A/N Everything you recognize belongs to Janet Evanovich. Thank you to Kathy's amazing beta skills, Heather for all her sound advice and encouragement and Lisa who did a little of both!
~Chapter 17
*** Aug 5
Tracy POV
I make my way into my cousin's childhood home. "I'm so glad you could come today," she says.
"I wouldn't miss it for the world." I reply. I came over to help her pack her room since she was relocating to the west coast. She got a job in a bank in San Francisco. It's an entry level position for her degree but she is hopeful she will move up the corporate ladder quickly. "I can't believe you're moving so far away." I tell her close to tears. We've been very close our whole lives. We still stayed close when she went to college and I stayed home getting a medical assistant job right out of vocational school. I love what I do. I work for a group of ob doctors a couple of towns over. I may want to go to nursing school one day but we'll see.
We talk as we work as I help her narrow down her pile asking for the hundredth time. "Are you sure you are going to need this?"
"Yes." she replies for the hundredth time. "Why don't we take a break?" she asks, looking at the clock. "We've been working all morning." We walk to the kitchen and my Aunt Sandy pulls some bread and lunch meat out of the fridge. She makes us each a plate with veggies and cut fruit.
"Take these to the front porch. Get some sun, you guys have been stuck inside all morning." she says after handing us our plates and nudging us out of the kitchen.
We settle on the porch steps with our plates on our laps when two big black SUV's park in front of the house across the street. I get a little nervous and start to speak "What.."
I'm interrupted by my cousin. "It's okay, that's Rangeman. They're a security company. They used to come around a lot. Not so much anymore since Stephanie left town."
"Who?" I asked since she's assuming I know who Stephanie is.
"You know, the Bombshell Bounty Hunter. She was always blowing things up. I told you about her."
"Oh yeah, I remember." I say, remembering all of the wild stories that my cousin would tell me about the family that lived across the street. It was like having front row seats to a live action show. "What happened now?" I ask.
She proceeded to tell me all about the latest happenings of the Bombshell Bounty Hunter Show while we ate our food.
"Wow, so she gets pregnant on purpose, tries to trap the hot rich owner of the security company, fails and ends up getting an abortion and leaves town without a word?" I say incredulously at the end of her tale.
"Yes. She always ends her craziness by saying "It wasn't my fault." I heard that line so many times growing up. It's been great living here. All I had to do was not get arrested and I was considered a great daughter. I loved being able to tell my mom that she was lucky I wasn't Stephanie Plum. It worked like a charm." she says as my mind gets momentarily distracted. That name sounds familiar.
"Do you have a picture of her?" I ask, trying to place the name.
She snorts and says "Yeah, she's been in the paper so often, you would probably recognize her."
I doubt that. I don't read the Trenton Times and she's several years older than me, I think as we gather our trash and head back in. The black SUVs are still parked across the street when we came back out with our dessert and I decided to pull out my phone and look up photos of the Bombshell Bounty Hunter. I wasn't prepared for the smiling face that appeared on my screen. I know where I know her from. I gave her a pregnancy test before her birth control shot. I furrow my brow. I know she was in for the birth control shot so how did she end up pregnant and getting an abortion. I remembered her because she seemed so nice. She made a joke about me saying a prayer that she studied enough for the test when she handed me her sample. She was mortified that someone else had to touch the specimen container. She offered to carry it the whole way for me. I laughed and said it's all in a day's work. She said something about me deserving hazard pay. Hmmm. I think to myself. I can check it out when I get to work on Monday. At least I figured out why her name sounded familiar.
Monday morning I arrive my usual fifteen minutes early and prepare for my day. It was such a busy weekend. I ended up helping my cousin all day Saturday and stayed with them for dinner. Sunday I went with her family to her sendoff brunch and got back to my small apartment a little after 2:00. I spent the rest of the day cleaning and grocery shopping for the week.
"Good morning Tracy." Dr Micah says, interrupting my thoughts. "Can you bring my first patient back? I want to get through my morning quickly, I have two women in pre-labor and may get called away any moment."
