Duncan wouldn't admit it, but he was surprised by the normalcy and frankly, niceness of the house. It was a large two story with a big front porch and toys in the front yard. A modest sign posted next to the steps read "McAlister's Home for Boys est. 1947". To the point there were a couple young boys in the yard playing and digging with toy trucks, several older boys playing basketball on the driveway and a steady stream of boys of all ages running in and out of the front door. As Duncan approached and crossed the yard the children didn't even seem to notice him, or if they did they weren't concerned by his presence. One boy, a rather small one with messy brown hair and fruit punch smudges on his face, ran face to stomach with Duncan as he ran out the front door.
"Oops!" was all he said before running out to join the impromptu construction project on the lawn.
Duncan knocked on the door, which was quickly answered by another fruit punch smudged face, this one with blond hair.
"You a social worker?" the little boy asked in disgust.
"No, but I am looking for the man in charge," Duncan replied trying to keep his voice light, a strange habit all adults seemed to pick up when around children.
"Hank's not here," the little boy told him. "He went to the grocery store."
"Who's in charge right now?" Surely there was more than one adult amid the sea of children.
"I am." Richie came from around the corner and put a protective hand on the boy's shoulder. "Go on out, Remy," he said steering the boy past Duncan and onto the porch. "What are you doing here?" he asked with a frown.
"I got a call from the city, your social worker seemed to think it would be a good idea for me to meet with Hank Johnston. Something about paying me back."
"Well, he ain't here." Richie did his best to appear disinterested in this new turn of events.
"Can I wait for him? I have an appointment."
"Hank didn't say you'd be coming."
"Yet here I am."
"No stwrangwrs!" a toddler pulled urgently on the leg on Richie's jeans. "Hank says."
"He's no stranger." Richie picked the toddler up. "Just strange." He turned and went into the house. "Come on in, if you're not leaving."
The inside was just as large as the outside hinted it would be. The staircase was blocked at the top and bottom by baby-gates, and the body of the house was open in one grand-room. The kitchen overlooked the eating area and play areas that were nearly indistinguishable except for a cluster of tables with chairs crammed around them. Though, at the moment the tables seemed to be serving as after-school desks for a small gathering of high school aged boys.
"Who's he?" one of the boys at the table asked looking at Duncan suspiciously.
"Shut up." Richie snapped as he held the giggling toddler upside down. "You done with your homework, yet?"
"What no talking?" the boy challenged. "This isn't study hall. You're not the principal."
"You're not done with yours." Another boy joined the fight, pointing at a stack of books and folders on the kitchen counter.
"Your point? I'm not the one failing freshman year, Charlie."
"Oooohh," the kids in the room said together.
"So you can talk and keep failing or shut up and mind your business," Richie said pointedly. Charlie ducked his head and mumbled under his breath. "I heard that."
Duncan was amazed at how much the seventeen year old sounded like an exasperated father ruling over a brood of roughly twelve, by Duncan's count, without breaking a sweat. Richie put the now red-faced and gasping toddler down on the couch where he toppled off in a fresh fit of hysterics.
"You wanna sit or something?" Richie gestured to the stained and battered couch. "I'd say we can go somewhere private, but I'm kinda babysitting."
"I'd say I'll lend you a hand, but you obviously have this under control," Duncan tried a compliment to calm the teens nerves. "You're good with them."
Richie shrugged and picked the baby up out of the play pen. He sniffed discreetly, then put the baby back down and put a squeaking duck within its reach. "I've had practice." He perched on the armrest of the couch with his feet on the cushions. "I'm just glad it's a light load."
"This is a light load?"
"Well, light-er," Richie amended. "Miguel and Jose got adopted last week." He craned his neck to check the kids outside then turned and did a check of those inside. "We're missing one," he mumbled to himself before checking again. Suddenly on alert, having come up short again he jumped to his feet. "Um..." he spun around in a little dance a panic and confusion. He grabbed a whistle off a book case and blew.
Well trained, like a modern, all male VonTrapp family, the boys got up and shuffled into the entry hall. The oldest all abandoned their homework and picked up the baby and toddlers as a small army marched in from the yard. There were eleven boys in the line. Richie looked down the line and his panic rose.
"Where the hell is Keefer?" he demanded.
"I dunno," Charlie looked around in bewilderment. "I thought he was playing trucks?"
Richie crouched down at the far end of the line where the elementary age boys were standing. "Did he go play trucks with you guys?" With guilty heads already hanging they nodded in unison. "What happened?" Richie asked gently, though his clenched fists told Duncan he was anything but calm.
"We didn't want him to," the boy who had plowed into Duncan confessed. "We told him to go away."
"Where did he go?"
"We don't know..."
Richie looked up at the boys who had been playing basketball. "Did you guys see anything?"
"Sorry, man. It was a pretty intense game."
