Chapter 29

He looked at her sleeping peacefully and slipped quietly from the bed without disturbing her. In his own place he would have gone naked from the room, but he was in Stephanie's house now. He grabbed the jeans he had discarded earlier and made his way out of the room and down the stairs.

His wrist had been buzzing steadily for the last hour and he knew he couldn't continue to ignore the messages. His head was throbbing, and his leg was aching. He needed sleep. Twenty-five years ago, he could have driven all night, made love all morning and attended to the rest of the day. Hell, twenty-five years ago he wouldn't have had the opportunity to spend all morning in bed with Stephanie. She'd been sleeping with Morelli back then. He was beyond grateful he had the chance now.

There was a cloud on the horizon of their future. He had to get Costanza off the trail before they could move forward. He looked at the messages and prioritized them. Tank first, then Althea, Cally and then Costanza.

Tank answered immediately. "I gave Costanza your contact information," he told Ranger, which answered Ranger's next question.

"That explains why I have four missed calls from him," Ranger said.

"I didn't want to do it," Tank said, "but the prick threatened me. He said he'd haul me in for obstruction, so I gave him your number. I know you can't be located on that phone."

"I can," Ranger said, "but I doubt Trenton PD has the capability to do it. I'll call him. Stephanie is adamant she doesn't want him to know she's alive. I don't know if I can honor that wish or not, but I'm going to try. I need to talk to Althea, and then to Cally, to see exactly what they said to him."

"Althea's here," Tank said. "She met with him this morning. I'll put the phone on speaker."

When they disconnected, he had a plan.

Stephanie rolled over and stretched. She winced at the soreness of muscles which had been given an unusual workout. Ranger wasn't in the room, but he was in the house. She could feel him, and it felt good. A quick glance at her phone showed a recent missed call from Cally. She returned the call immediately.

Cally picked up on the first ring. "Hi, Mom."

"Are you okay?" Stephanie asked. "Ranger is here. He told me what happened."

"I'm not great, but I'm okay," Cally said. "Luke is hovering, and I think although he is trying not to show it, he's still upset with me."

"Upset with you? You should be upset with him. He was supposed to be protecting you."

"He was protecting me. This whole thing was sort of my fault."

"Cally! It wasn't your fault," Stephanie said, remembering how many times she'd uttered those words in her own defense.

"I don't know about that," Cally said. "I lied to Luke. I wanted to make the rounds and visit all the places you used to hang out. I found your old house, the one your parents lived in, and the one you and my father lived in. And I went to the Tasty Pastry. Carlos probably told you all this, though."

"I don't think I got all the details," Stephanie said. She was uneasy with Cally's interest in her old life, but this wasn't the time for that discussion.

"They only found me because I had a tracker on my car, of which I was unaware. I was kind of pissed when I first found out about it, but in the end I'm glad Carlos was able to find me."

"Yeah," Stephanie said. "I've had similar experiences with Ranger's trackers. I want to see you, so I can see for myself that you're okay."

"I want to see you, too, but Detective Costanza hasn't closed the case yet. I think it's because there are some inconsistencies in our account of what happened. I'm a little worried about that. He...he knows who I am, Mom."

Stephanie's heart skipped a beat. "You didn't tell him about me?" she asked.

"No! I didn't even tell him about me. He just knew. He told me I look like my Aunt Cathy. I told him I didn't know I had an Aunt Cathy, which was the complete truth. What other family haven't you told me about?"

The slight accusatory tone was back in Cally's voice. "I want to come down and get the whole story from you. And this time I'm taking notes. Or you could come up here. Tank said the danger is over. He and Silvio haven't figured everything out yet, but from what they know already, it was just a two-person team. We're not in danger anymore."

"I can't go back," Stephanie told her daughter. "I've left that part of my life behind. I don't have the strength to go back and face people who think I'm dead. It wouldn't be good for me or for them. What did you tell Carl?"

