Disclaimer: The characters you recognize as J.E. are hers, and I am only borrowing them. There are several original characters that are mine, and I claim them as mine.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank all of you who review as guest as well as those of you who don't allow PMs. I love the reviews and want to tell you that I read and appreciate them all. Thank you all.

Spoilers: Anything from the books 1-12 might be used for the most part, but I won't rule out anything from all 19 of the books. Please note that the time-line for the books has been altered to fit the story, and people and incidents might have been added.

I would like to give a special thanks to Jenn from BCRU. She has been doing quotes from book 9, and the quote in the first chapter here is what gave me the idea for this story. Hope you enjoy. Thank you also to Dreemseeker for all your input as Beta. Thank you to the ladies at BCRU for answering my questions as well.

What Happened In Vegas

Stephanie's POV:

I took a sip of coffee as I waited for the search I was running to net me the information I was after. The Ranger's game was playing on the TV and I was dividing my time between the two. I'm not normally a baseball fan, but this team had the benefit of sharing a name with my favorite hockey team, so I thought I'd give them a try. They weren't bad, but they weren't that great either. Borrowing the search program that Ranger had his guys using at RangeMan, I was running it here to protect the identity of the friend I was helping out.

Who was I helping, and why didn't they want anyone to know?

Well…you see it all started when my boss, aka my cousin Vinnie, wrote a Visa bond on Samuel Singh, and then Singh went missing. Seeing as it was a high dollar bond, Vinnie put his top man on the case. Of course, Vinnie asked Ranger if he could find Singh. Ranger agreed, but he told him he would need help and they would have to work out the fee. So what does my idiot cousin do? Vinnie told Ranger he could have whatever he wanted and gave Ranger…me.

I actually didn't mind working with him. Ranger and I had worked together before. He was my mentor, sometimes partner, as well as one time lover. It was everything else that went wrong that I could blame Vinnie for. In the course of our investigation, we learned that Singh might have gone to Vegas so Ranger was going to send me there with Tank to assist me. Well, when Lula found out that Tank was going she went into near Rhino mode. She insisted that she was my partner and that she ought to be the one going to Vegas with me. To avoid problems, I figured I would need to take her as well and then when I asked Connie to make travel arrangements for us, she sort of invited herself along. So that's how Lula, Connie, and I ended up heading for Vegas. Unfortunately, Tank didn't make it.

What happened to Tank you ask? Well, when we were going through security, the wand picked up traces of explosives on Tank's clothing. Not wanting to get caught, by association, in the excitement he was having, we had to leave him behind as we continued on our way.

After an altercation with a Tom Jones impersonator, the three of us split up. Connie went to play craps, Lula went to play slots. I on the other hand headed back to the room. I was up at 7 the next morning and seeing no sign of Lula or Connie, I dressed and headed downstairs. I found them both in the café.

Lula had about 2 dozen scrambled eggs and 5 pounds of sausage links on her plate. Connie had coffee.

Lula looked wired and not much different from everyday Lula. Connie looked like she'd died and come back from the dead. Connie's black hair was completely frazzled, sticking out at odd places. Her mascara had smudged, making the bags under her eyes more pronounced. Most shocking of all … she was without lipstick. I'd never seen Connie without lipstick.

I took a seat and I snitched a sausage link from Lula.

"What time is it?" Connie asked.

"Seven-thirty." I told her.

"Day or night?"

"Day." (pg. 168-169 TTN)

Lula mentioned something about Las Vegas never closing and something about an Eiffel Tower and Brooklyn Bridge out there. I asked what she had been doing all night and she said she started at the slots and then went to blackjack. She had gotten up but then ended up losing it all and it was a good thing Vinnie was buying her breakfast.

Connie had her head down on the table. "I lost all my money. I drank too much. And I lost my shoes."

We all looked under the table. Sure enough, Connie didn't have any shoes.

"I left them someplace," Connie said. "I don't know where."

"That's not even the best part," Lula said to me. "Ask Connie about the photograph."

Connie pulled a cardboard framed photo out of her big leather shoulder bag. It was a picture of Connie and a short guy in a powder blue tuxedo. The short guy had sideburns and an Elvis hairdo. Connie was holding a bouquet of flowers. "I think I might have gotten married to an Elvis impersonator," Connie said, dragging herself to her feet. "I'm going to bed. Wake me up when you get Singh and I'll do the paperwork for the locals."

Lula watched Connie stagger away. "I wouldn't hardly recognize her without lipstick," Lula said. "She sat down and I didn't know who she was at first."(pg. 170 TTN)

When it was time to leave, Connie opted to stay in Vegas and straighten out the photograph situation. Lula decided to drive home in a rented car with Boo. I went with a RangeMan substitute named Miguel to the airport. In no time I was back in Jersey and Morelli picked me up at the Newark airport. Over the course of the next few days, Ranger and I cleared everything up with the Singh case and our lives moved on. I had some difficulty with the Slayers and temporarily moved into Ranger's apartment, even if it was without Ranger's knowledge since he was in the wind at the time. When Ranger came back he allowed me to continue staying in his apartment, and at one point even gave his men an order that if I tried to leave they should stun me.