"Sure thing." I say as I collect the charts of her waiting patients. As I get her first two patients prepped, I'm walking back to a third when she catches me on my way to the waiting room.
"I need a urine sample from the patient in room 1," she says. I change directions, picking up the specimen cup and head into the exam room. I'm reminded of the weekend's discussion about the Bombshell Bounty Hunter and quickly get through my tasks so that I can look her up.
It was an hour later that I was able to sit in front of the computer and type in her name. I couldn't remember her last name so I had to Google The Bombshell Bounty Hunter to find it. As I type in Stephanie Plum, I'm trying to recall the story details. She gets pregnant on purpose. That's what doesn't make sense to me. If I recall correctly, she was here for a birth control shot. That's why she needed the urine test to check for pregnancy, I think while I click through the electronic file to find what I'm looking for. After a few minutes, I find that her urine test was negative and that she didn't have any notes or billing for the visit. We didn't even bill her for the urine test. I guess something went wrong. I want to dig deeper in this. I find her paper chart and see the tag from the vial her shot came from and a letter falls out. It looks like we mailed her something and it was marked return to sender. I take the letter up to Cara, the office manager and ask her about the letter. She looks at it and hands it back to me.
"This was part of the Depo shot that was recalled. We were notified that the batch we got was compromised and the medicine was likely ineffective. We mailed these letters to all of the women who received the shot. I guess she didn't get the letter."
"Did we try to contact her another way?" I asked.
"Yes, all the patients that received the shot were followed up with. I believe a phone call. Michelle made all of those calls and she was able to reach each patient. It was a mess. Imagine telling a woman that oh by the way, your birth control shot may not be working. We offered each one an immediate appointment to have a pregnancy test administered. Of the 30 or so women that were affected, five got pregnant. None of them seemed too devastated. I'm so glad nothing really bad happened." She tells me she needs to go and I take the file in search of Michelle. With everything that's happened with Stephanie Plum, I would say it would be pretty devastating. Something doesn't seem right.
I catch up with Michelle in the break room. She's drinking a cup of coffee with her face buried in her phone.
"Hey Michelle." I say in greeting, pulling her away from the Tic Tok video she was watching. "Do you have a minute?" .
She smiles and says, "yeah, what's up?"
I hand her the chart and the envelope. "Do you remember the Depo shot recall?" I ask her.
"I'll never forget that fiasco," she says with a snort. "That was a very bad week," she adds, making it sound like the understatement of the year.
"I have a patient here that got a letter but it was returned unopened. Did you talk to her?" I ask.
"I don't remember this name. But, I talked to a lot of women that week." she says as she looks through the file. "That's weird." she says as she flips the page. "Both tags are still together."
"What does that mean?"
"When we administer the shot, we pull off the tags to place in her chart. The tags tell us what lot the medicine comes from so we can track it if something like this happens. There are two tags. One for the paper chart and one to send to billing. If the billing tag is still here then she may not have been billed for it. If she wasn't billed for it, then I didn't pull up her name and phone number for the follow up calls. The letters were sent out based on the paper chart. We had to match the lot number and that particular lot was administered for 5 days. For follow up calls, I used the dates from the shot and created a list from the date of service. If, in fact, she wasn't billed then she wouldn't have made the second list. If her initial letter was returned then she may not have even known that her birth control is crap. How did you figure this out?"
"My cousin was telling me a story about her neighbor tricking a guy into fathering a child to blackmail him. She then got an abortion. The name sounded familiar and I figured out that I did her urine test for the Depo shot. I couldn't figure out how she would trick someone if she really did get the shot."
She looks at me and says. "Let's see what her electronic file says."
I follow her out of the break room into her cubicle and stand over her shoulder as she pulls up the record that I already looked at. I know she isn't going to find anything but I remain silent. I'm not sure if I should be snooping in patient charts without direction. "Well, that explains it, she didn't get billed," she says.
"How did we not catch that?" I ask.
"There's a check and balance system. The billing should match the dictation. Let me pull up the notes." She makes a face as she keeps clicking the mouse.
