Chapter 15
Lester
"Are you going to tell me why you're taking up space in my office, or do I need to make you an appointment on the mats for tomorrow morning?" Tank's harsh, no-nonsense voice cut through my thoughts, dragging me back to stare at his ugly mug instead of the door.
I'd come to his office to ask for a second opinion on a skip that Ram and I had been having trouble locating but had only just taken a seat in the visitor's chair that allowed me to see the open doorway when one Stephanie Plum had passed by in the hall. She held a stack of files to her chest, and it wasn't hard to guess where she was headed, since the only thing past Tank's door in that direction was Ranger's office. Only problem was, Ranger was out of town and would be for at least two weeks while the Manager down in Miami recovered from emergency surgery.
He'd left lunchtime Saturday - two days ago - and until he returned, Tank was in charge here in Trenton, hence why I was taking up occupancy in his office right now. So why would Steph need to go to the boss's office if he wasn't there?
I held up my hand in the signal for Tank to wait, listening intently as the door to Ranger's domain opened, there was a soft click and the change in hall lighting told me it was the light being turned on, further footsteps followed, a pause, and then she was on a return journey.
"Everything okay, Beautiful?" I called the moment her shadow appeared in the section of the corridor I could see from my vantage point.
She appeared half a second later, surprise drawing her eyes wide as her luscious, pink lips popped open. "Uh, yeah," she said, a blush creeping up her neck at having been caught unawares again. Anyone else in the company would have been so aware of their surroundings they would have made deliberate eye contact on their way past the first time. "Just had a couple forms for Cranger" - she was getting a lot quicker at catching herself before she accidentally called him Carlos at work, but unfortunately she hadn't managed to completely kick the habit yet, meaning she'd unwittingly created a new nickname for him that I was all too eager to make fun of when the opportunity eventually arose. - "to sign before we can go ahead with getting a new photocopier installed, but it doesn't look like he's in." She shrugged. "I left them in the in-tray for when he gets back," she added, averting her gaze from me to Tank to ask, "Any idea when that'll be? I noticed he's taken himself off his usual monitor shift this afternoon."
Tank's eyes flicked to me and away so fast that I wasn't sure what the look meant, and instead of replying to Steph's question he propped his elbow on the desk, hand held out toward her, palm up like he was waiting for her to hand him something. "I can sign the forms for you," he said.
Steph smiled but shook her head. "No, that's okay," she assured him. "Whenever he's back is fine. I don't need to send them back until tomorrow."
Again, Tank cut his eyes to me, more solidly this time, and I met his gaze just as steadily, likely thinking exactly the same thing. Aware that Steph was a few feet away, watching and waiting, I just as quickly resumed my usual carefree demeanour, lifting my left boot to rest my ankle atop my right knee, trying for an air of relaxation I didn't feel right at that moment.
"He didn't tell you?"
It was too much to ask that She'd missed the vibes Tank and I were giving off. She'd proven to be surprisingly perceptive almost from the first day I met her. And it showed in the way her bearing turned wary, shifting her weight from foot to foot. She knew Tank and I had just shared the equivalent of a full conversation with just that half a second of eye contact, and she didn't like feeling left out. "Tell me what?" she asked, eyeing us suspiciously.
"Ranger's not in Trenton," Tank stated evasively.
I wanted to roll my eyes. There was no reason to keep the details from her. Hell, I was surprised she didn't already know, since she's the one who posts the roster changes, after all, and would have had to remove Ranger's name from more than just today's monitor shift. Maybe she'd assumed he just had meetings that cropped up.?
"He's… oh," she said softly, tension visible in her every muscle as worry crept into her eyes, darting back and forth between Tank and me. "Where… I mean," she swallowed hard. "I mean, am I allowed to know where he is?"
I shot Tank a 'see what you made her think?' look and he chuffed in much the same way one of his cats would at being admonished. "Something came up at the Miami office and he's gone down to sort it out," I explained patiently, even though I wanted to see the email Ranger had sent to let her know of the necessary changes to his roster. Why wouldn't he have told her?
She nodded her understanding, but the tension in her shoulders didn't ease, much less release. "So, not a government mission thing?" she checked, holding my gaze in that unnerving way she sometimes gets when she's seeking the truth. It was the kind of look that made it obvious how she'd managed to cut through the turmoil in Ranger's head to calm him down last week.
