Steph's POV

Bold section from Chapters 9 and 10

I just sat in shock. "What was the first part of the recording?" I asked, numb.

Ranger's mouth was in a thin line. "If I had to guess, Babe, I'd say that was the drive by shooting on Stark at 3 am."

"But why would it be on the SUV's dashcam?"

"I think someone was waiting for you to pull the footage to prove what happened with Morelli was self defense."

"But how did it get on there?"

"That's a good question, Babe." Ranger said looking over at Hector and Hal.

I spoke up. "Do you think that Joe was able to add the footage on there somehow?"

Lester rolled his eyes. "You give Morelli too much credit, Beautiful! He's not good enough to access our cameras."

Tank spoke up. "He's a cop. Even if he's not a good one, he's been around long enough to know how to manipulate dashcam footage."

Ranger crossed his arms over his chest and glared at Lester. "You're forgetting one of the first rules of warfare, Santos. Never underestimate your enemy."

I zoned out as the guys went into hyper planning mode. They were talking about all sorts of camera footage they wanted to pull up from around town, and Hal was explaining something about the file types on the dashcam footage and how they matched or didn't match the file types on the other RangeMan cams. The technical conversation was seriously way above my head. On top of the fact that I hadn't gotten much sleep last night – thanks to Ranger – and I had spent the whole day stressed out in the TPD, it shouldn't have been a big surprise that I was nodding off. About the third time that my chin drifted down to my chest, Ranger noticed and took pity on me.

He nodded to the guys. "We're offline for the rest of the night." I knew that was his way of telling them not to interrupt us unless they came across something incredibly important.

He picked me up out of my chair and carried me to the elevator.

"I can walk." I protested half heartedly.

Ranger dropped a kiss on my head. "I know, but I like holding you."

I gave a sleepy smile and rested my head on his shoulder. How could I argue with that?

We rode up to 7, and I was almost asleep by the time we walked into the apartment. I heard the familiar sound of Ranger's keys hitting the dish in the foyer, and we moved into the bedroom.

"I need a shower." I mumbled as Ranger laid me down on the bed.

"Do you want help?" he offered.

I shook my head and stood up, but I was still half asleep, and I felt the room tilting as I slowly slid to the floor.

Ranger shot out an arm and caught me. "Whoa, Babe!"

He looked me in the eyes, concerned. "You OK?" he questioned.

I nodded and turned to walk into the bathroom, but Ranger's hand on my arm stopped me. He reached down and rubbed my belly. "Let me help you. Just in case."

My heart started beating double time. I might be pregnant! If I had fallen, would that have hurt the baby? If I slipped in the shower what would happen? It was a disturbing wake up call. I might not be responsible for just me anymore.

I looked up at Ranger. His blank mask was gone, and I could see concern in his eyes. I bit my lip and nodded my acceptance.

He helped me into the bathroom and carefully stripped off my RangeMan uniform. He turned the water on and stripped himself. I sucked in a deep breath when I saw his gorgeous body standing before me. I mean, I was tired, not blind!

Ranger grinned at me wickedly as he helped me into the shower. "Problem, Babe?"

I blushed and shook my head. "Not at all!"

He guided me back towards the shower head, wetting my hair, and then began to massage my scalp, working the shampoo through my curls. God, that felt so good. I let out a low moan, and Ranger nipped my ear lobe.

He whispered huskily in my ear. "If you keep moaning like that, you're going to get very, very dirty instead of very, very clean."

I squeaked and made a conscious effort to control my noises. After all, Ranger and I really needed to have a discussion about birth control before we did that again.

Once my hair was washed and rinsed, Ranger filled a loofah with Bulgari. He started at my shoulders and worked in slow circular motions down my body, washing every inch. Evidently, the tops of my thighs and the aching area between them was dirty, very dirty, because Ranger spent several long minutes on his knees washing and rewashing those areas.

Still on his knees, he pressed a kiss to my belly and whispered something in Spanish.

