This is an AU story. I hope you find the characters still themselves even if their world is different.

Thanks to Rach who makes this so much more fun and the writing so much better.

Sally

Chapter 19

Joe opened his mouth several times to speak but nothing came out so he shut it again. He seemed to collect himself before answering very professionally, "It doesn't sound like something she would be capable of, but I will look into it just to be sure." His jaw was set, but other than that he had his emotions well hidden beneath his cop face.

You do that Joe, I wanted to say. Instead I gave him a big smile and said, "Thanks." Ranger was laughing his ass off, on the inside of course.

The Good Wife

Chapter 20

Bobby wasn't quite finished with his report. "The Ramos angle has been interesting to say the least." He was smiling so it couldn't be all bad, unless he had a really sick sense of humor, but I didn't think so. Bobby shook his head and grinned at me, "You do know how to charm them Steph."

I blurted out, "It wasn't my fault." I mean really, how can I be blamed for attracting a nearly senile old man with a crush? Ranger put his hand on my knee and gave it a quick squeeze. I think it was supposed to calm me down, but any touch from him sent my heart racing. I suppressed a shiver.

Bobby continued, "The old man does seem to be quite taken with you. We're trying to dig a little to find out if he is just flirting with you are if he is serious about his proposal."

Joe interjected, "Proposal?"

I sighed, "Alexander Ramos likes to flirt with me. We've met at a number of fundraisers and political functions. When I saw him last fall he laid it on pretty thick. He joked that I should leave my husband and marry him."

Morelli and Wilson were shocked. The Rangemen looked worried. I dismissed their concern. "He's a harmless old man who likes to flirt. At least he doesn't grab my ass like Senator Mc..." I stopped myself to the disappointment of the men. I gave them a dirty look. "He's always been a perfect gentleman. I had honestly forgotten about the proposal until the other day."

"But he asked you again today if you'd given it any thought," Bobby opened his big mouth. "Though it was the younger son that was really fixated on you. Hard to tell what either of their intensions are."

Joe muttered under his breath, "Not that hard."

Now they were making me feel like a piece of meat. "Listen, they're from a different culture. The Greek culture is very demonstrative. So what if he kissed me and was holding my hands? He's old enough to be my father. And as for the sons, they were polite as well. Homer hardly paid me any notice at all."

"He's gay," Lester said badly disguised by a fake cough.

I scowled at him, "Well anyway, Dimitri was very nice and polite as well. Gentlemen, believe me, I know when I am being leered at; those men were not ogling me. Alexander said Dimitri was interested in my work and suggested that his father make a donation to the Foundation."

"Did he?" Joe wanted to know.

I nodded, "He gave me a check for a million dollars."

Joe let out a low whistle. To him that was a lot of money. Not that I thought it wasn't, but it's all relative I guess. I haven't had to worry about money for a very long time, for myself anyway. The Foundation was a little different. While the majority of our funding came from the Orr family, I had to schmooze, cajole and charm the rest of the money out of people. I'd gotten pretty good at it.

"Alexander gave you the money because his son convinced him to?" Tank asked.

I nodded. "Dimitri recently became interested in the work we do at the Foundation. He encouraged his father to make a donation."

He was still skeptical, "Had you met Dimitri before?"

I shook my head, "Oh no, I'm sure I would remember seeing him before." What, the man was gorgeous? I was sleeping with Ranger, but I wasn't dead.

Joe didn't seem to like my comment about the younger Ramos brother. Either that or he was still stinging from the whole Terri thing, but he went on the offensive. "Steph, what about your friends?" What was he talking about?

I know I looked puzzled, "What do you mean? Had any of my friends met him? I don't think so."

He shook his head, "No, what I mean is all of the Governor's friends were investigated. What about yours? You seem to attract men like flies, and not all stable ones at that. Maybe someone got their heart broken?" Wait, was he asking me what I think he was?

