Remember, this is Plum up to Book 8 and then AU, big-time.
.
Chapter 4a – Speechless (but not for long)
.
No one tried to awaken me the next morning, either by kissing me or by kicking my bed. Lose some, win some. My week of marriage to Ranger seemed to be turning me into something closer to a morning person, because when I looked at the alarm clock, it was 8:00am. On the dot. I could be going into work. I could be rolling over and going back to sleep. I could be answering the phone I heard ringing somewhere.
I got out of bed and stumbled across the room, into the hallway, shivering. I was wearing one of Ranger's black t-shirts and it was not warm in my apartment. The door to my bathroom was shut and I could hear the shower running. Syd's briefcase sat in the hallway, just outside the bathroom, with her cellphone on top.
I picked up the ringing cell. "Hello?" I admit, I might have been hoping it was Ranger, calling to check up on us. The caller ID read out said "ID Unknown." That sounded like it could be Ranger. I'd be irritated if he called her and not me except that my primary mission today was to find my cell phone. I'd left it somewhere – probably either Vinnie's or the diner. Or maybe at Mary Lou's, I'd check there, too. I'd kept my promise to Ranger, I'd worn my gun, loaded. But I'd lost my cell phone. I'd have to work harder on this.
"Syd! It's Carolina." The woman's voice might have sounded relieved, but it was hard to tell. The background noises and interference were loud.
I put my free hand over my other ear to block out the sound of the shower and squinted, hoping that would make the connection clearer. "Syd's in the shower," I said. "Can I take a message?"
"Syd?"
"Syd's in the shower," I said, louder and slower.
"I can't understand you! Listen, I'm at a gas station on a borrowed cell and I can't talk long, they've already found me once and I don't think they are very far behind now. I'm in trouble here. I thought I could handle this myself, but it's out of control. Elena is with my parents; she should be safe there but I need you to make sure she is. Please, Syd. Then I need you to help me find somewhere safe to stay. I need you. I can't go to the police. I don't want to call Ric because he called me three days ago to tell Elena and me he was getting married again. Married again! Ric! Can you believe it? But things here are getting bad enough that if you don't come help me, I am going to have to call him anyway and beg him to leave his brand new bride and I'd rather take a stick and poke my eye out than do that. Please say you'll come and help me."
There haven't been many times in my life when I've been struck speechless, but this was one of them. Ranger's ex-wife. This had to be Ranger's ex-wife on the phone. And she was in trouble. "I, uh, Syd, is…"
"I'm going to the Keys. Meet me at the place we went a couple of summers ago, okay? Please, Syd, it's important, I am in serious trouble. I'll explain everything when you get here. Can you do that?"
"Yes," I said, firmly. Syd could. I'd be sure of that.
"You sound funny, Syd, but thanks."
A click and she was gone, leaving empty air behind. I was still staring at the phone when I heard the shower stop. A moment later the door opened and Syd walked out, wearing a towel. "Did someone call me?"
"You could say that."
"Are you okay?"
"Yeah, um, I think we need to talk."
Syd stared at me, then her phone, still in my hand, then down at the towel which barely covered her. "Ooo-kay. Let me get dressed and we'll talk."
.
Chapter 4b The Kick-Ass Ex-Wife Rescue Squad
.
Twenty minutes later we were at Rangeman, sitting in Ranger's office, waiting for Lester. I sat in Ranger's big chair, my feet tucked up underneath me. I had my SEALs hat on and I was sitting in the boss's chair. I could make this work. Syd had already called Carolina's parents, who were frantic about their daughter, who had failed to show up last night to pick her daughter up from a weekend at the grandparent's. Syd took that as an extremely bad sign.
"I'm not saying that Carolina doesn't have her faults, but she loves that kid." Syd smiled. "Everybody does. She has her father's eyes and smile and she looks a lot like both of them. She's smart and she's got a wicked mouth for such a young kid. Not sure which one of them that comes from, probably both." Ranger's daughter had an attitude problem. Such a surprise.
Lester came in the door and stopped when he saw me in Ranger's chair. Syd stood next to me, her arms folded. "Ladies," he said cautiously. "How can I help you?"
He was standing in front of me but looking at Syd, who was not giving him a very friendly look back. Syd had not been in favor of coming to Lester for help, but I'd thought Lester could put together a big rescue team and get them down there fast. Syd had disagreed, saying that it was a waste of time trying to get any of Ranger's men to help his ex-wife. "Carolina called," she said. At the look Lester gave her, I thought that she might have been right.
Lester shot me a quick sideways glance. "Carolina," he said, voice neutral. As though he might not know who Syd was talking about.
I rolled my eyes. "Yes, Carolina. She's in some kind of trouble and we have to do something."
" 'We'? Look, I don't know what story Syd told you…"
I heard my bodyguard growl and decided to break in before we got to the snarling and biting between them. "I was the one she talked to."
