Chapter 25

"Stephanie Michelle Plum. What do mean when you say that you aren't staying here. Of course you are"

I'd only been in the house for five minutes and already my mother was trying to tell me what to do.

"No. I have people that I want to visit, so I've arranged for somewhere to stay where I won't be interrupting your routines"

"Then I expect you to have your dinner here"

I placed the coffee that I'd been sipping from onto the kitchen table as I contemplated what to say. Not once had she asked me how was, if I was enjoying my new job or anything else. It was as if I'd never left Trenton.

"I'll let you know. I'm meeting up with friends for a meal out some of the nights that I'm here"

I watched as she glanced toward the pantry cupboard where I knew she kept her liquor. Surely it was far too early in the day even for her.

"I hear that Jackson Delaney is back home. He's divorced like you, but he's such a good man. Maybe I could invite him over for dinner while you're here"

"Yeah, you do that Mum. Let me know what evening and I'll be sure not to be here"

I heard a noise behind me and turned to see grandma walk into the kitchen. Her winking at me told me that she'd overheard the conversation.

"What a good idea Helen. I don't think that I'm too old for him"

My mother's expression was laughable, and I think she really believed that grandma would try to get her hands on any man who graced her table.

"Mother"

"Put a sock in it Helen. I need a conversation with my granddaughter to catch up with how she's enjoying her new job"

At last, someone who cared enough to want to know. I spent the next hour sat with my grandma giving her the details of some of the easier jobs that I'd done. Of course, no names and I never mentioned anything about the last case that I'd become embroiled in.

"No new man then?"

I laughed at that. I suppose I did have new men in my life but not in the way that grandma expected. No, while I liked Oscar, he was just a friend, but it wouldn't harm to describe him to grandma, hell maybe my mother would back off if she thought that I was seeing someone. I opened my mouth about to describe him when I had second thoughts. Hadn't Jex fell for something like this and broken the confidentiality of his work colleagues. My mother would spread anything that I said and it would be around the Burg before I stepped out of the front door.

"No grandma. I have new friends who are men but there's nothing romantic between us"

"Joseph will be pleased to hear that"

What was it that had my mother so besotted over Joe? Okay, he was good looking, he owned his own house and had a good job. Was that all that was needed? Inwardly I was smiling because I was due to meet Joe at Pinos for lunch. The rumors from that would be enough to shut my mother up.

"I'm going now. I'm having lunch at Pinos and then I'm meeting up with some old friends tonight. I'll try and catch up with you tomorrow"

I made a hasty retreat from the house before my mum could try and stop me so grateful for the Cayenne sat outside at the curb. Parking at the front of Pinos I thanked the parking karma that must obviously come with the car. Not seeing Joe, I made my way over to the booth at the back and began to read through the menu. Huh, it was just the same as it always had been. Maybe it just seemed a long time since I was last here.

"Sorry I'm late. Have you ordered yet?"

As Joe sat down, I was actually staring at him and how smart he looked. He wasn't dressed in a suit, that would have made him look stupid, but he had on a smart pale blue shirt with the button open at the top and sleeves that came down to a cuff. His trousers were dark blue, dress trousers I suppose, with shiny new leather shoes peeking out.

"What?"

He asked when he realized that I was staring at him.

"You look so smart. What was the occasion?"

Because I was sure he hadn't dressed like that to impress me, even though it did.

"Yeah well, I'm meeting Marianne after here"

He actually looked embarrassed which told me that him meeting with Marianne was important. Joe only ever dressed up to impress. So what was the occasion?

"Show me the ring"

It was the only answer that I could come up with. Joe took a look around us before he brought out a small black box. I held my hand over his to keep it from being seen by anyone and with it on my knee opened the box.

"It's beautiful Joe. She'll love it. Congratulations"

The ring was beautiful. It was a single solitaire stone with two sapphires on each side set into a gold band. I closed the box and replaced it directly onto his knee for him to put away. No way did I want anyone to see Joe and me looking at a ring box. I was happy for Joe. We'd gone through so much together, but I knew in my heart that he wasn't the man for me. Was I jealous, no not of Marianne, but maybe that Joe had found the person that he wanted to spend the rest of his life with. Would I ever be in the same position? I had no idea because the man that I would dearly want to spend my life with just wasn't mine.

