A/N: We're in the home stretch! There are three more chapters to go after this one. My son, who was just starting middle school when I originally wrote this, is graduating high school in less than two weeks. With a gazillion relatives coming to town for the auspicious occasion, it is my plan to get the rest of the story posted in its entirety before the first guest arrives and chaos ensues.
Chapter 13
She heard Ranger let out a gust of breath against the receiver. "I'm okay, Babe."
Looking up, she noticed that Jase had left the room. "Are you—are you done?"
"Almost. Stephanie, you're on a secure phone but-"
"Got it. Um, so …"
Ranger sighed. "No details, Babe."
Stephanie didn't know whether to laugh or cry. This would be another thing they couldn't talk about. She knew he was right about phone security, but she doubted he would ever share the details of what happened. If she were honest with herself, she really didn't want to know. In the end, she just wanted to hear him talk, wanted to know when this would be over.
"So you have a few ... meetings before you can come home?"
He let out a short laugh, but it wasn't a sound filled with any happiness, just resignation. "Yeah. Something like that."
"Do you have any idea when you'll be done?"
"Couple of days. No more than a week."
"Promise?" He didn't answer the question. He would never make a promise to her he couldn't keep. They were both silent awhile just listening to one another breathe. Stephanie said softly, "I miss you."
Just as softly, Ranger said, "Me, too."
Before she could edit her thoughts, she blurted, "I hate this."
Gruffly, he said, "Me, too."
When he fell silent again, Stephanie shut her eyes and tried to listen for background noises, some clue as to where he was. There was nothing.
He cleared his throat and said, "How are you holding up?"
"I re-broke Jase's nose. Well, you did it the first time, but at this rate-"
"Babe." This time, she could hear a genuine smile in his voice.
"He asked for it."
"I'm sure he did." He paused for a moment then said, "He's not a bad person, Stephanie. I hope you know I wouldn't have left you with him-"
"I know."
"Do you?"
"Yeah, I know." She closed her eyes again and said, "He told me about Isobel."
There was a stunned silence that stretched and pulled until Stephanie felt compelled to try to fill the void. It was as if she had said I know why you've kept yourself so closed off to me. I know why you pushed me away.
Just as she was about to speak, to clarify, Ranger said, "I have to go."
"Oh. Okay." She felt a little hurt, but chided herself that he might not be in a safe place and the sooner he finished his tasks, the sooner he would return to her.
She began to pull the phone away from her ear, assuming he would just hang up. He never said goodbye. As her thumb hovered over the 'end' button, something inside of her told her to put the phone back to her ear.
"Carlos?"
She heard him exhale a shaky breath, then grunt an affirmative sound.
"I wish you had said goodbye to me."
"Just now?"
"No."
"I did say goodbye to you."
"When you made love to me? That doesn't count."
"Everything counts. Words can imply too little or be misconstrued. I've always been very clear with my actions toward you."
She fell quiet then, unsure of what to say.
"Stephanie, I really have to go."
"I love you."
He let out a long breath and she could just picture him closing his eyes, absorbing her words. He rasped, "I love you, too."
The next three days passed slowly. Jase and Stephanie fell into a routine, much as she had with Ranger. The training sessions were tougher each day, both physically and emotionally. But when the gloves were off, they were off.
Jase never brought up Isobel again, and neither did Stephanie. She spent most of her afternoons alone while Jase did whatever he was doing in the office, but in the evenings, they shared a quiet meal together and then retired to the den to watch trashy cable programming. Jase was a TV talker. He felt the compulsion to comment and complain throughout every show, and even yell at the actors, mock them, and tell Stephanie what he would do. If two female actresses began to argue or fight, he would provide a 'chicka-chicka-bow-bow' porn music accompaniment. He would comment on the realistic and unrealistic elements of crime and alphabet agency shows. Interesting? Somewhat. Annoying? You bet.
Every morning when she woke up, Stephanie checked her Mensa phone and sighed in relief when she saw the lime green light pulsing. Every night before she slept, she repeated the routine with the addition of a prayer for Ranger's safe return.'
