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Stitch Up

"Carlos," I breathed in relief, "I need help! I've found Louis Moon!"

"Babe?" Carlos was puzzled, "What do you mean? Everyone reported the hookers were mostly a bust?" Where did you find Moon?"

I quickly explained what had happened after I left Stark Street, and how I had ended up following Louis Moon to the marina. There was a pause, as Carlos assimilated that. I held my breath, hoping he wasn't going to berate me for following Moon on my own. Eventually, his voice came through, sounding resigned, "I swear, Babe, nobody has your luck or your instincts. Ok, where are you, and what's your current status?"

I explained precisely how to get to the marina, and where I was waiting, "Carlos, what do you want me to do if Moon comes back?"

Carlos hesitated, "I'll be on my way with a couple of backups. Follow him, but try and stay back out of his sight, mostly tracking which way he is going and making sure he doesn't double back. One of us will take over the tail as soon as we catch up. We'll use a couple of cars to ensure we aren't made. If he's still at the marina when we get there, we'll come up with a plan then."

"They might be heading out by boat, though," I ventured.

Carlos paused again, "You're right, I hadn't thought of that. Right well, we'll have to hope not, since I can't pull anything together quick enough on the water. But if they do, we might have to wait for them to come back. Hang tight, Babe, we're on our way. Oh, and keep your cell handy. Tell us the minute you see Moon on the move, and which way he's headed."

"I haven't got any cell signal, Carlos," I explained. "I'm calling on Morelli's car phone."

"Oh," he mused. "Fine. I guess you can hit redial if you see Moon. What exactly does the van look like?" I described the van as best I could, and we signed off for now.

I turned the car off as I waited, trying not to fidget, but very glad that the others were now on their way to help. I sighed. It was way past lunch time, and I was really hungry. And thirsty. There were a few vending machines outside the gas station, and I wondered if I could grab a bag of chips and a drink. It would at least be something, and it would make my continued presence at the gas station a little more understandable. I hoped Moon would not drive past while I was shopping, but I decided the risk was worth it. I scurried out of the Cherokee and walked briskly over to the machines. Quickly, I purchased a bag of chips, a Snickers bar, and a can of coke. Not the healthiest meal, but it would stop the gnawing in my stomach.

I felt a little better after eating and drinking the snacks. Nothing really seemed to happen for about half an hour until I saw a black Porsche convertible turn onto the marina road. I frowned at it, a memory tickling my brain. Ramirez had a black Porsche convertible. The top was up, and the windows were tinted, so I couldn't see if it was Ramirez in the car. I wondered what it meant if Ramirez was coming to the marina to join Moon. Were they going fishing together? What was the connection to Sal's butcher? And what was in the barrels? I had no answers, only more questions.

About ten minutes later, two black cars and a beat-up, mud-brown pickup truck turned the corner beside the gas station. One of the black cars pulled into the pumps, and I watched as Bobby got out to fill the gas tank. The pickup kept driving down the road, and Hector flashed me a quick smile as he drove past me toward the marina. I wondered where he had got the truck on such short notice; it wasn't his usual car. Carlos pulled up in the third car beside me, and he got out of the car and slid into the passenger seat of the Cherokee beside me.

He leaned over the console to give me a brief kiss, and a warm smile and I returned the smile, feeling only relief and satisfaction that he was here with me now. "Sit-rep, Babe?" he asked. I frowned briefly and looked at him, puzzled. He grinned, "Situation report."

I nodded, "The refrigerated truck hasn't come back, obviously, but I did see what I think was Ramirez' Porsche go past toward the marina. So, he's probably there too now. Maybe they're going fishing?" I asked doubtfully.

Carlos shook his head, "No, I doubt Ramirez has ever been fishing in his life, nor would ever want to. Besides," he frowned, "it can't be Ramirez. Surveillance still had him at the gym when I got your call. I checked. Alpha had left though. Rushed out of the office after he got a phone call…" We both contemplated what that might mean.

"So Alpha is driving Ramirez's Porsche?" I asked puzzled.

"Maybe," Carlos was uncertain. "We need more information."

"Where's Tank?" I asked, "and where did Hector go?"

"Hector went to scope out the situation. He's going to park at the river and double-back on foot. And Tank's in the car with Bobby." By now, Bobby had finished at the gas pumps and was coming out of the station after paying.

"How will Hector let you know what he finds, though? There's no cell signal out here."

