AN: It's the last chapter! It's been so fun writing this, I'm glad you liked it!

I spent Wednesday at the Reef Knot spa where I got my hair done, and received detailed instructions for styling it again in the morning. I had my nails done, got myself buffed and waxed until I felt really girly, and then Ranger and I drove to Rangeman for the night, so we'd be closer to the church. I managed to convince him that if I traveled with my mini-army, it would be okay if we didn't see each other until the wedding. So I spent the night in one of the empty employee apartments, and he slept in his place.

At 6:00 the next morning, I got up and styled my hair the way I'd been instructed, so that my curls were soft and frizz free. I took my time with my makeup, keeping it relatively light and pretty. At 7:45 Hector banged on my door and I wriggled into my dress, minus the new additions and stuffed my feet into a pair of socks and CAT boots. I wasn't going to risk the train or the shoes until I got to the church.

It was a twenty-minute car ride to the church, and we got there before Ranger, so I waited in the truck with Hal while Hector and Cal cleared the building. They weren't taking any chances, and I wasn't even particularly surprised when another black vehicle filled with Rangemen joined us.

"They volunteered," Hal said when he saw our back-up get out of the SUV, "The boss doesn't know."

"Ranger knows everything," I said.

After Hector and Cal were satisfied that there were no boogeymen hiding inside the church, I went inside and was introduced to a priest named Father Mayhew. He was about my age, and as it turned out, a former chaplain who had been detailed to the Rangers for a while, and that is how he knew my Ranger. It was one of the reasons why Ranger chose him to marry us. Father Mayhew escorted me to his office to wait and finish getting ready.

Father Mayhew's office was cozy, a little chaotic, but well lived in. His desk was old and beat up, with a weird slightly drunken groove that went the length of it. It looked like someone had repeatedly dragged something across the desk, scratching the finish in the same place over and over again, and for some reason Father Mayhew had emphasized this by stretching masking tape, two inches from either side of the groove. I was about to comment when someone behind me said, "Nice Ass!" and I jumped about a foot in the air. I turned to see a big pale pink cockatoo with big black eyes, staring at me, and I swear to God it winked.

"Stephanie, meet Lunch Box," Father Mayhew said. Lunch Box stood on one foot and stuck the other out, "He wants to shake hands. He's gentle, he won't hurt you."

I offered him my hand and he grasped my finger with his claws and shook it, "It's nice to fucking meet you."

"Lunch Box, be polite." Mayhew said. The bird bowed and then started preening.

"I was worried that he was going to shred the train of my dress, now I'm just worried I'm going to get struck by lightning if I stand too close," I laughed.

"The language is a side effect of being raised by the Army," Mayhew said, "Ric's unit was on some Indonesian island, I don't know which one, when they found this guy; he was a baby with a deformed wing and couldn't fly. They couldn't leave him there to die, so they rescued him and put him in this metal lunch box, they'd drilled holes in for air. Protecting the lunch box became as much a part of their mission objective as whatever they were there to do. Ric said it was good for their Karma. Only Moluccan Cockatoos, which is what Lunch Box is, are very smart, and by the time they gave him to me, he thought his name was 'Who has the fucking Lunch Box' I managed to shorten it to Lunch Box, but it took time. And of course the men took great pride in teaching him to speak, and because it was the Army, that included cursing. I figured if I taught him manners, it would balance it out."

"You're a very handsome bird, Lunch Box," I said.

"Fuckin A."

"They do chew a lot, and he may find your train a bit too tempting, so I'll put him away before you finish getting ready," Mayhew said. He walked to the perch and Lunch Box jumped onto his shoulder. Mayhew went to his desk and Lunch Box jumped off and trotted over to the groove. He put his beak down, stuck his wings out, and you could tell the left one wasn't quite right. "Go!" Mayhew said. Lunch Box sprinted across the desk with his wings out and beak down, and then hopped off the edge and walked to a large cage in the corner.

"Personal fucking best bitches!" The bird said before he climbed in and closed his door with his beak. Mayhew walked over and locked the door with a with a pad lock and handed the bird a lock pick.

