I'm new to this so not even sure if I've uploaded it right or anything yet. Carla Macrae is my character everthing else is Janet's. I'm just playing around with Plum World for a while!!

Chapter One

So this was New Jersey. I was sitting in a taxi on my way to visit my godmother. I had left my home approximately 16 hours ago and I was absolutely shattered. There were delays at the airport in Edinburgh and again at customs at Newark where I had to answer some questions and swear on my life that I didn't have swine flu, so I suppose I shouldn't complain. I had come from the other side of the Atlantic after all!

Once my taxi driver had gotten over the fact that I was Scottish and that we could be distantly related seeing that his name was MacDonald and his Great Grandfather had comes over last century we were driving in relative silence. This surprised me as my one and only visit to the states previouly had resulted in a sore throat and constant headache after each taxi ride. Maybe New Yorkers had more to say for themselves. I was also surprised at his claim to be related as he looked more a Senor that a Scotsman.

My name is Carla Macrae and I'm 28 years old. I had a piece of paper with my godmothers address on and that's where we were heading now. Although she is my godmother for years I have been calling her Auntie so thought of her more as family now. This was my first visit to see her in New Jersey.

It was 2am so I couldn't really make out much of my surroundings but it wasn't looking too promising. We were riding through a pretty rough part of town by the looks of it. I suppose I should have been nervous but I was just too tired. We passed a street sign which told me I was on Sloan Street. My driver's mobile phone went and he started shouting loudly in Spanish to the caller. He hung up then slowed the taxi to a halt. He turned to me and smiled. Now I was nervous.

"Sorry baby but I just need to pop to a store then drop something at home, it wont take 10 mins then we'll have you back on the road" he said with toothless grin. "I'll turn the meter off from now to make up for it". With that he jumped out the cab and heading across the steet into an all night store.

I slid down as far as I could in my seat to be as invisible as possible. I had assumed he had locked the door but even if I could have got out I wasn't sure if I would be any safer on the street. There was no one around but it looked rough out there. It suddenly hit me what I was doing. I had come all the way over to the States and not told a soul. Not even the person I had come here to see. Now if anything happened to me no one would know. You hear stories all the time about females disappearing but usually because someone was expecting them to be somewhere or because they hadn't heard from them. No one would be missing me in Edinburgh, and no one would be expecting me in Trenton.

Suddenly the driver was back. In his hand he carried a tin of baby formula. "Sorry about this baby but my wife is desperate. Our son is only 3 days old and already through one tin. Who'd have thought something so small could need so much. Just another few minutes we'll be on our way"

I gave him a smile and settled back up in my seat. That's what I get for thinking the worst all the time. We drove another 2 minutes in silence while I contemplated the size of his newborn baby then stopped outside an apartment building. The driver jumped out then headed in the through door of the building. Just then a commotion broke out across the street outside another apartment building. Two women were trying to keep hold of a skinny old man who kept escaping their clutches. All of a sudden the man went still and fell to the ground. One of the women, a short but ample black woman with red hair and too tight clothes, picked him up off the ground and took him over to a big blue American looking car. The other female open the back door and the man was thrown in. The other woman picked something out of her curly brown hair and from over here in the dark I could have sworn it was spaghetti. She was white, slim and looked perfectly normal for someone to be dragging old men into cars in the middle of the night. The two woman stood arguing for another couple of minutes then got in the car and drove off.

Just then my driver came back. "Did you just see what happened to that old man across the street" I shouted at him. "Oh don't worry" he replied "that's pretty normal around these parts, he'll be getting his ass taken back to jail no doubts".

"You mean those were police officers arresting that man?" I asked.

"Oh they aint no police officers" he said with a laugh "that was Stephanie Plum and her sidekick Lula. Did any of them look like they had rolled through garbage?".

"Well one of them did have something in her hair that looked like food stuff" I replied.

"That would be Stephanie then, the bounty hunter from hell. You've been lucky some folks around here would pay to see those gals in action. You've only been here 5 mins" he said with a snigger. "Now lets get you home".

