A/N: This is not a new story - some errors were pointed out to me so I just thought I should rectify them. Everything else pretty much as it was.
The Family Way
FBI Headquarters Manhattan
Jack Malone pored over paperwork in his office at in the Missing Person's Unit at F.B.I. headquarters in Manhattan. It had been a busy week but for once it had been a productive week. An elderly man had vanished from a retirement home upstate. He had been missing for three days and the staff and his team were presuming that he was lying dead somewhere. Amazingly he turned up at his old address on the third day, disorientated and confused and looking for his long since deceased wife. Despite his ordeal he appeared perfectly well. He was reunited with his very relieved sons and returned to the care of the retirement home. For the first time in weeks they had a positive outcome in a case.
For Jack, things on the home front were tense. Maria was planning on taking his daughters to Chicago and his father had just been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. His mind had wandered to his ailing father when his office telephone rang. He looked at the phone and considered not answering it for a moment. The rest of his team had left for the night, hours ago. He was about to leave himself. But something made him pick up.
"Yeah, Malone," he answered gruffly.
"Jack?"
"Dad? What's wrong?" Jack asked, realising how usual it was for his father to call him at work.
"Can you come over?" his father asked sounding flustered.
"Yeah, sure. I'm just finishing up here. I'll see you in a half hour," Jack said before hanging up.
He wondered what was bothering his father. These days it could be anything. Maybe he'd forgotten how to use the cooker, or he couldn't find the t.v. remote. Lately the calls were more cryptic and less urgent but none the less Jack packed up his files and grabbed his jacket and left the office. He hopped the subway and after a few stops came up within a five minutes walk of the retirement community where his father lived. He strolled to the building and let himself up to his father's apartment. Even though he had a key, out of respect he knocked before letting himself in.
"Jack, you're here," Frank Malone said with relief upon seeing him.
"I told you I was coming, Dad. What's the panic?" Jack asked.
"It's so awful. He's missing you know," he told him.
"Missing, who's missing, Dad?" Jack wondered as he removed his jacket and sat down on the sofa.
"Mary's grandson," Frank replied as if Jack should know who Mary was.
"Mary who? I don' know who that is, Dad," Jack explained patiently.
"Oh, my cousin Mary Daly, from Ireland," he said factually. "I haven't seen her in sixty years but we exchange letters and Christmas cards every year. She called me this afternoon. She was very upset. Her grandson, Ciaran, is missing. I told her that you might be able to help," Frank told him.
"Surely that's a matter for Irish law enforcement, Dad. There's not much I can do from here," Jack explained.
"No, Jack. He was here. She said he was on, wait a minute I wrote it down ….. on a J1 visa for the summer. I'm not sure what that means but he was staying here in New York," Frank explained further.
"Oh, alright. Give me some more details and I'll see what I can do. Are you sure he hasn't just gone touring around?" Jack asked.
"I don't know Jack," his Dad snapped contrarily. He was getting frustrated by Jacks questions.
"Alright Dad. Do you want me to make you something to eat?" Jack asked, realising that there was no point pushing it any further and knowing that his father probably hadn't eaten for hours. Frank nodded before turning on the t.v.
"Do you have Mary's phone number Dad? I can give her a call in the morning," Jack said as he rooted around in the refrigerator taking out ingredients to make a couple of sandwiches.
"Yeah, I wrote it down on the notepad on the kitchen table," Frank replied as he settled in to watch Judge Judy. Jack took the page from the notepad and put it in his shirt pocket. He turned back and made toasted ham and cheese sandwiches for each of them. They sat and watched t.v. together for a couple of hours. Jack helped get his father settled for the night before calling a cab and heading home to an empty apartment.
The next morning as he was getting ready to go to work, he put his hand in his jacket pocket and pulled out the note with Mary Daly's phone number in it. He recalled the vague conversation he had with his father the previous night. He sat on his sofa and reached for his telephone and dialled the Irish phone number. It would be close to lunchtime in Ireland about now, he thought. The phone rang a number of times before it was answered.
"Ciaran, is that you?" a female voice asked immediately.
"Eh, no, sorry. My name is Jack Malone. I'm Frank Malone's son. I work for the F.B.I.," Jack explained awkwardly.
"Oh, I'm sorry. I saw the American number come up and hoped it was Ciaran," she said sounding disappointed.
"Is that Mary?" Jack asked, thinking the voice sounded much younger than he had presumed.
"Oh, no. This is Fiona, I'm Mary's daughter. Ciaran is my son," she explained.
"Good, well you're the person I really need to speak to then," Jack replied. "First of all I need some personal details for Ciaran, full name, date of birth, last address, known associates, that kind of stuff."
"Yes, of course. Do you think you can find him?" Fiona asked desperately.
"I'll do my best," Jack promised, not wanting to raise her hopes too much.
"Thank you, Mr. Malone. His name is Ciaran James Kelly, his date of birth is January 15th 1990. He left Ireland on June 2nd to go to New York for the summer. He worked there last summer as well and loved it. Do you have e-mail, Mr. Malone? I can send you his address and anything else I can think of that might help," she offered.
"That would be great," Jack replied before giving her his e-mail address. "And it's Jack. Are you sure he just hasn't decided to move around, see some more of the country?" he asked.
"Positive. I know my son, Jack, and he wouldn't just vanish unless something had happened. He's a good boy, called in every Friday, kept in touch with his sister through Facebook. But he hasn't called in two weeks and there have been no posts in his Facebook account since then either. I'm so scared something awful has happened to him," she said trying to quell her emotions.
"Okay, Fiona, I'll get my team to look into this. I'll give you my cell phone and office number if you think of anything else," Jack said thoughtfully. He certainly could imagine what this mother was going through. Her only son was missing on another continent and she felt absolutely helpless. He decided that he would put all of his efforts into finding this kid. He said goodbye to Fiona and hung up. Looking at his watch, he realised that he was running late and hurried out the door and off to work.
A/N - For those of you wondering how to pronounce "Ciaran" I'll give you a hint - it's "Keer - awn".