"So how's the job going?"

I gave Joe a similar story to what I'd told grandma. I wasn't sure why but maybe I wanted him to think that my moving on had happened without my usual attraction for danger. Joe asked me questions about where I worked and who with, but I made up names and totally missed out on having seen Ranger and being involved with some of the takedowns with the men from Rangeman.

As we left Pinos together his only comment was about the car that I was driving. Shit, he was bound to recognize it as a Rangeman vehicle. At a raised eyebrow I knew that I had to come up with some explanation.

"Okay, I called Les to tell him that I'd be in town. He offered me the use of a car rather than renting one"

"I'm surprised you managed to catch him. The security business seems to be going well probably because the crime rate is on the up, but I've seen very little of the top dogs. Word is Ranger is still out of town"

That had a twinge go through me, not for lying to Joe, but because I had no idea where he was either.

"I suppose now that they aren't collecting the high bond skips, they must be working further afield. You mentioned that you saw Les bringing in a man for the FBI"

I hoped that I sounded convincing and breathed a sigh of relief when Joe just nodded his head.

"It isn't the same. Too many FTAs are on the streets. That new manager that Harry put in place is making a worse mess than Vinnie did"

Not my problem, went through my head. I'd moved on from being a bounty hunter and would never go back to it now. Yeah, I think that Joe realized that I wasn't as bad as he'd tried to make me feel. We parted company aware of the gawkers watching us with promises to stay in touch. I realized that I needed this visit home. It was as though I was saying goodbye properly, and maybe I was.

The next few days passed in a flash. A visit to see my nieces was enjoyable if not exhausting. How Val coped with the five girls and her husband was a mystery to me. Connie and I caught up for drinks, but she'd changed. Or maybe I had. I wasn't interested in hearing about the gossip that she spouted, who was doing what or where. It made me realize how narrow my life had been before. I knew when I said goodbye to her that I wouldn't be seeing her again. A last visit with my parents for dinner was actually calm. News of Joe's engagement was making the rounds which obviously upset my mother. I stuffed myself on homemade lasagna and was close to licking the plate clean after the pineapple upside down cake. I knew that I'd pay for it but so what. Once home I'd get back to the swimming and being more careful with what I ate. Pfft, Luke, the trainer at the gym, would probably be disappointed that I hadn't been swimming or lifting weights but I knew that he'd get over it. Once home I could pick up from where I'd got to. I shocked myself when I thought of Boston as home. Huh, why would I say that?

Unfortunately, my timing to see Lula wasn't good. She was heading to a convention so wouldn't be around. It didn't stop us from talking and I even gave her a highlighted version of what had happened after she'd left. I'd planned to spend the last two days of my visit with Lula but seeing as that wasn't going to happen, I decided to head back to Boston instead. I had money in the account for Annie Michaels that Jonas had set up for me so after leaving my loaned car at Rangeman I caught a train to the airport.

Arriving at Boston airport brought back so many memories. Seeing Ranger with Alina and then meeting Kiera. I decided that it wasn't my most favorite place to be. A call to Oscar and he gladly picked me up dropping me off at my apartment. I hadn't spent a long time in Trenton, but I felt that it had been stressful. Once upstairs I showered and changed into shorts and a strappy top. It was late evening and regardless of having two more days when I was supposed to be on vacation, or destressing, I was going to be going into work. Pfft, whose idea was it to go home? I felt more stressed by the end of the trip than I did before I went. Maybe that had always been the problem in Trenton. It was a stressful place to live.

Sleep was a welcome relief and I was sure that I wasn't experiencing any dreams so why had I woken up? Shit not again. What was it about this time of the morning that woke me. I was more annoyed than worried but as I made the decision to investigate something stopped me. Instead, I turned over onto my other side and was looking at the chair that I kept in the corner of the room. Okay, old habits die hard, but the realization that someone was sat there brought so many memories back. I just knew that it was him but didn't want to move or break the silence in case he just disappeared. The rustle of clothing told me that he was moving and as he passed through the light that was coming in through the gap in the drapes my heart started pounding.

