Chapter 18: Clue

Time had no meaning for him as he lay in bed, wrapped in a tranquilized fog. He didn't think he'd been here very long, but he couldn't be sure. He was slowly coming out of the haze he'd been in, but he still felt weak and disoriented. And he had to urinate. That was the one real sensation he could count on.

He tried to move his arms, but they were still handcuffed to the brass headboard. In frustration, he struggled and thrashed, but only succeeded in dislodging the sheet that covered him. He wasn't cold; the room was warm, uncomfortably so. He didn't know which was worse: the long slow sedation where he was fuzzily aware of his surroundings, or the brief but all-consuming hallucinogenic trips where he was totally out of it.

He looked around at the room he was in. It looked like a typical bedroom with the usual furniture. He knew one door led out to the rest of the house or apartment, and the other two doors led to a bathroom and a closet. There were two curtained windows that let in light, so he knew when it was night or day, but his mind was so fuzzy, he didn't know what time it was. It was dark outside, so he knew it was nighttime, but he had no idea if it was evening or early morning.

She had come in periodically and given him more drugs, so he was never able to clear his head and think. He knew he was coming out of a deep period of sedation, so he expected her to arrive at any moment to renew his dose. He tried to think of a way to escape or avoid taking the drugs, but when he didn't swallow the pills she insisted he take, she'd inject him with ketamine so that he was too far gone to refuse to do anything she demanded of him.

The door opened and in she walked. She always grinned at him when she saw him, and this time, her smile was extra broad. She was staring at his naked body. He had an intense urge to wrap his hands around her scrawny neck and squeeze until her eyes popped out of her head.

"I have to piss," he told her. He rattled the handcuffs against the headboard. "Unless you want to humiliate me further by making me lie in my own filth."

She chuckled. "I think I can help you with your little problem." She disappeared into the bathroom and came out with a plastic wastebasket. The sheet was draped loosely over one hip, so she pulled it all the way down and slipped the container between his legs.

"That's it?" he complained. "How about releasing one of my hands." Again, he rattled the handcuffs that chained him to the bed.

"I'm not a fool, Mañoso," she replied. "You may be sedated, but you're still a formidable opponent. Now, piss or get off the pot," she snorted. He finally relented and pissed. She took the wastebasket into the bathroom and flushed the contents down the toilet. When she came back, she had a bottle of water and a bottle of a popular protein drink. "Time to refuel the body."

"You're a fool if you think I'd willingly take anything from your hands," he said.

She shook both bottles. "You are so untrusting. These are unopened." She cracked open the water bottle. "See?" She offered Ranger a sip. He stared at her for a minute before accepting the water. He drained the bottle quickly. She opened the protein drink bottle and held it to his lips. He shook his head, refusing to drink. "Have it your way." She recapped the bottle and set it on the nightstand.

"Why are you bothering to give me food and drink? You're just planning on killing me anyway," he said.

She nodded. "That's true, but I want you alive until I can get that bitch of a girlfriend of yours here. Then she will watch me kill you, knowing that she's next. Do you want to hear my plan? It's quite ingenious."

Ranger simply glared at her.

"The plan is to call Stephanie and send a picture of you like this." She let her hand glide along his exposed thigh. "Using a burner phone, of course. Knowing that you are at my mercy will drive her crazy."

"Why are you doing this?" he asked.

"Why?" she repeated. "Because that bumbling bimbo kept interfering in my life. She set her sights on my man way back in high school. Joe and I were tight, and she seduced him just to try and break us up." She clenched her teeth and muttered, "I should have killed her back then." Her pale eyes darkened and the right side of her lip curled up into a sneer. "She wouldn't have been my first," she said, giggling uncontrollably.

Her odd demeanor and damning words had Ranger reassessing his captor. This psycho bitch is certifiably crazy, he thought. Her laugh turned shrill and then just as suddenly as it had started, it stopped and she was sneering again.

"Stephanie's feeble attempts to get Joe didn't work then, but ... the bitch tried again, when Joe was arrested for that ridiculous murder charge. That time she did get her nasty hooks in him, and nothing has ever been the same since." She let her hand trail over his abs and down his hip. She stared at his crotch as she licked her lips. "Joe's easily distracted by sex, and that bitch kept shaking her tits in his face. No matter what I did, no matter how many times I got him back in my bed, he'd go back to her." Suddenly, her hand darted out and she grabbed his genitals, squeezing hard.

