Chapter 18

Stephanie looked at her dining room table with the box of donuts in the center. The group of six was sitting looking for the world like a group of casual friends, sharing donuts and coffee. That was everyone but Cally had coffee. Her daughter had reverted to a childhood habit of chocolate milk.

Two Boston Crème's had settled Stephanie's emotions. The thought of treadmill time flittered through her brain and was dismissed as Althea Whittaker, Tank's very attractive friend, stood and cleared her throat. She was petite and dressed informally in a white blouse tucked into dark indigo jeans. Her accessories were conservative. Several fine gold chains around her neck and matching gold hoops in her ears. A gold wristwatch, its simplicity belying its cost. She exuded power and authority and yet somehow managed to be non-threatening. Stephanie didn't know what was coming but she thought she'd handle it okay. She was in the presence of family, and some old and new friends and that was a comforting thought.

"I think you all know one another," Althea said, "so let me introduce myself. I'm Althea Whittaker. Pierre, that is, Tank, and I became acquainted with one another when we worked together on an undercover op for a government agency. This was slightly before his full-time employment with Ranger began. When Tank left the agency for work in the private sector, I stayed on with the government, and eventually began to work for the WITSEC program. I now head up the Federal program. Not all states participate. Some have their own WITSEC program, but New Jersey is under the Federal government program, and was at the time of your husband's death, Stephanie." Althea looked at Tank and he picked up the narrative and spoke directly to Stephanie.

"When Cally made the connection and realized that her patient, Carlos, was the same man you'd known as Ranger, she told both Ranger and me the story as she remembered you telling it, Steph. We thought maybe she didn't remember all the information correctly, because some of the things she said conflicted with the way Ranger and I know things are handled. The biggest point of confusion was with the name of your WITSEC contact, Brian. Cally couldn't be sure of Brian's last name, but Ranger suggested it might be Gregg."

Stephanie nodded. "It is Brian Gregg. You asked me that last night, but you already knew?" she asked Ranger.

"I suspected," Ranger said.

"I'll explain," Tank said. "Based on what Cally told us, using the name Ranger gave us, I started doing some investigating. I contacted Althea, and she agreed to help."

"I did," Althea said. "I suggested we contact you immediately to get all of the details, but Tank thought it best we try to leave you out of it for a time, as Ranger hadn't yet made his presence known to you. To be perfectly honest, my main reason for agreeing to investigate was to make sure nothing untoward had been going on in my department—something against rules being done without my knowledge or authority. I'll share what we've learned, but first I think it would be good if we were all working on the same page. I'd like you to tell us everything as you remember it, Stephanie. And then I'd like to hear Ranger's side of the story."

Althea paused to look at Stephanie, and when their eyes met, she gave the woman an encouraging smile. Stephanie looked toward Ranger, and then toward her daughter. Mother and daughter shared eye contact briefly, before Stephanie gave an almost imperceptible nod. "Yes," she said softly. "I can retell the story."

Althea turned to Ranger. "Are you amenable to participation?"

"I am," Ranger said.

"Good, then let's start with you, Stephanie. Just take your time and tell things as you remember. Tank and I may interrupt with questions, and so can anyone else that might have one. This is very informal." Althea sat down and pulled two legal pads out of the open briefcase at her side. She slid one to Tank and kept the other for herself.

"Now just start at the beginning and tell the story, Stephanie," Althea said. And so she did. Occasionally she noticed Tank or Althea, taking notes. Luke sat back and listened intently his attention shifting from Stephanie to Cally and back. Ranger sat to Stephanie's left, unmoving, and unquestioning. She'd thought maybe he'd ask for clarification, or detail on some points, but he remained quiet.

When she finished, Althea thanked her and stood, once again taking charge of the meeting. Stephanie was grateful she hadn't had to stand during the telling of her story. She thought she'd gotten through it well. Her main concern was for Cally and how her daughter would deal with the retelling, but Cally had remained calm, outwardly at least.

"Stephanie, what I'm about to say may be alarming to you. I think it's best to just get it out into the open. I'm about to confirm something Ranger suspects. So, let me just say that Brian Gregg, is not now nor was ever a part of any WITSEC team. I have done extensive research and there is no indication that you and your daughter were ever part of any WITSEC program."

"Wh-what!" Stephanie exclaimed. "That's not right. We were. Brian helped us with a new identity. He let me pick the general area where we were going but he arranged everything. And he did it quickly."

"I'm not saying that he didn't do it," Althea responded. "I'm just saying that it wasn't done under the office of WITSEC."

