AN: Thank you all for your reviews and comments! I'm going to make an effort to update on Tuesdays, hopefully I can get this wrapped up before Christmas. Thanks for your patience! Insert usual disclaimers.

Ranger and I got into the car and made for New Jersey without bothering to go back to Rangeman Boston. Detective Ross called about an hour into the drive, and Ranger answered over the Bluetooth.

"Didn't feel like staying for the rest of the interrogation?" She asked. She was enough like me that her attempt to sound nonchalant failed miserably.

"Something came up," Ranger replied.

"Well, do you mind if I swing by your place so I can ask your wife a couple of questions?"

"I got an alert the moment you arrived at Rangeman, so I know you're aware that we aren't there," Ranger said.

"And where are you?"

"Well out of your jurisdiction."

She did some impressive cursing and then hissed, "She's a suspect in a murder. She cut a man's head off. Do you really want to protect someone like that?"

"IT WAS A RUBBER HEAD!" I shouted. "IT WASN'T REAL, AND HE WAS SHOOTING AT US!"

"Babe," Ranger said. He either wanted me to keep my cool or shut up. Or both. Probably both. I was seething. Neudendorf was totally trying to throw me under the bus, and he was doing it in a stupid way. I mean, everything was irrefutable. I had tons of evidence to back me up as being innocent. And as for Joe getting busted in the trafficking thing? He was probably undercover, and the minute Neudendorf pointed him out in a picture, they would look into it and discover that neither of us was up to anything shady. Neudendorf was just doing it to inconvenience me, and it was annoying as fuck.

"Funny thing about that," Ross said. "The police report mentions you throwing a head, but it says nothing about it being rubber."

"We were in a Halloween supply warehouse," I said.

"Babe," Ranger said again. This one was definitely a shut up, Stephanie. "The police report is incomplete. The head was rubber. At least a dozen police officers will testify to that."

"So, you're saying she's never killed, anyone?" Ross said.

"I didn't say that," Ranger said, "And I know you don't ask questions of that nature when you don't already have the answers."

"I would like to ask her some questions," Ross said.

"Nope," Ranger said and disconnected.

"I'm innocent of everything," I said. "I have proof that Bernadette hired me. I have proof that the head was fake and a million witnesses to everything. I'm not afraid to talk to her."

"I know," he said.

"So why not let her talk to me over the phone?"

"She knows the head was rubber. She was pushing your buttons so you would speak without thinking."

"Because she's jealous?"

"Unlikely. E.E. Martin was not just a random shot across the bow, babe. It's still an active case. The Feds are still questioning people about it. She wouldn't have called us without checking out Neudendorf's claims first."

"Why is it still open?" I asked. "It was mob-related, and they got everyone."

"There is talk that they were funding a terrorist cell. Whoever told Neudendorf to bring it up in connection with you, knew what they were doing. If she were to get you to implicate yourself somehow, the FBI would have no problem scooping you up for questioning. It could be a long time before they decided that you don't know anything."

"Shit," I said. "Who would know that E. E. Martin may be connected to Terrorism? Is it classified information?"

"It's supposed to be," Ranger said, grimly.

"Do I need a lawyer?"

"No," Ranger said. "When we get back to New Jersey, I'm going to make sure it stays that way."

I didn't bother asking how. He would make calls and call in some favours, and I wouldn't have to worry about anything.

With nothing else to do, I pulled out the binder I'd stolen from the dugout and started turning pages.

"What's that?"

"A bookie's ledger I found," I said.

"You stole a bookie's ledger?"

"I thought it was pretty weird that it was sitting in the dugout. Especially considering we are investigating a cheating scandal that involved betting."

The binder was well organized with tabbed and coded dividers, and besides the ledger, there were other tabs indicating rosters from other teams, game schedules, and then some equations I didn't recognize. "I wish I had the paperwork I got in Trenton. I could compare the math to the stuff that Wally used for fantasy baseball."

"I'm having it flown back to New Jersey tonight," Ranger said.

"I understand none of this math," I said. "It looks like a completely different language. Do you speak stats?"

"I can get by, but I'm not fluent."

"Do you know someone who is?"

"Lester," Ranger said.

"So we'll get him to look over it," I said.

"Lester's busy," Ranger said. A few hours later, Ranger surprised me by getting off of the interstate at Atlantic City. We were just outside of the city when he pulled into a condo complex on the waterfront, and we drove to an underground garage. He parked, and we got out.

"Where are we?" I asked.