"You're joking," I said.

"Nope," Mayhew said.

"Let me guess who taught him that," I said dryly.

"He read they can learn to open mechanical locks, and be taught to use tools, he thought he'd give it a shot," Mayhew said, "Actually..."

Mayhew walked to one of his crowded book cases and pulled a picture down; he came back and handed it to me. It was a twenty something Ranger sitting cross legged on the ground, in green camo pants, not shirt, with Lunch Box on his knee. Ranger was picking a simple pad lock and the bird was clearly riveted.

"This is fantastic," I said.

"If his life had been different, he probably would have kept Lunch Box," Mayhew said. Lunch Box let out a shrill yell and the lock gave, "Come on bird, let's make your bed while Miss Plum gets ready." He picked up a stack of used newspapers from a pile in the corner of his office and carried them over to the cage to change the paper. He laid them down on the bottom, while Lunch Box happily shredded paper to go on top of it.

Hector helped me finish getting the dress put together and at exactly 8:25, Cal knocked on the door to let me know that Ranger was there. Father Mayhew left to greet him and prepare for the ceremony; knowing Ranger as he did, I'm sure he realized that when Ranger said 8:30, he meant it.

I knew the next five minutes were going to feel like an eternity, so, to stop myself from staring at the clock, I picked up a section from one of the month-old newspapers left on the desk. Lunch box was pretending to sleep with his wing over his eyes, in his shredded pile of paper, but he kept peaking at my train, "Don't even think about it buster."

"I'll keep an eye on him, Bomber," Hal said and crouched in front of the cage and I went to my paper.

It turned out that I'd randomly chosen the Arts section, from the Jacksonville News. The picture above the fold was of a ten foot tall, marble statue that claimed to be of Athena, but really looked like a random shape with an enormous bronze breastplate and a sword. It looked pretty cool, even if it wasn't my idea of what a goddess looked like, and I started to read the article. Athena would be on display at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Jacksonville until, yesterday actually, before it went home to France, today.

I was about to put the paper down when the names Francoise and Rene LaPorte caught my attention. They were the owners of the statue, and had loaned it to the museum for an exhibit studying the female form. The article spoke of the great expense to ship the statue from France, and the director of the museum thanked them profusely for their generosity.

"Hal, did Pierre LaPorte make bail?" I asked, looking up from the paper.

"They released him almost right away. They like him on the streets because his fuck ups always net them bigger fish. Why?" he said. I didn't respond because I was too busy remembering something Stanley had said.

"I appreciate the truth that's found in beauty; it is something that needs to be respected, and you don't lie to something you respect."

Fat Stanley was creepy, but I didn't once feel like he wasn't being honest, and neither did Ranger. In fact, Ranger put me in the room with Stanley because he knew it would be the quickest way to get information. What if he'd been telling the truth and didn't know who Perry Weston was? Wouldn't that then make his warning about Larry genuine?

"Did Larry say why he forged the bags?" I asked.

"He said it was part of a money laundering scheme," Hal said.

"How?"

"You'd have to ask Ranger," he said.

"Did it have to do with the reason Ronnie was under an SEC investigation in the first place?"

"I think so, don't ask me how; that's above my paygrade."

"Can I borrow your phone?" I asked. Hal gave it to me and I called Brenda Blomsky at the resort. I'm pretty sure I woke her up, she sounded groggy and maybe a little hung over when she answered the phone with a, "Wha? Hello?"

"Hey, it's Stephanie. Were Ronnie Jankowitz and Daniel Winslow part of the same SEC investigation?"

"Yeah, why?"

"What were they doing?"

"Steph, I can't give you details about an on-going investigation," she said.

"Can you tell me how Larry was laundering the money?" I asked, "I know that's not a secret."

