Chapter 19

To me the words were definitely rambling, as though each time the person put pen to paper, they were speaking their thoughts and to me those thoughts seemed quite dark. It was as though the author felt that they had done something wrong and needed to put it right in order to forgive themselves. Was I reading that right? I had no idea and to be honest felt disappointed with the contents of the package. So why had it ended up in my jacket pocket? If it did belong to the elderly man that I was with in the bank what was so important about it that he felt that he needed to give it to me? It also occurred to me that I had no idea what had happened to him. Had been released like I had, but then where was he now?

I shook my head as I realized I was asking myself questions that I had no answers for and probably never would. Partly disappointed, partly frustrated I rewrapped the book in the brown paper and string and took it over to my desk, placing it in the center drawer. I'd probably come back to it but at the moment I was losing interest in it and knew that I had work that needed doing. Out of sight, out of mind was what I decided as I picked up the next file from my desk.

I suppose that I shouldn't have been surprised to see a name that I recognized from the files that Connie had shown me and felt that I'd definitely made the right decision to walk away from Vinnie.

That file was for the man who had kidnapped and tortured two women. The first woman was dealing with her ordeal, but the second victim wasn't doing as well. She was still in the hospital having suffered far worse injuries. Gordon Gosblock had been caught when he was trying to dump the second victim at the landfill. It was only then that the police had tied in his previous victim from her identifying him. As the file was new to Rangeman no one had done any research so that was what I needed to do first, find out who this man Gordon Gosblock was.

By the time that I had pulled out every detail of the man and looked more closely at the background of his victims I had two possible places where he might hide out. I was surprised when I discovered that Gosblock had been questioned previously with reference to an assault on a woman. That hadn't developed into him being charged but to me it certainly showed that he might have a predisposition to hurting women. A sealed juvenile file would have been interesting to read as well, but I couldn't access that.

I didn't think that he'd be sat at home with his mother waiting for someone to find him and a call to his mother confirmed that she had no idea where he was. I know what you're thinking, that a mother might just try to cover for her son, but not this one. She might love her son, but she was upset and felt guilty enough to know that he had to be stopped. Her worst fear was that he'd end up killing the next woman he took. Maybe she was aware of his previous history as well. For someone who was only 28 years old he'd certainly had a run of bad luck with jobs. From redundancy to the company closing down, from being fired to the company relocating. Gosblock's career as a salesman certainly seemed to be doomed but I did wonder if him losing his job had anything to do with Gosblock himself.

I had two possible locations for Les to look at. I surmised that Gosblock would go for somewhere familiar and as he had no other living relatives in the area, no regular haunts where he would go to, I started to look at the places where he had worked. One was the abandoned warehouse of the company that had closed down and coincidently was where he had met his first victim as a fellow workmate. The second place held a more tenuous link but for some reason I was more inclined to feel that was where he could be. It was the garage and showroom for the company that had relocated. It was standing empty now waiting for a prospective buyer to purchase it but from the information on the realtor's web site it looked to be in reasonable condition. No leaky roof or rotten floors, shelter from the elements and located in a quiet area of industrial units, so no one hanging around at night.

I was about to write up my notes to pass on to Les when a knock at my door startled me. Looking up I was surprised to see Ram stood in the doorway.

"Les asked me to do some work with you on the gun range. Is 1300hrs okay with you?"

A look at the computer screen told me that it was 12.17 so now knowing what time he was referring to I nodded my head.

"Yeah, that's fine Ram"

I answered before he disappeared. Finishing my report on Gosblock I entered the details for the next skip expecting the search to be finished by the time I returned from the range. I wasn't sure what to expect as I walked into the range, to be honest I was just pleased that I'd managed to find it. This wasn't a place that I frequented very often, and I couldn't even remember the last time that I'd been here. Once through the door I spied Ram at the end of the range stood next to a long bench, so walked over to join him. My eye was caught at the number and variety of hand guns set out on the bench making me regret having agreed to do this. Did I have to know how to shoot and clean all of these guns?

