Chapter 19
No dreams, what a blessing and I felt a lot better. Angel checked me over and agreed, the bruising was turning yellow and it didn't hurt as much, the bump on my head had gone so I carefully crept out of bed so as not to wake Carlos up. Showered and dressed, I brought him breakfast in bed, surprising him. After eating some breakfast, giving Carlos a kiss, I went back to the meeting room and looked again at the boards. There was something here that I was missing, I knew it, and I just couldn't see it. Armed with a laptop I moved to an outside terrace and got down to work. I wanted to look at a few people together to find a link, so Beatrice Lang/ Charlotte Rains
Langley- FBI, Mosely – FBI, Grossman- journalist and Sandor, on an impulse I threw in Hickman, so sue me I didn't like him. The first search focused on the two people with a similar surname, coincidence maybe? Lang and Langley? The second series of searches I entered looked at each person individually, then finally the pièce de résistance, all the surnames together. That last search would take a while so I worked on Grossman through a newspaper search program. Interesting there were a few articles under this name and Thomas Grossman wrote them, my man was called Ben. Ben had only written for a local paper and focused on sport, so why did he tell Lester he wanted a scoop on my job and me? The articles from Thomas Grossman were at least twenty years old and his focus was on Anti-Semitism. The printer was just starting up so I presumed the last search was still running, I hadn't printed that out yet, there was something I wanted to try first. With papers on the floor I lay down and with a new pink pen from Kade, I started the task of reading and highlighting. I jumped up and went back to the computer, Beatrice, I wonder, Betty? Beatriz? Betia? Of course Elizabeth. I'd heard of women who were called Elizabeth shorten their name to Beth and Betty so Beatrice wasn't so far away from that. So Elizabeth Langley went into the search, my large search, my spidey senses knew I was right. OK now my magic touch, the program was really quite simple and I'd often thought about trying out something different when I got stuck at my work at Rangeman. The idea I had was to take the results of all the searches I'd run including the newspaper one and sneaky me, Facebook and messaging sites it could access, then asked it to track by relationship, places of birth, marriage and deaths, residency and then threw out the probability and reasonableness of the people it identified as likely to have, or had a relationship. Yeah big words for me, and come on I'm not a computer genius, so I had the idea of exactly what I wanted it to do and Hector wrote the program for me. I'm not sure if he seriously thought it would work, but what can I say, he likes me. On the limited times I'd used it, it had worked successfully. Now I was getting antsy waiting for something to happen and I started to hop from foot to foot.
"Come on, hurry up, and work your magic"
I was almost singing at it, eventually the printer spat out the results, I scanned the contents and knew I'd hit the jackpot, printed for me were the names, likely place and time of birth, parents if available and their relationship to the other names. I was so excited I couldn't sit down and ended up walking back and forth across the room reading the analysis. I was buzzing as I ran from the room papers in hand into Kade's office.
"I've found it, her, them"
Oh shit, I just barged in on eight men in the middle of a videoconference.
I whispered "sorry", gave a finger wave and turned to leave.
"Stephanie"
Shit he used my full name; I stopped but didn't turn around, I was almost trying to make myself smaller.
"You shouting at my Little Girl Ranger?"
Tanks voice? That made me turn around, and this time those eight men were smiling at me. Kade came up to me and curled his arms around me.
"Shit Ranger you scared the shit out of her"
"Beautiful what have you been up to that's got you jumping up and down?"
"I'm sorry Babe we were literally brain storming the people on our list"
"I have a feeling that Bonita has something to tell us"
"Beautiful you've only been at it a few hours"
Carlos looked at me and smiled, then moved his chair back from the desk, which was an invitation to me. I moved to him and sitting on his lap placed my papers in front of me, with his arms around my waist I began.
"The woman who hired Rangeman as Charlotte Rains and the bitch who set me up, Beatrice Lang is the same person, also known as Elizabeth Langley. She was born in Hungary and is Catholic according to immigration records, I believe she came into the country with Thomas Grossman, who is Jewish, and the father of that psycho who was following me. They had their tickets paid for by Rosenbaum Bank, who did a lot to bring immigrant Jews into the country. Agent Ian Langley, I'm sure is related, but there's something hinkey going on there because I don't think Langley is an original name for either one of them, haven't quite got to his background yet, anyways where was I? Oh yeah the next cog in the wheel is Gerard Hickman, slimy creep, he is Agent Langleys son, but the mother never put dear dads name on the birth certificate, she kept her maiden name even after she married her new man"
"Proud of you Babe"
"You know you can always come work for me don't you Bonita, she's magic, I'm speechless"
"All mine Kade"
And just to show it he kissed me on my ear. I felt good about myself. Carlos looked at the men and shrugged.
"Okay that narrows down our job, Babe did you work out where Elizabeth Langley is?"
"No and knowing her she has a few aliases attached to her"
"Kade you pick up our man Hickman, and put him through the works"
"Santos you've got Grossman senior"
"He's dead"
"OK Santos work with Cal on the bikers"
"Babe how about you and Angel get cozy with Grossman?"
"I'm going to talk with Pete about Agent Langley, maybe even someone higher up"
All right maybe we were moving in the right direction but something was off, I was chewing on my bottom lip and trying to think what it was.
"Babe, I can smell smoke, what's wrong?"
"We're missing a key player, I just can't figure out who. Maybe if we knew why, it would help and if I can get my phone back that might help"
"Ranger I'll put Tobi and Jobe on Morelli, maybe see what they can find out?"
"Thanks Kade"
The meeting came to an end and Lester and Bobby came to say goodbye.
"We'll see you back home, and make sure you don't overdo it"
I kissed Bobby on the cheek as he turned to pick up his bag.
