Chapter 47

"It's a set up? Explain it to us again"

Came from Juan as Hector sat next to him.

"Seven years ago, Ranger's team was ambushed because of false information. I'm sure that Anna's brother was the man who Ranger referred to as the man that they lost. His fiancé was a woman named Sasha Delaney who just happened to be a woman who was demoted at Homeland. I'm almost sure that we all know her as Kinley Malhoun who then went to work for Sinclair. If she discovered that it was Sinclair who was responsible for the death of her fiancé, then I'm sure that she'd want some retribution. I think that Kinley is a convenient alias that she used when she did jobs for Homeland, which Sinclair was all too happy to go along with. She found out what Sinclair was investigating and saw an opportunity to get revenge on him for what happened to her fiancé. She knew that his sister, Anna, was working for Dresden so had her, probably talked her through it, download those files"

"So why didn't she give the information to Kinley?"

Okay maybe that was a weak link in my reasoning, but I was sure that there was a damned good reason.

"Maybe what Anna found was bigger than she realized and knew that it needed stopping. That it was bigger than just getting revenge for her brother. Or maybe she spoke to her uncle to get his advice?"

I thought they were possible answers so ploughed on with my theory.

"Kinley has probably been looking for a way to bring down Sinclair since she started working for him but he's secretive and maybe never gave her a decent opening. Oh shit, we have to get Ranger back here"

If Ranger thought that Sinclair was the one who had threatened and had me hurt and was now after Kinley, he might do something really stupid. Like kill Sinclair. We'd had it all wrong. Sinclair wasn't the one who had schemed and planned all of this, it had to have been Kinley.

"Hit your panic button Estefania, that will get him back here quickly. She may well have access into his phone, she's that clever"

I did that straight away hoping that he received the alert and came straight back here. My worry was what the hell Kinley was doing. Would she have stayed close to Sinclair in order to make sure that Ranger fell for her trick? I felt Hector's hand on my shoulder so knew that he was as worried as I was.

"He'll be on his way, though he will not too pleased"

I bet he wouldn't be. He'd be as worried as hell if he thought that we were in danger. It was as I was pacing the floor with Juan and Hector trying not to watch me that the lights, computers and screens suddenly went off leaving us in total darkness.

"The generator?"

Asked Juan of Hector, which to be honest was a logical thought.

"I go check. Maybe it needs some more gasoline"

As I started to light candles and place them around the room it wasn't just Ansgar who seemed to be on alert.

"Azulejo, take Ansgar and go upstairs to your room. I don't like this. I'm going to take a look around"

Yep, Juan definitely looked worried about something and him telling me to leave had me feeling the same. I collected a couple of candles and with Ansgar next to me started to head upstairs. Just walking through the darkened room and toward the stairs had me feeling more nervous. Shadows from the flame of the candles flickered around me emphasizing the dark corners that couldn't be reached. This definitely wasn't romantic, maybe even creepy. By the time that I reached Latisha's rooms the lights still weren't working so I lit some more candles in an effort to lighten the place up.

I was still wearing the clothes from this morning and hadn't even removed the vest or weapons because to be honest this place wasn't overly warm. I went and sat on the seat in the window, waiting and watching, hoping to see Ranger's car returning. As time went by, I was getting concerned, but then gave myself a mental head slap as I realized that he'd probably come in from the rear of the property. Checking my phone for the time I realized that I had no signal, typical. Whose idea was it to base ourselves here? Oh yeah, mine.

For an old house I'd ignored the creaks and groans but now they seemed so loud in the quietness that surrounded me. I was working myself up into panic mode, panic that something had happened to Ranger. The shadows were really spooking me out especially as they caught in the corner of my eye. Had I left the door open? I didn't think so. Picking up a candle I felt brave enough to walk around the room and nearly ended up dropping it when I caught sight of a figure stood in the corner. Definitely not Ranger or Juan, besides Juan wasn't overly quiet as he limped around.

"Sorry Steph. Didn't mean to scare you. I needed somewhere safe to hide"

Okay, as an explanation maybe it was believable, but I wasn't falling for it. I mean how the hell did she know to come here?

"How did you know I was here?"

"Come on Steph, I'm good at following people. I knew that you were going to see Sorenson, so I followed you. Oh God, Carlos, did he go looking for Sinclair?"

I hesitated before answering not knowing whether to play along with her or push her with what I knew.

Piss her off came to mind because that was what I was feeling with her. If I was right, then she'd used Ranger to do something that she was too much of a coward to do herself.

"You really played this act out well Sasha. Too much of a wimp to avenge Stephen, so you had to set up Ranger to do your dirty work?"

I'd expected her to deny what I'd said or even look confused but instead her expression hardened as she stared at me.

"You would have done the same"

I raised my eyebrows as I gave her a one word reply.

"Really? If I have a problem, I work it out myself. I don't trick other people into doing my dirty work"

Okay so I added a sentence to the one word. I never took my eyes off her as she slowly walked away from the corner and toward me, waiting for her to try and argue with me or come up with some random excuse.

