Chapter IX: Chicks in Prison

Shawn was completely oblivious to the time of day or night. He finally fell asleep when he couldn't hold his eyes open anymore and his arms finally went numb. There had been a brief glimpse of daylight when he was dragged in a drug-induced stupor to a van. He drifted in and out of consciousness for what seemed like forever in the darkened cargo hold of the vehicle but he didn't recall being moved from the van to the room he was in now. The creak of a metal door and a shout jerked him awake. He had been drifting in and out sleep, not sure if his dreams were real. He wasn't positive about the grating noise of the door but the recognition of the man's voice that he heard pulled him out of the stupor. He was slumped over to his side and struggled to right himself, blinking to see those who had entered the once dim room that was now flooded with light.

His eyes were still trying to focus when a loud 'oof!' was emitted from the body that dropped beside him. "Well, buddy, here we are again—in trouble together," the other person said.

"Kevin," Shawn sighed, trying to look up at him. Even though he had assumed that this didn't involve Kevin, he wasn't surprised. And neither was Kevin. The big man had a slight arrogant streak and had assumed that he was taken to get back at Therese or Shawn. Recognizing his attacker, he figured this was about Therese but hoped the abductor was only a mercenary. While he was comforted by being with his best friend, a nervous feeling began to develop in his gut—Therese was definitely the target and, from Shawn's presence, so was Stephanie.

The lights dimmed again as the door banged shut without another word from those who had shoved the big man in. Kevin shouted a curse at the door that involved something about an object being shoved in a very inappropriate place. "Nice to know you're still feeling fine," Shawn said with a laugh. God, it was good to have his best friend there.

"Fine? If that's what you call a splitting headache, numb hands, and aching arms, then, yeah, I'm fine."

"What did we do this time?" Shawn asked with a slight smirk.

"I don't know but I think it involves Steph and Therese," Kevin replied with concern.

"And you don't think we were taken for our own punishment?"

"No because I know who kidnapped me," Nash replied. The surprised look on Shawn's face evoked the answer from the question he couldn't articulate.

"Anything else you want to share about your wife?" Michaels asked, finally finding the strength to care about working his arms back to life.

"Oh, that's none of your business," Kevin chuckled and wiggled his eyebrows.

"Did you see the other guy? The one that took me?" Kevin shook his head in response."I feel like I should know him but I don't," Shawn continued, shaking his head and trying to roll his shoulders.

"Me too," Kevin added, imitating his friend's movements.

"You know where we're at? One minute I was in my hallway and, the next, I'm in something like a basement. The guy drugs me, shoves me a van, and, voila," Shawn explained, shrugging his shoulders as if to indicate the cold room they were in.

"I think we're in some warehouse somewhere. That igit had me in some dark basement or something too." Kevin's abductor had cut the ties on his feet, held a gun to his back, and escorted him up a set of dark stairs. Once at the top, he was blindfolded and pushed to what he assumed was a van since he fit in comfortably. The barrel of the gun never left his back. The blindfold wasn't tied all that tight and had slightly slipped down over one eye. He strained to see outside the windows but they were tinted and his view obstructed. A glance of the grey warehouse was caught before he was dragged out of the van by both men, jerked into the building, and manhandled into Shawn's 'holding cell.' "From the looks of it, I think we're in a run-down carpet mill and this," he gestured with his shoulders as well, "is the office." After a couple of moments, Kevin added, "I've got to piss like a racehorse. That's not to mention, I'm starving. They fed you yet?"

Shawn could only shake his head and laugh. Nash was taking this better than he was, or humor was his only defense.

Stephanie scrutinized another outfit before carefully folding it and packing it in her suitcase. She couldn't wear just anything, rendering many of outfits useless for this trip. The VP had smartly checked with a travel agent to learn that the majority of Turkey wouldn't accept anything above the knee or the elbow. While she didn't agree, she was at least respectful of their traditions. Trying to figure how much to pack was the next problem. A couple of days could be too optimistic and a week just depressed her.

"That's pretty," Dinah announced, rolling off the pillow on the bed and fingering a brilliant flower-print sundress.

"Thank you, sweetheart," she replied, stroking the girl's hair and imagining her own child helping her pack one day.

"Are you going to get my daddy and Uncle Shawn?"

Stephanie paused for a moment, unsure what to say. They had told her nothing other than what she had overheard and put together. "Yes, sweetie. They're waiting on me and your momma."

"Can I come? If I ask Momma, she'll say 'no' but, if I ask you," the little girl explained with a wink.

Wow, she was smarter than Stephanie realized. "Well, I'm gonna have to side with your momma on this. Besides, you wouldn't want to go. Airplanes are stuffy and the ride is so long."

"Like when we go to Six Flags?"

Stephanie chuckled. Six Flags was about thirty minutes from the Nashes' home. "Worse."

Dinah made a disgusting noise in the back of her throat. "Well, if you just bring my daddy home, I guess it'll be okay."

Children understood more than adults gave them credit for. "No problem, sweetheart."

"Momma says I can't go up and down the stairs without a grown-up but I know I can. I'm getting big but Momma says it doesn't matter and I don't want to get in trouble. Will you hold my hand?" she asked, holding out a chubby arm.

Stephanie took Dinah's hand, her heart breaking over the want of her own child. The two found Therese still working on her computer, Lily cradled in her lap with a bottle in the infant's mouth. The older daughter raised up on her tiptoes to kiss the baby and then streaked out of the office into her own room, intent on the Lord knew what. "I'll never understand her," her mother muttered, never looking away from the screen. "Unlike her father. They've got this weird father-daughter bond."

"She's taking this well."

