Janet Evanovich had the creativity, wisdom and foresight to create characters that generations of women would love and gravitate to. I am just smart enough to create characters that want to play with her characters. To be honest, usually the story writes itself. In spite of our combined brilliance, we will not make money off this story.

By the time everyone returned from the crime scene dawn had long since broken and breakfast was a distant memory. Most of us napped off and on. Padma full on slept and the girls encouraged me to do the same and I'll admit, I followed their orders pretty well.

Because of our pregnancies and their Wonder Woman status in Florida, the other women divided up determined to protect us lesser women. So Lula and Natalie parked it in my spare bedroom. Ali and Jenna went with Padma. When they called Jenna out just before dawn to bring the dogs out, they felt comfortable enough with just Ali with Padma. She is unmentionable after all. And she's a trained killer too. I'd have felt safe. In my room I could only be sure Lula and Natalie would squeal a potential killer to death.

I didn't even know when Ranger crawled up into bed with me. I was out. Pregnancy sure does make a girl tired.

I woke up nearing noon and took a breath that was slightly restricted since Ranger was wrapped around me pretty tight. I knew it had been bad then. He only held onto me that tight when something got to him. She must have been in pretty bad shape.

"Where are you going," He mumbled against my hair.

"Bathroom," I said softly.

"Okay," he loosened his hold and let me up.

I was in the shower, alone for a change when he joined me.

"I thought you were tired?"

"Did you really think I'd let you shower alone," he smiled and tugged me to him.

"How much sleep did you get," I asked.

"Enough," he evaded.

I shook my head, "that could be anything from 20 minutes to 4 hours."

"It could be," he smiled against my shoulder.

I shook my head with a sigh. "How bad?"

"Pretty bad," he sighed. "She had more than a hundred stab wounds mostly in her torso but some in her thighs, arms and head. From the depth and angle of the wounds we believe they both participated."

I nodded. "And they're accelerating."

"They like killing Babe," he said tiredly.

"You knew there were people like that in the world Ric. You've met a few of them face to face," I reminded him.

"Yea," he nodded. "When I've been on a government mission I've met some of them. I've met some of them on the streets in gangs and in war, but Babe…at Disney World? I mean, they seemed like a couple of fresh faced kids."

"Honey…he's just a couple of years younger than you," I reminded him.

"His maturity level suggests otherwise."

"True," I sighed.

"And she's just 24," he said quietly. "What makes a girl that age so violent?"

"Kate was doing her search. I'll look at what she's got and see if anything needs to be redone, but it looked like she was being thorough."

"SSD thinks they're still around here and I'm prone to agree with them."

"I agree. They won't leave until they deal with Jake or get him to come along."

"You think they'll rape him?"

"Oh yea," I nodded. "They're sick people honey. They want to inflict damage. In their minds he's scorned them."

He nodded. "Okay, shower and let's get this done."

"Amen," I agreed.

When I walked into the control room, everyone was quiet and some of them were pale. I knew everyone was pretty tired. They'd put in a long night and some had very little sleep. I squeezed Kate's hand as I went by since she looked paler than most. Then I raised a brow at Connie to check on her as I went by and she gave me a thumbs up. Being a mafia princess did have its benefits.

I started leafing through the notes Kate and I collected while Ranger conferred with Tank and Jack in the corner. Then he moved into position and I put them down to concentrate on the influx of information I was about to receive.

He sighed and ran a hand through his hair, "there is no good news at this point. I wish there was. Joanna was murdered shortly after 5PM 2 days ago. That was the day we interviewed Amanda. She had the early shift at The Magic Kingdom and then went home. She was raped," he paused for control, "and sodomized by Brady and by an object." He sighed and waited for everyone to get control. "She was stabbed approximately 129 times," he raised a brow at Kate and she nodded. "And beaten before and during," he paused again. "It was not an easy death. Brian, using his years of expertise with FBI believes they are just at the edge of going on a killing spree. He's conferred with sources at the bureau who confirm his profile. I can not stress to you enough that these two people are dangerous. They are not sophisticated so we can't even begin to know how they're going to react or what they're going to do. But considering how they've upped the ante from Sandy to Joanna, I'd say it will be big and we're sitting smack in the middle of a place that gets 100,000 visitors a day."

"You think they may go into one of the parks and open fire," Jack frowned.

"I don't think anything is impossible."

"I'll up my security," Jack left the room with his phone out.

"Stephanie…you think they want Jake?"

I looked back at Brian who nodded slightly and then turned back to Ranger with a sigh, "yes. I do."