I was so afraid that he would carry on walking, right out of my life again. He didn't, he came and sat down on the edge of the bed just looking at me. I needed to feel that he was real, that I wasn't imagining this. Sitting up I welcomed his arms as they came around me, absorbing the heat from his body pressed so close to mine. I was sure that I had tears in my eyes because I was so overcome with emotions. He was alive, he was okay, and he was here. I'm not sure how long we just sat there holding each other but I knew that this visit would come to an end.

"Babe, I only say goodbye to the people that I won't be seeing again. I'm not saying goodbye to you. I have to finish what I started, put a stop to how innocents are treated"

"Nikita?"

I asked though I already knew who he was talking about. He was the last person involved in the trafficking who hadn't been found.

"Yes. I know exactly where he'll be"

Maybe that was information that he'd gleamed from Alina when he was with her. I had to stop myself from thinking about that because he was doing what he had to.

"Maybe I should say, don't get shot, to you. I know what you did, Babe. I owe you my life"

"No. You've been there so many times for me. Maybe it was fate knowing that one day I'd repay the favor"

Because I wasn't going to have him thinking that he owed me anything. As he moved me away from him, I thought this is it, this might be the last time that I see him. But instead of moving to stand up his hands came to my cheeks as he looked at me. Then his lips were on mine, searching, probing until we were one. Every emotion went through me but what surprised me was just how much I loved this man and that he might never know or want to know. As he pulled away, he stood up leaving me feeling bereft. I missed his warmth and his passion and geez, of course I was totally turned on. A moment later and I knew that he had gone, like smoke in the wind.

"I love you"

Came from me knowing that he would never have heard me say that. Sinking back on the bed I let the tears fall.

I woke with a blinding headache. Too many tears and too much sobbing along with a heart that was probably fractured. Getting up I made a visit to the bathroom before deciding what to do. If I hadn't felt so lousy then I could almost talk myself into believing that Ranger hadn't been here. A look in the mirror only emphasized that I looked as bad as I felt. After drinking some water and taking some tablets I went back to bed. Tomorrow I would go into work, today was for me to have a pity party on my own.

I never dressed all day, instead I pulled on a thin cotton robe and lounged on the couch. I kept replaying what he'd said to me trying to rationalize what I thought he meant. Maybe he would see me again in passing, if our lives crossed because of work. To be honest I just hoped that he was safe going after Nikita. To take my mind off my night time visitor I painted my nails and lotioned my body but to be honest it just wasn't doing it for me. At 6 o'clock I was swimming. The exertion helping to clear my mind and if that didn't do it then the session with the trainer did. He was aware of the injury that I'd had to my back and the previous one to my shoulder, how I wasn't sure. Didn't ease up on me though, so by the time I got back to the apartment I was well and truly exhausted but surprisingly feeling better with my emotional break down. It was time to get back to work and turn my mind to something that was challenging.

I was the first there the next morning so took the time to survey what had changed. Surprisingly the files that I'd been working on were still sat on the table where I usually worked. Okay so they'd been put into a neat pile. I wasn't sure what happened to old cases and the papers that had been generated. Did Jonas file them somewhere or destroy them?

Hearing the elevator doors opening I saw Jonas, Oscar and Jerome come out of the elevator. Whatever they'd been talking about stopped when they saw me.

"Annie, I wasn't expecting you here today. Good visit with your family?"

I nodded to Jonas because what could I say? I wasn't going to lie about it. Okay there had been some highlights but seeing my family wasn't one of them. As the men sat down at the far end of the table I walked over and joined them expecting Jonas to give me an idea of what we would be working on.

"While you were away Annie, the media got hold of the story and ran with it. No names were mentioned of those who worked the case but Elijah and his brother Isaac featured highly. It seems the FBI have secured someone to try and track any women who were victims"

I knew of those records because I'd read through them at Rangeman. I also knew that it would take a team of people to unravel all of the information before they even began to try and track where the babies and then the women had gone.

"What about the ones who were brought into the country?"

I asked because I wasn't sure how easy it would be to relocate those people. Finding those kids in the nightclub had been hard to stomach so who knew what state any of the women would be in if they were even alive.