I opened my mouth to say, Fuck you Joe. This man was asking me about my sex life in front of a roomful of men. In truth, it wasn't the question itself that irked me. As an investigator I knew there were messy questions that needed to be asked, no matter how uncomfortable. No, the ironic thing was that this man who'd had his dick in over half the women in New Jersey was the one asking. I wanted to laugh in his face and tell him that I was pretty sure he'd had more sexual partners the week I gave it up to him at the Tasty Pastry than I'd had in my whole life.

I closed my mouth and counted to ten. What do I say? Deny it? Tell him there's no one? For more than six years that was true. Hell, up until 24 hours ago it was true. I could just turn to Ranger and ask him if he was my stalker, if Joe was so sure this was tied to my love life, but Ranger seemed like a pretty private guy. I'm sure he didn't want the information out there any more than I did, even if it was just to make a point. So I could lie, just say I haven't been with anyone. If the shoe was on the other foot, how would I feel sitting next to Ranger while he swore to his ex girlfriend that there was no one else in his life? God that would kill me. But what were we to each other? We needed to have a serious discussion. While I was doing a whole mental tug of war someone else took the reins.

"Already thoroughly investigated," Tank spoke with authority.

Joe scoffed, "All of them, you checked all of them?" Excuse me? He did not just insinuate I was a slut.

"One," my voice was hard. "There's only been one," my tone softened. It took all I had to not look at Ranger.

Lester, Bobby and Tank kept their smiles to themselves. I don't think poor Wilson had spoken a word since hello.

Joe spoke next, his face unreadable, "And you've checked him out?"

"In great detail," Lester offered. I'm sure they knew as much about Ranger as anyone did.

"You're sure he's not dangerous?" Joe was doubtful. I wasn't. I knew Ranger could be dangerous. And sexy. And amazing.

Tank answered, "Not to her." For some reason his statement caused my heart to flutter.

Bobby felt the need to interject, "He'd die before he let anyone hurt her." The flutter in my heart turned into a full blown thumping.

Unhappy with their answers Joe changed tactics, "What about her husband? Look I know no one wants to say it, but we have to look at all of the angles. I mean you always have to look at the spouse. It's rule number one."

I sighed, this one had to be fielded by me. "I know my marriage is not normal, hell it's not really much of a marriage. While my husband may be a lot of things, he is not capable of this. In his own way he loves me, no matter what his actions show. I don't expect you to understand it, I don't even understand it. But it is what it is." My eyes begged him not to push it.

Thankfully he didn't. "You're sure?" I just nodded.

I was wiped out. Ranger wrapped up the meeting, promising Joe that he would be in touch with any new information. Bobby escorted them to the lobby and Ranger and I went back to his office. We were supposed to visit the Foundation this afternoon. Actually we were supposed to visit it yesterday, but we got busy almost getting blown up. Then there was all the sex. We needed to go over cases there, plus I hadn't been to the office in nearly a week and needed to check in.

Rather than sitting in his chair Ranger took a seat on the couch and pulled me down next to him, wrapping his arms around me. I sighed and relaxed instantly into him. The meeting was draining; it was good to draw strength from him. We didn't talk, we just sat. I wanted to ask him what we were doing, what was between us. What he thought about what they guys said. What did they know? What did he want from me? I was just about to erupt, emotionally vomiting all over him when there was a knock on the door.

It was Tank, Lester and Bobby. Still feeling emotional from the meeting I was suddenly grateful for what these men had done for me, were willing to do for me and how quickly they had become my friends. I jumped off the couch and gave each one of them a hug. They all stood there stunned. Now I was a little embarrassed. I looked at my shoes. I guess they weren't used to hugging.

