Alex walked closer to the dumpster and looked over the ledge of the open slide panel. That is so gross, someone just tossed a diaper and didn't bag it, Alex thought. "You're that sure?" Alex asked. She didn't bother to look at his face.
"A hundred percent." Lester told her, he could see the concentration on her face. She was only a foot away from him. He stayed still watching her as the resolve came across her face, he could tell she wasn't into going into that dumpster at all, but it looked like she was going to do it.
Alex placed her hands on the ledge where the forks of the lift of the garbage truck go in and then pushed herself up and had one foot on top of it in one swift motion. She pushed up with her foot and grabbed the metal at the top of the green metal box. She toed the diaper to the other side of the dumpster with her shoe. She breathed a sigh of relief seeing nothing was on her sneaker. Lester leaned over just enough so he could look inside and see if she had anything on her feet.
"I think you're going to have to move some bags." Lester told her, still grinning, only this time like a little boy who had his hand in the candy store display and knowing the payout was going to be huge.
Alex turned her head and was inches from his face. A faint musk smell was coming off of Lester that was overpowered by the smell of rotting debris in the bags of plastic. "You are really that sure that the proof will be in here."
"Trust me, it's in there. Black bag, red tie." Lester told her looking into her eyes, he could see she was searching his. Come on Alex, you went into a pit and fought for your life and had no problems with it. Trust me, I really need you to trust me, Lester thought.
Trust him? That was the problem, trusting men had only led to pain in my life. I don't know how many more times I can go out on that limb, Alex thought. She noticed the pleading in his eyes laced with something else. She wasn't sure what that something else was, she hated not knowing what it was. She hesitated and tore her eyes away from his looking back into the dumpster, his eyes were so intense. Taking a deep breath she went into the dumpster like she wanted to hold her breath as if she was underwater.
Lester let his breath out slowly and went to the opening and watched as she started moving bags around. Alex had moved most of the bags around on top, still not seeing the one black bag with a red tie. She had to breath a while back and decided even foul air was better than no air. She stepped and her right leg went in between two bags and sank to her knee. She heard the chuckle at the opening.
"Careful," Lester told her.
Alex flipped him her middle finger on her left hand, this gained her a guffaw. She started pulling her right leg out and felt the fluid of some substance start oozing into her sneakers. Alex hung her head down and groaned. "I just bought these damn shoes."
Lester bent over laughing. He didn't know what was going on under the bags, because he couldn't see, but he was pretty sure he could guess at it because of the disgusted noises she was making. Lester looked back inside and saw the green slime dripping from her shoe and what looked like to be covering the calf of her right gi bottom leg. This was so worth being taken down and put to sleep by you just to watch this, Lester thought. I get to enjoy this all to myself as well. I may have to tell a few people, Ranger, Tank, and Bobby. They would enjoy this.
Alex had a disgusted shiver run through her body that she had no control over. She wanted to throw something at him, she wanted to know if she could really trust him. Because the desire to trust him beat the desire to throw something at him she ignored the laughing and kept looking for the bag. After tossing several more bags out of her way she saw the small sliver of red tie. She had moved three bags to catch that small little sliver. Alex stepped to the left of the bag with the red tie onto a piece of cardboard with her left foot bent over while trying to keep her balance steady as she reached down and pulled at the bag. It was stuck. She growled in frustration and then moved a few other bags and reached again for the one she wanted. This time when she heaved it came flying up and she lost her footing and slid down into the hole she had just created.
Lester hopped up onto the ledge once she had went down where he couldn't see anything but her head. "You okay?"
"Define okay?"
Lester chuckled. "Do you really want me to answer that?"
She heaved the bag off of her back towards his voice. She turned around and saw that the bags she had fallen onto had some noxious white substance coating the outside of them, and they smelled sour.
Lester had caught the bag Bobby had thrown in two days before and pushed it out of the opening. He stood and saw Alex was in the corner of the dumpster and standing in the bottom of the dumpster. "I think he threw it in when it was empty." Lester started laughing again.
Alex flipped him off again, and grabbed at the bag hole she was in and pushed off with her hands and feet, she didn't gain ground at all. She had two bags fall back in on her trapping her feet, she pulled one leg free and looked around for a place she could hold onto.
Lester saw the bags go back down on her, he had his laugh, but she had to get out of this and get cleaned up. "Hang on, I'm coming." He hoisted himself up to the top and closed one of the top doors, if he did this just right he could reach out and grab her hands and hoist her up on the door with him.
