AN: TADA! All done! Enjoy!

Joe, it turned out was not there because Vinnie called him. While Ranger and I were doing paperwork, Hector's facial recognition came back on the guy from the video, aka Lucky. Hector had emailed the results to all three of us, but because we were absorbed in paperwork, we didn't read ours. Joe ran him through the system and in his file was a picture of Lucky from back in the day, handing a bag of something to Gianmario Calitri. Calitri was identified in the picture and when Joe did a search on him, he came up with the same engagement announcement and incident reports Minnie had found. He did the math, got a search warrant, and was on his way with a bunch of officers to execute it, when Vinnie called. He had a wire he'd worn for a different case, in his car so he brought it inside with him and shoved it under the door to the dining room. He got an audio recording of everything. They arrested Harry, and Lucile, and Lucky was carted off to the hospital. Nicky was set free, seeing as he was saving Ranger's life when he pulled the trigger.

The Feds were a bit pissed that Morelli was getting credit for the bust, and they took over as soon as Lucile and Harry were in custody. All of our evidence was confiscated, including grandma's hard drive. The drive was partitioned the same way the computer was, and could only be unlocked with the Wonder Woman key. Besides the wedding pictures and stuff, there also was also a word document, written by Merlin, detailing everything he had dug up about Lucile and her role as Wrecking Ball. He had been digging for months and had everything. He made it easy for them. He had created a spiderweb like Minnie had, only his was far more detailed and showed just how deep WB was in, in every organization. It was enough to take Lucile down completely. Lucile and everyone involved in her operation.

Two days after Vinnie's world fell apart, Ranger got a phone call. The assignment he put on hold because of Chimera couldn't wait anymore. I was bummed but couldn't dwell on it; I didn't have the time. Connie and I were spending all of our time sorting out Vinnie's office, trying to keep it afloat while he was dealing with the Feds. With Harry the Hammer in the slammer… sorry… he needed to find another backer. So Lula, me and Connie, spent a fuck of a lot of time making sure his books were in order, coming up with business projections etc. Then he took our hard work and a day later, found a new business partner. That's when Connie gave her notice. Lula had to be forcibly restrained because she actually tried shove Vinnie's head up his ass. We stopped her because we were worried about the baby, what with the heavy lifting and strain and all. I just flat out told him to go fuck himself, and quit. The backer? Joyce Barnhardt. Vinnie was an ungrateful prick.

I signed the Rangeman contract, and then had nothing at all to do. That's when Lester and I decided that Lunch Box needed to learn a new trick. The morning after Ranger got back, the bird was getting pretty good.

Lester gave Lunch Box another black jelly bean. They were his favorite. Lester had the giggles, which on a grown man as badass as he was, should have been off-putting, but wasn't because I had them too. We'd been spending far too much time together. It turned out we were both a bad influence. I held up the picture and Lunch Box earned another jelly been.

"Fuck this is a smart bird," Lester said.

"I know," I said. "Do you think he's ready?"

"Yes," Lester said. "Absolutely."

We both did some deep breathing and then with Lunch Box walking beside me to the elevator, and Lester sprinting up the stairs to slip into his cubicle. We made it to five and I casually walked over to Les with a folder. Nobody paid any attention to us or the fact that Lester was still quietly giggling. There was the general murmur of productivity on the floor, and everything was nice was absolutely normal.

Lunch Box bobbed around, greeting everyone, because we were teaching him to be polite. Then Ranger walked out of his office.

"Hi there RANGER RIC!" Lunch Box yelled and the office went dead quiet.

Ranger looked at Lunch Box, "No."

Lunch Box ducked and then more quietly said, "Hi Boss." Then scurried over to Lester. Lester slipped him another jelly bean, and put him on his desk. Lunch Box tried to blend in with his environment by hiding behind the computer monitor. Camouflage is hard to do when you're a pink bird trying to hide in a predominantly grey environment.

The hum resumed, but it was strained. It was like everybody in the office was determined to go back to normal without showing any signs of amusement.

Ranger walked over to the two of us. "Yes?" I asked innocently.

"You'll pay for that," he said.

"Promises, promises," I said with more bravado than I felt. "Besides, how do you know it was me?"

"You mean how do I know it was the both of you?" Ranger asked. He cuffed Lester in the back of the head. He wasn't gentle about it. He coaxed his bird out from behind the computer and brought him back to his office.

"Are you concussed?" I asked Lester.

"No, but I think he knocked something loose," Lester said. "I was hoping that would last longer. We underestimated his intimidation factor."

"Which was stupid," I said, "And now I feel like we've wasted the last three weeks."

"Me too," he said. "Damn. How much trouble will you be in?"

"I may get a spanking but that could just be fun."

Lester snickered.

"Well now what do we do?" I asked, sitting on his desk.

"I suppose I do have a job," Lester said.

"Technically you're my partner until Ranger is fully back on the job, and I've got nothing to do until this afternoon…OH! Miami! I still owe Miami for locking me up!"

"Oh," Lester said with a diabolical grin, "I've been working on that."

