Woooo! Chapter four! Wonder what happened to MacGyver? ;)
Don't own anything to do with the show.
"Mac?" Jack called as he opened the door to the house, gun drawn. He had received Penny's distressed call, and he heard her say something about a house she had inherited, but before he could get any other information out of her, he heard her yell Mac's name, and the call was dropped. Jack had immediately called Riley and had her trace Mac's phone to a small house in Wrightwood, CA. Once they knew where he was, Matty had given him permission to use one of the choppers, and they had made the trip in thirty minutes.
"Mac!" Jack yelled again. He moved cautiously down the hallway, but paused as he saw something on the floor. A splintered picture frame with shattered glass was littering the floor by the wall, but no one was around.
There was a room at the end of the hallway with the door closed, and Jack made his way towards it, moving as quickly as he could with safety. When he reached the door, he gently tested the handle, finding it locked. Jack took a deep breath as he took a step back, then he lifted his foot and rammed it into the door, just underneath the handle. The door buckled and fell in, and Jack charged into the room with his gun out in front of him.
"Mac?" Jack asked as he crept around the bedroom, seeing no sign of his young friend. He crept towards the large closet door on the wall, reaching out and grabbing the handle. He pulled it open, and his heart leapt in his throat when he saw MacGyver, along with another man, tied up with duct tape on the floor, both of them unconscious.
Jack did another quick look around the room; he heard the rest of the men who had come with him begin fanning out to search the house, and he figured it was safe to holster his weapon; he had cleared the room he was in, and backup was now inside. He stuck his gun back in his holster and knelt down next to the blond. Mac's forehead and cheek had large bruises on them, and Jack felt his anger begin to rise when he saw the angry red marks on his partner's neck, indicating someone had tried to strangle the kid, with their bare hands by the looks of the marks.
"Mac?" Jack said quietly at first, then slightly louder when he got no response. The blond groaned and shifted his head slightly, but his eyes remained closed. "C'mon bud," Jack said, lightly slapping the kid's cheeks. Finally MacGyver's eyes opened, and he looked around in confusion. "Welcome back, kid," Jack said as he reached down and pulled the tape off Mac's mouth.
"Jack?" Mac croaked in confusion. He distantly remembered him calling to Penny to call Jack, but he hadn't been sure if she had actually been able to do it. It would seem like she had. "Penny!" Mac suddenly remembered, sitting up quickly.
"Careful," Jack said, putting his hand on Mac's shoulder. "She's not here," he said in a serious tone. "What happened?"
"Um...she came to my house wanting help with someone who was stalking her," Mac said, squinting his eyes as his head pounded with the rhythm of his heart. Jack pulled out his knife from a spot on his belt and sliced through the tape around Mac's hands. "Thanks," Mac said. Jack held out his hand, which Mac accepted, and the older agent hauled the younger man to his feet, holding his hands out to the side as Mac swayed slightly. "I'm fine," Mac said, trying to wave Jack's mother-hen mode away.
Jack stared at him skeptically, but realized he should probably figure out who the other occupant of the closet was. "And our friend here, was he the stalker?" he asked.
"Uh, he was one of them," Mac confirmed.
"Wait, one of them?"
"Well, we thought there was only one," Mac explained. "We weren't expecting two people to be sneaking around Penny's house," he defended. "I took this guy down, but then the second guy showed up and complicated things."
"Do you know who the second guy was?" Jack asked.
"His name is Jaq," Mac replied, rubbing his head and clearing his throat. "He's Penny's theater director," he added.
"Got it," Jack said. "I'll call Riley and have her get anything she can on him. Did you happen to catch his last name?" he asked as he pulled out his phone and hit Riley's contact info.
"Didn't catch one," Mac admitted. "How many Jaqs can there be in a small town though?"
