Chapter 25

Ranger held his phone staring at her contact for a few moments before he hit the call button. He didn't know what he was going to say. He hadn't known all week what to say which is why he hadn't called. In person there had been no awkward pauses, no uncertainty. He had nothing concrete to tell her. Thanks to Tank's overload of information the night before, he didn't know when he was coming back, but Tank was right. She deserved to hear from him. He hit the call button. Her breathy "Hello" told him Tank had been right. He could hear the anxiety in her voice.

"Babe." His opening was met with silence. "Babe?"

"I'm here. I'm just waiting."

"Waiting for what?"

"For you. You said you were coming back."

Her straightforwardness was a welcome punch in the gut. "I am coming back. I had hoped to be on the way right now, but Tank derailed my trip with…"

"With some new information," she continued. "I know. Lester talked with Tank and told me. I'm feeling a little left out."

"It's not meant to be that way. It won't be that way once I am there with you. I've been trying to close all my operations in Trenton. When I come it will be to stay."

"You mean, you'll never go back?"

"I'll come back to Jersey but maybe not Trenton. I'll need to see my family from time to time. My parents are still alive, and I both want and need to see them."

"Can you tell me what's going on? What did Tank tell you?"

"I spent most of last night with Tank going over the Intel he and Silvio have gathered, and still we can't locate Brian Gregg. That's discouraging, but we do have some news that is comforting. Tank thinks I'm the primary target, not you or Cally. He doesn't think it's known that I've reconnected with you. The plan is to make my presence known to see if we can drag Gregg out."

"You mean so he can attack you again? You want to make yourself a target? You think that's comforting? It sounds dangerous! And he might not even be in Trenton. Lester says he has a wife…in Vietnam!"

"Tank has some information he's taking to Althea that should help us locate him. I won't take any undue risks. That's all I'm prepared to say over the phone. We'll try to wrap this up quickly so I can come down and get Lester out of your hair."

"Lester isn't in my hair. I'm enjoying his company."

"Great," Ranger said, gruffly. He recognized the emotion. It was jealousy, plain and simple and he knew it was unfounded, but it was there. "I'll be there as soon as I can. I promise."

They disconnected and Ranger replayed the last part of their conversation in his mind. I promise, he'd said. He'd promised things to her before. He'd promised her he would help her bring in the tough skips, back when he was her mentor. He'd promised her she could come to him anytime for help when she told him she was going to marry Joe. He would always be there for her. Those promises had been suspended when he'd thought her dead. Now he was getting a second chance and he'd hold true to his word. He'd be there as soon as he could.

Unspoken was his vow that he would take away the threat, so they could finally have their future. He'd wondered back in the day if someone would come out of his past to harm her. It's what made him send her back to Joe after they'd first made love. Someone had come, but it wasn't an enemy. It was one of the supposed good guys. That made it all the harder to bear. He could never make up to her all that she'd had to sacrifice because of her relationship to him. But he could make sure the present threat was neutralized. It was time to move things into high gear.

He shook off the melancholy that had suddenly overtaken him. The plan he and Tank had devised was fluid. He wanted to find Gregg and beat the truth out of him. If he couldn't do that he'd go after Terry Gilman.

There was a grim set to his mouth as he pushed his thoughts to the back of his mind and began concentrating on his present task. He was doing a pre-running warm-up, stretching muscles long dormant. He'd start with a brisk walk or a slow jog. He'd visited the orthopedist, Dr. Jones, the day before and the doctor had been pleased with his progress. He'd said as long as Ranger was pain-free he could return to normal activities. His exact phrase was that Ranger could ease back into normal activities. He thought a mile would be an easy start. And then he'd do the other mile home.

As he left his house, he checked the time. He was going to get a haircut and then work out his plan of action. Tank had left early morning by train to go to D.C. and retrieve his truck. Since his truck was residing at Althea's house, he didn't expect Tank back right away. That was okay because they needed good information on Brian Gregg's whereabouts. It would take Althea some time to go through the list of aliases they'd found in Gregg's files.

He started his walk and quickly upped his pace to a slow jog. He concentrated on his lower leg. He was stiff, but he wasn't having any real pain. He reconsidered. He'd lived with the pain of the fracture for so long it was hard to judge. He wasn't sure he remembered what pain-free really was, but he thought what he was feeling was acceptable, so he continued.

His thoughts turned to everything Tank had told him the night before. It was mind boggling. There was a list of ten aliases that Gregg used on a regular basis, and Tank was taking those to Althea today. Gregg's retirement check and his social security checks were all deposited in an account in a Maryland bank. Althea had been unable to link Gregg's name to anything else in the community. He wasn't living there. At least he wasn't living there under his real name…if Brian Gregg was his real name. At this point no one really knew. They had one lead.

He had a wife in Vietnam, and the Intel report on her wasn't back, but they knew from documents Silvio had uncovered that she had an American surname. Smith. Imaginative, Ranger thought sarcastically, but there was a John Smith on the list of alternate identities Tank was taking to Althea. That was the one they'd start with.