I shook my head, opening my mouth to reassure her, but it was Tank who beat me to forming words.
"After the state he was in when he returned from the last one, I don't expect him to be called in for another six months at the least," he said.
Steph visibly relaxed then, a relieved sigh sailing past her lips as she sagged against the doorframe, the tension leaving her body so swiftly it left her looking almost boneless for a moment before she stood straight again. "In that case, I better go retrieve the forms, then," she announced, turning on her three-inch heels and disappearing down the hall. Her voice drifted back to us as she continued speaking, though I'd learned that sometimes she had a tendency to think aloud and I wondered if this was one of those times. "I'd like to have them submitted by the end of the day so we can get the ball rolling."
As soon as she was out of sight, and I heard Ranger's office door click open again, Tank and I were in another stare-down. This one, though, we could afford to be longer and a little more vocal.
"He didn't tell her," I stated, disbelief setting a swift course through every cell in my body now that I had the time to process the situation a little more.
"And she missed the start of the meeting this morning where I announced it," Tank replied slowly, his eyebrows drawing down to frown at me. I got the sense that despite our earlier eye contact, he wasn't quite on the same page I was, and with Steph's footsteps already heading back in our direction, I didn't have time to explain it all before she appeared in the doorway again, tapping the file against her hand.
"Should I try get the copier to scan so I can email him a copy to sign?" she asked, staring toward the end of the hall and the office she'd just left. "If he's dealing with stuff, will he have time to look it over?"
Again, Tank set his elbow on the desk, requesting the file. "I'll look it over," he assured her. "If it's all fine, I'll sign it and get it back to you. If there's anything I think is amiss, I'll call Ranger about it."
For some reason, his answer seemed to disappoint her, but she nodded and crossed the room to hand over the file anyway. "Thank y- why do you have a file on Mooner?"
I stared down at the photo of Walter Dunphy on the front of the file I'd dropped onto Tank's desk when I'd entered. I'd almost forgotten about that. "Mooner?" I asked curiously. "Do you know this guy?"
"We went to high school together. He was well known for being high as a kite, a space cadet, so he got the nickname Mooner. Why would Rangeman be interested in him?"
"He's FTA," I explained. "Caught stealing moonpies from the service station near his mother's house and clocked for possession of illicit substances."
"I thought we only took Vinnie's mid to high level skips," she pointed out, picking up the file and examining the photo more closely before flipping it open and scanning down the page. "This is barely worth the forty-five minutes of work we'd need to put in to grab him."
I looked from Steph to Tank and back, thankful I hadn't gotten to the reason for my visit before I'd spotted her in the hall, otherwise this could turn awkward. "Forty-five minutes?" I questioned casually. "How do you figure?"
She looked up, surprise on her features again. "There's a Star Trek marathon on TV this week," she pointed out. "So he'll be spending most of his time at Dougie's. I bet if you turned up just as the marathon session was ending you wouldn't even need to use any force. He'd just go with you to get re-bonded. Fifteen minutes over to Dougie's house, twenty minutes back over to the PD, ten minutes to process paperwork if there's a line."
I blinked slowly. "Who's Dougie?"
"Douglas Kruiper," Steph explained, pointing to something on the page. "His best friend. Dougie the Dealer?" She shook her head. "You did read this file, didn't you?"
I nodded, really wishing this conversation wasn't taking place in front of Tank. "Yeah, but my search didn't say anything about Walter and Dougie being friends, just that Dougie was a known associate."
Tank crossed his arms over his chest, a mixture of wonder and annoyance on his face. "Santos, did you bring this file in to tell me you couldn't find the FTA?" he questioned.
"His residence is listed as his mother's house, but he's never there and Mrs Dunphy doesn't have a clue where to find him. He doesn't have a job. His only known hang outs are the service station, the gaming store and the arcade at the mall, and we haven't been able to locate him at any of those."
"Steph just said he's probably at Dougie Kruiper's house," Tank said, lifting an eyebrow in challenge.
Steph had set down the file again, inching backwards a little awkwardly. "I mean, it's possible," she said, head bowed, shuffling her feet as she plucked at some invisible lint on her pants. "Last I heard they were still tight. My friend Mary Lou saw them picking out snacks with their pointed ears on the other day."