Surprised and in pain, Ranger let out an anguished shout.

She stepped back and sneered at him. "Men! You all think with your dick. She can't be that good in bed. You've fucked her. Tell me ... what's so special about her? Does she have a gold-plated pussy? Do her tits squirt Jack Daniels? Never mind. That doesn't matter now. What matters is that she's going to die. Today!"

Her rant and high-pitched cackle got to Ranger and he yelled, "You're fucking crazy if you think you can get away with this..."

She raised her hand and struck him hard across the face. The force of the blow knocked his head back into the pillow and a coppery taste filled his mouth. He turned his head and spit the blood out onto the bedsheet.

A satisfied smile creased her face. "That's just the start of the blood that will flow in this room today. I'm going to get Stephanie here by taunting her with you, and what I plan to do to you. I'll give her instructions on what she has to do next, if she wants to see you alive. I will tell her if she brings in the police that I'll kill you immediately. Of course, she will tell the police, or maybe she'll tell your men at your little security company, for all the good it'll do her, or you. My plan is foolproof."

"No plan is foolproof," he countered, spitting out another mouthful of blood. Especially when you factor in Stephanie, he mused. His best laid plans over the years never worked out like he expected whenever Stephanie had been involved.

"I've thought of everything, Mañoso. You don't get to be the head of a multi-million dollar business unless you are an excellent strategist and a very thorough planner. And I am both. I will arrange for her to meet me, and she will jump at the chance to save you. Of course, they will put trackers on her and try to keep her under surveillance, but I have solutions for every contingency. I'll make sure we ditch the trackers and the followers, and I'll bring her here. Won't she love to see her big strong fiancé chained, naked to my bed and stoned out of his mind? I'll get my revenge on that stupid bitch, and I'll make her suffer so much, even Joe will lose his lunch when he sees her mutilated corpse. But don't worry. You'll be long dead by that time, so you'll be spared that horror."

His rage took over and he lunged at her, feeling the headboard give a little. She laughed. "Now, now, Mañoso. Don't tire yourself out. It'll all be over soon." She pulled the sheet back up across his chest, but not before running her hand over his abs and pecs. "I'll be back in the morning to give you your next dose."

He almost chided her for forgetting to give him the current dose, but then he felt the heaviness come over him once again, and he knew that the water had been drugged. He groaned as sleep overtook him.

...

She hadn't slept worth a darn, but a few hours had given her the energy to get up and try again. She'd checked in early in the morning with Tank and then stopped by the bonds office to talk to Connie and ask more questions. Tank had allowed her to go when she promised she'd come right back to RangeMan. Disappointed that Connie couldn't provide any more leads, she was in need of a sugar fix, and now she was sitting in a RangeMan SUV in the parking lot of a Dunkin' Donuts, nibbling on a Boston Cream and thinking. The person she was looking for might not be Terry, but she had to rule out that possibility before she could try to figure out another suspect … before they could try, she amended. She'd promised Tank. No more solo adventures, and she was going to stick to her promise.

She thought about what Tank had said the night before, about how Ranger's disappearance could still be connected to hers, even though the basement room was empty. She needed more information on Terry, and there was one sure way to get it. It was a way that was best done alone, without RangeMan backup though, so instead of going back to see Joe, she picked up her phone. It was still early, and with luck she'd catch him before he got too heavily into his day.

"Hey," she said when she heard his terse, "What?"

"I need some information. Do you have a minute to talk?" She heard his deep exhale and waited.

"Yeah," he said after a lengthy pause. "You want to talk about the elephant in the room last night?"

"Uh …" She was uncertain what he was getting at. She did not want to talk about what she thought had been a half-hearted attempt on his part to get her to spend the night.

"I'm referring to Terry, Cupcake. Do you want to talk about Terry? I know you think she's involved."

"How do you know?" Stephanie asked him. "Do you think she's involved?"

