Unapologize

By: PricklySare

A/N: Usual Disclaimers. As promised another chapter for you! Thanks for being such great readers! Meg, I promise, in the end you can make him feel better. :)

Sare

Chapter Twenty-five: Tank Takes Charge

The first place we headed after we found the blood in the parking lot was the local police station. Since there was crime scene tape we knew that they'd been there. The station was tiny compared to TPD, and the cops working inside were a joke. They were either overweight, or looked like they'd just stepped out of high school. "Is this supposed to be a Police Station?" Lester asked. "You've got to be kidding me."

I held in a sigh, I had a bad feeling about this. "Let's find the person in charge of the case," I said heading toward the front desk. The uniform behind the desk looked up at me and went pale. If he pissed himself I was going to be annoyed. "I need to speak to the officer in charge of the Shifting Sands scene," I said.

"Umm, h-h-he's not available at the moment," the kid stuttered out. Christ. He couldn't have been more than twenty-one and he didn't appear to have any experience. If he didn't toughen up he was never going to make it on the streets.

"You need to make him available. Now." I told him.

"I-I-I'll see what I can do," the kid stammered before running off in search of... someone.

"I seriously hope the guy in charge is older than that kid," I said to Lester and Bobby. We were gathered around the desk, and I knew we made an intimidating presence, and I didn't care. If scaring the shit out of some small town hick cops is what it took to get answers, then that was what was going to happen.

Ten minutes later a cop came toward us. His stomach was hanging over his belt and he looked like he was a chronic drinker. I immediately didn't trust him. He didn't have cop eyes. His eyes were wild and dead, like any humanity that had resided there had long since been killed off. Just looking at him made my skin crawl. I noticed that his face was red with anger, and I wondered what he'd been doing before he came out to meet us. As he got closer I notice Lester and Bobby close ranks and cross their arms over their chests. They obviously didn't trust him either.

"Who are you?" He asked when he reached the desk.

I felt Lester tense beside me and knew that he wasn't in a good frame of mind to be dealing with this guy. I stepped forward making sure that I was blocking Lester's path. "We're with Rangeman, and we're looking for someone who might have been involved in what happened at the Shifting Sands beach earlier today," I said.

"It's an active investigation. I can't help you," the idiot cop said.

"Look, our partner disappeared from that location this afternoon and we need to find her." Bobby held up his iphone and showed Idiot Cop a recent picture of Steph in her Rangeman uniform. He barely looked at it before he said, "Nope, haven't seen her."

I was rapidly losing my patience and Lester was only a moment away from snapping completely. I leaned forward and got into Idiot Cop's face, making sure that I was in his personal space and then said, "I don't believe you looked at that well enough. Look again." This time he looked at the picture and I wanted to snap his neck.

"Nope, still never seen her, but I'm sure she'd be great in bed. Those lips are just made for sucking-" he didn't get a chance to say anything before Lester had him off the floor and up against the wall.

"You listen to me you fat piece of shit. I don't care if you've got a badge and a gun. If you ever disrespect her by speaking like that again, you will wish you'd never learned to talk." The second Lester had picked him up; the other cops had drawn their weapons. Fuck me! Not a single one of them looked like they knew how to use them, but it only took one of them to get nervous and pull the trigger for someone to get hurt.

I slowly raised my hands so that they could see I wasn't armed, and then I placed one hand on Lester's shoulder and said, "Les, it's not worth it. Let him go." I could feel Lester's body shaking under my hand and I knew he was holding on by a thread. It was unusual for him to lose control, but where Bombshell was concerned, nobody acted normal.

"Tank, he knows something," Lester said to me. His voice a low growl.

"That might be, man, but it won't do Bombshell any good if you're dead. Let him go."

"You should listen to your...friend," Idiot Cop said.

"Shut. Up," Lester growled. "I don't care, who you are, if I find out you know something and you didn't tell us, there isn't a place on this earth you'll be able to hide." With that Lester released his hold on the idiot cop and stepped away.

"Let's go, Les," Bobby said, placing his hand on Lester's other shoulder. "We'll find her."

"Dammit, Tank! She's been missing for two days. Where the hell is she?" Lester was pacing around my office like a caged animal, his entire body was tense and I knew if we didn't find her soon he was going to completely snap. I knew he was worried about her, hell, I was worried about her too. I knew that something was really wrong, but I had no way of knowing what.