"It won't be an easy task because the transactions never gave the name of the women involved or the mothers only some extensive information of which women were targeted. No relatives have been informed yet until there is more information"

I hadn't even considered the family or friends of those women who might be missing. To tell a parent that their daughter had been kidnapped and then sold after being forced into pregnancy was something that I couldn't envisage. Please don't say that we would be involved in doing that.

"Fortunately, we weren't asked to help because to be honest we're too close to be objective"

Whew, I could agree with that so was glad that we wouldn't be having to work that caseload. Don't get me wrong, my heart ached for those women, but finding them and then retrieving them needed a far larger team than we were. If asked, then I'd help.

"The FBI demanded that we handed over any information that we had. The files that you worked with, well let's just say that I overlooked those. You never know when a new case may have us referring back to something"

Which made sense to me. Whoa, hold on a minute. Hadn't Les told me that they always kept copies of files in storage just in case? I was sure he said that it enabled them to refer back to them if something similar came up.

"Jerome, what do you have so far"

It seemed that I was coming back into the middle of this one, so I listened carefully to what Jerome was saying hoping to understand the who and what we were looking at.

"I spoke with the client, and he agreed for me to add a chip to his phone and to monitor his emails. However, he'll only allow me to access them when there are unknown callers or senders. He runs a very successful business and doesn't want us prying"

"Oscar?"

"I provided the daughter with trackers and a panic button. We are the only ones who can access those. Security at the home is through Rangeman so I've spoken to them to be extra vigilant. Maybe Annie could speak to the detective. She should be back from leave today"

I looked at Oscar wondering why I would need to talk to a detective. To be honest I still wasn't clear about what the problem was.

"Annie, read the file to catch up. Maybe the detective has come across this before"

Jonas standing up implied that our meeting was over but seeing Oscar and Jerome remain where they were had me hoping that they'd fill me in with the details.

"The client received an email threatening to hurt the daughter if he didn't pay up. There was a photo of the daughter attached with her playing at the local park. The client is more annoyed than worried whereas his wife is terrified that something will happen to her daughter"

It made sense now, Jerome keeping tabs on emails and the phone. But how long would it be before these people upped their demands or did something to the daughter to prove their point.

"The detail on the client is in the file. I've arranged a meeting with a Detective Bushby to find out if there have been similar threats that she was involved with. Mr Ragocksy isn't inclined at the moment to pay"

I could see why. Once he paid then what was to stop it from happening again? I took the folder that Jerome passed to me and then moved over to my usual work place. As I read through the information I jotted down some questions to put to the detective. The file contained the address of the precinct where the meeting was to take place so 45 minutes later I was making my way over to my apartment. I decided to stay in the clothes that I was wearing, black trousers and short sleeved blouse but added a jacket and a black bag to carry my phone, keys and notes. This could be interesting, I thought, unsure of how this detective would react to me. Past experience in Trenton hadn't always found the cops there that willing to talk, unless of course it had been Eddie.

I never considered that my car wouldn't be where it should have been parked. The last time that I'd driven it was when I went to pick up Kiera from the train station. I assumed that Jonas or even Oscar had moved it back here, something to thank them for. I input the address for where I needed to be on Hyde Park Avenue and then followed the instructions from the voice. Fortunately, there were parking spaces around the back for visitors so after parking I walked around to the front and in through the main entrance. After giving my reason for the visit to the receptionist and signing in I waited for the detective to arrive.

"Hi, I'm Detective Bushby"

I looked up to see a very tall and slender young woman. Not the image that I had in my mind, then again, I only had little experience of women detectives.

"Annie, from Penderton Investigations. Oscar couldn't make it, so he asked me to see you"

I felt that I needed to say that because to be honest I wasn't sure why Oscar had passed this job on to me. Maybe he didn't like police officers, I could understand that. I followed Detective Bushby up the stairs surprised when she led me into what seemed to be the cafeteria instead of the desk where she worked from. There were very few people, so I didn't complain and maybe the detective felt more comfortable here.

"The bullpen's a bit chaotic at the moment. A couple of the detectives brought in some gang members with regards to a homicide"

"No problem. A very good friend is a homicide detective, so I understand what you mean"

Thinking about Joe I wasn't sure that he would bring a lot of gang members in all at once, but hey, people had different ways of working.

