout, and Darren looked at me. "Who's missing?"

"Waldo Dickerson," I said. The effect was immediate, and he sat down hard, looking pale. I got him a cup of some exceptionally pink sports drink from a big cooler, and brought it to him.

"You're joking," he said.

"I'm not," I said. "We've reason to believe there's been foul play, and we're trying to figure out who might have a motive to hurt him. One of the people I've spoken to says that his car accident wasn't an accident and that there was some kind of incident in the weeks before it that may have motivated it?"

"Yes," he said. "But it was decades ago."

"We were told that you two were close? I thought maybe he might have told you something he hasn't told anyone else."

"Until I got married, I was a talent scout for the Angels, but then my wife came along, and she got pregnant, and I didn't want to be on the road all of the time, so I accepted an assistant pitching coach job here. Waldo and I used to talk statistics all of the time."

"I understood that Dickerson was an outfielder? How did you get close?"

"You know how you just gel with some people? We were like that. You could tell that he had that quality that makes a star ballplayer. He was the backbone of the team. If a player were in a slump, he'd spend hours going over stats, and tape, to see if he could pinpoint the problem, and help them. He lived and breathed this game, and so did I."

"What happened to change that? I mean what would motivate him to switch to teaching math and science when I'm sure with his skills, he could have done what you did, and found a job in the profession?"

"At first, he was going to. Actually, he was talking helping out with the coaching staff for the remainder of the season, and talking to his physiotherapist about rehab, and possibly learning a new way to throw or hit the ball, since his range of motion was going to be greatly diminished. He's tall, so there was even talk about switching to first base, or shortstop, so he wouldn't have to throw the ball as far."

"But none of that happened."

"No," he said. "And when everything started to go sideways for him, it beat him down enough that I think, in the end, it just broke his heart."

"Can you tell me what happened when he brought the cheating to your attention?"

"The test he developed, to help determine if the White Socks threw the game, he applied it to our team and discovered that four of our star players were not playing up to their potential. We were on a championship run, and we were hot, so obviously they weren't throwing games. He thought maybe they were slacking off against weaker teams. I mean you're not going to play your hardest against guys that you can beat blindfolded. He figured that must be it, but then I guess he heard something at a party how someone was pissed off that we'd not covered the spread in our most recent victory. He did some digging and realized that we didn't cover the spread a lot of the time. A lot more than was typical. Instead of coming to me with it, he confronted the players involved."

"What happened?"

"They offered him a cut to keep his mouth shut. They told him that he didn't have to sacrifice his own stats, or stop playing to his full potential, he just had to shut his trap. He didn't. He went to the head coach and showed him what he found. The coach told him he didn't have proof, just suspicion. He wasn't going to rock the boat that late in the season and he said we had to focus on winning and if what they were doing was keeping them sharp, as long as we weren't losing, he didn't give a rat's ass. Waldo couldn't live with that. On the day of his accident, he was on his way back from visiting my predecessor as head of athletics. They had us bench the players involved, and we played until we were eliminated, and then they were investigated and expelled. It was done quietly."

"What about what happened to Dickerson?" I said, "He was going to be expelled too?"

"At first, that wasn't the case. They were going to honor Wally's scholarship, and he was going to be fine, but he insisted that what happened to him wasn't an accident; that it was done to shut him up. He wanted to go to the league and tell them what was going on. That's when my predecessor told him that they were taking his scholarship from him. He was more or less accused of being part of the gambling ring, and that he was being removed from the team and was no longer allowed at the school. That's when I wrote the letter to his lawyer, and they backed down. He graduated, and he left here swearing he wanted nothing to do with the school or the sport again."

"But now he's working with a student in the school," she said.

"Yep," he said. "Could have knocked me over with a feather when he turned up on campus to watch the games with Sadie. We had a beer afterward, and he said he was only here for her. I asked if he thought she was his; considering who her mother is, I thought it was a possibility."

"And?"

"He said that was just another part of his life that got fucked up by this school. He said it was for the best though. He was married to this woman he's crazy about."

"Do you think these guys might be the ones behind his disappearance?"

"It's possible. It won't be either of my predecessors, because they are dead," he said. "The guys he got expelled? Maybe. Who knows if they amounted to much after school?"

"How does Greg Neudendorf fit into this picture?"

"He was our mascot back then," He said, "So he'd know all of the players involved, and I'm pretty sure he was close to Ed Settle."

"But he wasn't part of the gambling ring?"

"Not so far as I know," he said.

"Thanks," I said. "When was the last time you saw Dickerson?"

"About a month ago," he said. "He was here with Sadie, and they were laughing about something."

"Baseball related?"

"Wedding," he said. "She asked him to walk her down the aisle. She told me that he'd been a father to her since her dad died."

"Waldo's wife had absolutely no idea she existed. Any idea why?"

"No, I can't imagine why he'd keep her a secret. Even if Sadie were his, Bernadette came along well after Sadie was born, so it's not like she's the result of an affair."

"What do you think of Sadie's research?" I asked.

"It'll be interesting to see if she can do what she says she can do. As far as I know, sabermetrics can only be applied to baseball, and there have to be other statistical measurements in place for other sports, so why is she reinventing the wheel?" He stopped to watch a pitcher throw a couple of warm-up throws, and he excused himself and jogged out to the mound. I couldn't think of anything else to ask him, so I left him to his coaching.

I was about to leave the dugout, when I saw a binder sticking out from under a bag on the bench. Nobody was looking, and there were no visible cameras around, so I shoved the bag and flipped the binder open. It wasn't a playbook if anything, the pages I'd flipped to looked like a bookie's ledger. I shoved the whole binder into my messenger bag and left.