Alex heard the sirens outside; she looked over to the door that led out of the back of the police department to the employee parking lot. Lester moved over beside her, "He's going to be okay."

"You don't know that for sure." Alex said.

She heard Lester snort and Alex turned to look at him. "You got me, I don't know for sure, but I do have a hunch that he'll be okay. If Blade wanted to kill him, he would have just shot him instead of giving him a message."

"Scarface fits him better. Why is he called Blade?" Alex asked. She looked up at Lester, her eyes swollen and red from crying. "How do you even know him?"

"I don't know him; just know a little about him." Lester looked down into her blue eyes. "Ranger knows more than I do."

The back door opened up and officers started coming in. Gaspick came in and looked over at Alex and Lester. "Finally decided to show up huh?"

Joe hung up the phone with Ranger and walked over towards Alex and Lester. "I would like to have a word with you Officer Gaspick. Why don't we step into my office?"

"I don't think so Morelli. I don't care what I'm hearing about her being yours. She still assaulted an officer and things like that need to be taken care of." Gaspick moved over towards Alex.

Joe rounded both Alex and Lester putting himself between them and Gaspick. "I advise you to let this drop. You don't want me as your enemy, I don't care who you are sleeping with and what strings you think you can pull. You leave what's mine alone."

Gaspick stopped short and looked Joe in the eye. "I'm not letting the charges drop."

"Officer Gaspick, I think things would work out smoothly if you did." Joe turned to see the Chief Pantangelo walking up the hall towards them. "You see, I like my men to work together and I like my department to run as smooth as it can, and it would pain me very much if one of my best men has to do something drastic to another officer under my command when he feels his child is being threatened."

Joe looked back at Gaspick and saw him swallow hard. The Chief was now asking him to drop this, it wasn't just coming from Joe anymore.

"He doesn't know for sure that she's his." Gaspick said as he turned to look at the Chief.

"Not yet, but we'll know soon enough. I want it dropped if she turns out to be his, am I making myself clear enough." Chief Pantangelo looked over towards Alex and gave her a wink, then looked back towards Gaspick. "It better happen, or I'll make your job hard, real hard."

Gaspick let out a slow long breath, he knew the Chief could assign him anywhere in the city and give him any assignment that would mean working him to the bone and worse. "If she turns out to be his, then I see no reason to let the charges remain; why would I? I mean what's it between two brothers of the blue."

"Good call." Pantangelo said. He nodded down the hall and watched as Gaspick hurried along back to his desk to work on some reports.

"Thank you, but you know I could have handled that." Joe said.

Pantangelo looked over towards him, "I know you could have. I didn't do it for you anyway, he's getting too big for his britches and he needed to be taken down a peg. I'd rather I do it than have Internal Affairs inside my station trying to figure out why I allowed one of my guys to hurt another."

Pov Change

Ranger and Stephanie got back into the vehicle. Ranger pulled out onto the road as Stephanie was turning page after page, she laughed in places and groaned as she reached others.

"I forgot most of this." Stephanie said as she kept flipping pages.

"Probably something you don't need to remember," Ranger said as he pulled back onto the main road and turned towards the nearest Wal-mart.

Stephanie laughed. "Most of this is so funny now. I can't believe how stupid some of this is now. Debbie Wilton had this mad crush on Eddie Gazarra back then. Eddie ended up with Shirley though." She turned and looked at Ranger, "it doesn't look like anything would be hidden in these either. Using ink that can only be read under certain light, I would have never thought of using something like that."

"Some people have a different mind set Babe. It sounds like she didn't want just anyone finding out what was going on but it seems like she had to tell someone. Maybe that was the best way she could come up with. Write it down and relieve some of what was on her consciousness." Ranger turned into the parking lot of Wal-mart, he grabbed a slot and parked.

He looked over at Stephanie. "Let's go find these pens."

Stephanie watched as Ranger walked into the Wal-mart. The first thing she noticed was a woman pushing a buggy full of bags trying to get out of the door. She had her head turned to watch Ranger and she pushed the cart into one of the coke machines beside the exit to the door. Stephanie grinned and kept following him. She had seen him have women break things when he walked past and now she felt this might be entertaining enough inside a store. She had never really seen him in a store, never seen him shopping at anything unless you counted Sunny's place where he took her for the first time to get a gun. Even then Ranger didn't purchase anything, she was the one who made all the purchases, but Ranger seemed to belong inside that place. While following him, Stephanie noticed that Ranger didn't seem to belong in a store, at least not in Wal-mart. He didn't fit in; he looked out of place in the store.

She grinned when Ranger turned right, she knew the toy department was the other way but didn't say anything. Studying what he was doing at the moment was too much fun, when he got to the end of the front of the store she watched as he stopped and turned around. Stephanie tried to hide the grin on her face. "You haven't shopped much in here have you?"

"Not a lot. FAO Schwartz in New York is more my style when it comes to toys for kids Babe." Ranger said as he came up to her and took her hand. "Be an angel of mercy and lead me to the toys."

Stephanie laughed and turned around and started walking hand and hand with Ranger back down the way they came. They reached the toy department and Stephanie looked over to Ranger. "Any ideas what aisle it would be down?"

Ranger gave her a hundred watt smile, "I don't think we need to go down any little girl aisles unless you want too."