He showed me his plans.

"Is that even possible? Someone will see us," I said sort of awed by the classic.

"Monitor room has been moved down to the ground level. The floor will be completely empty after 6PM."

"That's convenient," I said.

"Well we do have Tank on our side. He is fully aware of what I've got in mind and he's helping facilitate things. There should be a crate of supplies in your Florida apartment. I say we sneak down, don't let anyone know we're coming. You just use your keys to kill the monitor when you get in. People will think it's you and Ranger making out on your way to your apartment. Then we'll get Hector to do a diagnostic on the cameras on the office floor, so they are out of commission, all night. We have Tank, Hector, Hal and Cal, all on board. Between the six of us, we should be able to do it."

"Yep," I said, "But if everything is already there, we can for sure do this in a night. It doesn't feel like enough though. I mean it'll inconvenience them for a day or two, but they locked me in jail for trying to do my job. I want more."

"Beautiful, that's just day one. A day for each hour you were in holding."

"How long was I in there for? It felt like weeks."

"Seven hours."

"I love you," I said. He grinned.

"Day one is the easy day."

"Day two?" He clicked a tab, and my grin turned as evil as his.

"Babe?" Ranger said and I froze. He looked at the screen.

"That's going to be challenging," he said.

"We have a six man team," Lester said.

"Seven," he said. "She's my wife. You don't think I want in on this?"

"Oh this is going to be so damned good. Does Ella have everyone's shoe sizes?" Lester asked.

"Yes," Ranger said, "I'll get them to you."

"Did you have something for me to do?" I asked.

"No," he said, "I just got a call. We need to talk in my office."

The giggles I had went away immediately. Fuck I hoped he wasn't going away again. He just came back. I followed him back to his office where Lunch Box was now sleeping on his perch and I sat down.

"Any idea how long you'll be gone for this time?" I asked. "Lester and I are going to need to order supplies for operation, Don't Fuck With Me, and Lester's gonna wanna figure out a timeline."

"I'm not going away for a while," he said, "I've been training a replacement. Rangeman is getting too big to leave for months at a time."

"You're not doing this for me are you? I mean I hate it that you go, but I know you wouldn't be you if you did this sort of thing."

"You were a consideration, but the truth is, I'm getting a bit old for it, and it's losing its appeal. Becoming jaded is dangerous in that line of work; it's how you get killed. It's a good time to get out. I'll still be needed but as a strategist in DC, which means when I leave you can come with me if you want."

I smiled. Yep. I wanted. "Umm are you sure it's a good idea for me to be in DC? Hell the Secret Service might not even allow me in city limits. Shit tends to blow up around me."

"I'm fairly confident it won't be a problem," he said.

"Is this what the phone call was about?" I asked.

"No," he said grimly. "Stanley Mallory has escaped from prison."

Fat Stan was out. Holy fuck. Holy fuck. He was scary. Like super scary. Like I might never sleep again scary. And he had a thing for me.

"You're fine," Ranger said, "He likes you. He's weird like that. You helped catch him and he won't hold a grudge for that. He'll respect you for it, but revenge for shit like that isn't his style."

"You shot off his ear," I said.

"He had it coming," Ranger said with a shrug.

"When did this happen?" I asked.

"They don't know," Ranger said.

"How the fuck can they not know?"

"He shaved his head shortly after his arraignment. Without the hair he looks a lot different. He's nearly indistinguishable from every other skinhead out there. He was transferred to a maximum security federal prison, and the last anyone is absolutely certain that they saw him, was when he was getting off of the transfer bus."

'There have to be witnesses though," I insisted.

"He's Fat Stan and nobody wants to fuck with him. Nobody is saying anything, but there has been a man living in his cell for who knows how long, pretending to be him. The Guards on his cell block are being investigated, but he was apparently a model prisoner in a cell block of not so model prisoners. They had bigger problems to worry about than someone who just sat in his cell and read all day.

A week ago, one of the guards on his cell block retired. He's since disappeared. They believe he was the one to change Stanley's picture on file. When he did this, they don't know. So nobody is sure when he made the switch."

"Why don't they just ask the guy who was pretending to be Stan?"

"He's dead," Ranger said. "A new guard transferred from Florida, realized that the guy on the block wasn't Stan and raised the alarm. The man in his place is a John Doe, and he was shanked before he had a chance to be questioned."

"What happens now?" I asked.

"Nothing," Ranger said, "We don't have a clue where he is, and he's not the vendetta type. I'll put a man on Charlie and Electra just in case Walter comes back and turns out to be Fat Stan. I think it's a long shot though. What he will likely do is resume fucking with the people he fucked with before he went in. He'll play with them until he gets bored and he'll start planning something."

"You're sure he won't fuck with us?" I asked.

"Positive," Ranger said, "It's not the first time I've brought him in."

"So what now?" I asked and he checked his watch.

"Now we go get ready," he said.

I groaned and he took my hand. "Do I have to?"

