"Daddy?" a stunned Ed repeated, turning from the little girl to Jack. "Who..."
"Go outside, Catarina." Jack ordered, looking at the little girl. "Daddy and his friend are just having a little disagreement."
"Okay." the little girl smiled, "I love you, Daddy."
"Love you too." Jack smiled back, watching the little girl go back outside. Letting out a heavy sigh, the dark-haired man turned back towards Ed. "That's why I can't go with you."
"Who is she?" a curious Ed asked.
"A few years ago, I was living in Rio de Janeiro." Jack explained after taking another swig of his beer. "Long story short, I met a local girl after a night of drinking and bam! Nine months later, unbeknownst to my knowledge, Catarina was born." He let out another sigh and looked at the floor. "Her mother was killed in a car wreck a year or so ago, and the family didn't want her, so they looked me up."
"Damn." Ed muttered, shaking his head. "Poor little thing."
"Yeah," Jack nodded, "So that's why I can't go with you on this, Ed. I'm all she's got left and if something were to happen to me..."
"I understand." Ed reassured, smiling widely. "I'm sorry for saying what I did earlier." He laughed and shook his head. "I can't believe that I'm seeing this. Jack Keller actually taking responsibility and acting like an adult for once?"
"Watch it, old man! I could still take you." Jack laughed, clinking his beer can against Ed's. Once the laughter from both men died down, Keller looked sincerely at his former partner. "I will keep my ear open though and see if my sources have heard anything about the kid."
"Thanks, Jack." Ed replied, hugging his friend tightly.
"Penny?" a surprised Danny asked, "What..."
But McCoy had no time to finish his question. Before he knew what was happening, two large men came into the room from behind Penny and almost immediately forced him back down into a laying position. Feeling one of the men grab his right ankle, Danny tried to fight back, but it was to no avail as the two men were much larger and stronger than he was. As he heard a clicking sound, he looked down to see that the men had handcuffed his right ankle to the bedpost.
"Thanks, guys." Penny said as the two men got off of Danny and headed back outside. As the door slammed shut behind them, the brown-haired woman walked over to Danny's bedside and set a tray of food down across his lap. "Here you go! Eat up."
"What the hell are you doing here?" Danny demanded, not touching his food. "Are you the one holding me here? Where's Mary?"
"One question at a time!" Penny chuckled, sitting down next to him. Danny scooted away from his ex-girlfriend. "Mary's just fine. Ed and Mike are probably taking care of her as we speak." She smiled at him. "And no, I'm not the one holding you here."
"How'd you get out of prison anyway?" Danny asked, pulling his foot away from the bedpost in an effort to break the restraint.
"Crimes like mine don't get much jail time anymore," Penny shrugged, "especially with prisons being overcrowded as they are." She turned a sympathetic eye towards his foot. "That's not too painful, is it? I was trying to get them not to..."
"It's fine." Danny interrupted, not believing that she was concerned in the slightest.
"You should really eat something." Penny encouraged, nodding her head at the sandwich on the tray. "You'll need your strength, Danny."
"Not hungry." Danny replied firmly, pushing it away. "If you're not the person holding me, then who is, Penny, and what do they want from me?"
"It's not you they're after." Penny sighed, looking at the floor. "It's Ed."
"Hey!" Mike greeted as Ed walked back into the surveillance room a few hours later. "Mr. D.! Good to see you!"
"Any progress on finding Danny?" Ed asked, walking over to his employee.
"We managed to trace the phone call to your office." a wheelchair-bound man named Mitch said from where he sat next to Mike.
"And?" an excited Ed wondered, looking between the two men.
"It came from right in the middle of the Pacific Ocean." Mike regretfully reported, causing Ed's excitement to vanish instantly. "How'd your leads go?"
"I had similar luck." Ed shook his head.
"Damn it!" Mike swore, banging his fist against a nearby desk.
"How's Mary?" Ed asked, desiring a change of subject.
"Good." Mike nodded, "I checked her into a room to get some rest. Delinda's up there now, keeping an eye on her."
"Good." Ed replied with a single nod.
"That's odd." Mitch commented, looking at his computer screen momentarily before turning to Ed. "Corporate just forwarded an e-mail specifically addressed to you."
"Probably just junk mail." Mike waved off, "Go ahead and trash it."