Chapter 2

Ten minutes later I was standing outside a dark building with no number on the front. The taxi driver had insisted this was the address on the piece of paper he had given me and had sped off. He had received another phone call this time for caffeine for his tired wife I guessed. It was close to 3am and I was standing with my suitcase and holdall and didn't have a clue what to do now. Although I had an address for my aunt I didn't have a telephone number. I hadn't seen her for nearly a year and not spoken to her for over three months. I really hadn't thought this through at all. There were large gates leading into an underground car park but I couldn't see any intercom system anywhere. A 3ft high wall ran along the side of the driveway into the garage so I sat down to think of my next move.

The only problem I was so tired I couldn't think what move to make. I couldn't see a door to go knock on and the gates appeared to be locked. It was then I noticed the intercom but there was only one button on it and what looked like an infrared sensor. I found it hard to believe she owned the whole building so didn't want to press the button in case someone else answered. I looked up at the windows. There was about seven floors in all but there was only lights on on the fourth floor and one more on the top floor. It just didn't look like anywhere my aunt had lived before. Her last place had been a really nice little house with gardens and a little summer house out the back where I used to play when I was little. This looked more like a government building.

Suddenly the gates to the building opened with a screech. I jumped down behind the wall so that whoever was coming out wouldn't see me. If it was my aunt I didn't want to scare her and if it wasn't her I didn't want whoever it was to scare me. As it turned out the man who came out looked pretty damn scary!

He went over to the intercom and pressed a key fob to the sensor and the gates shut. He stood and looked at the gates then fobbed the gate open again. Then he took out a small bottle and walked back over to the the gates. He went over and fobbed them shut again this time without the screech. "Gotcha" the large black man said.

I sniggered at this and the man turned to look in my direction. I ducked back down and wondered what the hell I had found funny about the big scary man oiling gates in the middle of the night. Just then I heard an engine approaching and a car turned into the driveway. The door opened and someone stepped out.

"What the fuck you doin out here Tank? Something up?" a deep male voice said.

"No my friend just fixing those damn squeaky gates" the deeper male voice replied. It was more of a growl actually.

That made me snigger again. Damn my bloody sense of humour. I lay there hoping that they hadn't heard. Nobody said a word but it didn't sound like anyone was moving either. I was holding my breath so hard I could hear the blood pounding in my ears. These could be two perfectly nice neighbours of my aunts, or this could be the wrong address completely and I had just stumbled across a couple of serial killers doing some home maintenance. There was certainly a lot of action for 3am!

I was crouched down low contemplating my situation when suddenly the biggest hands I've ever seen appeared over the top of the wall and grabbed my jacket. The hands lifted me off my feet and pulled me over the wall to land on the other side. I looked at the two huge men standing in front of me and nearly wet my pants.

"Well what do we have here?" the slightly smaller big scary man said to the other. I suddenly felt like I was in a very bad movie. I just hoped it wasn't going to be a slasher one.

I looked at them both and tried my sweetest smile on them. But I was so scared it felt more like a grimace. "Hi" I whispered. Now my voice was failing me too.

"You got any reason to be out here in the middle of the night hiding behind that wall there?" the larger man I presumed to be Tank asked. If that was his name it fitted him perfectly. He was huge. The biggest person I had ever seen who wasn't actually fat. It looked all muscle to me. He was a big black man dressed in black from head to foot and with his bald shaved head looked formidable. But then he smiled and showed two rows of gleaming white teeth. The smile lit up his whole face and suddenly he didn't look quite so scary. I pulled myself together and pulled myself up to my full 5'9 height and smiled back at him. "I'm looking for my aunt, I was told she lived at this address".

"Ain't no aunties at this address" the smaller man said. When I say smaller though he was about 6 feet 2 or more and pure muscle too. He was also head to toe in black and if I wasn't scared shitless I would have thought wow! He was slightly Hispanic looking with short black hair and hard looking brown eyes. Eyes that I would prefer be smiling at me rather than the hard glare they were giving me now.

I started to feel panic set in and also the threat of tears. I really didn't want to cry in front of these men and decided to try play tough cookie instead.

"Well if you could just let me in I'll check out the apartments and if she's not here I'll be on my way" I said to them in my toughest scariest voice.

The man with the hard eyes burst out laughing and his eyes softened and didn't glare at me so much. "Your're a long way from home are you not" he asked with a friendlier smile.