On the morning of the fourth day, Stephanie woke up to a low-level chirp. Slapping her hand against the alarm clock did nothing to eliminate the sound. Lifting her head from her pillow, she frowned at the nightstand as she realized it was her phone device emitting the sound. Warily, she picked up the phone and looked at the screen. Instead of the green blip, she saw a text type message: Bio data = zero.
Bio data = zero.
Bio data = zero.
Bio data = zero.
Stumbling from the bed, a chill sweeping over her entire body, Stephanie bolted down the hall to the darkened bathroom and dropped to her knees in front of the toilet. There was little in her stomach but she felt like it might clear her vision, turn down the volume on the ringing in her ears, give proof to the all-consuming emptiness she felt.
Suddenly she became aware of the overhead light coming on, a warm body against her back, and a strong arm around her waist. No amount of wishing would make it Ranger; she knew it was Jase.
"Stephanie. Try to take deep, slow breaths. What's wrong? What did you eat? When did this start?"
Stephanie remained where she was hunched over the toilet, but she moved her right hand to lie across the phone on the counter. Jase reached over and pulled the device from under her hand. He was silent. Another dry heave wracked her body and Jase tightened the arm around her waist for a moment. When the wrenching sensations passed, Jase gave a final absent rub across her back before sitting down completely. He leaned against the wall across from the toilet and began furiously tapping away at the touch pad. Stephanie dropped onto her bottom and scooted over to lean against the tub adjacent to him. Jase's face was completely blank, even his eyes lost the humanity they'd recently held.
Steph croaked out, "It's broken. Please tell me it's broken."
Jaw locked, Jase didn't meet her eyes. "The other functions appear to be in order. I can see the coordinates of his location. When was the last time you checked his location?"
She hadn't. Ever. Which was why she couldn't manage to look him in the eye.
Crawling over Jase's extended legs, she pulled herself up in front of the sink where she methodically banded her hair in a ponytail and brushed her teeth. After spitting the toothpaste out, she leaned heavily against the counter watching the foamy water spiral down. With conviction, she said, "He's not dead. I would feel it." She knew that the way she stood, defeated, belied her bold pronouncement.
She felt Jase watching her, probably contemplating what, if anything, to say in response to her statement. In the end, he just stood and went toward the office, device in hand.
Stephanie slowly lifted her head and stared at the bewildered woman in the mirror. Her eyes looked bleak, hollow, empty. Her skin was ashen and her mouth was drawn in a tight line. She raised a trembling hand to her mouth and thought about words that had spilled from her lips both in anger and in love. She had told him she loved him. He knew that. But she had also told him she hated him. Hated this. If he had—if he were—she couldn't even think in the terms of died or dead—would he think, or was it thought?—that she was saying that she hated this so much she would let him walk away from her? That she couldn't do this? That she didn't love him enough to do this?
She thought back to the night he came to get her. She'd told him she hated him. She'd called him insane, an asshole, and a psychotic mercenary jerk. She dug her nails into her lips, hating her mouth, hating herself for refusing to filter every juvenile and passive aggressive thought that had run through her mind and tumbled past her lips. When the metallic taste of blood eased over the edge of her tongue, she dropped her hand and stared at the miniscule smear of red on her fingertips. Looking up, she saw the woman in the mirror had a small cut on her lower lip adding a macabre splash of color to her gray face. She lifted her hand and smeared the small amount of blood around her mouth and a little below. It hurt. It felt good because she felt the pain; she wasn't completely numb.
Jase's voice echoed across the hall and brought her out of her bizarre trance. He was on the phone. On rubber legs, she wandered into the office and stopped in front of the desk. He was talking in low tones and was hooking up the phone device to a port in the laptop. When he noticed her, his eyes were initially blank until he saw her mouth. He barked a terse, "Hold on," into the phone and frowned up at her. "What did you do to yourself?"
Stephanie dropped her eyes and just shook her head. She felt the weight of his eyes on her and it felt like judgment. Softly, he said, "Princess, come here."
