Thank you for your kind reviews. All mistakes are mine and I want to thank Janet Evanovich for allowing us to play with her characters.

Chapter 6

Stephanie sat at the desk in the office on seven chewing on the end of her pen. It was a habit that absolutely freaked out Ranger and when he found one, well, they hit the trash can pretty fast.

Her shift was done and all her work had been completed. Her In-basket was empty and she had processed everything back into the general office for filing.

Stephanie took out her notes. Flexing her fingers, she set her programs to the obituaries from late 1981 to 1983 looking for any female by any name of Michelle. Her search program paging through obits from all over Florida took time and late afternoon was rapidly drawing to a conclusion without any hits that couldn't be immediately disregarded.

Next, just as a shot in the dark, she typed in variants of the name Michelle: Rachelle, Arishelle, Elle and Brielle. Letting the program run once again, she headed to the kitchen for something to snack on before supper.

Ranger hadn't made his appearance yet. His office desk on five was literally piled with papers all over the surface. It was month end and there were so many reports, and billing statements and progress reports, and performance reports to process. Tanks' desk was piled equally high.

He had expressed some doubt that he would even make it up for supper, but Stephanie was determined to wait for him. Until he showed up, she could snack.

~~~o0o~~~

Silvio gave Ranger a phone call.

He had been following up after the phone call and had some information.

"Ranger, I have some news."

Ranger put down his pen and leaned back. Some news never came out as entirely good news.

Silvio began again.

"I checked on those dates as we discussed, and uncovered some very interesting things. First, I learned that a letter would be sent to the home listed on the hospital admissions paper, requesting immediate action. Next, there would be a registered letter sent. If nothing happened, it went into an inactive file and worked on as time permitted."

He paused then spoke again.

"I also found out that before the records were kept in a secure environment, some filing systems were stored in basement rooms. Unfortunately some hospitals in the lower part of Florida had damaged records over the decades from floods and weather so there might not be any information that can be traced back."

Ranger ran his hand through his hair, dislodging his leather hair tie.

"Did they have back-up capability that might have saved these records?"

Silvio shook his head.

"I'm sorry Ranger, but it's like closing the gate after the livestock leaves. Nobody thought about it until after it had happened. There were a number of really severe hurricanes that caused a lot of damage during that time period."

He took a breath. "It's not generally voiced, but if a birth wasn't recorded with the state and nothing had come from certain hospitals to Vital Records, well, let's say, babies born during those periods had a difficult time getting officially registered. Usually a Family Court Judge had to make a ruling."

Ranger nodded his head. He was still unwilling to ask which hospitals had suffered, but he had gleaned enough information from Silvio's report that there might be nothing to check out on that front.

"Thanks Silvio. Appreciate the time you spent on this."

Ranger hung up at the same time as Silvio. Good-byes were wasted words. Who knew, they might be talking again in ten minutes on something completely different.

~~~o0o~~~

Stephanie was back on seven after working out at the gym. Ranger still hadn't been able to leave his office and she needed to get rid of some energy. Cal had been working out late and he offered to spar with her.

She came out of the shower and almost ran into Ranger standing in the bedroom.

She sucked in a breath as she stood there looking at her man with his shirt off and preparing to take off his cargos. Her eyes changed color and she sucked in her breath. Damn, that man was built! He had chiseled muscles in all the right places.

Literally pulling her eyes off his magnificent physique, she walked to the closet they shared and reaching in, opened a drawer and began to pull out some underwear.

She squeaked as her towel began to slip and realized that her man of motion had moved and was now standing very, very close. She looked down and noticed that the towel she had been wearing was nowhere to be seen. Turning around he had the towel in his hand and a smile on his face. Taking the tiger by the tail, she put her right hand on his chest and her fingernails gently scratched down his chest, making his muscles ripple just the tiniest bit.

Ranger dropped the towel and putting both hands on either side of her face, he gently kissed her.

"Playing with fire, Babe."

She grinned and responded, "Well, you started it."

Their bodies moved closer to each other and they began to kiss, tongues gently caressing each other and hands moving in slow, seducing movements.

Ranger reached down and gently placing his hands under her ass, he lifted her up, her legs lifting up to cross at his waist and they maneuvered slowly to the bed.

Ranger put one leg on the bed and laid her down, leaning down over her now splayed body on their bed. His erection was already pushing against her abdomen and she wriggled in pleasure.

She spoke. "Do we only have time for a quickie or can I capture you for the rest of the night?"

Ranger smiled. His partner was a very sexy woman but she was also very cognizant of his time constraints.

"Babe, we've got all the time we want. Tank's handling downstairs."

Stephanie smiled as her hands began to drift down and down further. She planned to keep him occupied for as long as she could. There were so few times they had any time for themselves these days and she was going to take full advantage of the opportunity.

Lying in bed later, they ate off a tray that Ranger had put together in the kitchen. They fed each other pieces of fruit, small cubes of cheese and drank from glasses of red wine, the bottle sitting on the nightstand.

The phone rang and Ranger reached over and picked it up.

"Report", came the directive.

Tank's booming voice came over the phone.

"There's another package addressed to Stephanie."

Ranger looked over at his Babe, laying there so very sated and limp.

"We'll be down soon. Just the three of us right now to see what's in it. Les and Bobby are on surveillance and unless we need to, let's not change that."

Tank hung up without speaking and Ranger looked at Stephanie, half asleep.