"We picked up some two-way radios the other day. Tank and I each have one as well."

"Oh, good thinking." I acknowledged.

"We're going to head down and stop before the marina. We'll wait for Hector's sit rep and decide how to proceed from there." Carlos looked at me seriously, and I stiffened. I was not going to like this. "Babe," he said cautiously, "I want you to head back now. We'll take this from here. I promise I'll call…"

"What? No!" I interrupted. "I can help! I want to help!"

"Babe," Carlos turned and grasped my hands with his and looked at me directly, "You're unarmed. You're not well trained. And you're driving a bright red vehicle. These people could be very dangerous; we don't even know how dangerous yet. But it's pretty clear they don't want to be found. And you promised me you wouldn't take unnecessary risks."

My gaze dropped from his and I felt a small flush of shame at that. Carlos continued more gently, "You've done an amazing job today." My eyes lifted back to his and he looked sincere, "You got the hookers to talk to you, which is more than I could do. You stumbled across a lead and followed it like a pro. And you called for backup as soon as you could. That's perfect in my eyes. You're an amazing investigator. Please let us do our jobs now. Please let us take this from here."

I nodded reluctantly, "You can't really call me from out here though," I said in a small voice. "Can I wait for you here? I'm just going to worry anyway, you know."

Carlos considered this, "If you promise me, you are just going to wait here, then ok. No following us," he met my gaze and I nodded emphatically.

"I promise Carlos." I leaned forward and bushed my lips over his in a soft kiss that he met with pleasure. "Be careful," I whispered, "don't get shot."

"Try not to go too crazy, Babe," he smirked in return. I rolled my eyes.

After Carlos left my car, he walked over to where Bobby and Tank were parked nearby and spoke briefly to them. He then returned to his car and waved at me before they all drove off down the road.

Since I was no longer on car watch, I decided I could go into the gas station and use the facilities. I could also see if they had anything better to eat. I checked the gas tank and saw it was still half-full. Oh well, I decided to just put five dollars' worth of gas into it. I pulled around to the pumps and pumped my small amount of gas. I went in pay, and while there, I used the restroom facilities. I browsed the small supplies of items and picked up a packet of nuts and a couple of Tastykakes. I also grabbed a bottle of water and headed back out to park back around the side of the gas station.

I ate my snacks and resisted the urge to gnaw on my fingernails.

The next fifty-five minutes were agonising to wait. I so wished I could see what was happening. I was determined to take my training more seriously and start carrying my gun when I was doing fieldwork. I wanted to be part of this team and I knew I had to take Carlos' concerns seriously if I wanted to be included in more active operations.

Finally, when I was about to crawl out of my skin, one of the black cars, Bobby's I thought, came up the road and pulled in beside me. Bobby jumped out of his car, and I could tell from the excitement on his face that it was something good. I jumped out of the Cherokee, and he surprised me by drawing me into a big hug.

"We got them, Steph!" he exclaimed excitedly, "We got Alpha and Moon and lots of evidence!"

"Evidence of what?" I begged to know, "What happened?

"Looks like a major drug-smuggling operation," he said more seriously. "And…" he hesitated then, "we think we have Carmen Sanchez's body," he added gently. I gasped. He went on, "It's pretty well preserved, since they were keeping it refrigerated, but she's probably been dead since that night."

I felt really sad for Carmen, it sounded like she had not had a chance. "What happened?" I reiterated.

"Well, we waited for about ten minutes when we got down the road," he began, "then Hector called on the two-way. He said he had seen Alpha and Moon talking with the marina owner and they started prepping a boat. Moon then went to pull up the truck near the boat dock and it looked like they were going to unload the barrels. We decided we needed to move in before they could head out to sea, so we geared up and headed into the marina on foot. We worked our way close to the boat dock and we could see and hear mostly everything. Alpha was telling Moon to hurry up, he wanted to get going. Moon screwed up, and dropped one of the barrels as he was unloading it. It came open and Carmen's body spilled out."

I gasped again. Poor Carmen! Bobby continued, "At that point we had enough evidence to make a citizen's arrest, so Ranger signalled, and we moved in. Caught them by surprise. Moon gave up without a fight, and the marina owner just dropped to the ground. Alpha tried to fight, but Tank took him down. Tank took a bullet to the thigh, but he's going to be fine." Bobby saw my horrified face, so he hastened to add, "Really Steph, it's just a small flesh wound. I bandaged it and no problem. He'll be right as rain."