Lester looked slightly ill, his medium brown skin taking on a greenish hue. He slowly slid one hand up his forehead and through his short hair. "You talked to Carolina?" he asked carefully.
"Yes, and I want you and Syd to go get her. She's in some kind of trouble in Florida. Bring her and Ranger's daughter back here if it's big trouble." I smiled with a hint of evil. "They'll be safe here and Ranger can sort it out when he gets back."
Lester became pale instead of green. "And leave you here alone?"
"I'll stay in Ranger's apartment upstairs. I won't go out until you get back, I swear. This place is a fortress, you know nothing will happen to me here."
Lester ran his hand through his hair again. He'd done it enough times in the last few minutes that it was starting to stand up in little tufts. "Like you promised both Ranger and Tank you'd stay in the safe house during Brooks? Nuh-uh, Steph, I don't think so. You don't understand."
"Don't make me pull rank on you, Lester."
"Rank? You may be the boss's wife, but this is Rangeman. You don't have a rank here."
"According to what I saw in the lawyer's office, I am now half-owner. Or half-owner of Ranger's shares, anyway. I'd call that rank."
Lester made a small frustrated noise. "Steph, you don't know her. She's a spoiled rich bitch. Probably the whole trouble thing is that she didn't pay her manicurist's bill and they're holding her poodle for ransom."
"She sounded terrified, Lester, I really believe she's in trouble."
"She writes a fashion and gossip column for a weekly newspaper. How much trouble can she be in?"
"You know that if Ranger was here he'd go check it out."
"No, I don't know that and neither do you." The hand in his hair slid down to cover his forehead. "You don't know her," he repeated. "She screwed Ranger over pretty good."
Syd started to snarl out a reply and I held up a hand to stop her. "You're right, Lester, I don't know her. I don't know what happened between them, Ranger's never anything about her, good or bad. But I do know how he feels about his daughter and I am not going to let her mother get hurt. I'll take the responsibility, Ranger won't blame you."
He laughed once, a hard, sharp sound. "Fuck, you don't get it, do you?" He shook his head. "He's kind of over-protective when it comes to you. I was with him when we went to talk to Abruzzi. Ranger didn't go there planning to take him out. But the idiot wouldn't stop talking. He started to tell Ranger exactly how he was going to hurt you and that was it for him. I was also there when Tank had to tell Ranger he'd let you escape the safe house." He saw the look on my face. "Oh, Ranger didn't hurt him. He just talked to him." Lester shuddered.
"We have to do something."
Lester blew out a long breath. "Okay, leave it to me. I'll make some calls, find out what's going on. We have people in Miami and I'll get someone to check on her."
"While you are on the phone with Miami, we need more people watching Ranger's daughter. She is at her grandparent's house." I wasn't sure how many people were in the Miami office – here in Trenton it seemed like it was just Ranger, Bobby, Tank and Lester and what Ranger had called contract crews. I'd seen a couple of the contract guys, so I knew it was at least 5 or 6 other guys.
He laughed again. "You want Rangeman personnel on assignment to the Hamiltons? That's rich."
"Carolina was worried about Elena's safety and who better than Rangeman?"
"That might even be worth it just to see it." Lester snorted. "Right, I'll call."
"Fine." I stood up. "Come on, Syd, we've got some work to do."
Lester held up his hand. "Leave it to me, Steph. I know how to do this kind of stuff. Stay here with Syd where you are supposed to be. Stay out of trouble." Syd and Lester looked at each other across the table. Lester was the first to drop his eyes.
Syd waited until we were in the car. "I'm gonna say it. I told you so." She sighed. "I'm sorry, Stephanie, but I can't leave it there. She's my friend and I have to help her. I know the guys don't like her because…"
"I agree," I said. "We're going to have to do something else. She sounded like she was in trouble."
Syd grinned. "I begin to see what Ranger meant about you. What did you have in mind?"
"We're going to have to go get her ourselves."
She shook her head. "I can't take you with me. The original plan was best. You stay at Rangeman with Lester and I'll drive out to Philadelphia for a flight. I can make Miami late tonight or maybe tomorrow morning, and…"
"Hang on, Syd, we can do better than that." I looked up the number for the charter airline we'd used to fly to the Caribbean. "Hello, Charter Air? Yes, this is…" What the hell, I thought, what's rank if you can't pull it? "This is Stephanie Manoso. I understand you do a lot of business with my husband, Ricardo, and his company, Rangeman." The person on the other end made some very satisfying noises about what a pleasure it would be to help me with any of my air travel needs. "I want to fly to the Florida Keys immediately. Yes, in about an hour. No, cost is not an issue, put it on our account. You can? Great. Thank you very much." I disconnected and looked at Syd. "Let's go pack a few things and we're off."