As she walked around the desk, he scooted his chair back and pulled her down across his lap. Numbly, she leaned her head into his shoulder as he sat back. Then he held her head to his chest and resumed his phone conversation.
"I did that already. There was movement up until two days ago and then nothing." He paused again, listening. "Of course I taught her how to read it. Carlos asked me to. I don't think she ever checked for movement or she would have said something." There was a long period where Jase simply listened and absently stroked her hair. "Shoulda, coulda, woulda, man. No, I didn't check it for her. It's hers. He didn't ask me to-" His hand tensed in her hair. "No you can't check it remotely. If you or I could check it remotely, any uber-hacker could check it remotely. That was the flaw with the last prototype. It's why Ranger never allowed one before."
Oh God. Intimidated by the device, she had only been checking to see if he was alive and well, not following his movements. If she had been, would she have known when he had gone down, but was still alive? He had trusted her with the one thing he had allowed no one else to do. Had she failed him in the most profound way? Did he wonder why no one came for him? Did he have long to wonder, or had-
"Goddamn it, Tank, I don't know. We don't exactly have these through legal channels, and if we did, it's not like there's some help desk we could call. You have the last coordinates and I'm uploading-"
Stephanie sat up and licked her lips; they stung. "I want to talk to him."
Grabbing the phone from Jase, she asked, "Where is he?"
Tanks deep voice replied, "Mexico. Just across the border of-"
"Is he dead?" Her stomach lurched just saying the words.
Tank breathed a heavy sigh and said, "I don't know."
Through the phone she heard the creak of his chair and she pictured him leaning back, closing his eyes and rubbing his smooth head with a beefy hand, trying to find the right words to say to her. "Jase is uploading the data from the device and sending me the file. I'll have to comb through it. Those particular trackers are prototypes and haven't been formally field-tested. There's always a chance of device error. But the thing is … the device is still working, if you get what I'm saying. It's just—it's still. It looks like he hasn't moved."
"Could he have been cut and it fell out? Or maybe he took it out?"
He sighed. "Short of surgery, Steph, there's no removing the thing. It wouldn't be something he'd do in the field. And he would know the reading that would give you. He wouldn't want you to worry. I just can't see him not contacting you."
"But he could be in a hostage situation."
There was a pause. "He could be."
"You don't believe he is."
"That man has been taken hostage exactly once, and it was bad. It changed him. He won't go hostage again. He'd kill with his bare hands or die trying."
"So you're telling me he's dead."
"Stephanie. Just give us some time."
"Are you sending a team to Mexico?"
"Yes. I'm on point."
"Who else is going?"
"Santos, Brown, Ramos-"
"Is it search and rescue or search and retrieval," Steph cut in.
There was a pointed pause before Tank said, "Keep the faith, Steph. We're gonna find him. Put Jase back on."
Stephanie handed off the phone and flopped on Jase's bed, curling into his pillow. The chill that had swept over her had now settled into her bones; she'd wrap herself in his blankets but she knew it wouldn't help. At least the ringing in her ears had subsided. Now all she could hear were her terrible thoughts vying for dominance in her head.
She'd just started picking at her lip again when she was startled by the sound of Jase smashing the satellite phone with a free weight. She sat up clutching the pillow, looking uncomprehendingly at the destroyed phone on the ground. "What the hell did you just do?"
He sifted through the shards, picking up a few components, presumably to further destroy in another way. "We have to operate under the assumption that the sat phone may have somehow been compromised. They're difficult to track, but at this point we can't take a chance that it's broadcasting our location to the wrong eyes. We're now in total lock-down mode for direct communications."
But how would Ranger contact them? "We still have the laptop for email," she reminded him as she watched him drop the smallest electronic parts of the destroyed phone into his bottled water on the desk.
"It's allegedly secure, but I'm not taking any chances right now communications-wise. We're down to using pre-arranged message boards and codes."
"You don't have a cell phone?"
"Not secure, Princess. We don't know who or what happened to Carlos. We still don't know if you're safe. I won't place a call from this location."
"So we move."
"It might not be safe to move. We're going to sit tight until we know something."
