Disclaimer: See Acknowledgements page

CHAPTER EIGHT

It was about 1:30 when Joe arrived with Margaret's husband. Dressed in jeans and a sports jacket, Nelson Grey was a large, burly man with dark eyes and a military style haircut. There was a small scar over his left eye. As he stepped off the elevator, the look on Nelson Grey's face showed he wasn't very happy about his wife disappearing again. As the two men emerged from the lift, Joe spoke. "Hey everyone, I would like you to meet Nelson Grey. Sonny, this is Duncan MacLeod." Duncan stepped forward to greet his guest, while Joe continued. "Over there is Richie Ryan. And Adam Pierson is the one on the sofa."
"How do you do, Mr. Grey?" the Scot said, shaking Nelson's hand.
"Please call me Sonny," he informed them.
"Alright Sonny, I'm Duncan. Please have a seat and make yourself at home. Can I get you anything? Something to drink maybe?"
"No, nothing right now," Sonny replied. "I would just like to know what's going on. What do the police say?"
"Well, we haven't notified the police yet," Duncan said hesitantly.
"You haven't notified them," Sonny said incredulously. "Why not? My wife's out there, lord knows in what kind of condition, and could be in trouble." He looked around at the men in the room, the anger at what Duncan had just told him showing in his eyes.
Duncan also looked around at the others and realized that they were going to allow him to handle this uncomfortable situation. Gee, thanks guys, he thought sarcastically. Then to Sonny he said, "I'm sure she's fine. We were trying to track her down ourselves before you got here."
Sonny eyed them suspiciously. "What are you, some kind of P.I. trying to shake me down for some money? Cause if you are, you can forget it."
"No, I'm not a P.I.," Duncan assured him. "It's just that we were trying to avoid all the red tape that goes along with a police investigation. You know how the police can be." Sonny nodded at this statement as if he knew exactly what Duncan was talking about. "All they'll do is keep an eye out for her and tell you to be patient. If you try to help, they let you know they don't appreciate it." He hoped this excuse would sound plausible to Sonny as to why they hadn't involved the cops. They couldn't very well tell him that is was because a crazed immortal was after his wife. So he decided to add, "And since we've had experience in this, we thought we could do a better job of bringing Margaret back safely to you."
Sonny seemed to accept this explanation. "Military, right?" he asked. "Yeah, you and your friends look like you put some time in. Well, maybe not the kid. Special Forces?"
"Something like that," Duncan replied.
"Marine myself. Two tours. Nothing like the military to make a man out of ya. Remember that kid." At this, Methos arose from the sofa and walked over to the refrigerator to retrieve a beer. He had had enough of so-called military life to last him 50 lifetimes. Of course, being over 5,000 years old, he had lived slightly more than 50 lifetimes. Sonny continued, "So what are you gonna do now? How do you plan to find her?"
"Well, we almost had her earlier based on what we knew about her, but she managed to slip away from us. We need you to tell us more about her, so we can get an idea of how she thinks."
"Need to know about her, huh. Well, Maggie and I were high school sweethearts, but right before graduation we had a fight and broke up. I enlisted in the Marines, while Maggie got a job as a waitress. Eventually, she saved some money and went to beauty college. She also took some self- improvement classes. Learned about art and literature, how to talk better, 'cause she wanted to get a job in one of those ritzy, high class shops. She needed to be able to talk to her customers. But she wasn't interested in that stuff. Bored her. No, when she went home, she liked to go to the neighborhood bar and just hang out with her friends. And she did get a job at one of those shops. Made real good money too." As Sonny talked about Maggie, they could hear the pride and love in his voice. "When I got out, I got a job with my uncle's trucking company. Ran into her one night and we got to talking. The old flame was still there and we started dating. Six months later, we were married. Everything was going good. We traveled around the country some. Didn't have any interest in going to any of those foreign countries. Anything ya need to see is right here in America. Saw some Broadway shows. Went to the Garden to watch wrestling. Maggie has a thing for the Masher. Then two years ago, we decided it was time to settle down and start a family. Bought a house and Maggie got pregnant. We were happy. Then she got...," Sonny's voice was overcome with emotion. "...raped. Lost the baby. Ended up in that hospital. She's just never been the same." The pain and sadness in Sonny's voice was evident. This man, no matter what they thought of him, really loved and cared for his wife.
"Tell me," Methos asked, "has she taken any self defense courses?"
"If she had, do you think that thing would have been able to do what he did to her," was Sonny's reply.
Duncan realized that they had gotten all they could from Sonny for the moment as he was too upset to answer any more questions. "Thank you, Sonny, you've been very helpful. Don't worry. We'll find her for you. Joe, why don't you take him to his hotel now. He looks as if he could use a nice rest."
Sonny extended his hand to Duncan. "Thank you. I really appreciate all that you've done so far. Thanks, all of you." With that, Sonny followed Joe to the elevator and they left.
"So Mac, what do you make of all that?" Richie asked.
"I'm not sure, Richie. Margaret has had classes in art, but Sonny says it bores her. Yet, when we went to the museum yesterday, she obviously enjoyed it. She even told us on the way home she hadn't had that much fun in a long time. Plus, she took Methos out with very little trouble, yet she's never had self-defense classes. It just doesn't add up."
"Well, it's possible the rape did something to her mind to change her," Methos said, adding his two cents, "which would explain why she now likes the world of art. As for her display in the alley, the mind is something we just don't understand. It's been known to give a person the strength to lift a car off a person when that person is placed in a life or death situation. That just may be what has happened there."
Duncan started to reply when the phone rang. Richie went to answer it. "Chuck. Hey, how's it going? So, whadda got for me." Richie signaled that it was his friend calling him back about the CD. He listened for a few minutes before he finally said, "Yeah, well thanks for checking for me. No, I told you it was just something someone told me and we had a bet on it. That's all. But if I ever do run across it, you'll be the first to know." Richie hung up the phone and walked back to the living room. "Well, according to Chuck, that CD doesn't exist. Said that he couldn't find anything where Campbell did a stint as a pop singer. Nothing. Nada. But he did tell me if I ever got my hands on a CD like that, it would be worth a lot of money."
Duncan and Methos just looked at each other. If anything, this whole mess was very fascinating.