Gregg had been a meticulous diarist and for that he was grateful. Without the information Silvio was able to dig up they'd have never gotten anywhere. There was something odd about Gregg's documentation, though. There was no money trail. No mention of why he was doing the things he was doing. And according to Althea, his personal accounts hadn't been touched since his retirement. His money was just piling up.

Money and the ability to acquire large sums of it was the connection between Gilman and Gregg. Tank, Silvio and Ranger agreed on this point, but they had no proof. Finding Gregg was the first priority, making him talk the second. It was within his skill set to make people talk, even if it had been a long time since that particular skill had been exercised.

Early in his career he'd had dealings with several of the crime families in Trenton and the surrounding areas. Most notably the Ramos and Risolli families, and to a lesser degree, with the Grizolli's. There were members of all those families who owed him favors. Favors that he'd never planned on calling in. It had given him a small tilt in the balance of power back in the days when he was cultivating relationships and trying to get himself established. It had been a successful strategy. If he had to call in favors now to get up close and personal with Terry Gilman, he would. She was his best bet of finding Gregg.

Later after he'd made the round trip to the barber and showered, he took a rare moment to evaluate his appearance. His hair was short, more like the way he'd been accustomed to wearing before he'd decided to sell RangeMan and retire. And while that part of his corporate image was back, it was the only part. Wearing all black had been easy, and it had been easy for his men, too. He'd gradually weaned himself of the habit as his job became more executive and less hands on. He'd made the decision to dress as Stephanie had known him when he went to see her, but he was shucking off that shell. He had no idea what life had in store for Stephanie and him, but he was open to the change.

His phone buzzed, ending his introspection. It was Tank.

"Yo."

"Yo, back at ya," Tank said. "I'm in D.C. and I just got a call from Luke."

Ranger came to full alertness. "What's up?" Ranger listened intently. "All right. I'll take care of it. I'll give Luke a call." He disconnected and turned to get dressed. A shooting pain traversed his lower leg. Sighing, he reached for the brace that was his frequent companion and slapped it around his damaged limb. Maybe he needed to reconsider his interpretation of "ease into normal activities."

Cally tried to be quiet as she walked through the darkened living room. The dim early morning light was just starting to illuminate the place. Luke was asleep on her sofa and she knew it wasn't comfortable for him. She wasn't ready for him to be in her bed, and although he wasn't pushing, she knew he wouldn't have turned down the opportunity. The attraction between them had been instantaneous and it had grown steadily since their first meeting.

At first, he'd spent hours in his truck outside her place, but that hadn't lasted after they'd come back from Georgia. The most sensible solution was the one they'd adopted. He was with her when she wasn't at work. Jamestown Senior Living was an upscale facility and it had a competent, if unobtrusive, security force. Luke thought the chances of someone coming after her there were small. Privately, Cally thought the chances of anyone coming after her were negligible, but she trusted Carlos' instincts and he thought she needed protection, so she had a shadow.

It was both good and bad to have Luke so near at hand. While she didn't feel she was in danger, there was the circumstance of Ben's death. He had been trying to get information for her, and even though he'd been careful, he'd alerted someone. And thanks to Althea, they knew that there had been something very underhanded about the way her mother had been displaced all those years ago.

It's just that she had a hard time believing that someone had figured out who she was and hadn't been more aggressive in their actions. She thought Ben's death had been a preemptive strike more than a reaction to a known threat. Someone in Trenton was so powerful, so evil, that they killed people that were, even on the fringe, perceived as future trouble. That should have terrified her but somehow, she felt comforted by the fact that her last name was Edelman, not Williams, and not Morelli. She felt safe. And she felt a little constrained by Luke's constant and vigilant presence.

Since the day she had spent in conversation with her mother, with Luke discreetly in the background, she was filled with curiosity. She wanted to see the bonds office where her mother had worked. She wanted to see the house she had lived in as an infant with her mother and father. She wanted to see the former RangeMan building, and she wanted to see Terry Gilman. She wanted to put eyes on the woman who had most likely been responsible for the death of her father, and her husband.

When she asked Luke if they could do some undercover work together, he'd been emphatic. "No way. Ranger is paying me to keep you safe and I'm going to keep you safe. There will be time to go sightseeing after they eliminate the threat to you and your mom."

She hadn't argued with him, even though she felt he was being unreasonable, and unsympathetic. At one point she wanted to tell him, "You're not the boss of me!" But that would have been childish and irresponsible. He was only trying to do his job. Luke was determined and she knew he'd never agree to let her try and find Terry Gilman's location to stake her out. She'd need to figure out a way to find the mob boss on her own…and she had.

Her hand was on the door when she heard movement on the sofa. "Hey, are you leaving for work?" Luke asked.

"Yeah," she said. "Sorry, didn't mean to wake you."

"I wanted you to wake me," he said. "Give me a second and I'll pull on some pants. I'll follow you to work and then head on over to my place. I've got some class work to do online, and some laundry to do as well. I'll meet you back at Jamestown after work and follow you home."