"No dictation," she mumbles as her hand maneuvers the mouse furiously. "She shows up in the appointment program but not in the dictation and billing. My guess is that her tag wasn't removed so she wasn't charged and something happened to her dictation. If she wasn't billed then her dictation would have alerted us to that fact and vice versa. If neither happened then we wouldn't know. I'll keep her file and look into this more. We need to have a better check and balance system to make sure this doesn't happen again. I don't have time to deal with this now, the damage is done so waiting another week when Lucy gets back from vacation won't hurt. You said she had an abortion? None of the women I talked to were going that route. We offered it as a part of the settlement from the drug company."
"I think so. It's just what I heard from my cousin. I guess she's a local celebrity. Have you ever heard of the Bombshell Bounty Hunter?" .
Michelle's mouth drops open. "Are you joking? This is the patient that we screwed up with? Shit! I guess this won't wait." She blew out a breath. "I hope that this doesn't bite us in the ass," she says as she hurries off. I stand there hoping that everything turns out better than it seems. What a mess!
The following morning I catch up with Michelle in the break room.
"Hey Tracy. Thanks again for catching that mistake. I wasn't able to find a working phone number for her. It seems like no-one knows where she is now. But I was able to send a letter to her POA. Hopefully we won't be sued. At least we're making an effort to reach out now. I also fixed her billing and talked to the Doc. She remembered her and was able to confirm that she ordered the shot so at least we have dictation now. She was very mad that this happened and called for an evaluation of our system so this doesn't happen again. She wanted to talk to Stephanie to see if she needed any support but since I couldn't find her, she couldn't. I'm still trying to locate her though."
"Did you call her parents?" I asked, thinking her mom had to know where she was. I could never just disappear without at least letting my mom know something.
"That was an interesting call. Her mom acted like she was very upset with her. I really think that she believes the worst about her. Because of HIPPA, I can't tell her anything but man, I wouldn't want her as a mom," she says and I think back to what my cousin said. "All I had to do was tell my parents how lucky they are that I'm not Stephanie..." Well, in this case it really wasn't her fault. I wonder how many times it really wasn't as I go back to work.
***Aug 10
Johnson POV
I'm sitting at my desk going through the mail finishing my second cup of coffee when I see a letter addressed to Rangeman C/O POA Carlos Manoso. I've been handling the mail ever since our restructuring. I did benefit from the new software by streamlining the process creating more available time so I was able to take on the responsibility of receiving the mail. The mail is usually for me and I don't have to worry about important business not reaching me in a timely fashion. I'm also the best at sorting and getting the letters to the intended persons or departments. This is probably insurance related and I place it in my pile. After I'm done sorting and delivering the daily mail, I sit back down with cup number three in hand. I gather my stack of mail and open the top letter. I had just taken a drink when I read the opening lines of the letter, spewing the coffee all over the letter and my desk.
To Carlos Manoso...inform you...a recall and ineffective...billing error...Stephanie Plum...whereabouts...immediate attention...
"FUUUUCK!" I say as I wipe as much coffee off the letter as I can. I re-read the letter and am filled with dread. I know Ranger isn't the 'shoot the messenger' type but I can't help but worry about bringing this to him. I fucking spewed coffee all over the letter so it's not like I can pretend I didn't read it.
"Fuck my life." I mutter thinking back to how this clusterfuck started. Everyone knew that Ranger was in love with Stephanie and then she went and tried to trap him with a kid. Well, it looks like she really did get the shot and she really didn't try to trap him. I blow out a breath. This is going to be bad, very very bad, I think as I make the trip up to the fifth floor. I momentarily think about shredding the letter, not wanting to hand deliver the bomb that I hold in my hands but I dismiss that thought quickly. The truth needs to come out. I just hope we all survive this.
Getting off the elevator on five, I see Tank in the hallway outside Ranger's office and have the sudden thought that I can't go in without backup.
"Do you have a minute?" I ask Tank. He looks at his watch and turns to enter his office. I follow the big man and close the door behind me. I note the interest my need for privacy brings..
