"Now, I'm not going to pretend, this is partly a punishment," Mac's mother tells him that night. Two o'clock in the morning, on the highway to Wisconsin; he'd like to sleep after a frenetic stint of packing, but he'd like answers more, and this will be his last chance at them for a while.
"You've been running wild ever since the car crash, and I think a little discipline is just what you need right now. I haven't been there for you like I should have been- and I am sorry for that, Angus, more than you know. But I'm not going to stand by and let you ruin your life- and I can't look after you properly, while I'm distracted by the shop sale. So you can get to know Nelson for a few weeks, while Allison and I settle things up here."
If he'd known how much taking her gun would upset her- if he'd stopped and thought about it, instead of giving way to the gang's entreaties- he'd never have done it.
(If he hadn't had an inkling this might be his last summer in Mission City with them, would he have ever done anything so dumb?)
"How," he'd said, glancing at the unconscious figure in the back, "does Jack fit into it?"
She snorts. "Any child who puts that much imagination into falsehoods needs to be kept in line. You wouldn't believe the lies he was telling me about the life he was living, before his Uncle Charlie found him. And even when he was telling the truth- for heaven's sake, Nelson Davies is a good man, and blood's thicker than water. Jack's deluding himself very badly, if he thinks he'd rather stay with the Forresters. They're not his family."
He's already saying the next sentence, before he's had time to process the implications of that last line. "What about his Uncle Charlie, though?"
"A criminal?" Ellen says, allowing herself a scandalised expression as she swerves past a slow-moving truck. (His mother's a very good driver. Always was better than dad- ouch.) "He's forfeited his right to care for an innocent. Now, I do understand Jack will have some trouble adjusting- so I'm going to be relying on you, Angus, to help him with that. Help him feel comfortable and secure. Show him that he'll have a family again."
The Forresters were doing a perfectly good job at that, Mac thinks, but he keeps that to himself. "Why me? Why not Allison?"
"Don't tell her I said this...but I think the whole family will get on better if Allison isn't around them at first. I never did count on having a psychologist for a daughter. Do you remember how many tests she tried out on you, last winter?"
"Sure. Loads of 'em." All of which he'd gone along with because it'd been his sister's own odd way of grieving. Anyway, they hadn't been that bad.
"I may not know much about adopting a child, but I'd rather we not scare him like that. Either of them. At least, not right away," she says, smiling.
Put that way, he can sort of see her point.
Sort of.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Jack wakes up slowly, the result of something between instinct and practice. Letting sounds wash over him while he drowses, feeling out his surroundings, is usually a smart move. A little extra rest never hurt anybody.
Particularly times like now, when he's trying to figure out why an upstanding pillar of the community like Ellen MacGyver would bother slipping him a mickey. Or rather, trying to think up an explanation that doesn't involve the man she's been seeing all summer, the one he's been working so hard to stay away from- but there's no doubt about it. This is Wisconsin. He's resting flat on a squeaky army cot with an all-too-familiar wheeze. His rucksack's gone missing.
In a sudden panic, he jolts up and looks around. Same whitewashed room all right (maybe the bars on the window look a little rustier), but the place is crammed full of somebody else's stuff. Plus, the somebody else it all belongs to.
Mac waves at him, puts down his book. Hands him a legal pad and a waxy red pencil.
Hey. Sorry about my mom. You okay?
Typical Mac terseness, that. Where's my bag?
His friend grins and opens a nondescript suitcase, revealing the fraying rucksack. Jack takes it with relief and has a quick rummage. Not that he doesn't trust Mac, but it's just as well to check that everything's there. It is.
I figured that Nelson might peek in your bag, if he saw it. Seemed safer, this way.
Good thinking. The watch he keeps tied to the zip is twenty-four hour military-style, the only working example from one of Uncle Charlie's stupider escapades (while they hadn't quite been run out of town for selling fakes, they had been rather strongly encouraged to leave. Sheriff said the only reason they weren't under arrest was that anybody stupid enough to buy 'em deserved what they got).
So he knows what time it is: fifteen hundred and a half, or just about the same time he'd fallen asleep eating cake yesterday. Geez, what did the woman do to him?
Still tired.
Seriously? You've been asleep a whole day!
Seriously. What's Nelson doing?
Reading in the study. He said for me to get him, when you woke up.
Well, let him sweat for a few more hours. Back in a tick, I need some water. See if you can figure out how to blow up the window, willya?
Mac sits back against the wall, fretting as Jack slips out. He'd only broken out the paper and pencil in case his friend was feeling particularly paranoid or insecure. The fact that Jack's taking all these precautions as read and is already plotting an escape plan suggests that they're in serious trouble.
What's the right thing to do here? Somebody's definitely having a disproportionate reaction here. His mom's not stupid, so maybe it's Jack who's bonkers. But then, the fact that the window would actually need to be demolished in order to get out of here, suggest he isn't.
Maybe both are true?
Mac sighs in frustration, and starts checking through the chemistry set he's brought along. Can't hurt to check, anyway...
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
"I'm going to get him back," Mike says.
"Oh, don't let your father hear you say that," Ruth says, twisting the telegraph in her hands; she's nearly shredded the paper to pulp. "You know how upset he is."
He is, Mike reflects. Quite aside from his own hurt feelings, about the only thing that can rouse her affable salesman of a dad to anger is somebody hurting his fragile wife. Mom isn't coping very well.
"I know he wouldn't have left us, on his own," she persists. "That telegraph's a lie is all."
"You really think so?" Ruth says With dubious hope, but hope for sure. Rereads it for the umpteenth time.
Sorry, I just couldn't stay any longer. You know me.
Jack
"Nelson Davies kidnapped him, I'm sure of it," Mike insists. "And I'm gonna prove it if it's the last thing I do."
Her mother grips her hands, tight. "You know, I never understood before...why you're like you are. Why you had to be so unfeminine. So relentless."
"Why I'm such a disappointment to you," Mike says, very calm. It's lain unspoken between for a long time now; there's no point objecting, as long as she insists on being herself.
"But this must be the reason," Ruth says. "That boyish curiosity, your insatiable thirst for trouble- Mike?"
"Yes, Mom?"
"Do anything you have to, to get him back," her mother says, and kisses her. "I'll help you any way I can. Home just isn't the same without him."
Mike steps out to start her investigations, with a sense of confidence she's never enjoyed before. She's going to make her mother proud.
Gosh, but this is novel.