He layed flat on his stomach and reached down and out in order to get to her. Alex reached and grabbed onto his wrist. Lester gave a tug, Alex's trapped foot came free, he pulled and felt her coming up to him. Alex didn't give her right hand to him, when he had her within reach of his shoulders, Alex pulled with her left arm and brought herself up and with her right arm she reached over his shoulders her fingers finding the loop in his cargo pants and then shifted her weight, she had seen where he leaned out to far and temptation just had to be given into after she had been laughed at so much. Lester flipped and both of them went back into the garbage. Alex was laughing.
Lester groaned as he felt the bag bust underneath him and soak the back of his clothes. He could hear her laughter, he looked over at her and then moved so he was above her with his feet on either side of her waist and he squatted down looking at her. Her eyes opened and looked up at him.
"You know, it wouldn't hurt every now and then if you actually allowed someone to help you once in awhile." He reached down and put his hands under her arm pits and hoisted her up to her feet, looking at the smile on her face. He hadn't seen her smile like that, or heard her ever laugh like that. She had a wicked grin, he had seen that plenty, first hand. But he preferred the smile that was on her face now.
"I didn't want to be the only one covered in filth." Alex told him chuckling again. "It was too tempting."
"You play with temptation too much and you'll get burned." Lester told her. He felt the urge to kiss her, but held that back, he had gained a position with her that was too precious and fragile. He didn't want to loose his new found footing with her.
"Wouldn't be the first time." Alex told him as she put her hands on his shoulder, put one foot on his knee and hoisted herself up and grabbed the top of the door that Lester had just came down from.
Lester watched as her body went up just inches from his face, the smell of sour milk and dirty diapers kept him from pulling her back down to him. He moved to the side shoving a few of the bags down and found a place where he could put his foot and hoisted himself up closer to the side and reached for the door edge and pulled himself up. He followed her down on the outside of the dumpster to where she was now squatting down beside the black bag and unwrapping the red trash tie. She opened it up and looked inside. The inside of the bag smelled as bad as she did. She pulled out the shirt and then shook her head.
"Bobby wouldn't keep the clothes he had on when he went inside that dumpster." Lester told her. He squatted down beside the bag in front of her, "Question now is are you willing to keep yours? Because you aren't getting into that SUV with what you have on. I'm not cleaning two vehicles because of dumpsters."
Alex looked down at herself and then back to him. "My clothes can be washed, has Bobby never heard of dry cleaning?"
"For Bobby, its easier for him to buy new." He took the shirt from her hand and put it back in the trash bag and then twisted the bag back up. He held his hand out for the tie. Alex placed it in his hand and Lester let his fingers play across the inside of her palm as he curled his fingers over the tie. He watched as her breath was drawn in, her chest rise quickly. He looked into her eyes and noticed the deep dark blue that he had seen two days ago when she had pinned him in the garage. Lester held his tongue back this time and tied the trash bag up, stood and then tossed the bag in the dumpster for the second time. "Let's get you cleaned up."
Twice she had showered and she still didn't smell clean. Alex had gone through a quarter of the shampoo on her head. The musky smell that she had smelled earlier that had come from Lester it was coming from the shower gel. She picked up the shower gel and looked at the bottle, Armani, Gio, it smelled like heaven to her. This was her third trip into the shower, Lester had her using the smaller bathroom off of his bedroom. He had used the other one after he had set it right again. Alex grabbed the robe for the third time, her body was now coated in the shower gel smell. She couldn't smell the dumpster anymore.
Lester was sitting up on his bed, pillows behind his back. He had already showered and changed. He had the foyer cleaned, the hall bathroom cleaned and back in order, and a trash bag of his and Alex's clothes together to be sent to the cleaners. His legs were stretched out and crossed in front of him when Alex came out of the bathroom with his terry cloth robe on. It hung all the way to her lower legs, and was way too big for her, but he liked seeing how it seemed to swallow her in it. Lester crooked his finger for her to come to him again, he had taken off the ankle monitor only so she could bathe. His bedroom door was locked, and he really didn't think she was just going to run away from him with no clothes on.
Alex took a deep breath and then walked over to Lester. She stood by the side of the bed when Lester grabbed the front of the robe and gave a yank and took a sniff of her hair. "Better." He said as he let go, "You finally lost the sour milk and dirty diaper smell."
I smell like you now, Alex thought. She stood back up, Lester hadn't released the robe, his fingers were still gripped in the front keeping both sides closed in the front. He moved his legs and placed them on either side of her body and stood up holding her in place. Don't do anything, please don't do anything. I don't want to loose my trust in you. "I need clothes," Alex told him looking down at his hand.
