Chapter Two
"Where..." Mary said weakly a few hours later, opening her eyes to see the blurry form of a person sitting beside her. From what she could tell, the person had long blonde hair and she (Mary) had been moved from the parking lot she remembered being in last. Yeah, Mary thought, last thing I remember was being in the parking lot with...
"Danny!" a panicked Mary exclaimed, sitting upright immediately. Although her vision was clearing, her head was throbbing and a slight dizzy feeling overcame her as she tried to look around. Somehow, she had ended up on the couch in Ed's office with Delinda sitting by her side and Mike hanging about. "Where's Danny?"
"Shh." Delinda encouraged, putting her hands on Mary's shoulders. "It's okay. Try to relax, Mary." A smile crossed the blonde's features as Mary slowly laid back down. "It's good to see that you're awake though. The doctor didn't know how long you'd be out."
"Where's Danny?" Mary repeated, looking at Delinda.
"He's..." Delinda started but found herself trailing off. Feeling a new wave of sadness wash over her as she thought about her boyfriend, the blonde-haired woman closed her eyes and turned her head away. "We don't know where he is."
"Oh, God." Mary whispered in disbelief.
"Don't worry about it though, Mary." Mike reassured, walking over to join the two ladies. "Ed's already taken off to investigate some leads, so I'm sure that we'll have Danny back in no time."
Were his eyes even open? It seemed to Danny that he was awake, as his head felt like someone was taking a hammer to it repeatedly, but wherever he might be was far too dark to tell for sure. The only sound he could hear was air coming from a vent somewhere coupled with his own pained groaning. Putting a hand to his forehead, he closed his eyes tightly and tried to remember what had happened to him.
"Mary!" he suddenly exclaimed, sitting up right as the memories of being attacked in the parking lot suddenly came back to him. He looked around the darkened room, which was a useless effort, as he couldn't yet see anything. "If those bastards...MARY!"
Slowly getting up from wherever he had been laying, Danny gritted his teeth as his head let him know that it clearly disagreed with the idea. His arm outstretched, McCoy began exploring the room, trying to find any clue as to where he was or who had him. Anything that might help him escape and make those guys pay for what they had to done to him and especially to Mary.
Sighing in frustration, Ed leaned back in his chair and looked up as he heard the door to the room open. A prison guard entered, leading an older, male prisoner with dark hair inside. The man stared at Ed with a slight smirk on his face, and Ed stared back with a look of cold fury. The man in front of him was a criminal known the Professor, who both Ed and Danny had many encounters with in the past, and was Ed's number one suspect on the list of potential candidates for kidnapping Danny.
"You've got five minutes, Ed." the guard said, remaining inside the doorway. "That's all I could get you."
"Appreciate it, George." Ed nodded as the guard left the room, leaving the men alone.
"A bit surprised to see you here." the Professor remarked, sitting down on the other side of the table from Ed. The smirk still remained on his face and was irritating Ed more and more by the minute.
"Where is he?" Ed demanded, staring into the other man's eyes.
"Who?" a curious Professor asked, shrugging his shoulders.
"Don't play games with me." Ed warned, restraining himself from launching across the table and strangling the other man or beating what he wanted to know out of him. "Where is he?"
"I won't play games with you if you won't with me, Deline." the Professor replied, his smirk disappearing. "Who?"
"You honestly didn't have anything to do with it." a surprised Ed realized after studying the other man carefully for a few silent moments.
"Ah, I see." the chuckling Professor nodded, "Something's happened to Danny and, naturally, you think that I'm involved?"
"Is that really surprising?" Ed remarked, narrowing his eyes.
"No," the Professor admitted, leaning back in his chair. "But I'm honored that you would think that I could orchestrate something from in here. It's been a while since I've had that kind of pull."
"What about your buddy, Henderson?" Ed inquired, leaning forward as he remembered the Professor's accomplice in their last showdown: Bill Henderson, a disgraced senator with a personal vendetta against Ed. "I seem to remember you two being pretty tight when you pulled off the Ecuador gig."
"I haven't spoken to Henderson since then." the Professor spat, shaking his head. " Ever since I heard rumors that he was going to set me up to take the fall for that incident."
"Couldn't happen to a nicer guy." an indifferent Ed replied, getting up from his chair. "I'll let the guard know that you can be taken back to your cell." "However, in my opinion," the Professor continued, causing Ed to pause in his tracks. "I can't see him being able to pull something like kidnapping Danny Boy off from behind federal prison either." He looked into Deline's blue eyes. "We both know that he's not that smart."
"Yeah." Ed nodded, having to agree with that.
"Anyway, good luck, Ed." the Professor grinned, "And tell Danny that I meant what I said when I saw him last time: we WILL meet again."
"I will," Ed smiled back, heading for the door. "As I'm sure that he's looking forward to kicking your ass again."
"One more time..." Danny said to himself before throwing all of his weight against a portion of the wall, which he had figured to be a door. A possible exit hadn't been all he had discovered about the small room he was being kept in. His captors, whoever they were, had been nice enough to include a bathroom (really just a toilet in the space the size of a closet) which lit up whenever Danny walked in. Dim as it was, he had used this light to investigate the main room, which was bare except for a twin-sized, four-post bed. There was also a heater vent on the floor, but to Danny's disappointment, he probably couldn't even fit his foot in it if he did get the grate lifted up.
