Disclaimer/Notes: See Part 1
WARNING!!!!: This part contains some graphic violence. I have set it off between lines of ~SP~SP~SP~SP~... If you hit that section an ddon't want to read the violence, then look for the next line of ~SP~'s to continue reading. You won't miss out on any plot, just a description.
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Realigning Destiny
By TT

Sometimes chance intervenes in our lives and causes destiny jumps the tracks. When this happens, fate steps in and realigns destiny’s course to bring us to where we need to be. But, as with the course of true love, the road of realignment doesn’t always run smooth.

**********WARNGING!!!! THERE IS A BIT OF FAIRLY GRAPHIC VIOLENCE IN THE FLASHBACK! I’VE SET IT OFF WITH ~SP~SP~SP… , SO YOU CAN SKIP OVER THE DESCRIPTION WITHOUT MISSING MUCH OF THE PLOT******************

Part 5 – 049. Fireplace

Stephanie was startled out of her reverie when Ranger softly called her name.

Looking up, she only briefly met his eyes before hers moved on to look at Bob. Unable to find her voice, even while looking at her friend, she turned her eyes to the fireplace.

She'd seen it hundreds of times over the past few years. In fact, she had been the one who took the layers of paint and soot off of it. She could remember sealing the wood, making sure it was all protected.

Her eyes drifted from the carved woodwork around the fireplace, to the stones within it. She and Charlie had spent several fun afternoons cleaning those as well.

The dancing flames called her attention away from the gray stones to the warm colors of the wood fire. A heated orange glow momentarily radiated off the coals as they dropped from the logs. The crackling of the tortured wood struck a chord within her. With her eyes focusing, not on the fire, but on her past, Stephanie began her story.

“It really started the day before I disappeared,” she informed. “I picked up the file, but Connie seemed reluctant to give it to me. She said something weird was going on with the skip, but she couldn't find out what. She wanted me to pass it on to Rangeman. The bond was too low and he was a first-time offender, so I took it anyway.”

Taking a deep breath, she admitted, “I should have listened. The next afternoon, after lunch, I went to pick him up...”

Four Years Ago

Sitting in her car, she scanned the area. It looked like any other neighborhood. There were the houses where kids obviously lived - the toys in the yards betraying them - the ones with teens- the extra car being the give-away there – and then there were the other houses. All in all, it was an unremarkable place.

Stephanie caught herself humming and had to smile. Lunch with Ranger was always a good thing and this time was no different. Reaching over, she flipped open the file on her skip one more time. Nothing had changed. It still promised to be a relatively easy five-hundred dollars.

One last scan of the target house revealed nothing unusual, so, making sure she had her stun gun, cuffs, defense spray, cell phone and car keys, she left the car and approached the domicile.

From experience, she knew not to stand directly in front of the door. Positioning herself just to the right, she rang the bell and listened for the chime inside. When she didn't hear any chiming, she opened the screen door and lifted the knocker on the door.

As she rapped the knocker against the striker, the inner door swung open.

Stephanie froze.

Open doors never led to anything good. Her spidey sense started going haywire and her first instinct was to call Ranger.

Something in the house, however, caught her attention and her curiosity quickly overcame her caution.

Pushing the door further open, she extracted her stun gun and stepped inside.

Cautiously, she looked around the interior of the house. The front door opened directly into the living room.

It was a nice room, comfortable. There was nothing particularly remarkable about it.

Before she moved further into the house, she called out to her skip to announce her presence.

There was no response.

Moving further into the house, she came to a place where she would need to decide if she was going up the stairs or continuing back to the kitchen.

A sound in the kitchen decided her.

Though she couldn't quite identify what she was hearing, she knew it was a sound of distress.

Slowly, she moved toward the back of the house.

Reaching the entry to the kitchen, she scanned what she could see of the room.

She spotted her skip in a chair at the kitchen table. The ropes binding him to the chair were just visible over the top of the table. The gag in his mouth was the obvious reason he hadn't answered her.

Before she could decide what to do, a cold circle of steel was pressed to her temple.

“Miss Plum,” a deep, masculine voice said. “I do believe we have much to talk about.”

Frozen in place, Stephanie made no response.

A second man stepped out of a nearby door. Most likely it led to the basement. The second man took her stun gun and other weapons. Then, taking her handcuffs, he drew her hands behind her back and secured them there.

Once secured, the gun was pulled away from her head. She was guided to the table and pushed down into a chair.

From her position at the table, she could see the faces of the men. She knew the second man only by reputation and felt her soul freeze at the emptiness in his eyes. Swallowing back her fear, she slid her eyes to the other man. This man she didn’t know, but the aura of evil and menace that radiated from him was enough to cause her to shiver. She’d had stalkers and met her share of psychos, but these two men were a level of evil with which she was completely unready to deal.

Licking her dry lips, she swallowed again and tried to find some Jersey attitude. When she felt confident enough to speak, she asked, “What do you want?”

The first man smiled. It wasn’t a comforting sight. “We want your silence, Ms. Plum,” he informed.

Scared as she was, Stephanie couldn’t help but be puzzled. “My silence about what?” she wanted to know.

“About our presence here,” the first man said, his voice cold. He motioned at the other man. The second one went and got a briefcase from beside her skip. Opening the briefcase, the first man pulled out a folder and opened it. Slowly, he began pulling pictures out of the folder and laying them down in front of Stephanie. All of the pictures were dated from yesterday and today. There were ten pictures in total.

“How did you get these?” she wondered, her voice barely a whisper.