Richie took a deep breath. "You guys," he pointed the ball players and homework doers. "Split up, take the walkies. You three," he pointed at the truck players. "Stairs." He took the baby from Charlie and led the toddlers back into the play area. With the baby on his hip and a walkie talkie in his free hand he looked at Duncan guardedly, yet pleadingly. "Can you watch them? They entertain themselves, really. Just make sure they don't do anything dumb."
"I've got 'em." Duncan turned his attention to the two boys playing with puppets on the floor. Richie disappeared out the backdoor with the baby to search for Keefer.
The search didn't last long. Keefer was found sulking in a tree down the block with a tear streaked face and running nose. As soon as the boy was found, life in the house returned to how it had been with the exception of three boys sitting on the stairs crying and in time out and a fourth licking his hurt feelings away with a Popsicle.
"Thanks." Richie sat back down on the armrest of the couch. "Hank should be back soon. We just got the checks and were out of a bunch of stuff."
"You handled that well." Duncan looked at the teen perched on the other end of the couch. He looked exactly like the thief that had broken into the store, but behaved like a completely different person. If Duncan didn't know better he would swear it was a different person. "You really are good with them."
"So what's the whole meeting about?" Richie changed subjects. "Me?"
"Apparently."
"You're not going to tell me?"
"I don't really know."
"You said it was about paying you back."
"Their words, not mine. Besides, you promised."
"I didn't promise; I offered," Richie said with a smirk. "Besides didn't your insurance cover the window?"
"Your social worker put this together, not me."
"You're interested, though."
"Curious," Duncan admitted.
"About me?"
"About the whole thing. How you got passed my supposedly state of the art alarm, why you did it in the first place, why a guy like you would do it ..."
Richie's face hardened. "What do you mean a guy like me?"
"You don't seem the type."
"How would you know?"
"You take responsibility seriously. You're focused on your school work. You have a good home."
"Ten minutes here and you think you know all that about me?" Richie scoffed at him. "Who are you Freud?"
"You're worried enough to do regular checks to make sure you know where every boy here is. You keep up with their academics, so you must care about your own. All the boys here look out for each other, you're obviously all close."
"Maybe I don't want to get my ass beat for loosing a kid, I'm forced to go to school everyday under threat of getting shipped to juvie, and maybe we're all each other's got."
"Or maybe you're not as tough as you like to pretend you are."
Richie regarded him carefully, then smirked. "I guess you'd know all about pretending, wouldn't you?"
Duncan couldn't help but smile. The kid had nerve. "I guess that's true."
He woke up to the dark that had become his home. It had been a long time since he had dreamed about Richie. It had been a long time since he had dreamed at all. It felt good to have a little company. If even for a short time. Hopefully the boy was being smart. Hopefully he had matured enough to know how to keep himself out of trouble. Hopefully.
. . . . . .
Richie woke up early, his cell phone alarm vibrating softly on the headboard. He silenced the alarm and mentally prepared himself before getting up. Today was the day. He had his plan set, in place, and he was ready. He'd been training extra with Connor. Their day to day relationship was still strained and tense. But, somehow, when they trained it was like before. They were calm, easy and got along. It was like the workout took all the tension they had towards each other. But as soon as they were done, as soon as they set foot back into the apartment, it was gone. They barely spoke, Richie ate in his room if he came home at all, and anything could set off a fight.
Not wanting to start one of their piratically legendary fights, Richie set his plan into motion at 5:30 am. Connor would already be out on his morning jog so Richie could get up and get out before he returned. Richie got up and dressed. Loose fitting jeans, a sweatshirt and running shoes, all brand new, all unrecognizable to anyone who may have been following him. After getting dressed he checked his bag, sword, flashlight, lock pick, cash, and gun. He slid a woollen ski-cap down around his ears and looked at himself in the mirror. He looked like a high-schooler out to ditch class. Perfect.
He slipped out the side door and took the long way around the block before settling in at the window bar at the coffee shop across the street. Sipping his coffee and pretending to read a video game magazine, Richie watched the street looking for any signs of who had been following him. Just five minutes before he usually left for class Richie spotted someone lingering at the bus stop. The man had waited through an entire cycle of buses and kept his post. The longer Richie watched him the easier it was to see this was his mortal stalker. The man routinely looked up at Richie's bedroom window and eventually changed positions crossing the street and pretending to window shop the antique store. When the man went on the move again, Richie jumped from his stool and hurried out the door.
He followed the man without crossing the street for several blocks. When he got the chance, Richie darted though traffic stopped at a light. He smiled to himself at how easy it was to follow a person without being detected in New York City. No matter where you were there was a throng of people to hide it. Just as long as you kept your eyes on whomever you were following you were perfectly camouflaged. Richie easily tailed the man down onto a subway platform, on a train, then off again at the exact stop the Watchers had all told him about.