"Um, I just wanted to say thanks. You guys have all been so good to me. Thanks for protecting me and I don't just mean physically. I really appreciate it." I was still staring at the floor and the room was silent. I turned to excuse myself into Ranger's bathroom to escape the uncomfortable quiet. Before I got three steps I was scooped off the floor into a huge bear hug - Tank. I was passed from Tank to Bobby and then Lester before Ranger removed me from Lester's arms and settled into his desk chair with me in his lap. The guys settled in the other chairs and on the couch giving me big grins.

Ranger gave me a squeeze and whispered, "Only you Babe." In a moment he was back to business. "What do we know?" he asked the men. Apparently there was info he wasn't ready to share with the State Police just yet.

Lester offered, "The photos that were ordered on-line were delivered to three different P.O. Boxes. They are all in Pack 'n Ship places in strip malls. Each time only one photo was uploaded and ordered. It looks like on the surface that they were all sent from different IP addresses, but a closer look shows that each one was routed through several different addresses."

Now it was Tank's turn, "There were some photos that we were able to trace back to a couple of places that do local processing, like drug stores and a camera shop. We got security feed from the drug stores. One of them was too old, they only keep the tapes thirty days before they record over them. The others are grainy, but I've got Vince trying to clean them up."

"Vince?" I asked. "Light brown hair, green eyes?" I'd met most of the guys the day of the first meeting and Vince had been with me this morning at the breakfast. God that was just this morning?

Lester nodded, "Yup, that'd be Vince. Why?"

I smiled, "He shares my love of Boston Crème doughnuts. I thought I could order him some as an incentive and a thank you." I felt Ranger chuckle and the guys just grinned.

Tank piped up, "As long as we're bringing doughnuts in, I like the kind with jelly, Bobby likes the chocolate with sprinkles and Lester likes crème filled." He smiled, Bobby looked embarrassed and Lester waggled his eyebrows. Ranger shook his head, but picked up the phone and told Junior to order six dozen assorted doughnuts from the Tasty Pastry for the morning meeting, making sure all of our favorites were included.

"Babe, you're corrupting my men," Ranger teased. I just shrugged and gave him my best innocent smile. The other guys joined in the teasing before a sharp knock at the door interrupted our joking.

Hal was at the door with a large white envelope. My name was on the front, but it had the Rangeman address. I paled and the room went silent. Ranger took the envelope from Hal and excused him. Once the door was shut he opened the envelope and slid out the photo. I couldn't not look. It was an 8x10 glossy. It looked like it belonged on the front page of the paper or in a magazine. Objectively it was stunning. The right hand side of the photo was full of flames of oranges and reds as the Porsche burned. The left side featured Ranger and I. I was lying on the sidewalk, eyes closed. Ranger's body was covering mine. His weight was supported by his elbows as he held my head in his hands. Had it not been for the exploding car, the image was beautiful, erotic even. Wonder if I could crop it?

Apparently my stalker didn't feel the 1,000 words the picture spoke was enough because they added one more. In big block cartoony print was written KA-BOOM! with a funky star shape drawn all around it. I looked at the word and the image, laid out like a comic, Ranger in all black laying his body on mine to protect me like my own real life super hero. Something inside me must have snapped. I suddenly became hysterical.

"I know!" My voice was way too loud. "I've got it! I don't know why I didn't see it before!" I giggled and pointed at the picture, "KA-BOOM!" I looked at Ranger and told him. "Don't you see it? You're Batman! The Dark Night." He just stared blankly at me. I guess I was going to have to explain. "If you're Batman then obviously the Joker is behind this." I managed to keep the duh! to myself.

My head whipped to the other guys. I told Tank, "That makes you Robin! And Lester you can be the Green Lantern and Bobby you're the Phantom." They looked at me with concerned eyes. What were they worried about? I'd just solved the case. I continued to babble, "So you see this isn't about me. This is the wrong story. I'm Wonder Woman. Nobody stalks Wonder Woman!" I jumped out of Ranger's lap so I could continue my rant complete with pacing and Italian hand gestures. My knees didn't hold. I collapsed and everything went black. Great. Wonder Woman never blacked out.