Dangerous reunion

A/N: Now that Danny knows who Lamar is, you'll see the names switch back and forth between 'Foster' and 'Lamar' as Danny tries to reconcile the two aspects of the same man. I hope it's not too confusing.

Foster pointed the gun in Danny's direction. "Drive."

They pulled out of the lot and onto the humid, empty streets of downtown Honolulu. At this hour of night, the city was quiet; even the bars had finally closed. Once they cleared the ramp for the Pali highway, Danny kicked the Camero into high gear. Overhead, orange streetlights flicked past against the night sky: light, dark… light, dark… A faint haze had begun to gather around each lamp, and Danny knew it would thicken during the night until the whole island was covered in fog. By early morning, visibility across the island would be near zero. If Foster was looking for a good night to escape the islands, this was it, and Danny kind of wished he would take advantage of it.

In the passenger seat, Foster fidgeted and cast an eye at the clock while his foot tapped anxiously against the floor mat. The gun lay casually in his lap, but it still pointed in Danny's general direction and Foster's hand curled loosely around the grip. Danny briefly considered reaching over and trying to grab it, but he doubted he could reach far enough with his left, not while his right was still cuffed to the wheel.

After several minutes of terse silence, Danny asked, with a short, habitual wave of his free hand, "Here's what I don't get: if you're so worried about Scott coming back and killing Steve, why not go get some wire cutters and whatever else you need and free Steve yourself? If you want to play the part of 'hero' and make amends for what happened thirteen years ago, here's your chance. Why bother coming to me at all?"

"I thought it would be faster," Foster muttered. His fingers rubbed absently along a crease in the leather seat and his voice dropped so low that Danny had trouble hearing what he said next. "I thought it was the right thing."

The right thing. Danny's eyes flickered over the weapon that glinted in the passing streetlights. "If you want to do the right thing, you could point that someplace else. Wouldn't want you to accidentally ruin the whole 'heroic rescue'story you have going on."

Foster contemplated him with a long look. Then his finger slowly slid away from the trigger, and he pointed the weapon at the floor.

Danny relaxed imperceptibly. "Just tell me this: when you went to the police earlier, what did you tell them?"

"That I knew where McGarrett was." Foster looked out the window. "They laughed."

"You had to know someone would figure out who you were."

Foster shrugged.

"So you came to me instead? Isn't that a bigger risk?"

"What else was I supposed to do?"

Danny didn't have a good answer. He tossed a few ideas around in his head, but nothing really stuck out as a goodanswer. After a few minutes, he let out a frustrated huff. "Okay, you try the cops, that doesn't work, so you come to me. Convince me- at gunpoint- to ride along on some hair-brained rescue mission. You seem hell-bent on my partner not dying. Don't get me wrong- I'm grateful- but why?"

"He's the only one who can prove my innocence."

"Oh?" Now things were getting interesting.

"I think I'm being framed for McGarrett's kidnapping."

"By whom?"

"Scott."

"Your friend?"

"He's not my friend," Foster scowled.

Danny waited, but apparently that was all Foster intended to say for the moment. For a few minutes it was silent in the car. Even with the AC blowing, Danny could smell the cool, green air rolling off the ridge ahead of them, a welcome sign that they were approaching their exit. He squinted ahead into the darkness while Foster continued to contemplate the window.

Finally, Foster spoke, his words coming in a dull monotone. "Scott was my cellmate. I served most of my sentence with him. I… said a lot of stuff when I first went in. My head wasn't in a good place. Not an excuse, I know, but I was hurting, and Scott was there to listen. But don't misunderstand me," and he looked earnestly at Danny, "I didn't give him any new ideas. He already hated McGarrett before I showed up."

Danny's jaw tightened. "What does he have against Steve?"

"Don't know. I told you the truth about that. All I know is, he hates McGarrett, worse than I ever did, and he's willing to run me and anybody else into the ground to get to him."

"Sounds like he's already got what he wants. He has Steve already, right? So if he hates Steve so much, why leave him alive? Why show him off to you?"