"If not WITSEC then what?" Cally asked. "Are our identities not real? How can this be?" Although she seemed just as surreally calm as everyone else at the table, Stephanie heard the anxiety in her voice. And why wouldn't she be anxious. She had no memory of ever being Cally Morelli. What Stephanie still thought of as her new identity was the only one Cally had ever known.

Ranger must have heard the anxiety, too. He reached across the table and clasped Cally's hand and he spoke with tenderness. "Your identity is real, Cally. I can assure you of that."

Cally pointed to Aletha. "But she said it wasn't WITSEC who brought us here."

"No," Ranger said. "I don't think it was. Let me tell my part of the story." He turned to Stephanie and continued. "At the time of your accident, Brian Gregg was my handler," Ranger said. "He ran an agency that had no name. It didn't exist on any bureaucratic list. There were only a handful of specially selected men that worked under his authority. Of those men I was the only one for whom he acted as handler, because I was the best. I was frequently the only one who could do the job, and the nature of the work was such that he felt the need to keep very close tabs on me."

"You were the only one?" Stephanie asked. She'd always been curious about the times he was in the wind. Lula had told her that every time Ranger was in the wind a government of a third world country collapsed. Stephanie had laughed at the time but now, she wondered.

"I was the only one with the capability of doing the job, and of blending in completely with the local fauna." He let the hint of a smile curve his lips at both Stephanie and Cally's quizzical expression.

"Most of the work was done in Latin America, and certain groups had to be infiltrated," he said. "And most times the probability was that I wouldn't return."

"Why would you do that?" Stephanie asked.

Ranger shrugged. "I needed capital for RangeMan. I know you remember the time when the Porsche was smashed one day, and the BMW was stolen the next day."

Tank chuckled softly, and both Cally and Luke looked very interested as they watched Stephanie's flush and nod.

"For what I was paid for an average job, I could have replaced those vehicles ten times over."

"Regarding the identity change," Tank said. "Both Ranger and I have multiple identities that were given to us by various organizations in the government…and they remain ours even after we've finished whatever job we used them on. Just because your paperwork came through Ranger's handler, from an organization that had no name, doesn't mean it's not real. But we need to get to the next point of the discussion. What is the connection between Brian Gregg, Ranger, Joe Morelli and the two of you?" He pointed at first Stephanie and then Cally.

"Do you know what the connection is?" Stephanie asked.

"No," Tank said. "We came across a lead, but there might be a problem with following that lead."

"What kind of problem?" Ranger asked tersely. "A safety issue?"

"Yeah, man, if you'd just answered your damn phone you wouldn't be hearing this for the first time. I mean there must be a Trenton connection. Everyone who has looked into Joe Morelli's death in recent times is now…dead."

"What do you mean?" Stephanie asked, hating the tremor in her voice. This wasn't going the way she thought it would.

"Mom, Ben's death may not have been an accident." Cally words were stark and Stephanie recoiled as though they had physically struck her.

"Someone knows who you are? In Trenton, I mean."

"I don't think so," Cally said. "But Ben thought he was doing me a favor. He was being discreet, but he asked some questions about my dad. He met with some cops he knew through his father, and they remembered Joe Morelli. I think Ben mentioned the accident, but he didn't talk about you or me. Mainly he just asked questions about the department. Then Ben had his accident…"

Tank continued his story. "To start out with, I called Silvio to see what he could get on Brian Gregg. I wasn't expecting to hit on anything, but I did. Silvio sent me all the background files he could safely get his hands on regarding Gregg. All the time Gregg was doing background reports on his operatives, someone was checking him out. There was a name that jumped out at me."

Instead of continuing his story, Tank reached a big hand out and plucked a donut from the box. He took a bite as the others at the table stared, waiting for him to continue.

"Well?" Ranger asked.

"I'm just trying to think how to word this correctly. It's a little sensitive," Tank said.

"What Tank discovered," Althea continued, "is that Brian Gregg had a long-time girlfriend. He didn't discover it in the files of background checks he received from his friend Silvio, but rather from some personal files of Mr. Gregg's. Files that had been deleted, by Mr. Gregg prior to his recent retirement, but still information that Silvio was able to recover. I don't know Silvio, but I think you owe him a big debt of gratitude, Ranger."

"Gregg was a smart son-of-a-bitch," Tank said. "But he was arrogant, too. He was able to keep his private life…private, which was a good thing for him. If his superiors had known the identity of his girlfriend, he'd have been gone, at the minimum. More likely, he'd have been prosecuted and jailed. What he couldn't do was refrain from keeping some pretty detailed files about what he was doing. I don't know how Silvio got the information, but what is in those files makes things a lot clearer. I haven't had time to study them, but I will, and then maybe we will have all the details."

"His girlfriend?" Ranger asked.