"Don't look so worried Steph. Les said that we needed to find a more practical gun that you'd find easier to handle, so this is our selection"

Okay, I could go with that but did wonder why there wasn't one like my old one there.

"All that I want you to do is to pick up one gun at a time. Those you like the feel of put over there and then we can look at firing those"

That sounded reasonable to me, so I did as he had asked of me. Some felt too heavy, others the handgrip was too thick or the distance to the trigger seemed awkward so by the time that I'd gone through all of them I had a choice of three set to one side.

"Okay, let's take these to one of the bays and see how you feel firing them"

Definitely the part that I wasn't looking forward to. Ram loaded one gun at a time and set it down in front of me so with earmuffs on I started the arduous task of firing each of the guns. With some of them I couldn't say if I liked them or not, but one gun did feel more comfortable than the others.

"This one"

I said to Ram as I laid it down in front of me.

"Good call Steph. It's a SIG P365. It's designed for easy concealability, reliable performance and extended ammunition capacity to be used by someone with small hands. I think that it's a good choice for you. It holds 9 rounds so let's spend some time on reloading the magazine and maintenance"

I had to listen very carefully to Ram's instructions because he made me do all of the work. I never had been very good at cleaning my Smith and Wesson and very rarely bothered to load it. Maybe having a magazine to load was easier than using a chamber, who knew, but by the end of our session I felt a familiarity with the gun that I hadn't felt with the other one. The problem was where would I keep it.

"I'll do the paperwork that you'll need and find some holsters for you to use. Just make sure that it's stored safely along with the additional ammo. Come down here, same time tomorrow and we'll start on the target practice"

I wasn't going to argue with Ram though was taken aback that he expected me to come back the next day. I'd just assumed that I'd be at the range maybe once a week, if that. If I was still bad at shooting would Ram expect me to come every day until I got better? I determined that I didn't want to be doing that so needed to focus tomorrow and really try hard to hit my targets, maybe then I could put off having to practice so often. That decided I was thanking Ram for his time and returning up to five. I went via the breakroom and made a coffee taking it into my office.

I was surprised that the search on the next skip had already finished and was definitely frowning as I read the last paragraph on the screen. Victor Cutliffe had died four days ago when he'd electrocuted himself. Well at least that was one less person to find and Vinnie would get his money back, after Connie did all of the paperwork. I yawned and stretched my arms above my head and decided that I'd had enough for today. Collecting the information together on Gosblock and Cutliffe I walked around to Les's office with the intention of letting him know what I'd found. His door was open, but the office was empty, so I felt okay with leaving the paperwork on his desk. The question was what to do now. I supposed that going up to the apartment was my only option. I went through to the bedroom and changed from my Rangeman uniform into some leggings and a long shirt. My intention for the evening was to snack on some foods that Ella had left for me and watch some TV.

That worked out well until later in the evening, after I'd showered and changed into some pajamas. I hated that I was missing Ranger being here with me. I had no idea where he was but knew that it really wasn't any of my business. He wasn't answerable to or beholden to inform me of everything that he did but looking at the empty bed had me wondering what Ranger had been doing all day and where he was now. I missed his company but with that thought knew that I had to draw some lines between us. Him saying that he needed me rattled through my brain along with the many ways that I could interpret that, which left me totally awake with no desire to go to bed or to go to sleep.

I was back on the couch and decided that I'd better check my phone for any messages so was searching through my bag. I hadn't given many people my new number only the girls, so I wasn't feeling optimistic. I ended up pulling some paper out that was getting in the way and realized that it was Vinnie's newspaper. I had no idea why I hadn't just thrown it away and like the idiot that I was I ended up reading the short report again and then just stared at the photo that had been used for Silas Sullivan. There was something about it that reminded me of someone so finding a pencil in one of the drawers I sat at the dining room table and began to add lines to the face. Longer hair, that was thin and untidy. Small rimmed glasses and lines moving out from the corner of the eyes. Shading over the cheek bones to give the illusion of being thinner.