"To kill him," he asked.

"Or to pull him into their circle," I agreed. "To them it's the best case scenario."

"Will they continue to kill if he joins them," he asked.

"I don't…," I turned back to Brian.

"Brian," Ranger asked, "will they?"

"Yes," he nodded. "They have a thirst for it now. He's just their missing piece. If he participates he will get to live. But he'll have to participate in everything from their sexual activity to the killing."

"There is no way to stop them from continuing on this path at this time in your best opinion."

"The course is set," Brian said grimly. "They can only be stopped by prison or a bullet."

Ranger sighed and nodded.

"Where was she dumped," I asked quietly.

"Jack," Ranger raised a brow when he returned to the room.

"What was the question?"

"Where exactly was she dumped?"

His jaw clenched, "she was dumped in a swamp area just on the other side of the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad."

"So…by the Magic Kingdom," I raised a brow.

He nodded.

"Then they're still somewhere near the Magic Kingdom, if not in the park itself."

"We have cameras everywhere there," Jack said reaching for his phone. "If they're in the park, we can spot them."

"They're there," I said quietly. "They're there."

"How do you know," he asked.

"Tingle," Ranger asked.

"Throbbing tingle," I nodded.

Jack murmured into the phone, "What do we do if we find them?"

"We start slowly clearing the park," Ranger said. "As a matter of fact, there's a severe thunderstorm heading this way. The rain clouds are threatening."

"Everyone but the locals are probably leaving the park anyway," Jack agreed and punched buttons on his phone. "Yea, we're down to less than 20,000 people."

"We need to discreetly keep people leaving," he said.

"Okay," he left the room again.

"There's no way to clear the park without them realizing it," I said seriously.

"I know," he nodded.

The door flung open and Tank staggered into the room.

"Oh my God," Lula screamed and ran for him.

"He's been shot," Gabe said and pulled at Tank's bloody shirt, "oh thank God, he had on a vest."

"What," Lula blinked up at him as she cradled Tank's head.

"He's just got the wind knocked out of him," Kate said taking his pulse. "The bullet didn't make it through the vest. He's got some superficial cuts, but I'd say when he comes to he's going to be more pissed than hurt."

"You know that's right," Cal said grimly.

"They have Jake," I whispered.

"Do you think they're still in the building," Ranger asked.

I nodded.

"Floor to floor," he shouted. "Let's go. Ladies, you're here and you don't open that door for anyone, got me?"

I nodded. The men drew their weapons and disappeared leaving the women with Tank.

Ali and Connie twisted the extra lock on the door and moved some furniture over in front of the door and we waited. We waited for Tank to regain consciousness and we waited for resolution.

Tank came to first. He regained consciousness with a roar of fury. He moved the table easily and kissed Lula and headed off with vengeance in his eyes.

"Damn, that was sexy," she muttered with her fingers against her lips.

I just laughed.

Tank had barely been gone five minutes when the door swung open again and there stood Amanda, in her full princess Ariel costume…no tail, she was a girl not a mermaid. And beside her was Brady. I thought he was dressed as Gaston from Beauty and the Beast.

He shoved Jake into the room. "You can start here," he said as his arm wrapped around Jake's waist and his lips moved against his neck.

I had a really bad feeling about what 'start here' meant.

"That one is pregnant," Jake said quietly as he pointed at Padma.

"A hole is a hole," Brady laughed against his neck and kissed the spot. "You're ours now. Do what we tell you to do and you'll be rewarded. You'll get to live and you'll get us and not that vanilla missionary sex you got from Sandy."

I saw Jake stiffen. I saw the fury in his eyes. I knew he was about to do something stupid. I met Ali's eyes and she shook her head with a smile. She looked…smug. I almost relaxed in that moment.

It only took seconds really. I flipped a table and the girls crouched behind it, well except for Ali and she was off. She tumbled through the air dodging hands, knives and gunshots. The idiots were concentrating only on her, so they weren't even watching us. Insane people? What are you gonna do? Within seconds they were flat on their back, their weapons were far away and they had majorly dazed looks on their faces.

"I need cuffs or ropes or something," Ali said.

I jumped up and went to one of the bins and pulled out the plastic zip cuff bag and hurried to her. She got them trussed up pretty quickly while Lula gathered their weapons.

"You're a major badass," I said seriously. "How did you do that?"

"I wasn't where they thought I was," she said quietly. "I can project my image somewhere other than where it is."

"You mean like, Mitch can blend and you can…wow…"

"Yea, cool right," she grinned.