"Or it could be a clue about Danny." Ed pointed out in a rare sign of optimism. "Why don't you go ahead and open it, Mitch? No harm, no foul, right?"
"Right." Mitch nodded, doing as Ed commanded. "Looks like a link to a website."
"Bring up on the monitor." Ed ordered, walking over to the biggest screen in the surveillance room. As Mitch clicked on the link, a video player immediately launched, showing a night-vision shot of Danny sleeping. "That sick mother..."
"At least it looks like Danny's okay for now." a relieved Mike interrupted.
"A bit of much-needed good news." Mitch nodded in agreement.
"It'll be better news if we can bring him home." Ed sighed, turning towards his office. "See what you can do with that e-mail address, Mikey."
"You got it, Mr. D." Mike replied as he and Mitch immediately started typing furiously on their keyboards.
Not a bit surprising to him, Ed entered his office to find the phone on his desk ringing off of the hook. Deline had been prepared for this ever since he had told Mitch to open the e-mail.
"Deline." he greeted gruffly, suspecting who was on the other side.
"Did you get my e-mail, Eddie?" the same mechanically disguised voice from before taunted, "I thought you'd enjoy that video clip."
"What the hell do you want?" Ed demanded.
"Revenge."
"Revenge?" Ed repeated, readjusting in his seat. "Look, you sick freak, if it's revenge against me you want, come after me! Leave Danny out of it."
"Relax, Ed." the voice chuckled, "Danny Boy is safe for now, but even I don't know how long that that will last."
"What's that supposed to mean?" a worried Ed asked before hearing a click followed by a dial tone. "Hello? HELLO?" He threw the phone down in disgust. "Son of a bitch!"
"Mr. D.!" an anxious Mike exclaimed, running into the room. "The website just went down!"
"God damn it." Ed muttered, closing his eyes. Although he wasn't a particularly religious man, the gray-haired man found himself silently praying for the safety of one Danny McCoy.
"Wakey wakey, eggs and bakey!" the voice ridiculed, waking Danny up. Yawning, the brown-haired man looked around the room, but, like last time, couldn't find the source of the mysterious voice. Had the last time only been a few hours or a few days ago? McCoy wondered, hating the fact that he wasn't able to tell time from his darkened prison. "I'm curious, Danny Boy. Shouldn't Ed Deline have come to save you by now?"
"If I were you," a defiant Danny replied, getting to his feet. "I wouldn't be so eager to have Ed show up and kill me. Whoever you are, your time is running out." A laugh escaped him and he shook his head. "You were a freaking idiot to think that you could get away with this in the first place."
"I see that you still have your spirit." the unfazed voice replied, "Let's see if that's still the case after you suffer through a few days without food, water or light."
"Bring it on." Danny challenged, clenching his hand into a fist.
"Were you even planning on coming home tonight?" Jillian asked, dragging Ed's attention away from the papers he was looking at. His blonde-haired wife flashed a small grin at him as she walked over behind him and rubbed his shoulders. "It's three in the morning, Eddie. Were you planning on staying here all night?" She lightly smacked him in the back of the head. "And you better have a good excuse for blowing off dinner with the Carmichaels."
"I'm sorry, honey." Ed apologized, realizing that he was supposed to have had dinner that previous night with Jillian's friend from high school. He sighed and looked up at his wife. "Danny and Mary were attacked in the parking lot this..." He glanced at the clock. "Yesterday morning, and Danny was kidnapped."
"Oh my God." Jillian gasped, putting a hand over her mouth.
"Yeah." Ed nodded, rubbing his brow wearily. "I've been working non-stop on trying to find out who did this, and where they're keeping him."
"How's Delinda holding up?" Jillian asked, worried about her daughter.
"She's as well as can be expected." Ed replied, closing his eyes as his wife resumed rubbing his shoulders. "We all are. Anyway, she's up in a room with Mary, waiting for any news I can give them about Danny."
"And how is Mary?" Jillian wondered.
"A bit shaken up, but she'll be all right." Ed informed as Mike entered the room.
"Mr. D.," he reported, nodding his head towards the surveillance room. "The camera's back on, and Danny's actually up and moving about."
"Really?" Ed said, exchanging glances with Jillian, which told her to stay there until he returned. As he head into the other room, he could see the same night-vision shot of Danny in the small room. However, Mike was right and, unlike the previous time when he had been sleeping, McCoy was up walking around, pushing the walls in various places.