"Yes I am" I replied and damn if I could feel a tear trying to escape. "I've been up since 7 am yesterday morning how ever many fucking hours ago that was with this fucking time difference, I've sat in a plane for god knows how many hours next to some arsehole of a man who thought it would be great to touch my leg or chest whenever the opportunity arose which was every fucking five minutes, and now I have to deal with two big fucking Men in Black when all I want is a piece of my Aunt Ella's coffee cake and a shower then a big fucking bed to pass out in" I finished what I had to say, sat back down on the wall and put my head in my hands. I finally gave up trying to keep the tears back and let them all out. And there was a lot of them.

The man who wasn't Tank sat down on the wall beside me. "I didn't know Ella had a niece" he directed his question to Tank who moved to take a seat on the other side of me.

"News to me" he said. "You sure you got the right Ella honey? Whats your name?" he asked.

"Carla Macrae" I answered. I sniffed and looked up at the building hoping that Ella would miraculously appear. "Ella Guzman and her husband Louis are supposed to live here. Do you know an Ella Guzman?" If only I hadn't hid behind the wall and asked him in the first place I wouldn't be hear sniffling and looking like such a girl.

"Ella Guzman doesn't have any brothers or sisters to have a niece" Tank said looking down at the top of my head. "So you must have the wrong Ella"

"She's not really my Aunt, she's my godmother but I've always called her Auntie. She doesn't know I'm coming to see her so won't be expecting me, especially not in the middle of the night looking like this" my voice started to rise and the anger started to break through the tears. I hated being pissed off.

The two men looked at each other then Tank got up and opened the gate and disappeared inside. The other man got up and turned to me. "I need to get this car in the garage, put your bags in the car and I'll take you in"

"No way" I got up and moved away from him "I don't know if i've got the right address yet no way am I going in there with Batman and Tankman! I'll just wait right here thanks all the same" I stood and crossed my arms and glared at him.

"Sorry to disappoint but Batman is upstairs sleeping, so you'll just have to make do with Robin". He picked up my luggage and threw them in the back of the car. He stepped towards me and I instinctively put my hands up to his chest to keep him back.

"Don't worry pretty lady was just going to introduce myself." He stuck out his hand and grabbed mine and started pumping my arm up and down. My hand was tiny in his grasp.

"The names Lester Santos, but you can call me Les".

Chapter 3

A few minutes later I was sitting in the Porsche in the dark car park in silence. Lester wasn't saying anything and I didn't feel the need to speak either. I was too busy worrying about what was going to happen next. What if Ella didn't live here? I was now locked in a garage with some pretty scary looking people. There was an lift (or elevator, had to get into the American way of life) with about 6 cameras spread out around the space. There was 3 large black cars, a black Mercedes and another black Porsche. Black was obviously order of the day in this building. I wondered where Ella's little yellow run around was. Mind you it was on its last legs the last time I saw her.

She was living in New York then. Her and her husband moved around a lot but the last time I spoke she said they were pretty much settled in Trenton. Looking around I couldn't work out why anyone would be feel settled in this building. This just wasn't Ella's world. Ella was a lovely woman who loved to cook and would mother anyone who needed it. That was why I was here. A year ago after my mother's funeral Ella had taken my hand and told me if any time I needed a mum she would be there. I was now in need of some serious mothering.

"It will be ok you know" I jumped at Lester's voice taking me out of my thoughts. He was looking at me funny and I realised I was crying again. Thinking of my mother did that to me. I looked at him and he suddenly didn't look scary at all. He just looked tired.

"I'm sorry you must be wanting to get home" I said to him.

"S'ok I live here. Tank's just going to check your story then we'll be going on up".

"Does Tank live here too" I asked.

"Yup. Welcome to Rangeman" He replied "You'll find out more when we know you are who you say you are" he winked at me and I couldn't help but smile. I then spoiled it with a huge yawn. Suddenly I could hardly keep my eyes open.

Just then the elevator door opened and Tank came back with a file in his hand. He gestured for Lester and myself to get out the car. We then followed him back into the elevator and he hit the button for the 4th floor. We rode up in silence and I started feeling nervous again. Where the hell was I heading?