Sighing in defeat as the door didn't give way, Danny wandered back over in the darkness and threw himself upon the bed. He stared up at the ceiling as many questions rolled around in his still aching head. Who had him? What did they want? Was Mary all right? Where was Mary? Did anybody else know that he was missing? Was someone there for Delinda?
"Giving up already, Danny?" a mysterious voice asked from somewhere, immediately getting Danny's attention. A chuckle followed the question. "That doesn't seem like you."
"Hey!" Sam greeted, noticing Delinda sitting by herself at Opus. If the blonde-haired daughter of Ed had heard Marquez, she gave no sign of it, only continued staring what she could see of the busy casino floor. "Hello?"
"Huh?" a startled Delinda said, looking over. "Oh! Hey, Sam!"
"So I hear Mary's awake." Sam remarked, sitting down and trying to make conversation. "How is she?"
"Fine." Delinda replied, back to staring straight in front of her. "Worried about Danny."
"You are too." Sam realized, nodding her head.
"I can't help it." Delinda cried, leaning into her friend for a hug. Feeling wet tears soak through her shirt, Sam smiled gently and hugged her friend tightly. "What if they hurt him, Sam?"
"He'll hurt them a lot more than they'll hurt him." Sam promised, rubbing Delinda's back. "Danny's so strong, Dee, and he's smart too. If anyone can escape from these assholes, it's him. He'll be back with us in no time, you'll see."
"Wow." a surprised Delinda remarked, wiping her eyes as she sat up again. "Was that positive thinking I just heard from you, Sam Marquez?"
"No." Sam shook her head, "Never happened."
"Who the hell are you?" Danny demanded, sitting upright and looking around. Where was that voice coming from? "What do you want from me? Where's Mary?"
"Relax." the voice instructed as the lights in the room went on, momentarily blinding Danny. "All will be revealed to you in time." He could hear the door to the room opening, but it was still too painful to look. "For now, enjoy the food and company."
"Company?" Danny repeated as the lights lowered to a much more comfortable level. He opened his eyes again to see a woman about his age standing in the doorway, holding a tray full of food. His eyes widened in shock as he recognized her. "Penny?"
"And you're sure that this is where he lives?" Ed asked the person on the other end of his cell-phone as he pulled his rental car into the driveway of a two-story house in the suburbs of Los Angeles. "All right. It just didn't look like anywhere HE would live. Thanks, Frank."
Stashing his cell-phone in his back pocket, Ed got out of the car and headed for the front door. As he rang the doorbell, he looked around the neighborhood and noticed a young girl with black pigtails watching him from the sidewalk.
"Eddie!" Jack Keller greeted as he opened the door.
"Suburban life doesn't suit you, Jack." Ed replied, turning to face his former C.I.A. partner with a wide smile on his face. "Finally decided to settle down, did you?"
"Something like that." the dark-haired younger man shrugged, waving Ed inside. "Come on in! Let me grab you a beer or something." He closed the front door after Ed. "So what brings you out here to darken my doorstep?"
"I need your help." Ed replied as the two men walked to the nearby kitchen. "Danny's been kidnapped."
"Hmmm." Jack nodded, getting two cans of beer out of the fridge and handing one to Ed. "The Professor?"
"Already checked him out." Ed shook his head, "Unless he's running it from federal prison..."
"Not likely." Jack nodded, taking a swig of his beer.
"That's why I need you to come back to Vegas with me, Jack." Ed said, drinking his beer. "I have a feeling that I'm going to need your help, figuring out who did this." A smile crossed his face as he thought about his days with Jack in the C.I.A. "It'll be just like old times."
"I'm sorry, Ed." Jack sighed heavily, setting his beer down on the counter. "I can't."
"You can't?" a puzzled Ed asked before feeling his anger rise. "Why the hell not?" A possible explanation suddenly crossed his mind and he reached over and grabbed Keller by the shirt. "Don't tell me that you did this, you..."
"Yeah, I'm keeping Danny in my garage." Jack fired back sarcastically, throwing Ed's hands away from him. "I'm trying to turn my life around, Ed! Besides, why the hell would I kidnap the kid anyway? I, of all people, know better than to piss you off."
"I wonder about that." Ed growled, not backing down. "I also wonder why I thought that you could think of anybody but yourself!"
"What's that supposed to mean?" Jack exclaimed.
"How many times have I saved your skin, Jack?" Ed shouted angrily, "Who was nice enough to let you off for that whole deal in kidnapping my wife and daughter last year?" He shook his head. "I should have just let the authorities take you!"
"How dare you come in my house and insult me!" Jack shouted back, motioning towards the door. "Get out of here! And don't let the door hit you on the way out!"
"You mother..." Ed started before the pair heard footsteps.
"Daddy?" the little girl Ed had seen outside asked, looking at Jack. "What's going on?"
To be continued...