"I told him I was at the restaurant with Carlos. He asked me how we met, and I told the truth. The only part I left out is that the woman who raised me was you…I think he assumes I was raised by adoptive parents. Tank said that Carlos told him I was your daughter, but he didn't tell him you were alive. He said I'd been placed in a new home by WITSEC. But, Mom, I think he'll figure it out. He seems like a smart guy."

The Carl Stephanie had known was a smart guy. It didn't surprise her that he'd made detective. Carl always had a quiet way of gathering information. Most of the time he'd used it to fuel the Burg gossip pipeline. He'd still be an information gatherer, and that had her worried.

"Mom? Are you there?" Cally's question brought her thoughts back to the conversation at hand.

"I'm here. I want you to come down here as soon as Carl says it's okay for you to leave town. Can you get time off work?"

"Yeah, that won't be a problem. I called my boss and told him I needed some personal time. He's been good about that sort of thing and he'll be better once the word gets out that I killed someone."

Cally's words were matter of fact, but Stephanie could hear the anxiety behind them. She remembered the feelings she'd had after Jimmy Alpha. They disconnected the call and she sat lost in thoughts of the past.

She heard a noise from downstairs and realized she'd been sitting in bed, naked. It was one thing to be naked in the throes of passion, but in the cold light of day, she wasn't so comfortable with her nudity. She got out of bed and pulled a t-shirt from her dresser. It was oversized and proclaimed "Antiope" in an embroidered script. She slipped it on and went in search of Ranger.

He was just disconnecting from a phone call as she walked into her living room. He did something very unusual for the Ranger she knew. He looked at her and his expression softened and then he smiled. It was the same 200-watt smile she had always loved, and it caused her heart to flutter. The flutters moved to her stomach when she took in the jeans riding low on his hips, his shirtless chest and bare feet. Sixty looked good on him.

As she walked toward him, she saw the parted lips and heard his softly indrawn breath. She realized her appearance was having the same effect on him. Suddenly life was good. She stopped in front of him and wrapped her arms around his neck. He leaned down and they kissed, tenderly, slowly without the desperation of their early morning kisses. These were kisses with promise. What had happened this morning would soon be repeated.

"Tank?" she questioned against his lips.

He pulled away and hesitated only slightly before he answered, and when he did her 'life is good' feeling morphed into something else.

"Carl Costanza."

"You called him?" she asked.

"I returned his call. I had several missed calls from him and a call from Tank. He's been putting pressure on Tank to get to me and I decided to call him before things got ugly in Trenton."

"What did he want?" She could hear the tremble in her voice. Tension was making her nervous. Surely Ranger hadn't told him of her existence.

"He wanted clarification. Here, let's sit and I'll tell you everything." They sat side by side her bare leg touching his denim clad one. His hand traced a gentle pattern up and down her thigh and she relaxed a little.

"When Cally and I entered the restaurant, I told the maître d' that I'd seen an old friend with Terry. I never gave it another thought, but Tony remembered I'd said that. He told that to Costanza during his interrogation and Costanza clearly remembered me saying that I didn't know the dead man."

"Are you in trouble?" Stephanie asked.

"No. Costanza knows Cally was the shooter, not me. He knows that it was self-defense but he's not going to close the case until all the t's are crossed and the i's dotted—his words, not mine."

"What does that mean?"

"It means he's going to keep pushing until he's satisfied with all the answers," Ranger said. "He wanted me back in Trenton, but Althea did us a favor. She told him there was information that wouldn't be available to him, because it was classified under the Victim and Witness Protection Act."

"What's the Victim and Witness Protection Act?"

Ranger chuckled, "I don't know exactly, and apparently Costanza wasn't completely familiar with it either, but he accepted that there were things he wasn't going to find out. He can't fight the Feds, and although he probably already knew that, Althea reminded him."

"So why did he call you?"