We'd spent the last two days tearing apart Jersey. Not just Trenton, but the whole damn state, and we hadn't found so much as a lead on where Steph could be. I had feelers out to some of our inter-agency contacts, but so far we hadn't received any love. I knew that Idiot Cop knew more than he was saying, but there was no way I could do anything about him. He was protected by the law, and my responsibility wasn't just to Bombshell, but to Ranger as well as the entire Rangeman Company. In a nutshell, my life was shit.

Bobby was sitting silently on the couch in my office just watching Lester pace back and forth. I knew he had a sedative in his pocket, waiting for the moment we both knew was coming. If I didn't know better, I'd say that Lester had more than just a friendly interest in Bombshell, but even he wasn't crazy enough to step in on Ranger's woman. Cousin or not, he wouldn't cross that line. The last two days had been hell on all of us, and I was running down fast. Being calm and understanding of his stress and worry hadn't worked so far with Lester, and I was running out of steam. There was only one last thing I could try before I'd have to have Bobby sedate him.

"Santos!" I bellowed. He immediately stopped his pacing and jumped to attention.

"Yes, Sir!" He sounded off. Years of military training ingrained in all of us, the ability to snap to attention instantly. To go from a red blooded male, to an emotionless soldier without thought. It was the only way I could think of to turn his emotions off and focus him once again on the issues at hand.

"You need to suck it up. We're all worried about Bombshell, but pacing up and down the room and crying like a little bitch isn't going to help us," I told him, my voice broking no excuses. It was a voice of authority, and one that he was very familiar with.

"Yes, Sir!"

"Are you going to be able to suck it up and work this like we always do? Or am I going to have to remove you from the Bombshell duty?" I asked him. I could see the anger still coursing through him, and I knew he was pissed at me.

"Yes, Sir!" He responded, his voice was hoarse and I knew he wanted to say more, but protocol wouldn't allow for it. I figured I'd give him a little leeway and let him have his say.

"Yes, Sir, What?" I asked. "Yes, Sir, you're going to be able to suck it up and help us find her, or, yes, sir, I'm going to have to remove you from Bombshell duty?" Lester's hands were clenched so hard into fists that his normally tan skin was almost as white as Bombshell's. Oh, he was an angry man. I watched him inhale sharply through is nose, and slowly release it. I knew he was trying to regain control before he answered me. Santos pissed off was an impressive sight. Watching him control his anger and rage was like watching someone lasso a tornado. Impossible to believe unless you were seeing it with your own eyes.

"I'd like to see you try, Pierre," Lester said through teeth clinched so tight I was surprised that they didn't crumble into dust. "Steph is my best friend, and you're crazy if you think for one fucking minute that I'm going to walk away."

I ignored his use of my given name; we could deal with that later. "Fine, then prove it. Get your head out of your ass and start being useful. Stop blaming yourself for not being there. You had a job to do, and it isn't like this is a new thing with Bombshell." I told him. He didn't say anything just nodded before joining Bobby on the couch.

The three of us, along with Ranger had been friends for years. We'd walked through the valleys of Hell and come out the other side more times than I cared to remember. There was nothing we wouldn't do for each other, and sometime in the last couple of years, Stephanie Plum had become a part of us. She may never have spent time in the jungles of Colombia with us, but she had our backs in other ways. We needed to find her. I was trying to figure out our next step when Bobby broke the silence.

"Have you heard anything from Ranger?" That was another cluster fuck I didn't want to have to think about. Ranger had been gone for two weeks and we hadn't heard anything from him. Normally he would have checked in prior to heading out from the secure building in D.C. I felt in my bones that something wasn't right with the whole, "last minute" mission, and it was making me antsy. Why couldn't anything ever be easy?

"No, man. Not a word," I told him shaking my head.

"That's not like him," he replied.

"You're right, it's not; but we don't have time to worry about it. Our only concern right now is to find Bombshell. If anything happens to her, we'll be lucky if the only thing that happens to us is a long term visit to a third world country," I said.

"Okay, then what's the plan?" Bobby asked.

"I say we pick up that idiot cop and have a few words with him. He knows more than he's saying," Lester spoke up. He was tense, but he was doing a damn good job of hiding it. If anyone else were to come in, they would think he was cool and calm.

The phone on my desk rang and with a growl I picked it up. "Talk," I said. This had better be important, or someone was going to have a very unhappy day. I didn't recognize the voice on the other end, but the words froze me in my place.

"I know where Stephanie Plum is, and she doesn't have much time." Fuck!