"Yep," he said, "I made the effort to get back a week ahead of schedule so I didn't miss it. It wasn't easy, so suck it up."

"You haven't seen what mom is making me wear," I said, but let him drag me to the elevator. Lunch Box had roused himself and was joining us. We got upstairs and Lunch Box made for the counter. He stood on Rex's cage, impatiently shifting from foot to foot. Rex actually came out of his soup can and put his feet up on the door to his cage. I opened the cage, transferred Rex to a Hamster ball and put it on the floor. They were friends. Lunch Box would roll the ball around the room, and if he stopped and got bored, Rex would roll the ball up to Lunch Box and bump into him. This would instigate another round of hamster soccer.

Ranger watched this development, with a certain amount of amusement. "Keeping the kids entertained I see," he said.

"Yep," I replied.

We left them to it and went into the bedroom. I stared with hatred in my heart at the garment bag hanging on a hook in the closet. It contained the Helen Plum approved dress. "It's Boyband Hot out side. I'm half expecting Nick Lachey to jump out of the thermometer."

"You've got to want that one," he said.

"You're not supposed to be critical of my whining," I muttered, "Ranger, the dress simultaneously makes me look like a nun, and a prostitute. It does that while being the weirdest shade of green in the universe. Hell I don't even know if it's green, blue or yellow. It's fucking weird. It's long sleeved and I don't mean a nice light silk or a breezy lace, I mean it's a thick cotton."

"Babe." That one meant, 'It can't be that bad.'

"You don't believe me?" I said. I opened the garment bag and showed him proof of the worst dress in history. "She says it will look good with my eyes."

"Don't wear it," he was easy for him to say.

"Oh no, I have to wear it. Mom's words were that if I wanted her to ever make me Pineapple Upside Down Cake ever again, I was wearing this. She said that the only way I was getting out of it was if something tragic happened to destroy the dress."

Ranger took the dress off the hanger and dropped it on the floor. He whistled and Lunch Box waddled into the room. The bird eyed the fabric with lust in his eyes. Ranger picked up his fine, feathered friend and put him back down on the hated garment, "Make your bed."

Lunch Box let out a happy squawk and started shredding the dress. "Problem solved," Ranger said. "Pick something else."

God I loved that man.

He prodded me into the closet and I chose a floaty, light blue silk sundress, that went to my knees. Pretty, understated, and a little sexy. Ranger's smile when I finished getting ready was a good indication that I'd picked the right dress. It was 98 degrees outside so I wasn't even really bothering with anything more than waterproof mascara for makeup. Everything else would just melt off and my hair was just going to be a mass of uncontrolled curls and there was nothing I could do about it.

The party was going to be a massive barbecue that lasted all afternoon and into the night. Ranger's family was supplying the food, and mine was supplying the booze. I suspected Ranger had already taken care of a lot of the bill so mom and dad didn't go broke trying to get most of Trenton shit-faced.

When we got to the party it was already out of control, but in a very good way. Everyone was laughing and there was a moratorium on cell phones, so people were actually speaking to each other. As an added bonus the Rangemen were going to be coming to the party in shifts so it was probably the safest park in New Jersey. I was hopeful that it would go off without any calamities, or visits from skinny ginger psychopaths.

We made the rounds, chatted with as many of the guests as we could and I ate far too much barbecue. At around four, Sally found me, while I munched on a banana popsicle, listening to one of the many new in-laws tell me about Ranger's misspent youth.

"Hey Steph!" he said.

I jumped off of the picnic table I was sitting on and gave him a hug. He was dressed pretty tamely for Sally. He was wearing a pair of short jean shorts and a black t-shirt. His pedicure was hot pink and his stiletto fingernails were killer.

"Hey, glad you could make it!"

"Wouldn't miss it!" He said, "I think Lula and I are going to bail though. She's not doing so good in the heat."

"Oh sure, where is she? I'll come say goodbye."

"In the car with the AC cranked. I told her I'd get her a popsicle for the ride home."

"You know what Sally?" I said, as we walked towards the parking lot, "You're a really good guy, I think she'd be scared as hell if it weren't for you."

"I figure it's the least I can do," he said with a shrug, "I mean she's doing all the hard work right?"

"That's what I mean," I said, "It's totally not your responsibility and yet here you are, stepping up."

"Dude, just because I was drunk and don't really remember a whole lot of that night, doesn't mean I can like pretend it didn't happen. Besides, I've always wanted to be a dad you know?"

I bit down on the popsicle taking too much and getting an instant brain freeze. Since absolutely nobody can look cool while suffering from that sort of pain, I gave into the idiocy. I flapped my hands a freaked a little until it passed. "You're the baby's father?" I squeaked.

"Well yeah, why else would I be so excited? We hooked up after we booby trapped your place. Don't worry, I had your sofa cleaned before you got back."

AN: I hope you enjoyed it. There will be more. My hubs is already telling me to write "Saturday" I'm going to have to let it percolate a bit before I start something. I have a whole story about Lester's sister that I've written, that is really, really, rough, but it's there. It'll find it's way on here eventually.