"I wasn't given much information so you're going to have to help me out here"

Damn, had Oscar done that on purpose? Surely if she knew in advance what was going to be asked then she could have been prepared. It seemed that Oscar was as bad at communicating as other men that I knew. Never mind, I'd get there in the end.

"I'm trying to find out about any times in the past where you've come across wealthy people and their families who have been threatened for a ransom"

The detective sat back in her chair as she took in what I'd asked so her answering question threw me for a second.

"You mean pay up or I'll hurt or kill someone close to you?"

I nodded my head because she had certainly understood what I was implying.

"It happens a lot more than you think but it rarely comes to us. Most families would rather pay up, especially if they've been warned about talking to the police. The last time I dealt with anything like that was an actual kidnapping of a child for a ransom"

Which wasn't the case here at least it hadn't progressed to that yet. I looked up as a couple of women sat down at the table next to us before plowing on with the next of my questions.

"How do you know it happens then?"

Trying to understand how she was aware of the crime without actually taking on the case.

"Hey, Louise. You want to explain about that kid that you dealt with last month"

It turned out that Louise was one of the women who had just sat down. She turned in her chair to face us while her companion disappeared.

"I was called in when a kid was found late in the evening on his own on the beach. Oh, I liaise with children's services. Luckily he had his name sewn into his shorts so we were able to work out who he was. I was actually preparing a case to consider neglect against the parents. The mother was here straight away, totally hysterical, going on about how they'd been threatened that if they didn't pay up then something would happen to their little boy. She told me that her husband had eventually made a drop of a lot of money to get the kid back. So, I changed direction and was going to follow up on the boy being kidnapped but when I visited the home the wife had changed her story and refused to talk to me. The father said that it was a huge mistake, he went to the wrong part of the beach to pick his son up after a friends party"

That sounded exactly like what I wanted to know. It made me wonder how many other families had been put through that.

"The family, was the father a prominent business man. You know someone who was prime to be targeted?"

I knew that the name would be confidential but somehow, I wanted to get a handle on how families were targeted and what kind of people would threaten and then kidnap a child for the money. Okay, I wasn't that naïve, it was probably seen as a way to bring in a lot of cash.

"Err, not a well known figure. No media attention like some of the other CEOs that we have in the city. I think that he worked for a financial management group"

I couldn't believe that I'd heard that because the client that we were working for was a CEO of a financial management group as well.

"It wasn't Gifford and McCormick was it?"

"Err, maybe. I didn't really take much notice of where the father worked"

As far as I was concerned there were no such thing as coincidence. If both of those fathers were CEOs of the same business then that would help to narrow down the search. A disgruntled ex employee or maybe someone who felt that he'd been duped out of money by them.

"It was Penderton that were involved in finding those women, wasn't it?"

The question from Detective Bushby threw me. How was I supposed to answer her?

"It's okay. I can see the answer on your face. That whole business made my blood run cold. That it was happening right here under our noses, and we had no idea, well I felt awful"

I suppose that a lot of people would feel like that, especially a police detective. She'd see it as having failed, which wasn't the case at all.

"They were clever and very devious"

Was as much as I was prepared to say.

"I know, but the number of missing women that we never appreciated were in so much danger. A case an age ago that was closed had me worrying that maybe I should have done more"

Did I really want to know more from her because I was sure that as she said there were a lot of women reported missing all of the time. It didn't mean that they'd been abducted.

"Oh, you're talking about that one aren't you. The sister harassed us constantly that it wasn't what we thought"

It seemed that Louise had become embroiled in whoever they were talking about as well. So why had Detective Bushby decided that it wasn't worth following up on.

"I did what I could. Even put in a call to Jimmy, but he told me that the FBI never followed up on missing women and that the sister was probably over reacting. To file it as a cold case and move on"

I watched as the two women exchanged a look of regret. I would hate to be put in the position that they'd been in.

"There are a lot of missing people and often they disappear because they want to. Don't beat yourselves up, focus on all of the cases that you've succeeded with"

I was going to add that I knew that resources were tight, not enough police and too many crimes but refrained. Hell, I was beginning to sound like Joe when he was in a moaning mood.