"Later," he said.

He locked the car, and we went to an elevator. This wasn't one of Ranger's buildings. I knew that much, and he didn't even run the security on it. If the stickers on the door were any indication, The Atlas Brawn Corporation owned the building and provided protection. We got off on the 21st floor, into a nondescript hall that smelled like freshly cleaned carpets and had that deadened sound that you heard in nice hotels, where the accommodations were somewhat soundproofed. We walked down the corridor, and Ranger stopped in front of room 2121. It was in the middle of a hall, not on a corner or near a stairwell. Ranger reached into one of his many pockets, and pulled out a key ring, and flicked through them, retrieving the one for the door, and he let us in.

The apartment was about the size of my old one, but with an extra bedroom. A closet was to the left of the entrance, the kitchen to the right, and the rest of the place was open concept. The bedrooms were on opposite sides of the apartment; one was beside the kitchen, the other just off the great room. The kitchen overlooked a set of windows with a stunning floor to ceiling view of the ocean. The furniture was ordinary, a pair of dark brown club chairs and a caramel coloured sofa. There was a television on an IKEA tv stand, and an empty desk sat in the corner of the room. There were two simple metal bar stools at the kitchen counter, which was more or less the extent of it.

"Where are we?" I repeated.

"It's a safe house," he said. "We're going to take the first watch, looking after Abby Moore."

"Why?" I asked, "So I can question her?"

"That, and it won't be the first place anyone looks for us," he said. "It gives me time to ensure the feds don't come knocking on your door."

"Thanks for that. I hate when the Feds start asking me questions."

"You'd hate it even more if the Patriot Act landed you in Gitmo."

"Jeeze."

He pulled out his phone and wandered into the bedroom off of the kitchen. Presumably, it was to talk to whoever he spoke to when he didn't want to be inconvenienced by the police. I took the opportunity to poke through the kitchen cupboards to see if I could find something to snack on. I found an impressive supply of hard alcohol, a few bottles of wine in each colour, a cabinet with a selection of coffee pods, and a cupboard full of mugs and dishes. It would seem that the people of Rangeman thought the best way to keep their protectees quiet was to get them hammered and then subdue the hangovers with coffee. The fridge yielded a bottle of vodka and a ton of ice in the freezer, adding credence to my theory.

I, however, was hungry. I couldn't eat vodka, and I doubted Ranger would appreciate it if I got plastered while he was keeping me out of jail. What I did do was turn on the television so I could allow what happened with Neudendorf to percolate. I flicked through the channels until I saw Law and Order Re-runs that I could tune out and tried to force my brain to think.

I didn't have my laptop, so I did some wandering through various news organizations on the regular internet, trying to see if there was anything that fit Neudendorf's thing about a big drug bust involving the mob. It wouldn't surprise me at all to find Joe involved in something like that. He did a lot of undercover work with the mafia, but the police were usually able to keep his pictures out of the paper.

It took a bit of digging, but I finally found several two-year-old stories about a drug bust in Boston that had headlined a bunch of publications.

Some wise guys had been peddling a drug called Bubble Bath. They were effectively selling Bath Salts as Ecstacy. But these weren't the usual have hallucinations, feel good, doesn't mix well with alcohol, Bath Salts. There was something about either the concentration or the contamination (there were conflicting sources) of one of the ingredients (Street name Meow Meow) that more or less caused you to have a bad trip, fall into a puddle of your own bodily ooze, and die. The police formed a task force made up of detectives from across the country who either had dealings with organized crime or drugs (specifically Bubble Bath), and they worked together to bring down the ring. The Task Force was successful, and it was big news in Boston. I found one news report with a perp walk in it, and there was one guy, in a grainy image, that maybe could have been Morelli. His name wasn't in the caption, and it was possible that he had been undercover and was rounded up with the bad guys to protect his cover. There was an easy way to find out.

I picked up my cell phone and called Morelli.

"What?" He said.

"What do you know about Bubble Bath?" I asked, forgetting that context is sometimes a good thing, and as much as it may at times be convenient, people can't actually see inside my brain.

"Not much; I prefer showers because I don't have to hold my breath or worry about getting soap in my eyes."

"What?" I said, momentarily confused.

"If you think I'm taking a bubble bath alone, you don't really know me that well, Cupcake."

"Oh God," I said and rolled my eyes hard. "I meant bad Bath Salts with fucked up Meow Meow."