"You don't need to do that," she said. "I'll be fine. You can watch me leave here and you know I'll be safe once I get into the employee lot at work."

"I want to do it. It's my job."

She rolled her eyes. "Okay, but remember, I'm working a twelve-hour shift today. I won't be off till 7:30 tonight."

"No problem. I'll pick up a pizza before I swing by to follow you home."

"Sounds good," she said, feeling only a little guilty about the lie. She was working a split eight-hour shift with time off midday. Time she was going to use to do a little sightseeing.

Later, she closed her laptop and looked up to see Rob standing in the doorway to the physical therapy office. "Rob! Thanks for coming in."

"No problem," he said. "You said you had a doctor's appointment, and not to be nosy, but is everything okay?"

"Oh, yeah, sure," she said. "It's just jumping through hoops making sure everything is lined out for medical school. I start next fall, you know." The second lie of the day but this time she felt no guilt. It was true that she would have to have a physical before med school, but it wasn't going to be today.

Today she was going to drive through the Burg, past the bonds office, and if she was brave maybe down Stark Street. Maybe not. She was certain she was going to look at the RangeMan building, and Stiva's Funeral Home. She'd done a google search and found that Terry Gilman was the CEO of Stiva's. If she was brave enough Cally would go in on the pretense of preplanning her great aunt's funeral. She doubted that Terry Gilman would have any part in the day-to-day operations of the place, but if she had an office maybe Cally could get a look at her.

She'd seen pictures online and Terry looked attractive and respectable, when in truth she was a monster. How could a monster look so normal? That was the driving force behind her need to see the woman. She wanted to look her in the eye and see if she could see evil in Terry Gilman.

According to her mother, the Burg had been a working-class area of Trenton. It hadn't fared so well with the passage of time. She found what she was sure must have been the home her mother grew up in. She recognized it by the odd paint job on the neighboring home. She parked in front and stayed for a few minutes, hoping to catch a glimpse of the present occupants so she could tell her mother. No one was at home it seemed, so she entered her next stop into her navigation program.

The Tasty Pastry was much as her mother had described it. While her own preference would have been a chocolate glazed, she bought a Boston Crème in homage to her mother. Next time she visited her mom, she'd bring her a dozen, she decided. She licked her fingers as she left the bakery and mentally checked the Tasty Pastry off her list.

The RangeMan building was easy to find. It was far from the inconspicuous building her mother had described. This building had a large covered entrance with a sign on top indicating the headquarters of a well-known security company. She could see the entrance to the underground parking facility that at one time had held the RangeMan fleet. Cally parked across from the entrance and watched as several people entered and exited the building. Nothing low-key about this establishment. She wondered what Carlos thought of the changes.

The bonds office was another nice surprise. The neighborhood was filled with an assortment of businesses, mostly with uninspired store fronts, but the bonds office had a nice bench in front with two large pots of greenery, which at the right time of the year would be filled with flowers, Cally thought. The front window was neatly lettered with "Plum Bail Bonds" in white with a professional-looking gold trim, and the glass was so sparkling clean that all Cally could see as she slowly drove by was the reflection of her Jeep. She drove around the block three times, hoping to see Connie or especially Lula but she didn't see anyone, and she decided to move on.

She wasn't moving in the most logical way she realized because she had to backtrack a little, but one-by-one she was finding the places she wanted to see. Her father's house, which had become her mother's as well, was just outside the Burg and in better shape. She parked for a moment but just like at her mom's house, there seemed to be no one at home in this house either. Everybody was out earning a living. That brought her mind back to her own situation. She glanced at the dash clock and was relieved to see she still had plenty of time before she was due back at work. She looked forward to the next stop on her self-guided tour.

Not really a stop, she amended. She was going to Stark Street. She thought maybe her mother had exaggerated some of the anecdotes about things that had happened on Stark Street, but as she approached the intersection, she noticed several women who looked like prostitutes standing on the corner. She wasn't naïve by any means, but the presence of the women in the middle of the day helped her decide to move Stark Street to a future list. She motored on past the turning point and proceeded to the place she was most nervous about. Stiva's Funeral Home.

She parked in the farthest corner of the parking lot, behind an older model Lincoln town car and next to a floral van. From her position she had a good view of the side of the building where there was a service door and a decent view of the front entrance. She hadn't made up her mind if she was going to go inside and pretend to be a customer. She thought she could pull it off, but it might be a waste of time. Still, she'd be on Terry Gilman's turf.

She wanted to go in for another reason. Her mother had told her quite a bit about her Grandma Mazur and her fondness for visiting the funeral home. She didn't remember her Great-grandma Edna, but the love she heard in her mother's voice as she told her daughter about Edna made Cally realize how much her mother had given up for her. She grabbed her phone and pulled up the story of the funeral home fire and reread it. That story led to another link. She laughed out loud. Her mother was once known as the Bombshell Bounty Hunter!