"Babe, Tank says another package came for you."

Her eyes opened wide and she groaned.

Sliding out of bed, she headed to the shower. Ranger slid off the other side of the bed and taking the tray, he placed it on the side table and followed her.

They both needed a shower but he suspected that it would be fairly quick so they could get downstairs. Nodding his head, he stepped into the shower stall. Well, he could be quick too.

They were newlyweds, after all.

~~~o0o~~~

Meanwhile, not too far away, in a rather dingy motel room, the next package was in the process of being assembled.

More pictures, but this time there was a handwritten letter to be included.

Sheets of paper lay on the floor, on the bed and on the nightstand. It looked like whoever was writing the note was having difficulty getting the words right.

~~~o0o~~~

Frank had picked up Edna and they were having supper in the kitchen.

They wanted to plan a 'what if' scenario. Would they have to move? Should they tell Valerie in case there was a fallout? Would they be in trouble with the law so many years later?

The meal looked like a normal Plum repast; roast beef, mashed potatoes, and the ever-hated green bean casserole.

Helen had a tumbler in front of her, but surprisingly, it was still full.

Frank was sitting with both elbows on the table, shovelling food into his mouth. He stopped eating and looked at Helen.

"There's a funny taste to the gravy. It's like you put ketchup in it."

He began to eat again.

Helen cut up her roast beef into tiny pieces, then put her cutlery down.

"I don't want to tell Valerie anything, in case it blows over and nobody hears anything about it."

Edna shook her head. This could turn out really bad really soon and she believed that Val needed to have at least an inkling of what could transpire.

She took a bite of the potatoes. "I don't think you mashed these very well, Helen. I found lumps."

Helen looked at the two of them across the table. She took a small sip from the tumbler.

"This is how I always cook this meal. I don't see anything wrong with it."

Edna changed the subject and they all stopped eating to listen.

"I trust Stephanie to find out as much as she can, but I'm worried about what will eventually get out."

Helen nodded her head. "I can just imagine what people will say. We had such a hard time convincing everyone that she was truly ours way back then. I just know that they'll all come up to us and state that they knew all along that something was wrong."

She took another small sip.

Frank looked up with a drop of gravy making its way down the side of his mouth. "I can just see Morelli coming up to the door and arresting us all for child abduction. He goes away 'on assignment' as he calls it, then materializes at my door wanting to talk to me. He hates us now since I wouldn't give my blessing to him asking Stephanie to marry him. Little did he know that they'd been married for months! I'll never forget the look on his face when I told him he was too late. I thought the vein on the side of his neck was going to burst."

Helen took a larger sip and grimaced. Morelli? That could be trouble. She'd certainly get 'the eye' from Bella, and a haughty look from Angie. Shopping at Giovanni's would need to be carefully timed so that she wasn't accosted by the ladies of the Burg demanding details from so long ago. Maybe she'd have to arrange for the grocery boy to deliver her order for a while.

Helen stood up and cleared the table, bringing over cookies on a plate and the carafe of coffee from the machine.

Edna and Frank accepted their cups of coffee from Helen and put in their own condiments. Reaching over to the plate of cookies they each took a couple placing them on the napkin.

Edna picked up a cookie and took a bite.

"Did you try a new recipe Helen? These taste different."

Frank took a bite. "They don't seem very sweet to me."

Helen took a bite and put it down. "I've been making this recipe for years. They taste fine to me."

She took another drink from the tumbler.

Everyone took another bite.

Edna said. "No, the sugars right, but did you put in the new chocolate chips, or the old ones from the back of the cupboard?"

Frank tasted another one. "Still seems like they're a little light on the sugar to me."

Helen grumbled. "I've been eating these cookies for years. They're fine!"

She spoke again.

"Stephanie has RangeMan and all its resources handy and probably is utilizing them to find out more. I think we should just stay calm and let things settle down. After all, it was over 30 years ago and nothing has ever come out. I think we're blowing this way out of proportion. We'll be fine."

She took another sip.

Frank nodded his head then took a sip of his coffee. "The coffee seems bitter, Helen. Did you put too much coffee in the basket?"

Edna looked at Helen. "Is this coffee old? It tastes like this mornings' brew, just warmed up."

Helen lifted the tumbler to her lips and finished what was in the glass.

She then stood up. "I give up. Coffee's fine, cookies are fine, supper was fine. Frank, when you two have finished complaining about the meal, please take Mother back to her place. I'm going to bed!"

~~~o0o~~~

Les and Bobby were on surveillance.

Les was playing on his new phone and an explosion came over the tiny speaker.

Bobby looked at him. "You must have a death wish. Ranger told us all to get rid of that game, and although you are on your own phone, man, you're still playing on company time!"

Les looked up. "He'll never know. He's too involved with helping Beautiful."

He paused the game though.

"Well, that was pretty surprising, that baggie. I sure could see a resemblance from that girl and our girl. We didn't know Stephanie back when she was a teenager but well, they could have been sisters!"

Bobby nodded. He thought back to all the times he'd patched up Stephanie. There had never been a need to check on the compatibility of her parents and grandmothers' DNA. Really, unless there was a need for an organ transplant, who would ever have thought to check?

A set of headlights flashed behind them.

Their surveillance shift was over and it was time to go home.

As Bobby drove, he could hear Les's phone giving off more explosions. Really? What an idiot!