"For all she knows, he's away on the road 'rasslin'."

"I think she knows more than we assume," Stephanie replied and looked over Therese's shoulder at the computer screen. "I thought you said you didn't think Bischoff was involved."

"That doesn't mean I didn't call in any favors to stake out his house."

"And?"

"Nothing. He hasn't moved beyond going to the grocery store yesterday. He bought wine, which I find highly suspicious," Therese explained, glancing over her shoulder at Stephanie, who raised her eyebrow in questions. "Either it's a celebratory bottle or he found himself a chick in prison."

"I thought he was married."

"She filed for divorce about a year into his sentence."

"Why do you know all of this?" the brunette suspiciously asked.

"It got around RAW and Kevin mentioned it. That's all! I'm not stalking him." Therese shifted Lily to burp her and Stephanie immediately reached for her, carefully placing the towel on her shoulder beforehand.

"You come up with anything from my side of this?" Steph asked, thumping Lily's back.

"Not really."

They had talked on Sunday after the girls were down for the night. Stephanie always had a list a mile long of those who would like to hurt her. It came with the business. It was the same for Shawn and Kevin, but they were a-whole-nother ball game. In regards to the dark-haired VP, Triple H and Vince McMahon were top of the list. Triple H hadn't gotten over the sting of being suspended last year and he made it very clear any time she showed up at RAW. No threats on her life or Shawn's had been made, even though Hunter had given Shawn a good beating the next week after he, read that 'he and his buddies', had thrashed Kevin the night Lily was born. The threats may have been not been said and then kept for this moment. Even if Hunter himself hadn't gotten his hands dirty, which was very much like him, he could have hired just about anyone to do it. Taking Kevin would be a little taste of revenge on his ex-best friend who had once taken his title.

Then there was Vince McMahon, who made threats so often that nobody took him seriously. Speaking of cover-ups, that would be a good one. He never made good on his threats, so why would anyone suspect him of doing so now? He had been so angry at the board for voting Stephanie in the position of Executive Vice President of Television Production. The things he had said to the board members… If he was going to attack someone, it seemed logical that he would start with the members who had voted for her. It was their fault and then he could replace them with someone who held more of his predilections. Or go to the root of the source—his own daughter. However, he hadn't acted as angry towards her as much as he had when she hired Captain America. But, then again, if he wasn't threatening her life, who would suspect him? But where did Therese and Kevin fit in? Kevin had once embarrassed the hell out of him by jumping ship to WCW upon its premiere and Therese had kicked his ass the one night he ousted Stephanie from her office during the Captain America incident.

Recently, Stephanie had stood her ground to the Rock and embarrassed him enough to have him stalk out of the ring, swearing to never step foot in a WWE ring again. Vince went off on her and managed to smooth over the situation and put the WWE and the Rock back on a tentative relationship. Angle and Jericho were always at odds with the foremost diva of wrestling. Angle was going psycho on women and she put a quick end to it by signing some embarrassing matches for him. Jericho was just Jericho. It seemed that every time she showed up, he focused solely on making her life miserable. But there seemed to be no particular incident to push him over the line. But still, Kevin was not a factor in the relationship beyond Jericho's inability to get past him to Shawn and a smattering of incidents from their early days together in WCW.

Stephanie couldn't recall firing anyone that took it bitterly, or enough to do something about it. However, she had already called the office and asked that a list of fired employees be sent by fax. The document hadn't arrived by Monday evening and Stephanie was beginning to threaten to fire someone.

"The fax hasn't come?" the VP asked as she continued to pat Lily's back.

"Nope and I checked the machine again an hour ago and it's working fine."

"So, it could be anybody that we've talked about?"

"Could be," Therese sighed.

"Any chance Colin Jenkins escaped from prison?" the brunette asked. "He's got the best motive for abducting them to get back at us if anybody does." At his name, Stephanie always shivered and Therese's thigh seemed to involuntarily convulse. Yes, the man hired by Bischoff to stalk and physically and emotionally threaten Stephanie would be the first suspect. The man who then freaked out and put two holes in Therese would only heighten that suspicion.

"You know both of us are on automatic notice if his status changes. He didn't get parole last month or we would have gotten a letter. If he escaped, the FBI or somebody like that would be staking out our houses after notifying us."

"Did Sharon ask any questions about taking the girls?" Stephanie asked, still pacing and patting the baby. Finally, a burp that could rival one of the guys was elicited from Lily.

"No," Therese said through a giggle at the sound coming from her child, "but I could feel that look of pity over the phone. I think she thinks that our marriage isn't going so well. Some days I think Kevin tried her patience so much as a kid, that she's grateful for a well-behaved niece, even if her grand-niece isn't always so."

"Are the girls packed?"

"I'm not even ready," the blonde answered, not looking up from the computer and hitting print.

"You've not packed yet?" Stephanie asked with incredulity.

"I lose all network connections once we step foot in that airport," Therese gestured at the monitor and then waved a dismissive hand. "I can throw a suitcase together faster than you can choose an outfit for the day."

Stephanie glared at her. "I've been getting better."

"If you ever have kids, wardrobe will be the last thing on your mind," she replied, picking at her sweatpants and over-sized t-shirt that had a drying patch of drool on the shoulder.

"I'll put her," Stephanie looked down at a sleeping Lily with a loving gaze, "to bed so you can pack." Therese nodded, rose from the leather chair, and kissed in the infant on the forehead. She just had to bring Kevin home safe, if not for her, for Lily and Dinah. Stephanie was thinking the same thing of getting Shawn returned safe. It's not that she just wanted children, she wanted them with Shawn.

TBC…