It was almost four o'clock when Anna arrived at her destination. The house before her looked deserted. Since she didn't sense the presence of danger, she decided to approach it. Except for a minor difference here and there, the house was almost an exact duplicate of her own home. It was rather spooky in a way. As she neared the front door, she noticed another manila envelope with "FYI" printed on it had been taped to the door. She removed the envelope and opened it very hesitantly. Inside was a clipping from the local newspaper about Thaddeus Blake, a famous author who had resided in this very house and passed away two weeks ago. Anna didn't know why, but she somehow felt a kinship with this man. Also inside was a key, apparently to the front door. She tried it and the door opened.
Anna stepped inside and fumbled for the light switch. When the lights came on, she was even more amazed at the sight before her. Not only was the outside an almost exact duplicate, but so was the inside. Directly in front of her was the staircase leading upstairs. To her left was the living room, with its beautiful hardwood floor. It contained the same Victorian style settee and chairs sitting in front of the fireplace with a beautifully carved oak mantle. Over the mantle was a reproduction of "Starry Night" by Van Gogh. In front of the bay window sat a baby grand piano. To the far wall was a bookcase containing books by many of Anna's favorite authors. The only difference between this room and her living room was this room lacked personal photographs of family and friends.
The room next door was supposed to be the dining room, but just as Anna had done in her home, Mr. Blake had closed up the doorway from the living room and converted it into an office, leaving only the doorway to the hall as its entrance. However, unlike Anna's, this room did not have the sophisticated security system she had designed for her office to protect the classified work she did. But in every other way, this office was the same as hers. A large mahogany desk sat at the other end of the room. On the table next to it was a state of the art computer. Anna made her way over to the computer and turned it on. She easily hacked her way through all the data, but there wasn't anything on it except works in progress which the author never got to complete. Disheartened, Anna sat back in the big, comfortable chair to mull over her options. It suddenly dawned on her that for an author, this man had not installed any security measures to protect his work as it was easily accessible. This was strange because from what she had seen, it was obvious that the man knew a great deal about computers. So maybe this wasn't the only computer in the house. Maybe this was just a red herring. She would have to search the rest of the house starting with the basement.
It was then that Anna's stomach began to grumble. Well, that was understandable considering she hadn't eaten since dinner yesterday. She wondered if there was anything in the kitchen she could fix to eat. She doubted it since no one had lived in the house for the last two weeks. But then again, maybe Michael had thought to provide her sustenance so she could keep up her strength for this little game he was playing.
She got up and went out the door, turning left towards the kitchen. It too was a replica of hers. As she entered the room, she saw an oak mission style dining table that seated six. Beyond that was another large bay window with a padded window seat overlooking the deck. To her right was the door to the basement and the garage. To her left was the kitchen island area. Beautiful custom-made oak cabinets lined the walls with dark green ceramic tiled counter tops that matched the splashes of green in the wallpaper. A large, oversized black refrigerator sat against the far wall. Slightly to its left was the sink with a window overlooking the rose garden in the side yard. Along the adjacent wall was the matching black range. In the center of the room sat the island which, unlike Anna's, had been used many times to prepare meals and bake goodies. Sitting on it now was a can of tomato soup and a box of Ritz crackers. She walked over and opened the refrigerator. Inside was a pint of milk, fruit, and some pastry. Yep, Michael thought of me. Anna opened the cabinets and discovered that everything was exactly where she kept it in her kitchen. Taking out a pan, she opened the can of soup and heated it. After pouring herself a glass of milk, she poured the warm soup into a bowl and took her food to the table. Now she wasn't really a fan of tomato soup, but right now it really hit the spot.
When she was finished, she cleaned up the kitchen and headed for the basement. If it was anything like her basement, she knew it would have been converted into a family room. And it had. Along the wall in front of her was a very large entertainment center complete with a large screen TV, a VCR, and a CD shelf system. There was also a large collection of videos and CDs; however, this collection lacked the numerous children's videos she kept for the tykes that came to visit her. In the center of the room was a comfortable, overstuffed, but well-worn sectional sofa In front of it was a very large pine coffee table with various knick-knacks on it. Along the stairwell wall, a bar had been installed, well-stocked with both alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages. There was also a pool table and a dart board hanging on the wall. Across the room, there were two closed doors. She crossed the room and opened the first door discovering the laundry room. The second door opened to a storage room, but there was something different about this room. It was the far wall. There was something strange about the far wall. As she walked closer, she could hear wind whistling on the other side like in a tunnel. Anna saw that a section of the wall was fairly new. Upon further investigation, she realized this section was not really a wall at all but a door. Some type of secret door. She looked around for a triggering mechanism. After a few minutes, she found it and the door opened. As it opened, she saw a tunnel which automatically lit up.
Anna walked down the hall until she reached another door at the other end. She must be under the old stables that were behind the house. Opening that door, Anna entered a room with computer console and three monitors in front of it. She sat down at the console and turned it on. When she did, the monitors came on as well. Each monitor had a different scene on it with different people. Interesting. Anna turned her attention to the computer. This one was definitely more difficult to access, but not impossible. A short while later, she found a couple of files that interested her, so she sat back and began to read.