"You're right. So, is there anything else that you want to ask?"

"No. What you've given me has been really useful, so thank you for seeing me"

I replied shaking my head. They'd provided me with information that could be very useful in finding the people responsible for the threats to the client.

As I drove back to the house my mind wasn't focused on anything to do with the threats. What the detective had said had bells ringing loudly in my head. She'd spoken to a man named Jimmy from the FBI and he'd told her to basically drop the case on the missing woman. Jimmy was a nickname for James wasn't it. Was I over reacting to this? There were probably hundreds of men called James out there, but there was only one that Elijah had referred to. We'd already learnt that Elijah probably never had multi personalities because Isaac had been real. What if James was a real person as well. The three of them had been involved in torturing and murdering those women, according to what Elijah had said.

I was keen to get back to the office and relate my conversation to Jerome and Oscar. I was pretty sure that pinpointing the man who was threatening out client would be easier to do now. The other, well I had some research to do by myself first before I even mentioned my thoughts to anyone else.

"So we're looking for an ex employee who feels that he was treated badly or one of their clients who lost a lot of money because of them"

"Yes"

How many times did I have to repeat myself? Was it so hard to see the correlation between the two CEOs who had been targeted with blackmail.

"I'll look for any employees who were laid off and pass them to you"

At last, some sort of forward motion, but that only covered one group that we needed to look at. The second group would be so much harder. There was no way we could just ask Mr Gifford to hand over the names of clients that were pissed off with him, though surely that thought should have occurred to him, or was he just that arrogant. Probably.

So where did you go to find the people who had a grudge against a company? I found the answer to that through Google because I'd never had the need to make a complaint.

File a complaint with your local consumer protection office. Notify the Better Business Bureau (BBB) in your area about your problem. The BBB tries to resolve complaints against companies. If you think you may have experienced a scam, report it to the FTC

I had a lot of calls to make. After two hours a nice woman at the FTC had eventually confirmed that yes, they had received a few complaints regarding Gifford and McCormick Financial Services. She assured me that it wasn't unusual given how the financial market would go up and down that some clients felt that they were being scammed. Apparently, clients were made aware that their capital could decrease as well as increase.

"One of the CEOs is being threatened, in fact the threat has been made against his daughter. The company that I work for are trying to resolve this delicate situation. Could you please let me have the names of the complainants?"

"I don't think that I can. A police warrant would be needed to release that type of information"

Well damn, just when I thought that we were getting on so well she had to say that. Now what? Mmm, could I get away with this?

"Detective Bushby. She worked a case where Mr McCormick's son was kidnapped. To get a warrant might take too long. A child's life is at stake here. Anything you tell me will be kept confidential, I promise, but I'm really worried about that little girl"

I seemed to wait for an age before I heard a sigh being emitted through the phone.

"Ben Kilroyd and George Banner"

Then the phone went dead. Smiling that I'd actually managed to talk the names from that woman I walked over to where Jerome was sat.

"Two names of people who felt that they'd been let down badly by the company. Ben Kilroyd and George Banner"

I placed the paper with their names on in front of him hoping that somewhere along the way we'd find the man and stop the threats. Now, though it was just a matter of waiting until Jerome and Oscar had researched the names that we had. Why didn't I do some of that research? I could have but conceded that the two men were better at it than me. They were looking at facts and numbers, something that was tedious whilst I liked to look for connections. Yeah, I was definitely more of people person, plus I had another search that I wanted to get my teeth into.

I was so thankful that the files that I'd been working on to find Lisa were still sat on the table. Where to start was the problem because not everything was here. Some of the reports that we'd got from the FBI had gone to Jonas and he had only told us what was included. I scoured through those reports from beginning to end but found no mention relating to any FBI agents. Maybe I needed to talk to Oscar in case he remembered a name. I could see that Oscar was busy reading through a search on his laptop so went and quietly sat next to him.

Of course I ended up reading the report as well but to me something seemed off.

"His wife divorced him. Why would she do that?"

Didn't she love the man regardless of how much money he made?