"He won't leave him alive." Foster worriedly rubbed a hand over his jaw, where a shadow of stubble had appeared, and Danny briefly saw him as Lamar again, as he had appeared at the office earlier: old, kindly, concerned, and harmless. He shook the image away as Foster continued to speak. "He sent me there so that my prints would be all over everything. I think he's hoping I'll kill McGarrett, but I guarantee that if I don't do the job, he'll come back and try to finish it."

"Is he armed?"

"Probably."

"How bad off is Steve?"

"He's alive." Foster shifted in his seat and cast a grim look at Danny. "He was severely beaten, Detective Williams. Tortured. Starved."

Danny shoved the gas pedal all the way to the floor. He reached for the button on the dash to turn on the lights and sirens, only for his hand to be pushed away.

"Scott might be up there now. If he hears us coming, he might go ahead and kill McGarrett, and then kill us," Foster explained. He turned again to stare out the other window and exhaled heavily. "From the looks of things, Scott's been dragging it out. That means your partner is still alive for the moment, but if Scott thinks he might be caught…" There was no need for Foster to finish; Danny understood.

"Do you know when he was coming back?"

"No idea. He wasn't there when I left, but that doesn't mean he won't be back tonight. Like I said, he's not one to leave a mess."

"Great. Just great." Huffing in annoyance, Danny spun the wheel and took the highway exit for Manoa a little sharper than necessary. "You know, it would've been nice to know this before you kidnapped me. Then maybe we'd have some backup and not be going in totally blind. Or are you looking forward to seeing me face this guy weaponless, with my hands cuffed behind my back?"

"You believe me?" Foster asked carefully.

"I haven't decided yet." Danny didn't want to believe him at all, but if saving Steve meant setting aside old grudges, he would do it. For Steve.

Foster stared at him for a long minute. Then he reluctantly dug into his back pocket and, to Danny's immense surprise, held out Danny's cell phone. "Here."

Danny stared. Reaching over with his free hand, he took it and hit the speed dial for dispatch. It rang for a long minute, then gave him an error tone. Holding it up, he stared at the no signal message flashing on the screen. "Too late," he growled, chucking it back at the ex-con. "You couldn't have made up your mind to play Good Guy a few minutes earlier?"

"I didn't trust you."

"Excuse me, you didn't trust me? You came to me, remember?"

"I had to. But I was worried you'd arrest me before I could get a chance to explain. Because of who I am."

"Yeah, well… you're not wrong," Danny conceded with an irritated sigh. "But you thought taking mygun and kidnapping me would help?"

"I wasn't thinking."

"That's obvious." Ahead of them, the road darkened as they entered thick forest. In the rearview mirror, the lights of the city faded in the distance. Tires squealed as Danny swung through several tight curves. Neither man said a word.

I know where the missing cop is. You know, McGarrett.

Oh? You and half the state, apparently. Dubious eyes behind the counter looked him over, lingering on his worn boots and wrinkled clothes. What do you want, old timer- money? We don't just hand out cash to anyone for a tip, you know.

I don't care about the money.

Right. Skeptically. So where is he?

Manoa Arboretum.

The arboretum? He's been missing for days, and you think he's hiding in a flower bed?

No, in a church.

I thought you said the arboretum.

There's an abandoned church on the property.

I've never seen a church up there.

It's there.

And you think Commander McGarrett is inside?

In the basement.

Do you have proof? Evidence? Photo or something?

I… uh, no.

How do you know he's in the basement of this church?

I found him.

When?

Tonight.

The arboretum is closed, sir- it closed at three today. Do you often explore locked, abandoned buildings on private property after hours?

I understand what it looks like…

It looks like trespassing, breaking, and entering.

So you don't believe me.

I don't believe you have enough evidence to warrant me pulling resources from more likely tips, no. Your tip will be added to the que.

That won't work- it will be too late!

Without proof, that can't be helped. The stern look softened to sympathy. You hungry? Here's a few bucks. Go get yourself a bite to eat. Looks like you could use it.

The minutes seemed to drag on forever, and the road never seemed to end. Images of what might have happened to Steve, and what could be happening now, played incessantly through Danny's mind, stripping him of what little patience he had left. Only the thought that flying off the mountainside would prevent them from rescuing Steve kept Danny from pushing the speedometer further.