As I held the paper away from me it hit me who it looked like. Was that because I'd added characteristics that weren't there? No, the face looking back at me definitely bore a resemblance to the man who had been sat with me in the bank, the elderly gentleman. I took the paper back over to the couch as I considered what I was saying to myself. It sure would be a coincidence if I was right, but then again, I'd been remiss in asking after the man so had no idea if he'd been found. Maybe I needed to follow up with him, ask Les if he'd been found like the other two people who were taken at the same time as me and then run a search to see if there was a more up to date photo that would confirm or deny my line of thinking.

I wasn't sure how long I lay on the couch looking at that photo or going through in my mind the time that I had spent with him, but it seemed that I must have been comfortable enough to have dozed off. God how I loved Ranger's couch.

That was where I thought I would be when I woke up but the smooth skin underneath my cheek was too warm, and I could swear that I could hear a dull thumpity thump. My eyes flashed open surprised that instead of seeing the leather of the couch, I was gazing onto mocha latte skin. Now that did surprise me, but it also had me feeling a tad bit annoyed as well. Was this what he meant when he said that he needed me, to keep his bed warm for him? I mean over the last couple of days he hadn't spoken to me during the day, was that intentional or because he really had been busy with meetings?

I watched as a hand moved from his other side and rested on my shoulder before running down my skin to my wrist.

"Morning Babe"

"Did I make it to bed last night?"

Because I had no memory of doing that.

"I arrived late and found you on the couch so decided you'd be more comfortable here in bed"

Okay, that answered that question, but I was still feeling slightly confused with what was going on between us. Ranger totally threw me with his next question though and any thoughts of what was happening between us was soon lost.

"How about going out for breakfast?"

Yeah, I could totally relate to that idea, so all previous thoughts disappeared from my head as thoughts of food took over.

"Sounds good"

Because it also meant that I'd actually get out of the building before I went crazy. It also meant that I could delay voicing any of my thoughts. Ranger disappeared to the bathroom while I sorted out something to wear and then as soon as he had finished, I was scurrying in. Once washed and dressed, with my unruly hair pulled back into a ponytail, I added some mascara and natural lip gloss. I hadn't replaced the arm brace after showering the night before, so I fitted that on, feeling that the arm was so much better. In fact, thinking about it, my ribs weren't as tender, and I hadn't had any headaches so maybe I was eventually on the way to healing.

As I picked up my bag from the couch, I noticed Ranger leant against the kitchen counter looking at the newspaper. I wasn't sure that I was ready to explain the artwork that I'd added yet because I still wasn't confident with recognizing who the man at the bank had been. Maybe he thought that I'd just been doodling because as I approached him, he put the paper down behind him on the work surface without saying anything.

Five minutes later we were motoring away from the building. I wasn't sure whether he'd planned where we were going for breakfast, but I was enjoying being outside as Ranger wove between the traffic. We ended up pulling to a stop outside a small diner somewhere upriver. My French toast was to die for, and they catered for Ranger's choice of food with bagels and cream cheese. To be honest it was strange really because we had hardly said a word to each other and yet the silence was comfortable.

"Santos told me that he was following up on the information you provided on that last skip"

I had to stop and think who that was, hell, I'd slept since then.

"Gosblock. Yeah, that was a weird one. He didn't have any family in the area and no evidence of girlfriends so finding where he might be isn't easy"

I still wasn't sure if the property that I'd suggested would be any good.

"That's often the nature of some of the higher bond skips. They know how to hide and don't be disappointed if he's not there, because they also know to move around"

I suppose that he was right and from reading Gosblock's background information I had the feeling that there was a history in his behavior. I just worried that his behavior was escalating so maybe I needed to do some more thinking about him.

"He has a sealed record. Is there a way of getting access to that?"

The slight tilt of Ranger's lips told me that of course there was.

"Talk to Hector"

That confirmed, I was wondering if a conversation with a prior boss might unearth something. Surprisingly the conversation took on a new direction, one that had me feeling confused yet again.

"I'm in the office this morning but have an appointment with Luke this afternoon. I should be back in time for dinner, so would you call Ella and let her know"

You might ask what was confusing about that. Well, for one I had no idea where he had been yesterday, although I knew that he was out of the office all day, as were all of the core team. Okay, maybe they were meeting with an important client, but all of them? Now he was actually telling me what he was doing today. I couldn't work out if he was trying to be more open with me or not and there was an unsaid assumption in there that told me that he expected me to be at his apartment.