Bobby continued, "Anyway, after we had them secured, Hector and Ranger did a sweep. They said the other barrel was full of packets of heroin. And under Carmen's body there looked like there was a gun. Probably the gun used to kill her, since it would make sense to get rid of it with the body. But it might be the gun involved in Morelli's incident. I guess we'll find out. Ranger used the phone at the Marina to call the Atlantic City PD to report it; they're the closest. We have to wait for them to come and secure the crime scene and take statements. I came up to wait for them and brief you. You'll have to come back down with us to make your own statement."

"What about Ramirez? Was he involved?"

"No idea. Alpha's not talking. My guess is Moon will cave and spill his guts, but Alpha will probably lawyer-up. I don't know about the Marina owner. All we can do is wait and see what the investigation shows up. Ranger said we'd turn Morelli over tomorrow, so hopefully he'll spend minimum time in lockup if they can confirm the evidence. Ranger told me to warn you not to mention we have Morelli though. We don't want to get implicated for aiding and abetting. As far as we tell the cops, we're looking for Morelli and Sanchez and you followed Moon as a possible lead to them. Everything after that is all good."

I nodded. I hoped Ramirez would go down as part of this. I didn't want him as a possible threat to Carlos and me, and I thought he deserved to go to jail for what he probably did to Carmen and other girls. I would be careful with my statement about Morelli.

Ten minutes later, we saw two police cars and a crime scene van approaching. Bobby stepped over to flag them down. I locked the jeep and jumped in Bobby's car to wait. I didn't want to take Morelli's jeep to the crime scene; that might be too tricky to explain. So, I would drive down with Bobby. Bobby came back a couple minutes later, jumped into the car with a grin to me and followed the police down to the Marina.

It was a long afternoon and evening. It was well after six when we finished giving our statements and answering questions. The cops had the crime scene taped off and the CSI team were collecting the evidence. The coroner's van had shown up about four thirty to collect Carmen's body, and they said they would start the autopsy tomorrow. The police had loaded the barrels with the drugs and gun into their evidence van. They had also started collecting evidence on the boat, since there were obvious signs of white powder, and it was likely it had been used as a drop boat to transport the drugs.

We were finally allowed to leave at ten to seven, and I felt exhausted as we drove off, watching in the side mirror as the police put the boat onto a trailer to impound it. Carlos had insisted I give the keys to Morelli's jeep to Tank, and I was secretly grateful. Bobby would drop Tank at the gas station, and he would bring the jeep back to Trenton.

As we approached Trenton, Carlos told me to call and have some takeout delivered to the safe house for everyone, since we would go there to debrief Manny and Morelli before heading home. I called a Chinese takeout I knew would deliver to the area and ordered a massive amount of food for everyone. We pulled up at the safe house, and were joined by Hector, Bobby, and Tank after a few minutes. As we went inside, I took Carlos' hand and squeezed it with a smile at him. He pulled me into his side and dropped a kiss onto my forehead. It had been a long day, but a massively successful one. I was so grateful to have Carlos as my partner and my backup.

The Chinese food revived me, and we spent about an hour going over everything that had happened for Morelli and each other. Morelli was elated and didn't even seem to mind when Carlos reminded him that we would have to turn him over to the Trenton PD tomorrow. Instead, he thanked us all and even tried to throw me a soft smile, which I ignored. Please tell me he didn't still think he had a chance with me? Oh well, I would go back to completely avoiding and ignoring him now. Hopefully, he would get the message eventually.

After the debriefing, Carlos laid out the plan for tomorrow. Tank and Hector would stay at the safe house tonight and they would bring Morelli into the office tomorrow morning. We would then drop him off and claim the bond, before heading back down to Atlantic City. We had an appointment at 10.30am to sign our statements. I hoped we would hear a bit more about the investigation as well, but I didn't know if the ACPD would be willing to share with us. We would then come back to Trenton, as Carlos and I had another appointment at Haywood Street in the afternoon. Tank was going to book a flight for the next day to head back to Miami.

Bobby, Carlos, and I all headed out, Bobby waving farewell and driving off to his home. I fell asleep in the car heading back to our apartment. The last warm feeling I remembered was a glow at that thought.

Our apartment.

How wonderful was that?

As always, I'd love to have you review. I hope you liked the way I resolved the Morelli storyline. Let me know!