"We have a situation." I say to Tank as I hand him the letter. I wait as he reads. With each line he becomes increasingly pale. Tough to do given his darker complexion. When he finishes, he pulls out his phone and types for what seems like a few minutes. He looks up at me.
"Is this it?" he asks, not handing me back the letter.
"Yes."
"I'll take care of this." he says, referring to the letter. "You're dismissed"
The relief is instant. I dodged a bullet since I don't have to give this directly to Ranger. I head back down the stairs and am suddenly exhausted as the adrenaline wears off. I haven't had this much of an adrenaline surge since my army days. I don't miss it. I found my calling when I finished my degree after four years serving my country. I prefer my office to be indoors where no-one is shooting at me. That wasn't a big possibility until just a few minutes ago and I'm glad to be safely on my way back to my office via the bathroom. My colon can't take this much stress, I think as I veer off toward the men's room.
Tank POV
Lester arrives first with Bobby just a few seconds behind him. I close the door and gesture both to sit down. I place the letter on my copier to make two duplicates. I want both of them to read it at the same time.
"We have a situation and I have no idea how to manage the fall out." I say as I hand them each a copy. They read and the stillness that overcomes both Les and Bobby is chilling. They have obviously grasped the magnitude of what this means.
"Fuck" mutters Les.
Bobby's eyes dart up to me. "What the hell is he going to do?" he asks.
"He's going to burn down the whole fucking city." Les answers.
"He doesn't know anything?" Bobby asks.
"No." I reply.
"We need to arrange a few things. We need Dr. Chamberlain on standby, in the building. I can sedate him and then we can subdue him before he wakes up." Bobby barks the orders.
I'm happy he's taken over because I'm at a loss. Her betrayal has lessened a bit in our quest to get answers but we were still angry at what she did to Ranger, to us. Now that it appears that she didn't betray us at all and that we, in fact, betrayed her? Fuck. I don't know how I'm going to deal with that. How in the hell Ranger is going to is beyond me. Thank fuck Bobby has a plan.
"What do you want us to do?" I ask Bobby.
"Just give me ten minutes. I'll be back with the sedation and find out how soon Doc can get here," he says as he leaves. I look at Les and shake my head. No words are spoken as we each contemplate how FUBAR this is going to be. All three of us will be necessary if we want to subdue Ranger without any significant injuries.
Bobby returns with his bag and a loaded vial. "The plan is to sedate him and bring him up to Seven. I'll sit with him to monitor his vitals while we wait for Doc. I just spoke to his office and they informed me that he can be here in three hours. He's driving up. I didn't give specifics, just said it was a life or death emergency."
After a brief silence, Bobby continues. "I say you call him in here and give him the letter as he's reading, I'll come in and inject him while he's focused on the letter. We can all manage the fallout until the sedative works. Remember, he's going to go down swinging so be prepared."
"How are we going to subdue him when he wakes?" I ask Bobby.
"Just handcuffs and shackles right before he comes to. By then, Doc should be here and will know how to manage the situation. Les, do you have anything to add?"
"Fuck." Les repeats. Thanks, asshole, for your words of wisdom.
I text the core group of an emergency meeting in my office. Lester has stayed but Bobby went down the hall to wait. Here goes nothing, I think as Ranger knocks once on the partially open door and enters.
"We're waiting for Bobby but here, read this." I say as I pass the letters to first Les, then Ranger. Right on time, Bobby enters and approaches Ranger and pretends to read over his shoulder, syringe in hand.
Ranger and his lightning reflexes react to the injection and spins to fight Bobby. Bobby is prepared but Ranger still lands a solid punch to his jaw and removes the needle hanging from his deltoid. Les and I quickly join in. If we hadn't done this many times before, Ranger would have been able to inflict more damage to Bobby than that one punch. All three of us have to hold him until the sedative takes effect. It takes longer than anticipated because Bobby didn't get in the whole dose but finally we feel Ranger relax. We carry him up to Seven scrambling the cameras along the way.
Once inside the camera free zone, I am able to relax, marginally. We still have a long road ahead but we will have professional help to get us through. Phase one is complete.