"Beautiful, you please be careful"
"Will do Lester, and hey guys, remember you don't know the new me when we get back to Trenton"
Angel and I had the evening planned out, Carlos was banned from coming anywhere near, and if it were possible I would say he was sulking. We ate as Angel worked her magic, Sofia came in to help, and she was definitely the Venezuelan equivalent to Ella. She had bought totally new wardrobes for both of us. Angel had talked Kade into a uniform for his men who were working with us and talked him into a fleet of vehicles. We'd be living at the new office but as I hadn't been there I couldn't describe the place. After five hours Angel showed me to a full-length mirror. Holy shit! I had short spiky blond hair, brown eyes and skin with an all over tan. My breasts were at least two sizes bigger, courtesy of a gel bag inside my bra and my hips were more curvaceous, I mean come on my ass was already too big if you asked me, but the special underwear added more to my hips. My finger and toenails were painted bright pink matching the belt. The new uniforms were a deep grey so we'd gone for tight fitting hipster jeans that had been dyed to the right shade of grey and a sleeveless grey cotton rolled neck top completed the outfit. Angel passed me a shoulder holster complete with gun all in black. To complete the outfit we had a bright pink gilet hiding the gun. Angel was dressed in an identical outfit; we could have been sisters. OK now for the test, let's see what the men thought. I'd practiced on changing how I walked, using my hips and stretching my spine up and my shoulders back, so with a definite roll of the hips we entered the lounge where Carlos and Kade were working. They both looked up as we went in and stood together in front of the door, Kade smiled and looked me up and down, Carlos had on his blank face. Oh shit he doesn't think this is going to work, I turned and ran, but I didn't get far when a pair of arms caught me and lifted me off the floor.
"Babe what's wrong, why did you run off?"
"You're not happy with this, this disguise and that means you'll send me away"
Tears were rolling down my face now; no problem with running mascara Angel had put lash extensions on me.
"Babe I didn't know what to expect and hell, you look so different I couldn't see you, my Babe"
"Are we okay?"
"Yes we're okay, I miss your wild curls but that's a small price to pay for you being with me, and I assume you have contacts in?"
I carefully took the contacts out and looked into his eyes.
"Now there's my Babe, her beautiful blue eyes that sees into my soul"
"I'm sorry I panicked"
"De nada querida"
"Shall we go back?"
"Yes, I want to know what Kade thinks"
By the time we returned to the lounge I felt better and had a smile on my face, I gave Kade a "little girl lost" look.
"Ranger how the hell am I going to work with these two looking like this? Let alone keeping my men away"
"Oh you'll figure it out"
"So you know what Angel is going to have me driving? What they're driving?"
"Don't you dare tell him, it's a surprise"
Chapter 20
Once Steph had got rid of the contact lenses and removed the blond wig I relaxed, her new look was certainly a surprise, I don't think I would have recognized her, but her face was still my Babe, I'd mentioned that to Angel and she said that Steph was going to have her lips plumped, eyebrows plucked to change the shape and a plastic appliance that fitted over her back teeth to accentuate her cheek bones and jaw line. Apparently Steph would only have these done after we had left the island. We spent our last night kissing and touching, with talking in between; she'd tried to give me relief for what was becoming a permanent hard on, but I'd told her that if she had to wait then so would I, that sex wasn't the most important part of our relationship. Who was I kidding; I would be taking a lot of cold showers again. We flew in Kade's' private jet from the island to Miami, Steph had him in stitches when she demanded to know where the parachutes were, until I reminded him of her last flight in one of these jets. We held each other on the flight, neither one of us saying very much, and I left her in his care.
"Kade take care of her, please"
"Like my own Ranger and we're talking every day, we could even meet up and show those folk of Trenton that two rival companies can be civil, or not?"
"Babe use the phone I gave you just to talk with me, it's gonna kill me not to talk or touch you, please be careful and if need be I can have you out of there immediately, okay?"
"I'll miss you, I love you"
"Love you too Babe"
I left without looking back; building up my resolve for the next few weeks we had to play this game. I took a taxi to the international airport and flew first class back to Trenton. God I felt lonely already. Tank met me at the arrivals, with Santos.
"Good flight Ranger?"
"Yes, thanks, how're things going?"
"Good, you need to get out and about now you're back"
"Will do"
We purposely didn't talk about the operation we were into, too many eyes and ears, Tank had taken all the information from the war room away, so the men would assume that was the end of that investigation, what he had done was to transfer everything to seven, including all of Stephs new findings. Five was empty and to be honest there was a somber atmosphere. The men acknowledged me, but there was a feeling of resentment, they missed Steph and thought that I had deserted her. I went into my office and my first act of the day was to contact Pete.
"Hey Ranger, hear you've been out of town?"
"Yeah had work to do in Miami and spent a few days back in the homeland"
"Well I did get some news for you but I'll be honest the Intel keeps changing and files have gone missing"
"Who's responsible for that?"
"Not sure, can't get a bead on that, but I copied files as they came up so I have a history"
"So what's the latest on Steph?"
"Well one group of the FBI, those up in Washington State report she died in a local hospital. The group in Trenton says she's been transferred to high max prison, location unknown"
"Great, if she died is there going to be an investigation?"
"Oh that's where it gets interesting, the state guys want a full report of her takedown and the Trenton guys say there isn't one"
"Thanks Pete, I'm not sure what to do now, kind of hit a brick wall"
"Know what you mean, I'm sorry Ranger I know you felt a lot for her, I'll get to you if anything turns up"
"Thanks Pete"
Not very satisfactory news and there was nothing more I could do tonight. I was a little concerned though that I hadn't heard back from Don Matthews. Steph wouldn't be in Trenton until tomorrow. The only thing to do was work, so that's what I did. The core team had a meeting in the morning so hopefully we could move on something.
I struggled to get to sleep; I missed my Babe by my side.