Breakfast finished and paid for we were soon back on the road and heading toward Rangeman. Once there the first thing that I did was to dig out my phone, sending a message to Hector with regard to Gosblock's juvenile file. That left the one file that I still needed to look at which to be honest was the one that I was least looking forward to.

Jigsaw, whose real name was Josue Afonso, was affiliated to a recently formed gang, the Porters, that had been making a lot of noise in the area in establishing itself. According to the file from Vinnie, Jigsaw had murdered a rival gang leaders' girlfriend. Of course there had been enough witnesses to him shooting her so his guilt was never in doubt.

His parents had immigrated from Portugal years ago, so Josue was born here in Trenton, and he was quickly followed by three sisters and one brother. His police record had started young, mainly assault charges of varying degrees and he'd spent a couple of years in prison when he was in his mid twenties. It was after that he started putting together his gang, so maybe his time in prison had introduced him to that idea. As with many gang members he was suspected of being involved with drug running and the deaths of other gang members through property or car destruction. Yep, the typical use of fire bombs that I knew so well.

That he'd murdered a young woman seemed out of character to me, so I decided that maybe this was more personal to him. A look through the information of his siblings showed that surprisingly all of them looked to be leading normal lives, with normal jobs and in some cases families of their own. Okay so maybe the sisters were young to be married with kids, but what did I know about that other than I suppose things weren't much different in the Burg. Girls were raised to marry and marry quickly, in order to conform to expectations.

Except one of the sisters had died about six months ago so she went into a search. I wasn't sure how relevant doing that was, but I was curious now. Mila was the youngest sister and had only been married for six months when she'd gone out on a hen party for her best friend to one of the local clubs. Stupidly they had taken tablets that they'd bought there, and it was Mila who had reacted badly to the fentanyl laced drug, dying almost immediately. I wondered if Jigsaw had traced the source of the seller to the woman that he'd sought out and killed. A revenge killing. It made sense to me, but it didn't help to work out how the best way would be to capture Jigsaw.

The address that he'd given was deep in the heart of Stark Street so no doubt a building that would be protected by gang members and impossible to enter without anyone being hurt. I needed to work out where Jigsaw would be without the protection of his gang members. I was sure that Jigsaw kept in touch with his family but wasn't sure who and when and to be honest there might be too many innocent bystanders for that to work, especially children.

I sat back in the chair and considered where Jigsaw might go on his own without his entourage. Okay, family, but I'd already ruled that out. Then I had a light bulb moment. He'd visit the grave of his sister, wouldn't he? The family was Catholic, so I sat back at the computer and pulled up the search to discover that she'd been buried at St Joseph's church. So now to work out when he might be there. I was back to sitting back in the chair and using my foot to turn it around as I put my mind to that little problem. If he did visit the cemetery, then would he take flowers? I hadn't pulled up Jigsaw's finances because to be honest I just assumed that he'd only ever deal in cash. How wrong I was.

Jigsaw had an account that showed frequent money going in with regular outgoings to his family members, it seemed he really was looking after his family, especially his parents. I wondered if they knew where that money came from and what stories he'd told them. In amongst the outgoings was legitimate spending, clothes and vouchers for his family. Bills for meals out and even trips to the cinema and local attractions. It was as though the man led two totally separate lives. But there amongst the outgoings, regular as clockwork, was payment to a florist.

I wrote some notes giving Les the background and the day that I thought that Jigsaw would be at the cemetery but added that I wasn't sure what time he would go or if he would be on his own. That done everything went into the file ready to hand over to Les.

I was at lose end now until Hector got back to me with that juvenile file for Gosblock and my mind had wondered to the mystery man in the bank. On an impulse I input Silas Sullivan into the search program. If he wasn't that man, then I argued that it would be interesting to know about this amazing bounty hunter that had worked with Vinnie. I'd only just hit the key to get it started when I heard a soft knock and looked up to see Bobby stood in the doorway.