"First off, Bath Salts are fucked up enough, and second, it's a good thing I'm a cop, or I'd be worried you hit your head just now."

"Does that mean you know nothing about a Sting Operation in Boston where they busted a bunch of guys for dealing Bubble Bath as Ecstasy?

"Honestly Steph, I may have heard something about Bubble Bath in a briefing years ago, but I don't remember much. I know that it wasn't just sold as E; it was also marketed as Molly."

"Huh," I said. "So you weren't undercover in Boston when they shut down the guys peddling it?"

"Nope," he said.

"Have you ever worked in Boston Undercover?" I asked.

"I'm guessing this is going somewhere?" He said.

"Umm," I said.

He didn't say anything for a minute, and then I heard the distinct sound of aspirin being shaken out of a bottle, and what history told me was the sound of him counting to ten under his breath. "Is there something wrong, Stephanie?" He said, with a levity to his voice that wasn't at all convincing.

"Well, I don't wanna say until Ranger says the feds aren't going to lock me up in Gitmo for being a terrorist."

"I'm hanging up now," Joe said.

"It's probably a good idea," I said.

I sent the article to Minnie and asked him to get Hector to dig more into the case, to see if it was Morelli in the picture. Joe hadn't answered my question about being undercover in Boston, which was annoying. It wasn't crucial information, but it would be useful to have. Ranger walked out of the bedroom and put his phone down on the coffee table in front of me. "Well? Are you putting me into a bunker where the Feds can't find me?"

"You've been thoroughly investigated already," Ranger said. "You're clean."

"Wait, the Feds actually investigated me?" I said.

"As far as they know, they have."

"What the hell does that mean?"

"It means you have nothing to worry about." Ranger picked up a remote and turned off Law and Order. He pulled an app up on the screen, and the picture went to a fancy restaurant. He dialled another number on his phone and went to speaker.

"Which table are you giving her?" He asked.

Nobody answered, and Ranger just looked at the screen. As far as I could tell, the staff were doing regular restaurant things. Ranger saw something else, though. "No. I want her in front of the bar. I want to be able to make use of the mirror."

Something must have happened on the screen that was to his liking because he said, "Better."

"What are we watching?" I asked. Riveting television, it wasn't.

"The restaurant in Boston, where Sadie Moore is supposed to be meeting with Dickerson."

"Who is going to take her place?" I asked. "You're not using her as bait, are you?"

"No," he said. "We're just putting someone in the restaurant to observe."

"Who?" I asked.

"Molly."

"Joe is not going to like that," I said.

"She's just having dinner, and he'll be there with her."

"I was just talking to him, and he didn't say anything," I said.

"Did you ask him where he was?" Ranger asked.

"I…" I hadn't. "No. I wonder why he didn't say anything? Have you told him anything?"

"No," he said. "I told Molly I need her to sit in a restaurant in Boston wearing a button cam. She extorted me out of a nice hotel room, dinner, and a new dress. And Joe as protection."

"How did they get there so fast?" I asked.

"Helicopter," Ranger said.

"You have a helicopter?" I asked.

"I know a guy," Ranger said.

"Is that same guy bringing me back my stuff so I can get some work done?"

"Yep," Ranger said.

"How about food?"

There was a knock at the door, and Ranger grinned. He stood up and went to check the peephole. Then he opened the door, and in came Hal with a couple of canvas grocery bags.

"You're good," I said. Ranger grinned and then turned back to Hal.

"SitRep?"

"Ten minutes out," Hal said.

"You're downstairs," Ranger said.

Hal nodded and left. The grocery bags contained dinner packed by Ella. The containers were black, with Rangeman logos and our names put on the lids in vinyl decals. "Ella has a new toy?" I guessed.

"Yep. Her husband bought her a Cricut. She's putting decals on everything. All of the gym equipment now has its own Rangeman Logos in matte black vinyl."

"Be careful, or you're going to find all of the fleet vehicles with little stick figure families on them. Only they will be wearing black t-shirts and have bulging muscles…."

I froze mid-Tupperware decapitation. "Ranger… Miami… Can I PUH-LEASE…"

He grinned. "I'll call Ella," then he paused. He kissed me and walked out of the room again. When he came back in, he was looking highly entertained. "What have you done?"

"It's a surprise. Ella's on board. She was cackling when I got off of the phone with her."

I pulled my sandwich out of the container and watched Ranger mix some avocado into a salad. "Is that going to be enough to sustain you, big guy? You usually eat more at dinner than a salad."

"We had a big lunch."