I tangled my fingers in his hair while he placed his cheek against my stomach. "What did you say?" I whispered.

He was silent for so long that I thought he wasn't going to tell me.

Finally he stood up and gathered me into his arms. He cleared his throat. "I said 'Are you in there, little one? I promise to be a better daddy this time.' "

I felt my throat tighten as I wrapped my arms around him. I couldn't have said anything even if I had wanted to.

After a few minutes, Ranger pulled back and sat me on the bench in the shower. He quickly washed his hair and body, then rinsed. Turning the water off, he reached down to pull me up. Ranger dried me off and sat me on the counter as he dried himself. When he finished, he left the room and came back in wearing his pair of silk boxers and holding a pair of my panties and one of his T-shirts. He helped me get them on and then picked me up, carrying me into the bedroom. The covers were already turned down, and he laid me on the bed, climbing in next to me. He pulled the covers up around us as I snuggled my back against his front. His arms settled around my middle, one of his hands absently rubbing my belly. I fell asleep thinking about a beautiful baby boy with Carlos's dark skin, eyes, and hair.

R&S R&S R&S R&S R&S

I was startled awake by Ranger, who was trying unsuccessfully to slide out of bed. We had fallen asleep in a spooning position, but sometime during the night I had rolled. I had ended up lying on Ranger's chest, completely sprawled on top of him. He was trying to gently ease me up so that he could get out from underneath me.

"S'matter?" I asked sleepily, and I heard a snicker front the foot of the bed.

I sat up and rubbed the sleep out of my eyes. I squinted. Lester? What was Lester doing in Ranger's bedroom?

Evidently Ranger was wondering the same thing.

"This had better be important, Santos." He growled.

Lester grinned. "We've got him!"

I brushed a few stray curls out of my face and looked at Lester, confused. "Got who?"

"Morelli. Cal borrowed the security footage from the impound lot. Morelli is on it, plain as day. The angle is perfect. You can see that he's messing with the dashcam. You can almost see the flashdrive that he has to download the footage. Then he comes back later and reloads the footage we saw last night."

I sat straight up and clapped my hands together. "Then we can turn that over to TPD!"

Lester laughed. "Not hardly! The cops probably wouldn't take too kindly to knowing that we hacked into their footage at the lot. And if we request it, I guarantee that it wouldn't show anything. Morelli would wipe it out before we ever got a copy."

I scrunched up my forehead. "Then why is this good news? If we can't use it, what difference does it make?"

Ranger grabbed my hand. "Because now we know for sure how the footage got altered. We know that Joe is behind all of this."

I gasped. "The key! He found the key! You have to change out the box around the dashcam!"

Lester grinned. "Actually, Beautiful, Hector had a better idea."

I looked at Ranger. From his raised eyebrow, I could tell this was news to him as well.

"Hector thinks we should leave the lock the same, but we should add a second camera to the SUV. He wants to place this one in the dome light in the middle of the car. He can run the wiring to the cargo area of the SUV and put the box back there, hidden in with our other equipment. If Morelli thinks he got away with it this time, he may try again. The second camera would catch him tampering with the dashcam."

I raised my eyebrows. "So you want to use the SUV as bait and see if Joe tries to tamper with it again? Why?"

Lester grinned. "Because we want to see what else he'll put on the camera. We already have proof that he witnessed the drive by on Stark. We want to see what else he'll put on the camera. We've suspected for a while that he's involved in some shady activities. If he puts proof of any of that on the dashcam, we've got him. We'll have the second camera to show that he put it there, and we'll have the footage to show what he's involved in."

Joe wasn't involved in anything illegal, was he? There had to be a perfectly logical explanation for him being on Stark Street yesterday morning, right? I looked between Lester and Ranger. "What do you mean you think he's involved in illegal activities? How long have you thought that? And why didn't anyone tell me?"