"Follow the lead, Santos," Tank barked, making both Steph and I jump and the sudden change in intensity. "And stop wasting my time!"
Even a blind and deaf man would have realised that he'd outstayed his welcome at this point, so I just nodded and jumped to my feet, scooping up Dunphy's file and heading for the door, Steph hot on my heels.
"Sorry," she said when we reached the end of the hall and her waiting cubicle. "I didn't mean to get you in trouble."
"You didn't," I assured her, slinging my arm over her shoulder and dragging her into my side for a hug. "If anything, you helped me out. I doubt Tank would have been able to provide as much insight as you did, so thank you."
She shook her head but returned the hug easily. "Don't thank me until you know if the lead pans out," she said, poking me in the ribs and pulling back. She took a single step away, further into her cubby, but stopped and turned back to me. "Is Carlos okay?"
I screwed up my nose, following into her space and leaning my ass against her short filing cabinet while she continued to stand, worry once more oozing from her pores. "Do you mean Carlos or Ranger?" I asked, partially because there was a difference between the two personas and just because one was okay didn't mean the other was as well, and partially because I didn't know how to answer her question. I wanted more context, and I was pretty sure her answer to my question would give me what I needed to know.
"You mean, do I want to know if Carlos is okay at work or outside of work?" she clarified, brow furrowing as she considered my words. "I'd like for him to be okay overall, to be honest, but after the little girl last Thursday and the way he avoided me all of Friday, I suspect he's not. Has he said anything to you? Is this Miami thing just a cover to get away from… Trenton and the reminder of, you know?"
A sigh escaped me before I could help it. She had it bad. And if I knew my idiot cousin, he did too. Running away and avoiding things that could complicate his life was definitely his MO, but it didn't take a genius to read between the lines of Steph's question. She wanted to know if Ranger was trying to get away from her.
"Ranger didn't have to go down himself," I told her honestly. "He could have just as easily sent Tank, or even me or Bobby if he didn't want to go. And hell, the staff down there are competent enough that they'd probably manage on their own while Diana's out of commission." The more I explained, the more Steph seemed to draw into herself, shrinking against the information like she could hide from it. Make it not true. That was all just one facet to the situation, though. "But i think, after what happened Thursday, with the little girl," I made sure to specify the incident, rather than letting her believe I could be referring to her time with Carlos at the club or what had happened on the way back to her apartment. She had a well-developed Catholic guilt that I hated aggravating. She didn't need to think she'd done anything wrong here. "Carlos wanted to see Julie and reassure himself that she was okay. So when the situation arose in the Miami office, he used it as an excuse to be in the vicinity to be able to check in on her."
Thankfully, her expression cleared as I outlined this last point, her worry dissipating somewhat but not completely leaving her. "That makes sense," she said softly, sagging into her desk chair and flipping that one stubborn curl that always seemed to escape whatever hairdo she did out of her face. "Thanks, Les."
"No problem, Beautiful," I grinned. "Any other troubles I can lay to bed for you?"
"Should I tell HR you're propositioning Steph?" Ram asked, appearing beside me at the entrance to Steph's cubicle.
"Laying troubles to bed is different to taking her to bed," I pointed out. "And I'd really like it if you didn't tell on me to Tank for anything right now. I'm already a step closer to being called to the mats thanks to this stupid Dunphy file."
"Seriously?" he asked, throwing his hands in the air. "The guy's impossible to find. A loose cannon. You can't predict druggies, Tank knows that."
"Except, apparently you can if you know them," I said, cutting my eyes to Steph who was blushing once again. "Isn't that right, Steph?" She just shrugged, and I continued talking to Ram. "Steph went to high school with Dunphy," I explained. "Apparently, we shouldn't have discounted Dougie Kruiper so quickly. Apparently, they're likely to be hanging out watching Star Trek."
Ram shot Steph a raised eyebrow and she held up her hands in another shrug.
"It's just a suggestion."
"If your suggestion pans out, I'll buy your morning coffee and donut for the rest of the week," Ram promised. "Not being able to find this piss weak guy has been giving me a headache."
"A head like that's bound to hurt," I said, grinning as I surged to my feet, and slugging Ram in the arm. "Come on, let's go nab him." Shoving him out of the cubicle, I leaned over to hug Steph before I left. "Thanks again, Beautiful."