I had been told they caught Junkman, and knowing if I didn't make my sister's shower I would be in real trouble with my mother—and let's face it, my mother scared me a hell of a lot more than Ranger at this point—I headed to the garage and grabbed a set of keys. I was almost to a vehicle when Hal showed up to stop me. I convinced him to let me see his stun gun and then I used it on him making good with my escape. When I reached the VFW hall, Val said she was going to move the Buick. I decided that might not be a good idea since the car might be associated with me, and might bring trouble to my sister. I went out to move the car and sure enough, I was locked in the trunk and driven to the circle on Comstock where the Slayers were known to torture their victims. Lucky for me Sally Sweet was on a break with the band and had seen me being kidnapped. Sally drove his bus into the circle scattering Slayers everywhere. He came off that bus and opened fire with an Uzi as he came to my aide. (TBO)

Not long after that I quite working for Vinnie in a fit of pique and went through a host of jobs, none of which worked out for me. Ranger offered me a job working at Rangeman. Whether he felt sorry for me or really thought I could be of help…only he knew. It wasn't the first time I had worked for Ranger. I'd done a few jobs for him a while back and in the end decided I might be better off sticking to Bounty Hunting. I agreed to give it another go. Did I mention that while all this was going on I'd managed to pick up another stalker. I'd seen Spiro Stiva back in town and he had been causing me a bit of trouble. It turned out it wasn't really Spiro that was stalking me but Con Stiva. Con kidnapped me by putting me in a coffin to transport me to a house. He stuffed me in a cupboard and planned to come back and kill me as soon as he made sure that people saw him one final time in the mask he'd done of Spiro. Lucky for me Ranger had gotten the information of there being a house in Spiro's name and he and the Merry Men—as I call them—had shown up to save the day. Although Ranger arranged for one of his guys to take me to Morelli's place, I made my way back to Stiva's house and had the pleasure of hitting Con with the Buick. Not enough to kill him, but he was certainly feeling some pain. (EOT)

Of course, that brings us to the more recent incident of Ranger's daughter Julie being kidnapped by a man wanting to take over Ranger's life. Scrog kidnaped Julie and brought her to Trenton. He then fixated on me and managed to kidnap me, but I was able to get away. That is until I walked into my apartment and there was the crazy man and he had Julie with him. I was so scared as Scrog pointed his gun at Julie and I knew if I said anything to warn Ranger, he would shoot Julie without a second thought. It was then that I realized I loved Joe Morelli. I loved him, but not nearly as much as I loved Ranger. Joe was important to me because of the past we shared. But Ranger, he had become everything. When Scrog shot him over and over, I felt the pain rip through my heart as I watched Ranger fall and lie there bleeding on the floor of my apartment. When Ranger had been rushed to the hospital, Joe tried to comfort me as we followed the ambulance. On the way there I was finally honest with Joe…and with myself. Funny thing, Joe told me he had known for some time where my heart lay, but he was willing to take any part of me I would give him. I told him that wasn't good enough for either of us. When Ranger came home from the hospital, I stopped by his apartment with cake and three weeks later I'd moved in.

That's where I was at the moment, in Ranger's apartment on the 7th floor. The friend I was helping? Connie Rosolli. She'd been unable to find out anything all those months ago when she stayed behind in Vegas and in recent weeks it had become necessary for her to know exactly what went on.

Why you ask? Because three weeks ago, Connie had gone to her doctor and learned that she was now 3 and ½ months pregnant. She was desperate and had begged me to help. I felt badly that the last few months I'd been so busy with the chaos going on in my own life, that I hadn't even noticed the changes in my friend. It wasn't until I walked into the Bonds office with a cup of coffee and a bag of doughnuts from the Tasty Pastry that I became aware there might be a problem. And that was only because Connie got one whiff of my coffee and made a beeline for the bathroom. When I heard her offering the contents of her stomach to the porcelain Gods, I wet a cloth with cold water and asked if there was anything I could do. Connie wiped her face with the cool cloth and in a hoarse whisper she suggested I get rid of the doughnuts and coffee. When I gave her a puzzled look, she swore me to secrecy and told me about the baby. She asked me if I could work my magic and find out what happened on that trip to Vegas. I hugged her and promised I would do everything I could to find out.

I looked at the screen and sighed. Oh Boy! How was I going to tell Connie this? She was going to freak. Her family was going to freak. I fished my phone out of my purse and gave her a call. She picked up on the third ring, "Hello?"

"Hey Connie. I have some answers for you. Where would you like to meet?"

There was a sigh and then, "It's gotta be somewhere private."

Although she couldn't see me I nodded, "All right. What do you say we meet in the back parking lot at the Bonds office?"

She paused for several minutes before saying, "It's better than nothing."

"I can be there in fifteen minutes." I said.

"All right. I'm heading out now," was her reply.

We ended the call and I printed out the information, placed it in a folder in my purse, then stood, heading down to the garage. I grabbed a set of keys and hit the alarm. When one of the vehicles lit up, I made my way over and climbed in. I made sure I was buckled in and then called Ranger to let him know I was heading out. He told me to keep my eyes open and I smiled as I answered back, "Try not to go crazy."

Ranger laughed for several seconds before saying, "You never disappoint, Babe."

I disconnected the call and pulled out of the garage to head to the Bonds office. I turned into the back lot fifteen minutes later. Pulling up behind the Bonds office, I noticed that the street light was out again, which made it inky black back here. The lights of the SUV illuminated Connie's car and there was enough room for me to pull up beside her car and park. The lot might fit one more car—if it was a small one. Connie was already getting out of her car and she quickly climbed into the passenger seat of the SUV. She turned to look at me and for the first time I saw fear on my friend's face. I reached over and said, "Don't worry Connie. Everything will work out somehow."

She shook her head, "I don't see how it can, Steph. Already several family members have been making comments and it's only a matter of time before everyone will figure out I'm pregnant. How am I going to explain to them I know nothing about the father except he might be the man in a picture and I might be married to him?"

I swallowed hard, not wanting to give her more bad news. "It's worse than that Connie." I said as I handed her the file.

She opened the file and by the way she paled I knew she realized just how bad things had gotten.