Lester could feel the tension between them. He was watching her head, she had yet to look up at him. She smells like me, why won't she look back up at me? She said she had played this game before. Someone has hurt her, she would look up, otherwise, Lester thought then sat back down and released the robe. "I'll get you some clothes in a minute. Who hurt you?"
Alex breathed a sigh of relief when he released the robe, then her heart started thumping in her chest. How can he know that? I didn't do anything that would give that away, did I? What did I do? How did he figure that out? Alex thought in desperation.
Lester watched her closely, saw her relief at being let go, but heard the hitch in her breath at being asked that question and saw her head glance to the door to the bedroom and then back, still not looking at him. He saw her finally look up at him after a few minutes.
"I've been fighting for my life for two weeks," Alex told him and stepped back away and looked at the dresser, she walked over to the dresser and started opening drawers.
"I'm not talking about being hurt that way, Alex." Lester said, he watched as she opened drawer after drawer not pulling anything out. Her nervous energy wanting an outlet and he stayed where he was. "You know what I'm asking, tell me."
I can't tell him, I haven't figured it all out myself yet, it was mistake, it was something I shouldn't have done. I was drinking, it was a fucking mistake, Alex thought. Her nervousness started turning into anger with herself for letting it be seen. She shoved the last drawer shut and turned and glared at him. "It was mistake, I was drunk, I slept with the wrong fucking man. Now get me some damn clothes!"
Lester could see her shake with anger, he knew if he pushed her too hard things would fall apart. He got up and walked over to his closet walking inside it looking for her something to wear that would stay on her and not totally fall off. That wound is fresh, it wasn't an old one, if it had been an old one she wouldn't be so angry with herself, Lester thought as he pulled a black polo shirt off the hanger that he knew was too tight for him in the chest now. He looked for the black workout pants he knew he had here that had a drawstring in them that could be tightened up. He came out of the closet and laid them on the bed. Going to his dresser he pulled out a pair of socks and tossed them over to the bed as well. Alex had walked over to the wall that he had with pictures hanging up of his military years along with pictures of his family. Lester picked up the ankle bracelet and walked over to her.
"Clothes are on the bed." He squatted down and slipped the ankle monitor back on. "I'll be back in five minutes, get dressed." He reset the receiver so she wouldn't get shocked when he walked out of the room.
Alex didn't look at him as he left, she waited till the door was shut before going over and putting on what he had pulled out.
Ranger had gotten off the phone with Tank about forty minutes ago. He had been pulled over twice for speeding, he still hadn't slowed his pace. The two tickets sat on the passenger seat beside him. It had been six years since he had to think about clues from one his team mates. Six long years, since the total disappearance of Steven. I'm missing something. The phone on the passenger seat, Bobby isn't in control of the situation. That's obvious, but who is? Is this the first set of clues or am I coming in at this at the wrong time?
Ranger flipped open his phone and dialed Lester.
"Yes," Lester said in a voice that was distracted and not really paying attention.
"What's going on?" Ranger asked him, "Alex do something that has you thinking that hard?"
Ranger could hear Lester breathe out real slowly, "It's not what she's done, it's what's been done to her. She blames herself for it though. Don't worry about her, she's fine and is on a leash, she isn't going anywhere. What do you need?"
Ranger digested what Lester said, "Did Bobby leave any clues anywhere else? I don't think the Bronco is the first chain of events."
"The chain starts in our apartment. Did Tank fill you in on the phone call with Zero?"
"Yes," Ranger told him and switched lanes to pass another car.
"Well, Stephanie took his phone and threw it in the dumpster. He had to go dumpster diving. I was thinking on the Bronco clues, Bobby isn't in control, the distributor cap is throwing me though. I don't think Bobby put that there. He wouldn't take anything off the Bronco." Lester said.
Ranger laughed at the image of Bobby going into a dumpster. Bobby was a compulsive neat freak. Serves him right, he must have pissed her off as much as I did, Ranger thought. He could hear Lester laughing on the other end. Ranger stopped laughing. "Okay, we have to get serious now. Someone didn't want the Bronco stolen, but why shut the tracking systems off?"
Lester stopped laughing, Ranger could hear a noise on the other end and then someone elses voice far away that sounded like Alex, "I'm dressed, can we get me some shoes now? I can't put the others back on." He could hear the edge in her voice, a slight anger underneath it.
"Yes, I'll buy you a new pair," Lester told her.
Dressed? Can't put the others on? When was she not dressed? Ranger thought, "Lester, what is going on between you and Alex?"