Syd looked at me and blew out a long breath. "Look, you can't come with me. I don't know what kind of trouble Carolina is in, but if I can't complete my job to keep you safe here in Trenton, I can keep from compounding it by getting you into trouble somewhere else."
"Well," I said reasonably, "if I'm not in Trenton, I can't get into trouble in Trenton, can I? Ranger's just worried about me because of previous trouble here, not there in Florida."
She blinked a few times. "I…."
"Save it Syd. And hurry up. We haven't got much time."
.
Chapter 4c – Thelma, Louise and Lester
.
I took a deep breath as Syd parked the SUV in front of the small air carrier's hangar. We were about to go, just the two of us. I'd had some time to think about it and was beginning to doubt the wisdom of this, but I really didn't see a lot of options. Strange as it was, I had a step-daughter now that I needed to protect and it felt like we were on a tight timeline to get it done. Carolina had sounded desperate on the phone. Maybe Lester was right and it wasn't as serious as it sounded, but my gut disagreed. Ranger always told me my instincts were good, and my instincts said Carolina was in real trouble.
We picked up our bags and headed to the hangar.
Lester was standing between us and the hangar, his feet planted in a wide stance, his arms folded over his chest. He wore mirrored sunglasses and a dark t-shirt which clung lovingly to all of his impressive chest muscles. Almost as good as Ranger. I snuck a sideways glance at Syd. Far from looking impressed, she looked seriously pissed. I was amused until I started to walk past Lester and he reached out and grabbed my arm in an unbreakable hold.
"No," he said softly. "You are not going. Got a call from the pilot asking me which airport in the Keys Mrs. Manoso wanted to go to and I figured you'd dreamed this up."
I might – might – take that kind of thing from Ranger, but not Lester. "Get out of my way, Lester."
Lester recognized my tone of voice and knew that without grabbing me, throwing me on the ground and sitting on me, he wasn't going to stop me. For a moment he looked like he was considering it. He gave up on me to go for Syd's throat. "He won't be happy about this. Do you really want to deal with him? Ranger left you to guard Steph and he's dead serious about that. You cannot go after Carolina. You have orders, Syd, but you never did follow orders, did you?" His voice betrayed his anger. He was talking about way more than the current situation.
I looked over at a harried Lester and smiled with evil enjoyment, only one thing could turn a calm, controlled man into a quivering mass of indecision. Lester had a thing for Syd. His ploy was obviously to remind Syd that she was a soldier and was supposed to obey orders. I sidled closer to Lester.
"Ranger would understand that you were just doing what you were told when you let us go. But if anything happened to Carolina, I'm sure his daughter would devastated and we just can't let that happen. I wouldn't want you to make any decisions contrary to orders, but Syd and I are independent. I understand. Syd has told me . . ."
"Told you what?" Lester demanded, green eyes locking onto Syd with serious tension.
Syd only had to lean her head back a little to stare into his eyes. She was standing close, breathing in as he exhaled, their bodies doing an unconscious but seductive dance. This was going to be good.
Syd had said absolutely nothing about him, other than a few almost inaudible mumbles, but what was a little lie to get in my way? "She told me what happened. Everyone handles things differently, Lester. Relax."
Lester took a step into Syd, almost brushing against her, his body drawn taut. She didn't back up and had the nerve to actually smile at him. His hand came up to tug at his hair and she mirrored the motion, mocking his poor put-upon man routine. Flash point.
"We were a team and you broke ranks and endangered our mission by going off on your own. Don't blame me for what happened, Syd." Lester was practically spitting and Syd was enjoying it.
"I went off alone, Lester, because you took our private relationship as permission to puff up and treat me like the little woman. I didn't need your protection then, and I don't need it now. You babysit Steph and I'll go after Carolina, and if Ranger doesn't understand, screw him, too."
"Whoa! No one 'babysits' me!" I sucked in a breath. This was a good show, but it sounded like they were getting ready to bring out the heavy weaponry. No need to see that. Lester and Syd both remembered I was there and snapped around to look at me at the same time.
I smiled and gave them a little finger wave. "Look, just let us go, Lester. We're going to go down, find Carolina and Ranger's daughter, turn around and bring them back. That's all."
"Shit. Shit. Shit." Lester swore as he backed away from Syd. "I can't just let you go alone, Steph."
"I'm not alone, Lester, Syd is with me. I'll take her orders. This will just be a turn-around thing."
He groaned, turned and stalked away in anger to the SUV, muttering under his breath. "Nope, nope, this is not happening. Not happening on my watch, that's for damned sure." He opened the back of the SUV, tossing some things around, still muttering, then scowled at us as he slammed the SUV doors and clicked on the alarm. He was carrying a large weapons case as he walked toward the plane.
Oh, boy, we're all going to Florida. Thelma, Louise and … Lester.