The elevator stopped and we stepped out into a huge office. There was banks of monitors along one wall and about 8 cubicles spread out along the rest of the room. At one of the monitors sat another huge man in black. He turned to look at me and I took a step back to hide behind Tank.

"Don't worry about Hal he's harmless" laughed Lester.

Hal growled something and turned back to his screen. I would reserve judgement on the harmless until I see otherwise. Harmless was not a word I would use to describe the beast of a man in front of me.

Tank gently took my arm and led me over to the first cubicle to a chair. I sat down and he handed me an ID card that was clipped to the file he was holding. "Is this your Ella?" he asked.

I looked at the little plastic card and almost cried with relief. God I was an emotional wreck tonight. It was Ella. It didn't really look like the Ella I remembered as she wasn't smiling but it was definetly her. "Yes that's her" I smiled up at them. "That's my Auntie Ella".

Tank sat down in the chair next to mine and laid the file on the desk. "I've read through her background and there is no mention of you or any family in Scotland. There is mention of a good friend though. Ella spent a few years in Scotland before she met Louis and worked for a large hotel in Edinburgh"

"Yes that's right" I told them. "She worked in the Balmoral Hotel with my mother Jean when they were at college. My mum left when she got pregnant with me but they kept in touch. They were doing catering at college but Ella had to come back to the States when she graduated. We saw her a lot though. My mum asked her to be godmother as she knew Ella would always be there for me. She knew I could turn to her if anything ever happened to her" My voice started to crack then so I shut up. I didn't want to cry in front of them yet again.

"And you need to turn to her now?" Lester asked gently

"Oh yes" I replied weakly. More than I could ever tell them.

"Well its late so we really don't want to disturb the Guzman's tonight" Tank stood up and gathered the file back together. "We'll put you in one of our guest suites tonight and reunite you in the morning. You've had a hell of a long day and you look like you need your beauty sleep".

"Thanks, I look that good do I?" I looked at him with what I hoped was an evil stare.

"You look like hell" Tank laughed. "But that's a good look around here. We'll get your stuff sent up to you". He handed Lester another key fob. "Les can you take the lady up to Suite 3".

I pushed myself out the chair and followed Lester back into the elevator. He pressed the button for level 5 and we stepped out into a dimly lit hallway. There was 4 doors down each side of the hallway each with a number and a small light on the outside of the door. He led me down to No 3 and opened the door with the fob. We entered a small apartment with a kitchen and dining area, a small lounge area which led to a bedroom with ensuite bathroom. I could see the large bed all made up and couldn't wait to get under those sheets. I was dead on my feet.

He handed me the fob "This will open the door and will also open the garage door if you feel the need to run away" he smiled his tired smile and I realised how much bother I had caused them tonight.

"Thanks for all this, bet you could have done without all this tonight?"

"Don't worry it brightened up an otherwise dull nightshift for us all"

"What exactly is it you do here anyway?" I asked curiously

"You'll find out all about that tomorrow sweetness. In the meantime you need anything, I'll be right next door. I'm in No 2" with that he winked, ruffled my hair and was gone.

Phew I felt all hot and bothered. I smoothed my hair back down where he had just touched me. My hair felt on fire.

I had a quick look in the kitchen to see if there was anything to eat. I was suddenly famished. There was a bowl of fruit in the fridge and some bottled water but nothing else. I grabbed an apple and a bottle of water and sat down on the very comfortable looking sofa to eat. There was a stylish coffee table in front and a massive modern looking entertainment system on the opposite wall. I wandered through to the bedroom and looked at the comfy king size bed longingly. But what I needed was a shower to wash the greasy feeling of travel away then I could let myself sleep.

Twenty minutes later I stepped out of the shower into a huge soft bath towel. I wrapped it round myself and stepped out into the bedroom. My luggage was laid out on the floor beside the door. Okay so that was taking liberties. I might not have heard them knock but they could have left it in the living area. I quickly checked to make sure I was alone again and then shut the bedroom door. I dried myself off and grabbed the first pair of pyjamas I could find. I jumped into the ..... oh the most glorious bed ever and lay down to consider my day. I fell asleep instantly.