"He called me because he had no idea the man who was killed had anything to do with Cally. He knew I'd lied to him and he wanted to know why. I told him the truth. I told him the man's name was Brian Gregg, and I told him how I knew him. Cally is off limits to him after he talked with Althea, and that's good, because now he won't be going to Cathy Morelli to tell her she has a niece."

Stephanie stood and walked halfway across the room before she swung around to face Ranger. "What exactly did you tell him about Brian Gregg?"

"Everything he wanted to know. I told him that as much as Althea couldn't give him WITSEC details, I couldn't give him all the details of my relationship, but I freely told him what I could, including the fact that he'd been involved with Terry Gilman for a long time."

"But Althea said there were no WITSEC details about Cally and me. Brian Gregg wasn't working with WITSEC."

"We know that," Ranger said. "Costanza doesn't. Althea went out on a limb to protect you and Cally."

"To protect me?" she asked incredulously. "You say she did it to protect me, and yet you told Carl everything. You told Carl about me! How could you do this? How could you tell him about me when you promised you wouldn't?"

She paused and looked around the room. She was unfocused and angry, and Ranger wanted to reach out to her and tell her to calm down, but she gave him no chance, instead ramping up her accusations.

"If the people I used to know find out I'm alive it will be horrible. I can't go back. The thought of it is…oh, how could you do this to me?" she wailed.

"Are you done? Because if you're done, I'll continue," he said in a tone that was way too soft.

She remembered that particularly soft-spoken tone. It only happened when Ranger was seriously turned on or seriously pissed, and she didn't have to guess which emotion was causing it now.

Stephanie made a beeline for the armchair across from the sofa. She sat, drawing her legs up under her and she didn't look at Ranger. If she looked, she might have seen elbows resting on his thighs and fingers that were steepled. She remembered both those signs of controlled anger, and she didn't want anything to derail the anger she was feeling.

"I don't know if I'm done or not," she said. "I've told you I can't go back, and I can't, but it won't matter now. If I don't come back, he'll come here and then he'll tell Eddie, who will tell Shirley, and then everyone in the Burg will know I'm alive!"

"That could happen," Ranger said. "It would have been a good possibility even if I hadn't spoken to Carl. He's smart enough not to interfere with a federal case, but he has a natural curiosity about Cally. He recognized her as your and Joe's daughter without any help from me. He knows Joe is dead. It was an open coffin. Your coffin and Cally's were closed. That leaves room for suspicion."

"My coffin was closed? Cally's was? Of course, they would have been, but I never thought of it." Her head was spinning now at the thought of her funeral. Her mom and dad and grandma, who knew she wasn't really dead, but had to pretend. At the time she hadn't been able to consider it. She'd been in a state of dazed unreality for several months following her departure from Trenton. Now years later she realized the ways others had suffered as well. She'd been deep in denial of anything outside of her new small sphere of existence.

"I only know because it's something Tank and I discussed after we learned who Cally was. I was out of the country at the time if you'll remember." His voice was hard, and she suspected it was hiding an even deeper anger than the one she'd just caused.

"Costanza is a smart police detective with the tools at his disposal to investigate Cally's past. Althea warned him not to look at the WITSEC aspect of it, but if he does a routine check on Cally Williams Edelman he'll know. It won't take a rocket scientist to figure out Stephanie Williams is that same person he knew as Stephanie Plum."

"I'm not the same person!" she cried.

"What are you so afraid of, Stephanie? You're seriously frightened, it's easy to see. Is there something about the time before this happened that you haven't shared with us? Did you know what Joe was working on? Are you afraid you're still in danger?"

"There's nothing. I've told you everything," she said. "And am I afraid? Yes, I'm afraid! I've spent every day since I left being afraid. It's a habit now. When I moved here, I was completely alone. The responsibility of taking care of a baby with no help was overwhelming, especially since I was nearly nonfunctional with grief."

Ranger remembered the time after he'd learned of her death. He'd been nearly nonfunctional as well, but he hadn't had the added complication of caring for a child.