"That's why I was trying to call you. To tell you. Brian Gregg was in bed with the mob, literally. Terry Gilman. His woman was Terry Gilman."

Stephanie's indrawn breath was the only sound around the table. Cally and Luke looked interested but confused. Stephanie glanced sideways at Ranger and she knew at once, he didn't know. When she met Tank's eyes, she knew that he was in full knowledge of the circumstance.

"Who is Terry Gilman?" Cally asked.

"She's a mob boss in Trenton," Ranger said.

"Her grandfather was the last of the old time shoot-em-up style mob bosses in Trenton," Tank said. "He saw something in Terry from an early age and he had a strong hand in her education. She was trained from childhood. She's intelligent, ruthless, and now runs her late Grandpa Vito's empire. Rumor is she runs it with an iron hand. And she was your father's girlfriend."

"What!" Cally exclaimed. "My father was a cop. A detective, and Mom! You said he was a good cop. Are you saying he was a dirty cop?"

"No," Ranger said. "Your father had a relationship with Terry when she was in high school, and maybe after, but it ended before her role in the business became well-known. The fact that Brian Gregg had a relationship with her as well is apparently another coincidence that we will have to investigate."

"You don't believe in coincidence," Stephanie said.

"I don't," he agreed.

Stephanie looked at Tank, whether for permission or courage, she wasn't sure, but he nodded, and she took that as a sign to tell her secret. She looked apologetically at her daughter.

"When I was pregnant," she said softly, "Joe started seeing Terry again. I found out about it, because back then it was impossible to keep something like that a secret in the Burg. Someone saw them, and the gossip chain started, and eventually I heard. When I confronted him about it, he said it was just physical. He didn't care about her and he loved me. There was trouble with the pregnancy and we, I mean, I couldn't..." Stephanie stopped and willed herself not to blush.

"It's okay, Mom." Cally stood from the table and came around to squat behind Stephanie's chair. They looked at one another for a long time before Cally whispered in her ear. "It's okay, Mom. We need the truth. I love you." She gave her mom a hug and then stood, letting her hand slide across Ranger's tense shoulders as she returned to her chair across from her mother.

"He promised to end it, but he didn't," Stephanie continued. "I didn't confront him a second time when I found out it was still going on after you were born, Cally. At the time of the accident, when he was killed, I was getting ready to talk to Albert, my brother-in-law, about a divorce."

Stephanie's last words hung in the air over the table. Ranger, who was always still, seemed to be made of stone. Stephanie knew that her story had been previously unknown to him. She lived with the secret for years and had planned never to reveal her father's infidelity to Cally. Things had all changed now.

"Then my father was a dirty cop," Cally flatly insisted.

"We don't know that," Althea said. "Your father had an outstanding reputation, and he regularly worked undercover. We just don't know. What we do know is there was a connection between Terry Gilman, Brian Gregg and your father. We need to investigate and figure out what, exactly, that connection was. Cally, you said that your husband had talked to some Trenton cops. Do you know the names of the men he spoke with?"

"I don't," Cally replied.

"I'm going to figure this out," Tank said. "I won't quit until I do, but that may bring on a host of other problems."

"Cally could be in danger," Luke said.

"She could be," Tank agreed.

"I'm in this for the duration," Luke said. "Whatever you need."

Tank nodded his approval. "Stephanie, there is something you need to consider. I've had Silvio hacking into places that are beyond restricted. He's good and he takes it as a personal challenge to see how far he can go. Right now, we think he's undetected. Althea has done some searching of her own, at some risk to herself, personally. If all this comes to the attention of the authorities, Althea will have to make the investigation a legal above-board project."

"There is the real possibility that if that happens," Althea said, "you might be called upon to testify."

"T-testify?" Stephanie said. "You mean come forth as Stephanie Morelli?"

"Yes, possibly," Althea said.

"I can't! I'm not Stephanie Morelli. I have a life here. I can't give everything up again. I can't!"

"I give you my word that we will try to do everything we can to protect your true identity as well and the identity you have now," Althea said.

"My true identity is the identity I live under now! Stephanie Morelli is dead. Stephanie Plum is dead. There is just me, Stephanie Williams."

"It could be the only way to end this nightmare, Babe. If it happens that you have to come forth, I'll be with you every step of the way. I give you my word."

Stephanie took a moment to look individually at each person at her table. Her eyes lingered on her daughter who was looking as shell-shocked as she herself felt. The stress and anxiety on Cally's face helped Stephanie find peace in the decision that had probably already been made for her.

"Then I'll do whatever it takes to keep my daughter safe," she said softly and she knew that for Cally she'd find the strength to face whatever was asked of her.