That, and moments of doubt.

Unfazed by the gun, Danny occasionally snuck a glance at the silent passenger in the seat next to him and wondered if the man had simply made it all up. It had all the elements of a good story- Danny had to give him credit for that. Maybe Foster had already killed Steve. Maybe Scott was just a figment of Foster's imagination. But even if Scott were fake, there were some things that remained unexplained by any other theory, like the fact that Danny was still alive. Try as he might, Danny couldn't concoct any other explanation other than Kurtis Lamar Foster was telling the truth: Foster was being set up by his cell mate, Scott, to take the fall for a crime he didn't commit.

Foster's supposed innocence didn't set well with Danny, not one bit. The idea that they might actually be on the same side, especially after what the man had done to Steve a decade earlier, left a bad taste in Danny's mouth. Still, Danny couldn't see that he had any other options at the moment. The whole thing was outside of his control now; the pieces on the board were moving, and all Danny could do was to stand by powerlessly and watch.

At last, they pulled into the empty gravel lot outside the arboretum and Danny prepared to park, but Foster shook his head. "Keep driving."

"There's a gate, and it's probably locked."

"The gate is open," he responded. "Drive."

So Danny drove up the darkened hill and found the gate mysteriously open, the chain and lock lying on the ground. They rounded the corner of the visitor's center, which looked eerily abandoned with its lights off and windows shuttered, past the garden sheds and ghostly glass green houses, across the large, empty field, and into the black forest. The car bounced unhappily through the potholes and dips, and Danny winced every time a piece of gravel spit up from the wheels and struck the undercarriage.

"How far?" he asked as the trees closed in and the road narrowed.

"Until it ends," the other replied shortly.

Danny squinted out the window as tiny insects, drawn to his headlights, crowded the windshield. A few hundred yards further, the path stopped at a rusting gate with a trailhead sign. There was no sign of another car, and Danny wasn't sure whether he should feel relieved or worried. He put the Camaro into park and turned to his passenger. "Now what?"

"Now we walk. Get out." Foster unlocked the handcuffs from the wheel and secured them around Danny's wrists.

"You know, these really aren't necessary."

Foster made no reply.

They set off down the trail. The path through the forest was slick and hard to follow in the dark, and Foster set a brisk pace. If Danny turned his head, he could see the lights of the city sparkling in the valley below, but ahead was only blackness. Somewhere to his right, he thought he heard running water and a few nocturnal frogs croaking softly.

After a few minutes, Foster asked carefully, "Detective, if I had told you everything from the start, and if you believed me-"

"Hang on," Danny interrupted, "what everything?"

"That to save your partner you would need to go with me to an abandoned church in the middle of the jungle, alone, at night. If you knew who I was at that point… if you had believed me from the start, would you have done it? Would you have come?"

"Yes," Danny said immediately. Of course he would.

"You'd think it was a trap."

"Maybe. But I'd come anyway. If I thought it could save Steve, I'd come."

The man shook his head. "And if it was a trap? What if someone were waiting for you there?"

"Someone like you?" Danny tried unsuccessfully to keep the bite out of his voice.

Foster stopped abruptly and pulled Danny around to face him. In the darkness, Danny couldn't make out the expression on his face. "Detective Williams," Foster said roughly, "I'm not going to hurt you."

"Sorry if I'm having trouble believing you," Danny returned sarcastically, holding up his bound hands. He made no mention of the bruising stitch in his side where he'd toppled off his chair and hit the floor, nor the sharp pinch in his ribs where the trophy Foster had thrown had caught him in the chest. "I have trust issues, probably something to do with being kidnapped." Jerking away from Foster's grasp, he began walking again.

Less than a quarter of a mile later, the trail split and Foster turned left. They moved off the trail and pushed through heavy jungle; waxy, oversized leaves, prickly bushes, and feathery ferns, all soaking wet, crowded their path. Danny was about to ask where they were going when the beam from the man's flashlight fell onto a peeling, off-white wooden building streaked with moss and dark mold.