"Morning Steph. I came by to check how the arm was doing and to suggest that this afternoon would be good for me"

I had no idea what Bobby was talking about. What was he expecting to happen this afternoon? Bobby must have noticed my confusion and chuckled softly.

"Sorry, Steph. Santos asked me to do some training with you, but I told him that we'd have to start slowly and do some physio on that arm of yours"

I wasn't sure whether groaning would be appreciated by Bobby. I felt like doing just that because I hadn't considered who Les would ask to train me. Don't get me wrong, I liked Bobby, but he was a big guy, not as big as Tank, but certainly well muscled especially for a medic. The idea of doing any self defense with him was a bit daunting.

"I, err, had started attending some self defense classes before. Well before this happened"

I said as I held up my arm covered with the brace.

"We have a starting point then. Don't worry, I'll take it easy on you. 1400 hrs, err, 2 o'clock in the gym"

I didn't get a chance to respond because Bobby disappeared leaving me staring at the door. I sighed deeply and checked my watch, noting that it was close to lunch time so decided to find something to eat from the breakroom.

I ended up spending two hours in the gym. I don't know who was the most surprised, me or Bobby. When I'd arrived at the gym, I'd insisted that I went through the routine of warming up that I'd learnt at my prior training and enjoyed. Yeah, me enjoying exercise. The thing is that those warm ups didn't involve a treadmill or running and were focused on making it fun. Okay, I couldn't do the skipping because of my wrist but using an ankle skip ball, that was fun along with a hula hoop and playing twister certainly had me stretching. In return Bobby went slowly through some of the moves that I'd learnt, never putting pressure onto my arm or ribs, and gave me some ways to improve on them.

I returned to the apartment on seven hot and sweaty with some simple exercises to strengthen my arm and the firm instruction that I had to stop doing them if it hurt. The brace was to be worn for another two weeks unless I was relaxing. After showering I changed into leggings and a hoodie intending to just lay down for a few minutes. Didn't quite work out like that and I shot up, wide awake when I heard the door opening and closing. Shit, I'd totally forgotten to talk to Ella.

Rubbing my face and retying my hair back into a ponytail I walked through to the living area coming face to face with Ranger.

"Babe"

Yeah, maybe he wanted to know why I was looking down at his shoes and biting my lip and maybe I needed to fess up.

"I'm sorry. I messed up, I forgot to talk to Ella"

I felt his lips on my forehead before my he used a finger under my chin to lift my head up.

"No worries, we can order takeout"

And with that simple statement I didn't feel so bad for my mistake. As Ranger carried on past me into the bedroom I turned and watched his retreating figure trying to work out if his mood was any different after his meeting with Luke. He seemed calm as he walked away dressed in jeans and a sweater, making me wonder what their conversation had been about. I wasn't about to ask because I didn't want to know.

Takeout was Thai and I loved my choice of chicken and prawn pad Thai. In fact, even Ranger's choice would have suited me, tangy Thai chicken salad. Between mouthfuls I told him what I'd found out about Jigsaw surprised when he knew who he was, though he wasn't aware of how close to his family he was. I had him laughing at my description of my session in the gym with Bobby. I suppose having spoken about what I'd done during the day I expected him to do the same, so was disappointed when that didn't happen. Here we were again where he knew everything about me and I knew nothing about him, his secrets kept locked up tight with me on the outside.

As we tidied up after finishing the meal, I went through how I felt and decided that maybe I'd been right all along. Ranger may have said that he needed me, but I was coming to the opinion that that need had nothing to do with a deeper emotion. I felt like that damn ring that Gollum had to have procession of, his precious, that he became obsessed with for all the wrong reasons. I also realized that I was feeding that need that Ranger felt because I was now ensconced inside the Rangeman building and he insisted on being with me at night. The problem I was having was trying to work out what to do because regardless of his motives the more I saw of him the deeper I was sinking.

Maybe I was thankful when Ranger's phone went off and he was called to go to a break in. It would give me a chance to relax without worrying, so after spending time manicuring and painting my nails I went to bed.

