02/12/2019
**Note: thanks for all of the reviews and comments. I promise we are close to finding out who is behind all of this. Stay with me and thanks for reading!
I got up the next morning and peered out into the hall. No dead mouse. Yes! I have to remember to get Dylan a 6 pack for taking care of that for me. I made it through the morning without any weird phone calls or disturbing gifts so I started to relax. "See Stephanie?" I thought to myself. "You are not a total trouble magnet. Sometimes a coincidence is really just a coincidence."
I was reading through a new case file at the Bonds Office when Lula stormed through the door. "What's up with you?" I asked her. "I am so mad, I need a doughnut so bad," Lula said. "Me and Tank were right in the middle of some morning love making when he got a phone call and dashed off." "Well did he say why?" I asked. "He just said duty calls. You know Tank, he don't say a whole lot. I'm just getting real tired of always playing backseat to his job." "Well maybe you should cool it with Tank," I said. "Are you kidding me?" Lula said. "That man is a fine specimen. I'll take what I can get."
I wondered why Tank dashed off, but with Rangeman it's really not surprising. Ranger's men are nothing if not efficient. "What's on the agenda for the day?" Lula asked as she took a doughnut from the box on Connie's desk. "We need to do some recon work on our new FTA, do you want to ride along?" "Sure," Lula said, "let's roll."
Our latest FTA was charged with assault and destruction of property. Melvin Small was apparently having some chronic issues with his work computer and took a baseball bat to it one day during lunch. Melvin then accidentally whacked his boss with the bat when he tried to step in and confiscate it. "This guy is my hero," Lula said. "Who doesn't want to take a bat to a computer every once in a while." I agreed with Lula, and I felt bad for having to bring him in.
Since Melvin was a first time offender, he would probably get off easy. I just had to convince him to let me take him downtown and get him rescheduled. If I could find him. Lula and I took Hamilton on our way to Melvin's house. We rang the bell when we arrived, but no one answered. We decided to sit in the car and wait a while, hoping Melvin would show. I got to listen to Lula complain about how she was hungry, how she had to use the bathroom, how her ass was falling asleep. And this all happened within the first 15 minutes!
After about an hour of sitting and waiting, I was ready to beam Lula with a baseball bat so we left to get lunch. We got pizza at Pinos and took it back to the Bonds Office. "Any luck?" Connie asked. "Not yet," I said. "I'll swing by later and see if I can find him."
I wasn't feeling very motivated after lunch so I motored off to my apartment. I was debating cleaning the bathroom vs taking a nap when my phone rang.
"Are you ready to play?" It was the same voice from the other day. "Play what?" I asked. "Who is this?" "You'll know soon enough. First, we are going to play a game. I like to call it Life. I'm going to give you a series of puzzles that you must solve. Each one will lead you to a location. Solve the clues and your hero lives. Don't solve them and it's lights out. Don't play and it's lights out."
"Look," I said. "I don't know what you think you're doing, but it's going to end very badly for you. Ranger will find you and it won't be pretty. You should just end this now." Just then I heard a muffled moan and my breath caught in my throat. "Guess who?" said the voice. "I don't think I have to worry about anyone finding me."
"What have you done?" I said. "Let me talk to him." "Hero is, shall we say, incapacitated at the moment. You ready for your first clue?" I didn't answer. "I'll take that as a yes," the voice said. "Here it is: A giant you will never be, its copycat is not as free. You have 24 hours to solve the puzzle and receive your next clue. I'll be in touch and may the best man win." And the line went dead.
I quickly copied down the words the caller said before I forgot them and gave into the panic that was taking my breath away and making my vision blur. I did some deep breathing and tried not to completely lose it. I dialed Ranger's number and it went straight to voicemail. I dialed Tank's number.
"Tank, what is going on?" I said, not even bothering to explain why I was calling. "Tell me you know where Ranger is." Silence. Oh God. "We don't exactly know what happened yet," Tank said. "His last known location was the basement of SE Corp's office building. He radioed Hal to let him know where he was going. Hal tried to check in after 15 minutes and got worried when Ranger didn't answer. Hal went to check on him and discovered that Ranger was gone, but Hal found a syringe on the ground near the delivery entrance at the back of the building. We think he was drugged with a sedative. We've reviewed the security footage and we saw a man load Ranger into the back of a van and head west out of the parking garage. We've got men looking for him and I'm headed up there now. How did you know something was going on?" Tank asked.
I filled Tank in on the phone call and explained how I was supposed to play this psycho's game. I told him about the previous day's phone call and about the mouse I found on my doorstep." "Shit," Tank said. "I'm on my way to you. Don't do anything until I get there."
What the hell could all of this mean? Why would someone take Ranger only to have me try to solve clues to rescue Ranger? Was this some sort of sick joke? Was it revenge against me? Against Ranger? Well I wasn't going to take any chances on this. I would play this game and I would somehow, someway come to Ranger's rescue.