That was true. Ranger watched the restaurant's activity with interest, but to me, it just looked like a bunch of people dining in a fancy restaurant. Now and then, the camera would move, and Ranger would call the voiceless person on his phone and give instructions.

"May I ask why Molly is going in with a camera if you already have this place wired for sound?" I asked. "I'm assuming you're going to have a million Rangemen in there…"

"We aren't," Ranger said. "And the place isn't wired for sound. What you're looking at is the feed from a camera in a toolbox. I've told the Maitre'd that we're going to have a client dining there tonight, and we need to make sure it's secure. We've told them she likes her security to be invisible, so we need to be able to make arrangements prior to her dinner reservation. We told him that for discretion's sake, we'd fake repairs to a light fixture."

"Can't you just leave a camera there? And pick it up later?"

"They've asked us not to film inside of the restaurant," Ranger said. "Or I would."

"Hide it?"

"This is easier and saves me from having to retrieve the camera," Ranger said. "It's also cheaper. The chopper flight is being done as a favour."

"Huh," I said. "A lot of people owe you some pretty big favours, don't they?"

"Yep," he said. "It's the nature of the business. Sometimes it's more prudent to pay in kind than cash."

"In the security business?"

"Mercenary," Ranger said. I was about to ask him what other kinds of favours people owed him when there was another knock on the door, and Ranger switched off the television.

Abigail Moore had arrived. She looked shaken as she took in the small apartment, her eyes wide. It had been difficult to appreciate her appearance from the distance Connie and I had been when we watched the Moore house. Now that I was seeing her up close, I was struck by how beautiful Abby was. Her hair that had looked burgundy under the lights of her patio was more of a rich brown wine colour in more neutral lighting. It was wavy, fell to her shoulders. She was one of those women who aged regally, like Susan Sarandon, or Jane Seymour. She wore wide-legged navy capris and a white sleeveless silk top.

She looked at me, and she looked at Ranger, "Waldo told me to trust you two. Is my daughter safe?"

"She and her fiancé are currently in a safe house in Boston."

"I want to see her."

"We'll be putting you all together out of state tomorrow. These are just emergency accommodations."

"Thank you," Abby said. "May I call her?"

"I want you speaking on secure phones," Ranger said. "I will place the call to the safe house. You may speak privately, but I will warn you that you need a code to dial out."

She nodded. Ranger led her to one of the bedrooms and came out a minute later. "She's scared of you," I said.

"Yep."

"Since I, apparently, make hedgehogs look badass, why don't I take first watch tonight?"

"We're both taking the first watch. I'll just be doing some work from the bedroom. Hal and Cal are taking the second watch."

"Cool," I said.

Ranger turned the television back on again, checked his watch, and sent a text telling his men to pack it in. The screen went fuzzy, and then a different feed came up. And we were looking at footage with better resolution. Instead of a restaurant, we were watching the inside of an elevator. From the angle of the camera, we were attached to Molly's purse. I knew we were getting the feed from Molly's bag because the elevator's walls were mirrored, and we were getting footage of Molly and Joe's reflections. She was wearing a black lace sleeveless dress, with a modest v-neck, and a ridiculously short skirt. Like Abby, her hair was in waves, but rather than look like she'd just stepped out of a salon, she looked as though she'd just fallen out of bed. She was wearing a stack of bracelets on one arm and ankle-breaking heels. Joe wore black slacks, a jacket, but no tie. His hair could use a cut, and he had his arm draped casually over Molly's shoulder.

The elevator opened, and Molly stepped out first; she turned her purse to face the end of the corridor to her left, and then she switched shoulders, so we were facing the right, then she walked into the restaurant.

"Did you tell her to do that?" I asked.

Ranger nodded.

"This is weird," I said.

"That's because you're not usually at this end of the wire," Ranger said.

Abby came out of her bedroom and looked at the television. "That's La Pirogue, Sadie's favourite restaurant," Abby said.

"It is," Ranger said. "We have someone inside tonight. Someone claiming to be Dickerson made arrangements to meet your daughter for dinner tonight. We'd like to know who."

"Is your person on the inside, one of your men? Because he's going to stand out." She took one of the bar stools from the kitchen counter and brought it behind the sofa so she could watch the television without squishing between Ranger and I.

"It's his cousin's little sister," I said. "She's doing it as a favour."

"It's no favour. The shoes she's wearing cost more than your last month's rent," Ranger said.