She sighed, "He was using the eBay store to hide payments to various unsavory characters. In among his regular listings, he would put a bag with a high reserve so nobody wanted to bid on it. There would be a few other bags, with lower bids, with auctions ending within about five to fifteen minutes of the Reserve. This would cause a bidding frenzy on the Reserve bag, driving the price way up. Then at the last minute two of the bidders caught up in the frenzy would outbid every body else, by a substantial amount. That would be either Jankowitz or Winslow, or someone in their employ. The money would go into Larry's account and he would then use it to make a purchase or purchases at an online store that would be taken down immediately after he completed his transactions. The fake bags served to camouflage the false listings, and make the store look legit. It was a good plan, the store has been up and running for years now," She yawned enormously, "Jesus what the hell are you doing up so early? You're supposed to be recuperating."

"I'm getting married in two minutes," I said.

"And you're calling about this? You've got weird priorities," Brenda said and hung up.

"Yeah, I know. Thanks." I said, not realizing right away that she was already going back to sleep, because that's when it started clicking.

what the hell was Jankowitz doing in Florida in the first place? He was definitely bound for Peru, Drew pretty much said it, but what if the intention was never to fly there? The SEC investigation had been going on for months; what if they knew that Winslow and Jankowitz were under investigation and they were preparing to make them disappear; and that was the real reason they brought in a fuck up like LaPorte? It was the one thing Ranger said that he never fucked up; people chose to work with LaPorte because he was an expert smuggler. Then Jankowitz cracked under the stress, and went after his wife and her boyfriend. Then he panicked and decides to clean up his own mess, calls Vinnie, never intending to stay in the country; he gets his own fake documentation and books a flight to Peru. What if Liam then convinced him not to get on the plane and to stick to the original plan. Taking a commercial flight is basically begging to get caught; I mean it took Ranger's men all of an hour to figure out where he was headed. If he gets caught headed for Peru, the dominoes would start to fall, and they would get swept up.

"Holy shit!" I said.

I wrenched open the office door and, still holding the newspaper in my hand, sprinted down the aisle to Ranger. He was dressed, in pretty much the same thing he was wearing the last time we tried to get married, and he looked amazing, but I wasn't able to appreciate it just yet.

"Not that I don't appreciate the way you haul ass in heels, but it is traditional for a woman to walk down the aisle at her wedding," Ranger said, when i got there.

"I'm just impressed you didn't break your neck," Father Mayhew said.

"I know where Jankowitz and Stokes are. LaPorte was released from jail, and his father has a big honkin' statue that's leaving for France sometime today," I sort of said.

It came out in a rush and I was winded from my sprint so it sounded more like, "I where Jankostokes Port released big honk statue France day," but with like, a lot of panting.

"Want to run that by me again?" Ranger said. I handed him the paper and put my hands on my knees and caught my breath while he read the article.

"Bomber, you should consider trying out for the Olympics wearing those shoes," Hal said, coming up behind me. "You're faster in them than you are in sneakers."

I gave him a thumbs up, and straightened again, clutching at a stitch in my side. While I knew I was winded because I'm really out of shape, I was choosing to blame it on the Hypoxia. Milk it while you can right?

"The statue leaves today," I said, "And however that statue is getting home; that's where Jankowitz and Stokes are. It'll be on a ship; that thing's too big for a plane."

"Contact, our people at the Port Authority," Ranger said and handed Hal the newspaper, "Find out what ship this statue is on, and get them to delay it's departure until we get there. We leave in thirty."

I went to follow Hal back to the office when Ranger snagged my hand, "Where are you going?" he asked.

"We have to get to the..."

"That's why I said we were leaving in thirty minutes. We have something important to do first," Ranger said, he turned to Father Mayhew, "We're going to have to make this quick; she's going to need time to change."

"Oh no, I'm good to go," I said, "This is a mini-dress, the train comes off, and I've got boots here, and a stun gun in my purse."

"That's my girl," Ranger said with a grin, and he kissed my forehead.

"Let's do this then, shall we?" Father Mayhew said.

AN: I know there are a couple of loose ends, like what's up with Ranger's nephew? and what did Morelli get on that video? All by design my friends! There will be more, as soon as I finish working out that plot.

So far it involves grandma, a male stripper, a murder, and maybe a prison break.

Thank you so much for reading and reviewing! It was a fun story to write, so I'm very happy you enjoyed it!