One minute I was asleep and the next I was wide awake. Wide awake as in bright eyed and bushy tailed with a feeling of being in overdrive. I was sure that nothing had woken me but stayed very still just in case. Ranger must have gotten into bed while I was asleep because somehow my head was resting on his chest and my arm was laid across his body. Weird. Was it me who moved into this position or did Ranger pull me into him? Regardless of that I was wide awake without any feeling of needing to go back to sleep. I could feel Ranger's slow regular breathing and hear the low thudding of his heart so knew that he was deep in sleep.

I wanted to move but was afraid that if I started to fidget then I'd wake Ranger up, so inch by inch I slowly extracted myself from him and slid from the bed. I collected my leggings and hoodie from the floor before going through into the kitchen. Looking at the coffee machine I decided that the noise that it made would be loud enough to wake Ranger and I didn't want to do that. It must have been late when he came back so he would need his sleep.

I pulled on the leggings and hoodie over my nightwear of a T-shirt and shorts and knew that I needed to do something to keep me occupied until my brain allowed me to sleep again. I took the stairs down to five coming out into a quiet and dimly lit hallway. As I approached the monitoring area, I was aware of the lights coming from the screens and the low buzz of the machines. Of course, my presence didn't go unnoticed as I went to walk past and both Cal and Junior turned around to look at me.

"Everything okay, Bomber?"

Came from Cal while Junior went back to watching the screens but no doubt listening for my answer.

"Yeah, couldn't sleep"

"If you need anything give me a shout"

I smiled at Cal as I continued on into my office and closed the door. I wasn't sure what I was going to do but felt that maybe working might be the way to go. I settled behind the desk and moved the mouse to bring the computer out of sleep mode, noticing a notification that told me I had two new emails. The first that I opened was from Ram telling me that I could collect my gun and holster from the range. That was my bad because I should have gone down to the range today, well yesterday as it was now 2 in the morning.

The second email was from Hector with an attachment that turned out to be Gosblock's juvie file. I opened that straight away keen to read what he'd done to warrant a sealed file. Was I surprised with what I read? Not really, a bit saddened that a kid so young had been so badly bullied at school. I knew what that could be like courtesy of Joyce Barnhardt. That woman had made my life hell at times, from name calling to petty tricks. I suppose that I was resilient to her antics because I wasn't adverse to paying her back. Gosblock though seemed to have had constant harassment from a group of girls at his school and no one seemed to do anything about it. That's if he told anyone. The problem came when Gosblock retaliated physically and ended up hurting them. He was excluded a couple of times but that only had him carrying things on out of school. Stabbing one girl with a pencil escalated to setting up traps where the girls would play until the police were involved when he lured a girl close to an old well then pushed her down. That girl was missing for two days before she was found. He probably did other things that weren't known about, but it seemed that Gosblock had a taste for trapping and hurting that he'd continued into adulthood.

How did that help to work out where he might be now? Well, it seemed that he had a favorite place that he used. It was an amusement park where he'd lure the girls to, Woodland Park. I remembered that the place had closed down years ago but there was still an area where the old buildings still existed even though they had been fenced off to stop anyone from venturing inside. My spidey senses were going into overdrive as I found the place on Google maps so I was far more confident that this would be where Gosblock was hiding out. I composed an email with that information and sent it to Les so that hopefully he'd see it first thing in the morning.

As I printed off the information that I'd been looking at ready to file it in the cabinet I noticed the tab at the bottom of the screen and remembered that I'd started a search on Silas Sullivan. I'd need coffee to look at that so decided that the breakroom was my next port of call. Cal and Junior didn't even look away from their screens as I passed by, maybe there was something that needed their attention. Once in the breakroom the light from the night time lighting was sufficient for me to see with to make a coffee. It was as I was reaching up into the cupboard to get a mug that I became aware that there was someone close by. Turning, I found myself looking at the silhouette of a figure in the doorway. It scared me enough that the mug slid from my hand and started its fall to the floor. I heard as it broke into a hundred pieces around my feet, but my attention remained on the figure. Even as he stepped forward, I couldn't take my eyes off him or say anything and was so worried with what he might do.