"He lost their house, and the wife took custody of his children. A pretty good motive for being pissed at being fired"

I suppose that it was. Reading on I learnt that the man, Henry Canning had been laid off 9 months ago and hadn't been employed anywhere else since. I wondered what the reason was for that.

"These two were just blowing off steam, Annie. They have lots of money accumulated in other funds. Did you find anyone who would fit the bill Oscar?"

"Henry Canning is the only one who looks to have a motive"

Seeing Jerome pull up a chair next to me had me wondering what he was doing, until I saw his laptop appear on the desk next to Oscar. They were typing away. Oscar looking at where he lived and Jerome checking out http addresses, though I wasn't sure how that worked or how it would help.

"Bingo. It traces back to the email that Mr Gifford received"

"So why couldn't you trace it back before?"

Baffled with what he was saying.

"It's an internet café that just happens to be on the same street as our man Canning. I'd just assumed that the man had used somewhere away from where he lived"

Which would have been the sensible thing to do. That laptops were closed down confused me, until I saw what time it was. Geez, it was gone 9 and I hadn't managed to get anything to eat since breakfast.

"Anyone fancy a Chinese?"

The answer to my problem, though I hadn't thought through where we would be eating or who would be included. Turns out that Jerome had his own place close by, so I ended up walking across to Oscar's apartment. The Chinese was quick to arrive, and we were both eating from the boxes when I remembered why I'd originally gone over to see Oscar. The problem was how to ask the question without sounding stupid. Pfft, I didn't think that it was stupid, but I needed to build up to it.

"Do we often work with the FBI?"

"Not really, only when our paths cross. Not many of our jobs necessitate their involvement"

Which I probably knew already but it was good to know that we would never actually work for them.

"So is there a particular agent that Jonas deals with?"

"I think he uses one man that he's known for a long time, otherwise we get the man assigned to us"

Come to think about it I think that I could remember Jonas saying that he'd talked to a lead agent but was that the agent who was there when we went to the homestead?

"So the agent at the homestead, is he Jonas's contact?"

"Calvert, hell no"

Aha, that was the name that I had totally forgotten. I remember now how he just seemed to appear from nowhere, scaring me as he'd watched us. I'd be finding out what his name was in the morning.

"Why the sudden interest Annie?"

"Just curious"

Was how I replied before focusing on finishing my noodles. We chatted for a short time after that, mainly about what films and music we liked, nothing personal. It was strange really, but Oscar never once referred to our experiences when looking for Lisa. I knew that I needed to leave once we'd tidied away our rubbish. I liked Oscar, I really did, but not in a romantic way. As I made my way over to the door and turned to say goodnight Oscar was stood right behind me. Far too close for comfort.

"Err, thanks for the meal"

Even though I had shared the cost with him it seemed to be the polite thing to say. As he stepped closer, I had alarm bells going off inside my head and as he leaned in closer to me I had to turn my head sideways to avoid the inevitable touch of his mouth on mine. I heard him sigh before I was aware of him stepping away from me.

"Sorry, I had this notion that maybe we could get to know each better"

I shook my head not knowing what to say. I didn't want to lie to him because I didn't want to upset him or get him annoyed with me. We worked together so I would never get involved in that way. Apart from the fact that I just didn't feel an attraction between us. Shit this was embarrassing.

"You have it bad Annie"

Him saying that had me looking up wondering what he meant by that.

"How you behaved when we were looking for Ranger should have told me. Not many women would risk their lives for a man. I hope he knows how you feel about him"

Had I been so obvious? I must have been. Yes, I would die for Ranger, but it didn't mean that there was anything between us. We were close, we always had been. Ranger had risked his life for me, and I would do the same for him.

"It's not what you think"

"Annie. We're good friends and I want it to stay that way. I can see that your heart isn't open to me, that it's elsewhere. I understand"

I wasn't sure why I had tears in my eyes. Maybe because in some ways what Oscar had said was true. If only, came to my mind. He was right though. Until I got Ranger out of my system, I would never be able to truly move on with someone else. The thing was that I didn't want to get him out of my system. Turning I was so pleased when Oscar never made a move to stop me or to say anything more. I was out of his apartment as composed as I could be, given the circumstances, wanting to get back to my apartment where I could forget that this evening had ever happened.