"Very cool," I agreed as the guys slammed into the room.

Jake was sitting on the floor just staring ahead.

"What the…," Jack blinked.

"Skills," I said with a grin and patted Ali on the back. I knew she didn't want me to share her special skill with anyone, but I knew she'd be willing to admit she had skills.

"Really…skills," Mitch walked over and looked down at her hands. "Kate, we could use your expertise here."

Kate walked over and saw Ali's hands bleeding.

"Oh my God," I whispered, "I didn't even see your hands."

She shrugged, "I got a little close to Ariel Barbie's knife. I'm fine cousin."

I nodded.

SSD joined us within minutes and all parties quickly agreed that they would take Brady and Amanda into custody. The Disney jail was nice, but not really designed for real criminals. Jack said he'd have to push the budget to get a couple of cells up to speed whether the powers that be liked it or not.

I squatted down on the floor in front of Jake. "Hey…are you okay?"

He nodded.

I sat down beside him. "Where's your head Jake?"

He looked up at me with miserable bloodshot eyes, "is this my fault? Is Sandy dead because of me?"

"Oh honey no," I shook my head and scooted closer to him and wrapped my arms around him. I sighed. "Look, unfortunately there are just some people in this world that were born bad. Brady and Amanda were born bad. Both of them have been in trouble off and on since they were born. Brady was kicked out of kindergarten for fighting. Amanda was expelled from second grade for fondling the boys."

He gaped at me.

"They had troubles. It was hidden. They had rich parents who managed to cover most of it up and a normal background check would have never revealed Amanda's true nature, but it did reveal Brady's. Separate, they were…scary. Together, they were dangerous. Who they were…are…deep inside was exposed and they got off on it. You know?"

He just stared at me.

Brian dropped in front of him and sat cross legged and tapped his leg. "I was a federal agent for eight years Jake. What she's telling you is true. There is nothing you could have done to stop this. If they hadn't killed Sandy, it would have been someone else you knew…maybe your family. They…people like them, they have to break down their victim to possess them. Eventually, they would have killed everyone you ever cared about and it had nothing to do with you. It was all them."

"But…if I…"

"Don't," I said seriously and took his hand, "look at me Jake." I waited till he met my eyes. "You can torture yourself forever with what ifs. Don't do it. You find a good therapist and if you don't know one, you haul your ass up to Trenton with us and we'll set you up with the best one I know. Hell, he fixed me, he can fix you."

A small smile cracked his face. "Come back to Trenton with us," I looked over at Ranger. "You know these guys own Sizzlin," I waved at Tank and Ranger.

He gaped at them and Tank laughed.

"Natalie's been working on a new men's line. You can see Dr. Addison and work for them in some capacity, right?"

"Oh hell yea," Natalie grinned. "You can be the face…so to speak…of our men's underwear line."

Ranger grinned. "You're a good looking kid."

Jake rolled his eyes. "Trenton New Jersey," he sighed. "Is this what I've become?"

Cal bent down, "if my wife looks at you with glee one more time you'll wish."

Jake laughed, "Get used to it. Women look at me like that…men too."

Cal straightened with a grin, "we can keep him."

"He's not a kitten," I rolled my eyes.

"Wait till Hector gets eyes on him," Mitch grinned.

"Hector," Jake asked.

"Great guy," Manuel pulled him to his feet. "Used to be in some gang, killed some people. Now he does work at Rangeman and he's a bad ass. He's also gay. But don't worry, he won't touch you without permission."

Jake shook his head, "I thought Orlando was more progressive than Idaho."

"Yea, get ready for a world you never thought you'd find," Woody dropped an arm around him. "Come on kid. Let's get you something to eat and we'll talk about it."

"Wait for me," Natalie chased after them. "He's my model."

Ranger shook his head, "what just happened here?"

"Dealing with the aftermath of death for one innocent soul," I said with a slight smile.

He hauled me to my feet. "Good job Babe."

I shrugged.

"How much of this are you responsible for," he frowned and waved his arms around the destroyed conference room. "Do I need to remind you that you're incubating my enormous progeny in your tiny womb again?"

I shook my head and rolled my eyes, "you do not. Ali did it all…oh and then Lula collected the weapons."

Ranger's eyes widened and he looked at Tank, "search your woman and make sure she didn't keep any souvenirs."

"I'm on it," he stalked toward Lula.

"What," she blinked at him wide-eyed.

Ranger pulled me into his arms and I heard him sigh just as Lula squealed.

I giggled. I was so grateful that some things never changed.