She burrowed her face into his pillow. Lifting her head, she felt an absurd twist in her heart at the tiny red smear she left in the middle of the pristine white pillowcase. "You mean we're gonna sit tight until they find his body."
"That's worst-case scenario."
"Explain why staying here is better than relocating. If you think that the sat phone might have been compromised-"
"He ordered you to stay here."
Stephanie's back stiffened. "He did no such thing. He asked-"
"Ordered."
She narrowed her eyes at Jase. "I'm getting that you guys were—are close, but I have a hard time believing he would share—wait a minute. Did he order you to do anything?"
If she hadn't been watching closely, she would have missed the slight flare of his emotionless eyes.
"He did, didn't he?"
Jase spun and left the room, and as though attached by a string, Steph followed him. She found him rooting through the medical bin until he came up with hydrogen peroxide and some Neosporin. After putting his supplies on the kitchen table, he stepped into the kitchen. He ran a wad of paper towel under the tap before adding a small dollop of antibacterial soap. Returning to where she stood by the table, he clasped her jaw and concentrated on cleaning up her lip. She flinched and hissed, but he continued his task dispassionately.
Tossing the slightly stained paper towel in the garbage, he handed her a dry square and then retrieved the hydrogen peroxide and ointment. As he watched the cleaning agent bubble and turn white against the cut, he said, "My life for yours."
When he dabbed a freshly damp cotton swab against the cut, she tried to pull away from the sting. "Take care of you like you're mine."
She narrowed her eyes so hard, she knew he felt the intensity like a slap across the face. Eyes boring into hers, his grip on her jaw tightened. "Not like that. Christ." His focus returned to her lip. "I don't know what he was thinking, considering how well I took care of Izzy."
Shaking his head, he squeezed a strand of antibiotic ointment onto a fresh cotton swab. Grasping her face, more gently this time, he painted her lower lip delicately. When he was done, he gave her face a little shake and said, "No more self-mutilation. No cutting. All the rules that apply to fighting apply to respect for your own body."
"I didn't-"
"I don't want to hear it. I'll tie you down to the fuckin' bed if I think you're gonna harm yourself again. If I let you get broken-"
"Too late," she whispered.
Clenching his jaw, he began putting some things away, throwing others in the garbage.
"I don't want to be here anymore." She could feel her numbness sliding straight into good-old unproductive hysteria.
"You think I'm enjoying this, Princess? I know you've been stuck in a perpetual fight-or-fight mode for a lot longer than the average civilian, but you need to get a grip on your emotions, Steph."
"Like you're the picture of emotional health," she parried.
Jase scrutinized her as he leaned heavily against the counter. "We wait, Stephanie. This is not up for discussion."
She turned from the kitchen and headed down the hall to the bedroom. Crawling up the bed, she curled herself around Ranger's pillow, inhaling his scent. Was it fading already? She looked up at Jase as he entered the room. When he saw her, his eyes seemed to soften fractionally.
He said, "Stephanie, we have to stay here. At least until we know something more concrete. You know that, don't you?"
Part of her understood what he was saying. Ranger had wanted her here to assure her safety. And it this point her safety was far from certain. But as she glanced around the room, all she could see was him. He was in this bed, in the closet, in her heart … it should comfort her, but it only served to remind her of what she didn't have right now. What she might never have again.
"Steph?"
Closing her eyes against a wave of misery, she said softly, "I understand."
Jase left her alone and she got lost in her thoughts for a while trying to comprehend what was happening. Was he dead? Wouldn't she feel it? Were the last hours they spent here the last they would ever have?
Unwilling to go down that road any further, she climbed out of bed to find Jase. He was slumped in front of the laptop and so focused on his task that he didn't really acknowledge her.
Stepping behind him, she saw that he was entering a series of codes to presumably open some program. A page of gibberish popped up which meant nothing to Stephanie, but clearly meant something to Jase. "Fuck."
She frowned at the screen. "What?"
Turning to her, Jase said, "Looks like you're gonna get your wish. You have ten minutes to pack. Our location has been compromised."