Once on the platform Richie slid into a line waiting for the payphone and watched the mortal from the corner of his eye. He recognized Sladkie instantly. He froze for a moment, his heart racing and adrenaline pumping. He watched as the mortal confessed that he had lost his assignment. Sladkie grabbed him roughly by the neck and forcibly turned to mortal in Richie's direction. The three stared at each other. Richie's racing heart stopped and his mouth went dry. For all of his planning and self assurance that he was ready, he felt the same way he did that night when he broke into the antique store and was held at sword point. Sladkie took one step toward him and Richie did the first sensible thing he had done since the whole thing started:
He ran for it.
Sladkie pushed the mortal away and ran after him. The mortal regained his balance, pulled out a cell phone, and dialed. "He did it," was all he said when the line was picked up.
. . . . . .
Richie woke up with the worst, throbbing, headache he'd ever had. It was blinding. He struggled to sit up, but realized his hands and feet were bound. He settled for laying flat on his back, instead, and brought his hands up to massage his pulsing temples. He moaned to himself and lay there, grateful for the pitch black of the room. Any light at all would have just made the pain worse. After a couple of minutes the pain began to subside and he was able to think about more than how much he wished he was still unconscious. He slowly became aware of someone else in the room with him. Someone who was not tied up, as they sounded to be able to move around freely.
"Who's there?" called out, his voice sounding pitiful to even his own ears. He struggled to sit up again and this time a phantom pair of hands helped him lean up against the wall. "Thanks," he mumbled, leaning his head back.
"Are you alright?" the voice that belonged to the hands asked as the hands pushed back the ski-cap and felt his face like they were checking for a fever.
Richie swallowed. Even as gruff and weary as it was, Richie knew that voice. The touch was eerily familiar from the days when feveres were a concern to him.
"Rich?" the voice asked as he picked at the ropes around Richie's wrists, then ankles.
"Mac?" Richie asked into the dark.
"It's me."
Richie felt a body lean up against he wall next to him. Duncan sounded tired and worn. The passing years had not been good to him. Richie could tell that without being able to see him. The hands that had once felt so strong and confident were smaller, weaker than he remembered.
"I knew it."
. . . . . .
Joe hung up the phone and grabbed his jacket off the back of his chair. As he walked past the bar he spared a glace at Mike, getting ready to open for the evening.
"He's done it," Joe said.
"The kid did exactly what you thought he would," Mike nodded at him. "I owe you ten dollars."
"Lets just hope the rest of the plan works as well as this half did."
Joe left the bar and hailed a taxi to the airport. When Richie had come in demanding answers he knew it would be easier to let Richie do what he was planning instead of cluing him in to the investigation. When Walker called in and told Joe that Richie had made his move there was no time to waste. If Richie was right and Duncan was still alive then they had a little time to prepare. If Richie was wrong and Duncan was dead, then Sladkie would waste no time doing to him what he had done to Duncan.
At the airport Joe bought a ticket on the next flight to New York and called Connor from a payphone in the terminal.
"Richie's missing," Joe said as soon as Rachel got Connor on the line. "He tried to confront Sladkie on his own."
"When?" Connor asked urgently.
"This morning. Richie followed a Watcher we had planted who was working with Sladkie."
"He was spotted?"
"Sladkie got him. Our guy doesn't know where he took him. But I've got people on it."
"If Sladkie doesn't do it, I'll kill him myself for being so foolish," Connor vowed.
"If he lives through this he'll have been the breakthrough that gets Sladkie out of the game," Joe reminded him. "He's one of the few we've taken a stand against." The loudspeaker announced the boarding call for Joe's flight. "I'll call you when I'm in town."
. . . . . .
Connor went into Richie's room and began to search. Richie's desk held nothing but the usual lesson plans, project schedules and class notes. Under his bed was a stash of magazines, racing and otherwise and dirty laundry. Nothing between his mattresses, nothing behind the headboard... Frowning Connor searched it all again. Surely Richie had left something behind as to how he had tracked Sladkie and made his plan. Going through Richie's school things a second time he found a spare notebook mixed in with his class notes. Inside was page after page of passwords, secret codes and covers that the Watchers operated under. There were notes about files he had searched and whatever information he had gotten from the group. In the margins were keywords like "files" and "XXX"
Connor sat and read through the pages, hoping to find something Richie or the Watchers had missed. A clue to where Sladkie was hiding out, where he waited while the mortal followed Richie around town... anything. Something to clue him in to where Richie might be, or if he was even still alive.
Rachel came in and stood in the doorway. "Can I help?" she asked.
"Get out of town," Connor told her. "If his vindetta doesn't stop here you could be in danger."
"What are you going to do?"
"What I can to stop him. He's fight with Duncan was fair and legal. It should have ended there. He's gone too far."
She walked over to Richie's bed and made up the sheets and fluffed the pillows. "Can you take him?"
"I don't know. I do know that if he could take my kinsman Richie doesn't stand a chance. Not yet."