"Jackson Sinclair was responsible for Stephen dying. He's a conniving, arrogant man who's only interest is power and money. Even after working with him for so long, he never let me in, all secrets and mystery. This job, he thought that he knew everything and well, it was too good an opportunity"

I couldn't argue with her description of Sinclair but the way that she was trying to bring him down and how she was doing it was really getting me annoyed. By now my hands were resting on my hips because I was close to rhino mode with her attitude.

"You set him up with the intention of Ranger killing him. That was devious and I won't let you get away with it"

Probably not the right thing to say to someone like Kinley but I was past caring. Ansgar was stood next to me now and from his stance he was definitely feeling the bad vibes shooting between us.

"Carlos hates Sinclair so will probably thank me for the opportunity, especially after I kill you and blame it on Sinclair"

I wasn't the only one who caught the movement of her hand toward her side because Ansgar was suddenly jumping through the air toward her. Kinley managed to turn her body avoiding a full lunge from Ansgar but in the process lost her gun onto the floor. That shocked me into moving forward with my shoulder hitting her chest. We both ended up on the floor with me trying to stop her from reaching her gun. My arms were locked around her waist as she reached behind her, both of us grunting with the effort. As Ansgar aimed for her arm again I was sure I heard a growl, not from Ansgar but from Kinley, before she raised her knee into my stomach.

I instinctively released my grip unintentionally giving her the room to roll out from underneath me. Get onto your feet, blasted through my head, so as quick as I could I rolled back and onto my feet once again facing her.

"I don't think so Stephanie. You just don't have the skills"

Probably not, but I wasn't backing down. A second gun appeared in her hand but this time she aimed it at Ansgar. The sound of the shot echoed around the room, momentarily stunning me. Looking toward Ansgar he was laid out on his side, a pool of blood gathering below his head with no movement coming from him. I almost ran over to him but realized that if I did that then there could be two of us lying dead on the floor. Maybe Kinley didn't expect me to pull out my gun and maybe she didn't think that I would use it. Yeah, I wasn't sure about that either.

The problem was that she moved, low and fast and before I knew what had happened, she had my wrist up in the air with the gun pointing to the ceiling. Two could play at the same game so I raised my knee into her groin. Oh, she didn't like that one bit, but her response was to punch me in the shoulder and then slam her arm down mine, sending my gun flying across the room. Game on as I thought of all of the lessons that I'd learnt from Juan and Bobby. She was fast, accurate and unpredictable, all of which weren't helping me and I from the pain in my arm I knew that she'd managed to really hurt it. I needed to slow her down and block any more punches or kicks that she was landing on me. My face and chest felt like a punching bag, even with a vest on it wasn't doing anything to soften the blows and I wasn't sure how much longer I could last. Go with what you know you can do, came to me, so I turned after a roundhouse kick and then elbowed her in the chest. Of course, her hands locked around me, which actually gave me a chance to catch my breath.

"Give up now?"

No way, but I didn't say that. I felt one of her arms come up and around my neck and begin to tighten so moved my hands to hold onto it. One hand went between my neck and her arm while the other grabbed onto her wrist. A turn sideways, a push up on the elbow and I pulled my head down and yanked her wrist behind her. So maybe my foot was behind her and maybe she fell backwards and maybe I still had a hold of her wrist. The result was the sound of a cracking noise before she screamed and fell backward onto the floor. Oh, and maybe her head hit the side of a set of drawers.

I turned at the sound of clapping behind me as I held my arms around my stomach, bent over slightly to try and minimize the pain I was feeling. Juan was knelt down next to Ansgar with a towel on his head. Oh no, please don't let him be dead.

"He's fine, just a graze"

Even as I hobbled over toward them Ansgar's head lifted up and looked at me. That dog got a load of loving from me while Juan slapped cuffs on a still unconscious Kinley and we were joined by Hector.

"Ranger?"

I asked now really concerned with what had happened if he'd found Sinclair.

"Just arrived. Go down and get cleaned up, we'll sort these two out"

Cleaning up wasn't my priority, seeing Ranger was. Maybe I should have heeded what Hector had said because as soon I walked down the stairs and Ranger looked at me, he was the one rushing over to me and picking me up.

"Hey, I'm okay. What happened, did you find Sinclair?"

"Babe, you're hurt. Who the hell did this to you"

Uh oh, he was looking mad, okay not with me, but I could sense that he was losing his infamous control just by looking at me. Did I look that bad? The sound of someone coming down the stairs had us both looking in that direction and as if on cue the lights came back on revealing Hector carrying Kinley over his shoulder.

"Her, but look on the bright side, she's in a worse condition than I am"

Yeah, that took the wind out of his sails, and did I just detect a hint of smile?

"Proud of you Babe, but Brown is on his way to check you over"

To be honest I wasn't going to argue with that because I was starting to hurt all over and for some reason, probably from blocking Kinley's strikes, my arm was hurting all over again. As Ranger knelt down in front of me and gently swept a curl behind my ear, I caught sight of Sinclair stood behind him watching us. I looked from Sinclair back to Ranger wanting him to tell me what had happened and why he was here. He didn't appear to have any bruising on him, so I assumed that he hadn't come to blows with Ranger. The problem was that I wasn't exactly feeling too good and if anyone was talking to me it just seemed to float over my head.