0-0-0
"'Kay, thanks Ri," Jack said before he hung up the phone. He walked over to MacGyver, who had been led to the couch and instructed to sit there and not do anything. Of course, Mac wasn't following those orders completely; he had found a wire on the floor and was currently fiddling with it, molding it into what looked like a mask shape. "Hey," Jack said as he stood in front of MacGyver. "Just got off the phone with Riley, and she was able to find Jaq. She got his address and we sent a police squad over there, but when they got there, no one was home."
"You didn't tell me that!" Mac said incredulously.
"Because I knew you'd want to go when we find her, and I had a hunch that Jaq wasn't going to take Penny to his primary residence, y'know?" Jack said, rolling his eyes at his partner. "Why get you all excited and potentially further injure your noggin over nothing?"
MacGyver stared at Jack, but didn't argue; the older man had a good point. Not that Mac was ever going to tell Jack that.
"I'm having her go through and find anywhere else that Jaq might have access to," Jack said.
"What about the theater?" MacGyver asked suddenly.
"The what?"
"The theater," Mac repeated. "Jaq is the director in the play Penny is in," he explained again.
"Wouldn't that be an obvious hiding place though?" Jack asked skeptically.
"More obvious that Jaq's house?" Mac shot back. "Besides, what harm could it do?"
"For you right now, probably a lot," Jack argued.
"Jack, I'm fine," Mac insisted. "Look, I know my body's limits," he reasoned. "If I start to feel like I have to sit out, I will. But I'm not going to sit here and do nothing while Penny's out there and there's something I could be doing," he said, his voice leaving no room for argument.
"Mac, you know this isn't your fault, right?" Jack asked. "You did everything you could to keep her safe. No one is blaming you. Penny could have taken the opportunity to run while Jaq was choking you, but she didn't. She's the one who convinced him to let you go it sounds like."
"I know, I know," Mac said, though he didn't sound completely convinced. "I just...I can't sit around feeling like I'm doing nothing," he said. "I'm going to the theater. You're welcome to come with me," he offered as he stood up. "You coming?"
Jack shook his head in amazement, chuckling half out of frustration, half out of being impressed. "Yeah I'm coming," he said. "But I'm driving," he added as the two of them walked out to the car. Jack pulled out his phone again and called Riley as he slid into the driver's seat.
"Hey Riley, 'nother favor to ask," he said. "You're on speaker, B-T-Dubs," he said, putting the phone on speaker and setting it on the dash.
"First of all, don't ever say that again," Riley said, sounding almost disgusted. "What's up?"
"We need you to find the address of the theater Penny practices at," Mac said.
"Okay, gimme a minute. There shouldn't be that many theaters in Wrightwood," she said, muttering to herself as she typed away on her keyboard. "Got it," she said after less than two minutes. "But I dunno if it's gonna be worth the gas to get there," she added.
"Why, what do you mean?" Jack asked.
"I pulled up some camera feeds from the building across the street, and there hasn't been anyone going in or out of the building," the hacker explained.
"So now where do we go?" Jack griped.
"I found a house owned by an LLC, so it's not technically under his name, which is why it took me a minute to find it," Riley explained. "I was actually about to call you and tell you when you called me, so I figured you'd found something," she added.
"Send us the address to the other house?" MacGyver requested. Jack's phone beeped, indicating an incoming message, and Mac opened up the directions on the map app. "Can you look up-"
"Already pulling up any camera feeds I can find from around there," Riley confirmed.
"You're great, Ri," Jack complimented.
"I know," Riley agreed, sounding slightly smug. "I can't find any cameras around the house with a good enough angle to let me get a clear view of the house," she informed them after a minute.
"Okay, maybe not so great," Jack quipped.
"Hey!" Riley said indignantly.
"Kidding!" Jack insisted. "Just kidding! Anyway, it doesn't matter. We'll go, scope out the house, see if anyone is there. Keep trying to get anything you can on the house though," he instructed.
"Will do," Riley replied. With that, the phone call was disconnected, and Jack followed the directions the phone gave him to get to the house of Jaq.
So? Thoughts? What do you guys think is going to happen?
Lemme know what you guys think!