"Since I wasn't able to get the full dose in, I think we should cuff and shackle him now. We need to remove all his weapons and tools. I also think we should triple cuff him until he can convince us that he'll be rational about this." Bobby says and Les and I agree.
"How long will the sedation last?" I ask.
"Several hours at the dose he got. We'll have time to brief Dr. Chamberlain when he gets here." Bobby replies.
"I'm going to work on finding her. The trail is cold but maybe if I look again, something will pop out." Les says and he leaves the apartment.
"I'm going to stay here." Bobby says. "Let me know when Doc arrives," he adds as he pulls a stethoscope out of his bag.
"Let me know if you need anything." I turn to leave, planning on looking for any trace of Steph as well.
I spend the next hour going through the most recent searches on Stephanie. We don't know when she left, but we do know when she closed her bank account and withdrew her money. At the end, she was living poor but she had several thousand dollars in her account making us wonder if she was about to give Valerie a payment. We also know that her final check from Rangeman and the New York distraction never made it to her. Over 5k was returned when the direct deposit failed to go through. We do know that no-one using her name and credit card bought any plane, train or bus tickets. Her passport hasn't been scanned either. That makes us feel a little better and we concentrate our search within the US. I place a call to Hector and ask him to come to my office. I need to get more info on the doctor visit that started this whole mess.
Hector arrives and I fill him in on the letter that I think now of as the "Little Boy" the lovely bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima that fateful day. He shows no emotion and like the rest of us, he won't.
"Can you look into her records again? I want to see if they found her to notify her of the recall. I also want to see what they did in regards to billing and patient notes." I ask him.
"Si, se hara," he replies . (Yes, it will be done.)
I decide to try the direct approach to see if I can glean any information from the office. I understand that they have privacy laws but they apparently think that we still hold Steph's POA.
I finally get connected to the nurse that handled the recall.
"Maybe you can help me. I'm trying to get information on one of our employees, Stephanie Plum. I hold her medical POA and I just received a letter notifying us that there was some sort of recall."
"Yes, I sent out the letter. Do you know how we can get in touch with Ms. Plum?" she asks, obviously hesitant to give out medical information so easily.
"She's out of the country on a work trip. She's not able to be contacted at the moment." I lie. "I want to understand what has happened so that I may get a message to her."
"What is your name sir?" she asks.
"Carlos Manoso. I own the company she works for and it's policy that I hold all of my unmarried employees medical POA." I say, trying to sound official and nonchalant.
"Well, we really need to speak to Ms. Plum directly,"
"Fine, I will turn this over to my attorney on her behalf. What did you say your name was again?" I say, playing hardball. I already wrote down her name but I need to force her hand.
"Wait," she manages to get in before I can say anymore. "There was a recall on the birth control shot that Ms. Plum received. She didn't respond when we sent the initial letter to the address we have on file. The letter was returned with a 'not at this address' stamp and no forwarding address was provided. I personally went through all of the affected patients and Ms. Plum was the only one we couldn't get in touch with personally. Once we realized Ms Plum wasn't notified, we immediately reached out to you in hopes that you could contact her on our behalf. We are allowed to offer Ms. Plum options from the drug manufacturer if there was an unintended pregnancy," she states, entering damage control mode.
"According to our records she got the shot on March 7th. That was 156 days ago. You mean to tell me you are just getting around to notifying your patients now?" I ask incredulously. I know they have not billed for the procedure and until today, we thought Steph had lied to Ranger about getting the shot so I need to know what happened.
"Well, there was a power outage that day and we had a billing malfunction. The first group of letters went out according to patients who received the shot. Ms Plum was mailed a letter on May 18th. Her letter was returned. For follow up, we did reach out to the remaining women again but it was based on billing records. We did an internal audit and went back and compared the billing list with the inventory and realized that Ms. Plum was never billed for the procedure and her notes were not transcribed. That has all been corrected and everything is in order except that we cannot get in touch with Ms. Plum and confirm if she has been affected by the recall." She's not willing to take full responsibility for this epic clusterfuck. She has no idea just how affected by the recall Stephanie was and the lives that were destroyed as a result. The fact that lives were destroyed by us is not something I'm willing to focus on right now. I just wanted information and I got it. I'm not willing to allay any fears the nurse has in regards to their liability in this situation so I respond with a terse. "Thank you for your information. If we need any additional information from you or your office, I will have my attorney handle it." I say and hang up.