"Babe…"

"Don't, Ranger. Don't try to tell me everything will be all right. I lived that painful time and I sacrificed my life willingly. There were two things that got me through it. Fear that we'd be found, and the need to take care of my daughter. The pain of those things got me through. If people in Trenton…the Burg…if they know I'm alive it negates that pain. It takes away everything I did for Cally."

"That sounds like some form of survivor's guilt, which is irrational. You were clearly the victim in all this," Ranger said.

"Irrational?" she asked. "If I'm irrational, it's not guilt, it's fear. Brian Gregg told me in explicit terms what would happen if they found me. I'm so tired of being afraid, for myself and mostly for Cally."

"You don't trust me to keep you safe?" It was a question, but Stephanie answered as if it had been a statement.

"I trusted you not to give me up to Carl, but that didn't happen."

"That didn't happen. I didn't break your trust. I gave him what detail I could of my personal ventures for our government. Details of Gregg double-dealing me, sending me on suicide missions, and giving me faulty intel, all of which are true. I told him what I could, but some things are still classified. I never mentioned you or Cally, and I think I satisfied his questions and now he'll close the case. Just as Althea did, I talked to him to protect Cally—and you. When Carl comes it won't be in an official capacity."

Stephanie's heart was beating wildly. He'd done it to protect her, and her daughter. She rethought her actions and words of the last few minutes. She felt the flush suffuse her face as shame roiled her stomach. She'd accused him when she should have known better.

"Ranger, I'm sorry," she said. "I thought you told him…"

"I did not."

"I'm sorry," she said again. "I should have known you wouldn't…"

"It's been a long time, Babe," he interrupted. "Some things change with time, some don't. My priority is to keep you safe, but Cally falls under that umbrella too. I talked to Carl to convince him to close the case. I think I was successful and Cally will be off the hook. I don't know what I can do to keep Carl from finding you, but there may be things I can do to impress upon him the necessity of keeping your new identity quiet."

She understood what he meant by "impress upon him the necessity." Ranger used to have power and connections in Trenton. She knew that wouldn't have changed except to grow stronger. He was offering to use whatever means he had to keep her safe from detection. He was fulfilling a promise he'd made to her years ago, and her heart broke at her lack of faith in him.

"I should explain," she said.

"You should."

"I'm not sure I can," she said. Her eyes were downcast but scanning over her rug as if to find answers there. "Cally and I are your priority, you said. Cally has always been my priority. The reason I was able to find the strength to stay here—because I was not a strong person back then—was because I knew I could bear anything to keep her safe. It's not survivor's guilt, but if people find out I'm still alive then it's like all that sacrifice, all the pain was for…nothing. I couldn't bear it if I gave up everything for nothing." She looked up at Ranger. His forehead was wrinkled in a frown.

"It's not sounding logical, I know," she said. "I can't explain it, but I'm terrified to face people who think I'm gone." She stopped trying to explain and covered her face with her hands. She couldn't hold back the tears.

"Don't cry, Babe," he said. He got up and came to her and gently pulled her to her feet. His arms came around her and he held her tight against him. They stayed motionless for a while until the nearness of one another overcame their need to talk with another much stronger need.

They walked arm and arm up the stairs and into her bedroom. They were quiet, purposeful, and intense. Their lovemaking sealed an unspoken commitment. There would be time for more conversation later, but this was the time to feel.

Afterward they were content to rest in one another's arms. The silence was interrupted by the sound of a door slamming downstairs, followed by Lester's loud voice cheerily proclaiming, "Honey, I'm home. I brought pizza!"

Ranger groaned and pulled Stephanie in even tighter against him. Coincidentally, Stephanie's stomach growled.

"I think we have time for a quick shower before dinner," he said.

"Does it have to be quick?" she asked.

He dipped his head to bite her earlobe softly. "Not if you like cold pizza," he whispered gruffly.

"Oh, I do!"