"What's he doing?" a puzzled Mike asked, watching his friend.
"He's checking the walls for weak spots." Ed realized after silently watching the monitor for a moment. His voice swelled with pride when he spoke next. "That's my boy."
"Damn it." Danny growled, kicking the wall in frustration. There had to be a way out of this hellhole of darkness and no sound except for the air coming through the vent! He had no way of knowing how long he had been trapped in there, but he knew that it had been long enough. As his stomach rumbled, McCoy wished that he had eaten that food that Penny had brought him before he had been dumb enough to challenge whoever was holding him, thereby revoking any chance of food and water for the next few days.
Throwing himself onto the bed, Danny stared off into the blackness, trying to figure out who might have done this to him. It's not like he or Ed was short on enemies, thanks to their wor at the Montecito and Ed's past, but only a handful of them could have pulled something like this off. In addition, the two names on the top of Danny's list, the Professor and Bill Henderson, were supposed to be in jail.
"Not like being in jail's every stopped him before." Danny chuckled to himself, thinking about the Professor. He liked to imagine just how much more peaceful his life may have been if he hadn't gone after the older man after Ed and Nessa had originally conned him. But no, Danny thought, I had to go and con him myself a second time. Draping his arm over his eyes, Danny could picture the last time he had seen the older man. It had been in the temple in Ecuador and, thanks to Danny, a very battered and bloody Professor was escaping out of a back door before Danny and Mike could get to him in time.
"No!" an angered Danny called out, ignoring his own injuries and running towards the door as it started to close.
"Another day, Danny." the Professor promised with a firm look just as the door closed, separating the two men. Not willing to give up, McCoy banged on the object a few times with his healthy, left hand. Eventually, he quit with a sigh of defeat and turned away.
"Another day." Danny had whispered in agreement.
Allowing the arm draped over his eyes to fall back to the side, Danny clenched his other fist and he stared up at the ceiling. Professor or not, McCoy swore to himself that he would make whomever had kidnapped him and attacked Mary in the parking lot pay for what they had done.
"I've been thinking, Mr. D." Mike commented quietly to Ed as they both continued to watch Danny on the monitor in the surveillance room. The bald, African American man turned physically towards his employer, not wanting others to overhear. "You think that the Professor could have done this? I mean you know that he and Danny have it out for each other."
"I've already checked into it." Ed reassured, glancing at Mike. "And unless he's running this from behind bars, which I doubt, it's not him." A thought crossed the graying-haired man's mind and he clenched his own hand into a fist. "But you know what you could do? You could check into some of our other friends and see what their status is. Start with Henderson and that punk Leo."
"You got it, Mr. D." Mike nodded, immediately heading to his computer.
"We're going to find you, kid." Ed promised, turning his attention back to the monitor and Danny. "Just hang in there."
"Almost 24 hours now." Mary quietly commented to herself as she watched the sun begin to emerge from where it had seemingly been hiding behind the Las Vegas' skyline. Clutching a pillow to her chest, the redhead wondered what hells her best friend had suffered through since they had been attacked.
"Do you want some tea?" Delinda interrupted quietly, walking in from the next room. Wiping her eyes, the blonde-haired woman only hoped that Mary hadn't heard her sobbing with worry over her boyfriend as that was the last thing the sick with worry Connell needed. Despite the fact that she herself wanted to do nothing but sob, Delinda knew that Mary would need a friend who was strong to help her get through this. "I made some tea if you want it."
"I'm so sorry, Delinda." Mary apologized, wiping her nose as she slowly turned away from the window. She shook her head. "This isn't fair to you."
"What's not fair?" Delinda asked, sitting down next to her.
"It's your boyfriend that was kidnapped." Mary explained with an embarrassed blush. "You should be the one that's falling to pieces right now, not me. It's not fair that I..."
"It's more than fair!" Delinda interrupted, hugging Mary tightly. "You've known Danny practically your whole life, Mary! He's like your brother, so it's perfectly natural for you to be worried about him like this. Daddy and Mike will get him back! You'll see."
"I'm glad that you're here, Dee." Mary sniffed, hugging her back. "And you're right. Danny's going to be all right." The pair broke their embrace, but Mary let her hands remain on Delinda's shoulders. "He's got everything to fight for right now."
"That he does." Delinda nodded in agreement.
To be continued...