"Are you mad that she extorted you out of the shoes to go with the dress?" I asked.

"Proud," Ranger replied.

I grinned. There weren't many people in the world who were willing to stand up to Ranger, and even fewer that would dare to extort him. That one of them was a petite woman, who arranged flowers for a living, would be the sort of thing that tickled his fancy.

Molly and Joe were seated, and after menus were placed, we heard Molly speak to the Maitre'd in French. The man replied in the same language, with a laugh, and the only word I recognized was Louvre. "What are they talking about?" I asked.

"I'm not getting all of it," Ranger said. "They are speaking with heavy Parisienne accents. Essentially they are discussing gardens in Paris and Lavender fields in the South."

"I thought you spoke French?" I said.

"Mine is formal, less conversational. I pretty sure that she just told the waiter that Joe has a nice ass, and it makes up for his lack of linguistic skills."

The Maitre'd laughed and left.

"That was unnecessary," Joe said, sounding amused.

"Entirely," Molly said. "But you like it when I speak French."

"I really do," Joe said. "Are they recording audio?"

"Oui," Molly replied.

Then Joe began speaking in Italian, and Molly burst out laughing.

"I don't want to know, do I?' I said.

"I've no idea; it's not a language I speak," Ranger said.

"Do you need a translation?" Abby asked. "I speak it a little."

"No, it's fine," I said.

"All it was, was a little flirting. She more or less told him that he's rusty and needs to work on his grammar. He's saying he's never had any complaints before, and she's giving him a hard time about it. It's kind of cute. And she's right…and oh. That was really naughty."

You would expect the shocking language to have come from Joe, but it was entirely Molly.

"She's from New Jersey originally," Ranger said.

I was grateful that I couldn't understand the flirting because it would have added more awkwardness to watching Joe on a date. Ranger checked his watch and sent a text.

"Is fake Dickerson late?" I asked.

"No," Ranger said. "This is related to something else."

"Leave your purse," Joe said. Then Joe turned the camera to scan the room. "She's fucking nervous about this. You know how she feels about going out to dinner."

Ranger texted Joe.

She sounds fine.

"Did you see her makeup?"

Ranger looked at me.

"What?" I asked.

"What did Molly's makeup look like? I wasn't paying attention."

"It was cool actually. She had this funky smoky eye; kind of green to black. Her eyeliner had this slight double wing to it."

"Her lipstick wasn't one shade either," Abby said. "I thought it was kind of interesting, actually. A subtle ombre of nudes."

"Is any of that difficult to accomplish?

Abby and I both nodded. Molly's makeup game was strong.

He texted Joe again. Point Taken.

"What was that about?" I asked.

"Molly uses makeup as body armour. The more nervous she is about something, the more elaborate her makeup. There are exceptions to the rule, but a date is not one of them."

He told Joe to scan the restaurant again and texted him back that everything was clear. Molly returned from the restroom and sat back down at the table. She pointed the camera back to the Maitre'D's booth, and the date resumed. The chef came to their table, and more French was spoken, and their menus were taken away.

"He's making us something special," Molly said. "I've let him know of your gluten substitute allergy and told him that you eat anything."

A few minutes later, the waiter returned with plates. Molly made a joke about amuse bouches. Then she informed us all that beets were her favourite root vegetable. About halfway through their appetizers, Ranger told us it was time for Sadie's reservation.

"Tell me if you recognize anyone," Ranger said to Abby. She nodded, and we paid more attention to the image of the stand than the date we were eavesdropping on. An hour passed, and Molly spoke.

"Ric, I can't eat anymore, and if I keep drinking, I'm going to get hammered. I'm ordering coffee, but then I'm going to have to call it. I've been on enough bad dates recently to know that whoever this is we're waiting for has stood you up. Sorry dude."

Dude sounded wrong coming from her mouth. Her accent made it seem all unnatural. Both Abby and I made a face. Then Joe said. "Sweetheart, we've already discussed this; you can't say, dude."

"Aww I thought it came off natural that time. I've been practicing with Tony, and he says I've almost got it."

"No," Joe, Abby and I said at the same time.

"Damn."

The coffee came, and Joe and Molly wrapped it up. There was nobody in the hallway, and there was nobody in the elevator when they went down. Joe and Molly were on the street, getting into a cab when Abby jumped from her chair behind the sofa. "There!" She shouted. "There in the alley!"

But the feed went dead as Joe killed the camera.

"What did you see?" Ranger asked.

"Wally! I saw him in the alley!"