Ranger rubbed my shoulder. "Some things with Morelli haven't added up for a while, Babe. We didn't know for sure what was going on. That's why we haven't said anything. But this may give us a chance to confirm some suspicions that we've had."

I just nodded. I knew that was all the more they were going to tell me right now.

I looked over at Lester. "Did you have any luck with the business cams around Market and Elm?"

He shook his head. "Not yet, Beautiful, but I'm only about halfway through the footage."

I bit my lip and nodded. I really wanted proof that the traffic stop had gone the way I said it had.

Ranger looked at Lester. "Tell Hector to go ahead with the second camera set-up. That seems like a good idea for now." He turned to me. "Until further notice, that's the vehicle you'll need to drive, Babe. Morelli will think it's your company car, and he'll think he has unlimited access to the recordings."

I nodded my agreement. That was probably a good idea. If Joe saw the other guys driving the car he'd probably be less likely to mess with it. He would assume that I wasn't observant enough to notice if he'd messed with things. OK, if I wanted to be honest, I probably wouldn't have noticed. Except now I knew to look.

Ranger looked back at Lester. "Is that all?"

Lester grinned. "Well, the morning meeting is in 10 minutes. Usually I hear from you before now, so I wanted to make sure you were up."

Ranger's eyes widened just a fraction. That was his version of standing frozen in place eyes bugged out and mouth dropped open in shock. He grabbed his phone off the table while I looked at the clock on his nightstand. Sure enough, it was ten minutes to 8:00.

Ranger launched himself out of bed and ran for the shower. He was in and out in under five minutes. Then he ran into the dressing area. He came out in his cargo pants and T-shirt minutes later, still strapping weapons on. He dropped a quick kiss on my head and then he and Lester strode out the door and down to the meeting.

Clearly, I was not going to make the meeting on time two days in a row. Oh well.

I got up and took a much longer shower than Ranger, got dressed, and had some cereal before I rode down to 5 an hour later than the guys.

The morning meeting was just breaking up as I wandered onto the floor.

Manny did a double take when he saw my cheek. "What happened, Wifey?" he asked.

I grinned. After Manny was shot by Scrog, I had pretended to be his wife so that the nurses would let me into the back to see him. That was still the nickname he used with me, much like Lester's Beautiful or Ranger's Babe.

He reached up and touched my cheek lightly, waiting for me to answer.

"Morelli pulled me over yesterday. He was a little upset when he found out that I had stayed with Ranger the night before."

Manny's eyes narrowed and his lips stretched into a thin line. "Want me to take care of him?"

I shook my head. "No, we've got a plan in place already."

Manny nodded once. "Yeah, we heard about it at the meeting. But, still. I'd be glad to remind him to keep his hands to himself if you want me to."

I grinned. "Thanks, Manny."

He clapped his hand on my shoulder as he walked away. "Anytime."

I peeked in the conference room and saw the core team- Ranger, Tank, Bobby, and Lester- still sitting at the table. "Knock, knock!" I called out.

"Come on in, Babe." Ranger responded without looking up.

I walked in and waited while they finished up with the contracts they were looking at. Ranger pushed his chair back and patted his lap. I walked over and sat down, and he wrapped his arms around my waist. "Tom called. He wants to meet with us this morning to go over the evidence he got yesterday from TPD."

I nodded. "What time?"

Ranger looked down and checked his watch. "Anytime now."

As if on cue, the phone in the middle of the table buzzed. Ranger hit the intercom button and answered. "Yo!"

Cal's voice came through the speaker. "Tom Anderson is here to meet with you and Ms. Plum, sir."

"Send him up." Ranger answered.

A few minutes later, Tom walked through the door. Tank excused himself to start on some paperwork, but Bobby and Lester stayed.

Bobby explained that he wanted to see the official medical reports from the station, and Tom handed them over. Bobby started thumbing through them almost immediately and left to make copies of them.

Lester reached out and shook Tom's hand. "When you're finished here, I just wanted to talk to you about the legalities of some recording we're doing." I was pretty sure he was talking about the SUV, but with this group, who knew?