"When you mentioned Long's Janitorial Supply it struck a chord with me. It may have a link to the Grizzolis. I don't know if Terry is involved. I hope she isn't." There was a pause before he spoke again. "I may have understated some things before, when I told you I broke it off with her. She might have been a little more upset than I told you."

"You asshole, Morelli!" Stephanie said. "You said she was upset. Now you're saying she was more than that."

"I did not put you in danger, at least not intentionally. She's got the capability of having someone taken out, because she has the family connections, but that doesn't mean she'd actually do it."

"It doesn't mean she wouldn't!" Stephanie cried. She wanted to scream at him and then throw her phone against the dashboard, but she couldn't. Because she needed him. "You owe me, Morelli. I need to know. If she had him, where would she keep him? If you know other places her family uses, I need to know… now."

There was silence for so long she thought for a moment the call had dropped. But then she heard him breathing. "Joe?"

"Yeah, Steph. I'm here. The thing is, Ranger has influence with the families. And not just the Grizzolis. He's respected by the Romanos, and you know he has connections with the Ramos family. I don't think Terry would risk the wrath of her own family, let alone the others if word got out that she'd … harmed Ranger."

"So, you don't think she's involved?" Stephanie asked.

"I don't know. Terry can be a little ... intense at times," Joe said. "But if she did have him taken, she'd make sure it was by people she trusted, and she'd have him stashed someplace really off the grid."

"What does that mean ... off the grid?"

"Someplace not known to be in Grizzoli hands. I … may know of a place."

"Tell me." It was a command. Stephanie tamped down the excitement. This might be the break they needed.

Joe inhaled deeply and then slowly exhaled. "The information I'm about to give you can't be connected to me. Understand, Steph?"

"Yes," she almost shouted with impatience.

He took another deep breath. "When Terry and I were together, she kept ... uh ... a secret apartment in an old warehouse. This particular building isn't a regular Grizzoli holding, and it isn't monitored by her Uncle Vito, because ... well ... it sometimes ... um ... houses merchandise that he knows nothing about. It's also never been raided by the police." Joe sounded incredibly embarrassed, and maybe even ashamed. "The apartment is upstairs. Terry didn't want her family to know she was with a cop, and she knew if my superiors found out it would immediately be over between us, so the place is pretty private." She could sense the hesitancy in Joe's voice.

He didn't want to be telling her this, not because he was betraying Terry, but because he'd probably known of Terry's secret place when he'd been with her. And now he knew she'd know he'd been unfaithful to her. Anger spurted and she wanted to scream, shout, throw the phone out the window. It was a good thing that he wasn't in the car with her. She kept her voice steady. No trace of her anger slipped through. What he'd done to her was no longer important. What he could do to help Ranger was.

"Tell me where it is," she demanded again.

"You have to keep me out of it," Joe insisted. "I mean, totally out of it. If this got out, it would ruin my career. Can you agree to that?"

"Yes." She was impressed by her own restraint.

"Okay. I'm going to give you an address." The address he gave her was in one of the older areas of Trenton. "If you check it out, be careful, Steph. Really careful. Promise me?"

"I'm going to check it out now. And I will be very careful. What are the chances she'll be there?"

"I don't know, but I can do something that might improve your odds, if you're sure you are going over there right away."

"I am."

He once again recited the Trenton address, and added, "Be on your guard, Cupcake. And good luck."

Stephanie looked at the cell phone in her hand for a long moment. She'd come a long way from the arm-waving Italian-Hungarian girlfriend of a womanizing Trenton cop. She was an important part of RangeMan and an important part of Ranger's life. And she had a plan of action. She called Tank.

"I've got a lead, from Morelli," she said. "I need to move now, and I don't need a crowd, but I need good backup. Who can you give me?"

"I can give you me," he said. "Where are we going?"

She gave him the address. "I'll meet you there."

"No," he said. "You'll come back here and pick me up."

"Timing is critical, Tank. We need to get there as quickly as we can. I'll try to wait for you before I go in."

Tank closed his eyes and counted to ten. "You realize this means your time on the mats is doubled."

Steph almost grinned. "I can live with that. But Ranger may not, if we don't get there ASAP."

"I'm on my way."