Displayed before her on the table were pictures of five of the most important people in her life. Two pictures each, one from yesterday and one from today. There was a picture of Mary Alice galloping around in the back yard of her house from yesterday and one of her getting on the school bus this morning. There were two pictures of Grandma Mazur. In one she was obviously at Clara’s getting her hair done. The second showed her asleep in her bed. The third set of pictures was of Lula. One was from the day before and showed Lula bending over to do some filing. The one from today showed her eating breakfast in her apartment. The forth set was of Joe. The picture from yesterday showed him in his office at the Police Department. The one from this morning showed him shaving in his bathroom.

It was the fifth set of pictures that shook he the most, though. They were of Ranger. The picture from yesterday showed him sound asleep in his bed on the seventh floor of the Rangeman building. The one from today was from the restaurant where they had eaten lunch just a little while ago.

Stephanie decided it was a good thing her hands were cuffed behind her back. She could feel her hands trembling. Her mind was racing how could they have these pictures. Yes, some of them made sense, they were out in public, but these people had gotten into Ranger’s apartment while he slept. Who in the world were they?

"We're business men, Ms. Plum,” the first man said, reading the question in her eyes, his voice no longer smooth and cold. “ We plan on buying your silence with one of their lives," the harsh, hate-filled voice explained.

“But, I don’t even know who you are!” she exclaimed.

“And that’s the way it will stay,” the second man commanded.

“However,” the first man continued, having once more reigned in his hatred, leaving his voice cold as the grave. “We would feel much better if you never saw us. We do regret that it’s come to this, but we’re not entirely unreasonable men.”

Stephanie swallowed, her eyes wide with her fear and terror. These men were every idea she’d ever had about Satan made flesh. She didn’t trust them, didn’t want to trust them. But when her eyes fell on the picture of Ranger sleeping in his bed, she knew she would do whatever was needed to keep him, to keep all of them safe. “What do you want,” she demanded.

“It’s very simple, really. We have someone watching one of these people right now. They will be watching them on and off for quite a while longer. If you agree to disappear, permanently, and never speak of seeing us, we will let that person live. If you choose not to disappear, if you choose to try us, one of these people will die and another will take their place in the group of five – your mother, perhaps, or your father? You have two other nieces and a sister as well, don’t you? If you don’t leave at that point, another will die within twelve hours and another loved one will move into the pool”

She just stared at them, her eyes wide. “But…”

“No buts, Ms. Plum. If you feel you can’t disappear on your own, Mr… Smith here will help you disappear tonight,” the first man informed. “And as further motivation,” he continued, pulling a rubber glove on his hand, he pulled out a .38, aimed at the skip and pulled the trigger.

~SP~ SP~SP~SP~SP~SP~SP~SP~SP~SP~SP~SP~SP~SP~SP~SP~SP~SP~SP~SP~SP~

The effect of the headshot was horrifying and Stephanie could feel the bile rising in her throat. She was going to be sick.

Since she was sitting directly across the table from her skip, she got the full effect of the event. She saw his eyes widen in horror as he understood what was about to happen; the moment of fear when the shot sounded; the second when life left him.

She saw in horror as the small, neat, red hole in his forehead and watched, aghast, as a tiny drop of blood welled up from the hole and began to run down his face.

She didn’t have to watch it for long, however, as her skip’s head tipped forward just then, stopping when his chin encountered his chest.

That movement revealed a greater horror behind him. The wall behind the skip's chair was a gory display of blood, gray matter and chucks of bone and flesh.

This time there was no fighting the nausea. She leaned forward and just let it out.

When she was done, she kept her head down and opened her eyes just in time to see a lined wastebasket being taken away. It was filled with her sickness.

~SP~ SP~SP SP~SP~SP~SP~SP~SP~SP~SP~SP~SP~SP~SP~SP~SP~SP~SP~SP~

Her chair was turned away from the gruesome sight and the first man met her eyes. “We are very serious,” he repeated. Indicating the dead body now behind her, he explained, “Our associate needed to be removed anyway. The fact that he was just killed with your gun, in your presence is enough to throw suspicion on you. In fact, the investigation would prove without a doubt that you murdered him. With they evidence they would find, you would have a difficult time convincing anyone that it wasn’t you. However, if you disappear, the murder goes away and your loved ones live. And, most importantly, you get to live too, though; you would never again be able to contact anyone you know here. We will know if you try.”

The man leaned was silent for a few minutes and then asked, “So, what will it be, Ms. Plum?”

“I’ll leave,” I agreed. “I… I may need help.”

“Mr. Smith will be at your apartment tonight at seven to help you, then,” the first man said. “I suggest you go home now and make sure your things are in order.”

With that said, Smith unlocked the handcuffs and returned them to her.

In a daze, Stephanie made her way to the front of the house. As she stepped outside, a flash of lightning split the sky followed by a deafening crash of thunder. The skied opened and wept up on the earth.

Her own tears mixing with the rain pouring down from the heavens, she made her way back to her car and set off to her apartment for the last time.

Present

“So I left,” she finished, downing the last of her wine as her eyes once more focused on the glow of the fireplace.

“That doesn’t make sense,” Bob said. “Why would they go to such extremes just so you would never admit to seeing them?”

Stephanie shrugged and met his eyes “I don’t know. I didn’t ask. I wasn’t willing to risk…” her voice trailed off as the horror of the day caught up with her. A shudder ran through her body. Taking a deep breath and releasing it slowly, she regained enough control to finish quietly, “ to risk any of them.” Her eyes betrayed her, though as they drifted to Ranger.

He was sitting perfectly still in his chair. His face was blank, but his eyes were a storm of emotion.

Before she could say anything to him, ask anything, Ranger suddenly stood up. His chair clattered to the floor and he turned toward the front door.

Ripping the door open, he stepped out onto the porch, leaving strained, painful silence in his wake.

To be continued in Part 6 - 034. Shadow

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