They need to sweat it out. I'm not sure which direction we want to go but having the pharmaceutical company and the doctor's office on the hook on Stephanie's behalf is right where I want to leave it. I hang up as Hector comes in and tells me that the notes and billing have been entered for the day of her appointment. I read over the printed notes and see plain as day that the Doctor administered the shot because the patient stated that she was concerned with the pill's effectiveness when she couldn't be trusted to take it at the same time every day. The note stated the patient was administered the shot to both prevent pregnancy first and decrease menstruation as a secondary benefit. Fuck! I think. This really wasn't her fault. I look at my watch. It has been three hours so I decide to check to see if the shrink is here. Dr Chamberlain has worked with each and every one of us at one time or another. He's the shrink of choice around here and none of us would be here without him. First of all getting released from the good doctor is mandatory for both the US government and Rangeman Policy. Hell, he has helped me as much as I would let him. In these walls, there is no judgment in regards to seeing a shrink. We have all seen and done shit that would or should get us a one way ticket to the psych ward but Dr. Chamberlain has kept our demons at bay. At least he's kept us functioning members of society so far. We'll see what he can do for us now.
Bobby POV
I check my watch. It's been three hours and Ranger is still sleeping off the sedative. Dr. Chamberlain will be here any minute and I have Woody watching for him on the monitors. I look around the room. There's nothing here to indicate Ranger lives here. Nothing on the bedside tables. Nothing out in the living room. It's like he lives nowhere and just sleeps here occasionally. I consider myself living a solitary life but nothing like this. There isn't even a photo of Julie here. My watch beeps with a text and I know before I look at it, its Les. Sure enough, the Doc is here and he is on his way up.
I hear the door open and the hushed voices speaking as they are undoubtedly filling in Doc about the letter and the past few months. He's worked with Ranger before, so he knows the gravity of the situation. The government has invested a lot of time and money into forming Ranger into a dangerous weapon and if we have any hope at public safety then we have to handle this carefully. I get up from the chair and make my way to the door. I need to keep an eye on him in case he wakes up with us unaware.
I fill Doc in on the dosage I gave him and his current stats. Given the dosage, he should be waking soon and his stats confirm that.
Doc looks at the three of us and says. "I'm glad you called. I can't tell you what the outcome would have been if you hadn't taken these steps to ensure his safety and that of everyone around him. Knowing him and his history with Ms. Plum, I can assure you I will take great caution in helping him accept and deal properly with the news."
"WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON?" Ranger screams from the bedroom making all three of us jump.
We let Doc lead the way into the room and he immediately takes charge.
"Carlos, I need you to understand we are doing this so that you handle this properly. We don't want you to hurt anyone and will release you when we feel comfortable that you are able to process everything that has happened."
"Stephanie? Did something happen to Stephanie?" He asks, still a little foggy from being drugged.
"It's not that, Carlos, I need to deliver some news but it's not about Stephanie's welfare. Will you listen to me and try to remain calm?"
"Just tell me so I can get out of these damn cuffs," he hisses. Doc looks up and dismisses us. He's a brave man willing to deliver this kind of news with Ranger trussed up in only metal handcuffs, fexicuffs, zip ties and shackles.
Rangers POV
I'm pissed but know right away that I'm not going to get out easily unless I act calm and listen to what Doc is saying. I know this must be big since they called in the shrink. I have calmed down a bit knowing that they aren't going to tell me that Stephanie is dead so I get control of my breathing and calm myself to slow down my heart rate. Doc glances over to the portable heart rate monitor and is satisfied.
"We have information about Stephanie from her gynecologist. She did get the birth control shot as she said. The shot was part of a batch that was recalled and it was deemed ineffective." he begins. I'm willing my brain to work through the fog as I concentrate on what he is saying.