Tom nodded. "This shouldn't take long. If Ranger and Stephanie don't mind, you can wait."

Ranger nodded and Lester sat back down.

Tom looked over at me. "Now, Stephanie, you said that some of these marks came from Detective Morelli and some came from Ranger." He slid a stack of pictures across the table to me. "Look through these pictures and see if you can separate them into two piles."

I sat back against Ranger's chest, and we looked through the pictures together. There were several of my shoulders and cheek. I put those in a pile on the table and told Tom that they were the ones from Joe. I felt Ranger tense behind me as he noticed that all the rest of the pictures – over a dozen – were not caused by Joe. These were pictures of my back, my neck, my hips, and the love bites left on various other parts of my body.

His hands rubbed up and down my arms and legs, finally settling on my belly. "I'm so sorry, Babe." He whispered.

I turned to look at him. "For what?"

Ranger's face looked anguished. "If I were given these pictures, I would assume that the person responsible was an abusive SOB. Add in the ones from Morelli, and I'd be ready to kill the guy."

I touched his cheek tenderly. "These marks weren't left in anger, Ranger. No matter what Joe or anyone else says, they can't change that. And I would never say otherwise."

He shook his head and kissed my cheek, pulling out the picture of my hips. "I don't even remember holding you tight enough to do this." He whispered.

"Me either." I admitted. "When they said the handprints were there, I had to look down to verify it myself."

He rubbed the back of my neck. "I need to be more gentle with you." He whispered hoarsely.

"Don't even think about it." I whispered back. "Sometimes I like it when you're rough."

He smiled, but it didn't reach his eyes. I knew that I was going to have a hard time convincing Ranger to let go in the future.

Lester had flipped through the evidence photos of my shoulders and cheek, and he could see the anguish the other pictures were causing us. In an attempt to lighten the mood, he whipped out his phone and passed it across to Tom.

"Well if Ranger is going to be accused of abuse, then I think you should countersue." He told Tom.

Tom gave him a questioning look.

Lester grinned. "Well, Steph wasn't the only one with marks after last night."

Tom looked down at the picture on Lester's phone and choked back a laugh. He looked up at Ranger and me, and my cheeks flamed.

"Actually," Tom began thoughtfully. "It might not be a bad idea to document the marks on your back."

Ranger quirked an eyebrow at him.

"It would further prove your defense that it was, uh… consensual." Tom stammered.

I looked down at the floor. Oh. My. God! Were we seriously going to document our sex life as evidence?

Ranger shrugged and stood me up. He whipped his shirt off and turned around with his back facing Tom.

Tom let out a low whistle. "Yep, those nail marks ought to prove it was consensual." He choked out.

Lester grinned and ran to grab an evidence camera. He came back in and took a few pictures of Ranger's back.

When he started barking out commands like, "Now give me a sexy pout. That's it! Make love to the camera," Ranger glared, snapped him with his shirt, and pulled it back over his head.

"Santos, mats tomorrow, 0500!" Ranger barked.

Lester was completely unfazed. Probably because he was called to the mats so often!

He stuck his head out the conference room door. "Binkie!" he hollered. "Bring us in the digital photo printer."

Seconds later, Binkie walked in and hooked up the printer. He nodded at everyone in the room and walked back out without saying a word.

Lester printed out the photos, and added them to Tom's folder. Tom slid across typed statements and had us sign them. They were just formal versions of what we had told him the day before- where the marks came from and what had happened during the traffic stop with Joe.

Tom had agreed that the filming should be legal since Joe was clearly aware that the SUVs contained recording devices. He was just packing up his things and getting ready to leave when his cell phone rang. He answered it and gave us an incredulous look as he listened to the caller.

We all stood, anxiously waiting as he hung up the phone.

He ended the call, shaking his head, and turned to face us. "That was the TPD," he started.

TBC

So what does the TPD want? Is it good news? Bad news?