"What?" I ask, stunned. This can't be. "How?" I add without really expecting an answer.
"We looked into the recall and apparently there was a malfunction with the refrigeration along the distribution path. I'm not clear if it was in transport or at a holding facility. Several batches were affected and Stephanie's shot was part of that recall. The men filled me in on your belief that she was trying to trick you into marriage and child support. I'm aware that Ms. Plum opted to discontinue the pregnancy and has disappeared from your lives. They also let me know that there was a lot of pressure on Ms. Plum regarding the pregnancy and you may harbor guilt and feelings of responsibility in the choice she made. I am here to tell you that it was her choice and you may have had an influence but she was ultimately responsible for the choice she made."
I'm still trying to process all this information as I work to keep my breathing and heart rate under control. It takes every ounce of training I possess to keep the beast at bay but I have to. I must focus on getting free.
"After everything that has happened, we thought that you should get yourself under control before you do something you will regret. I am here to talk to you so that you have a healthy way to deal with the overwhelming feelings you are having."
I know I have to talk to get out of this. I'm familiar with Doc's methods and have a pretty good idea of what to say to get him off me. "Is this the letter I was reading in Tank's office?" I ask. "The last thing I remember was reading the letter from Stephanie's doctor and listing me as POA." I was instantly alert when Bobby came up behind me to read over my shoulder. I felt the tell tale sting of the needle and I reacted as quickly as I could. I landed a punch to his face but then nothing. I don't even remember falling to the ground.
"Yes. They needed to get you subdued so that you wouldn't destroy anyone or anything. They, like me, know what you are capable of..." He trails off.
"I understand what you all are trying to do but I'm not going to do anything stupid. I'm only interested in finding Stephanie. I won't do anything to jeopardize that." I reply calmly. Everything I do and say has to convey that I have my shit together.
"Why do you want to find Stephanie?"
"To make sure she's safe."
"What if she doesn't want to see you?" he asks and I have to work hard to not let him know that his question really pisses me off.
"I will deal with that if necessary." I say, trying to placate him.
"How will you deal with that?"
"I don't know what I'll do." I answer honestly.
"What will you do if she is not okay?" he asks and I have to take a deep breath. I am going to lose my shit if this asshole doesn't stop putting these thoughts in my head.
"Look, I don't know. I guess I will deal with whatever I have to. I have to find her though. We have been looking for her for two months and have had no luck. It's going to take time." I say, reigning in my irritation.
"Your pregnant girlfriend gets an abortion based on an ultimatum you gave her and you expect me to believe you'll just handle whatever, as it comes?" He asks incredulously. I know he's trying to bait me and it works.
"SHE IS NOT MY FUCKING GIRLFRIEND." I scream, straining against every restraint I have. As soon as the words were out I regret them. Everything comes rushing at once. The dinners we shared. The easy conversations we had. The movies we watched. The nights. The jewelry I bought her. The late night visits to her apartment to watch her sleep. "FUCK!" I roar. I could hear the blood pounding in my ears. I can't believe I had a girlfriend but I can't deny it. I look back and see it for what it is -a relationship. I look at Doc and see his smug smile. I realize that everyone seems to have accepted this fact but me. I can't believe I'm the only one who didn't know I had a girlfriend. I take several deep breaths in an effort to calm back down.
"I'm calm." I tell him.
"Good Carlos. I needed to get you to react in order for you to understand that this is something you have to process. I was concerned you would try to remain detached and treat this as a mission. This is your life and you are emotionally invested in this outcome. You must know how to deal with the emotions as they pop up. You have dealt with guilt, you have dealt with death but you have never been this invested. You have never been this close to the people involved. I need you to work through these feelings. You don't have a choice. I can pull you from all of your contract work and your partners can force your hand here at Rangeman. We are not asking. Will you participate in your treatment?" he asks and I know I'm fucked. I have no choice. I resent my men even as I know I would make the same choice for them.
"Yes" I say dejectedly. I know I have a long road ahead facing the feelings I have for Stephanie and what has happened. The sooner I get this over with the sooner I can find her and fix this.