A few yards closer, Danny realized it was an abandon church being slowly choked by the forest. The ominous image conjured unpleasant thoughts of oversized rodents and small, haunted spaces. He swallowed thickly. "Is Steve in there?"

Lamar -Foster- grunted

Following his directions, Danny scrambled onto a fallen tree and dropped through a broken window into the dark interior of the building. He landed on soft dirt where the floorboards had rotted through and stepped forward uncertainly, his eyes not adjusted to the total dark. Something scurried away, scattering leaves; turning, Danny thought he saw a glimmer of small eyes before it disappeared.

A moment later, Lamar had climbed through the window and stood beside him. The man's flashlight swept across the room. "Back there," he murmured and pointed the beam of light toward the dusky choir loft behind the altar. Danny noticed a few boards pulled up in front of the dais and saw the dark, wooden stairs descending into the pitch blackness. Had Steve really been here for the past several days? He shuddered.

"Down," Lamar said, gesturing with the gun.

"Yeah, I can see that, thanks," Danny muttered as his claustrophobia flared unhappily. He hesitated, his foot on the first step. Backup suddenly sounded like a very good idea, and he felt like an idiot for coming here alone, gun or no gun. "Steve?" he called down uncertainly.

Only the silence answered.

"How do you know this Scott person isn't here already?" Danny demanded to Foster.

"We'd both be dead if he were," the man replied.

His answer brought Danny no comfort. Danny moved slowly down the steps and tried not to gag at the stench that greeted him when his shoes touched the earthen floor. Urine, vomit… blood maybe? He turned blindly in a circle, unsure where to go until Lamar flashed a beam of light behind him. "Over there."

In the back of the room, behind the stairs, was a steel cage. To Danny's surprise, however, his partner was not in the cage, but lying against the wall nearby. Eyes closed, curled in a fetal position, and shivering on the bare ground, Steve looked an absolute mess. Cuts and dried blood were visible on his face under a layer of rough stubble, his hair was matted and caked with dirt, and dark scars were visible on his torso, legs, and bare feet. His hands were bound behind him, and a heavy chain ran from his ankles to the cage. Perhaps most concerningly, however, was the complete absence of any clothing.

Danny didn't care about the gun anymore, and he didn't care about the man holding it; he only had eyes for Steve. In three strides, he'd crossed the room and was kneeling by his partner's side, touching him gently on the shoulder, trying to prod him awake. "Steve? Steven, can you hear me?" To his great joy, two eyes cracked open and stared blearily into his own.

"D'nny?"

"Just take it easy," Danny murmured gently. "I'm gonna get you out of here."

But Steve shook his head and, with a sort of panicked nod, motioned to the man behind them. "D'nny," Steve rasped with effort, "that's Kurtis Foster."

Danny grimaced guiltily. "Yeah, I know." Steve stared back at him, confusion and fear evident in his feverish eyes. Danny crouched beside him and carefully lifted his friend into a sitting position. "Steve, did Foster do this to you?"

There was a pause as Steve processed the question.

"I… I don't know." Clouded eyes drifted around the room. "I don't remember."

"Okay. That's okay." It wasn't really, but Danny wasn't about to tell Steve that. He gently leaned his partner back against the wall, not missing the sharp wince as Steve's mangled back touched the damp earth. Danny would have felt worried about the wounds and infection setting in if he hadn't had other, more pressing matters.

Like the man with the gun.

Foster stood nearby, watching impassively. Leaning back on his heels, Danny squinted up at him. "Okay. You got both of us here. Now what?"

Foster studied at him a moment, then reached a hand into his pocket, pulled something out, and tossed it into the dirt at Danny's feet.

The key to the handcuffs.

Danny stared.

"I need your help," the ex-con said.

"What?" Still distracted by the key, Danny shook his head, not certain he'd heard correctly. Of all the answers he expected, 'help me' hadn't been one of them. Then again, the handcuff key hadn't been what he expected, either. He quickly undid the cuffs on his wrists, and pocketed both cuffs and key. "Why do you need my help?"

Foster stowed the gun into the waistband of his pants and gestured at the empty room. "I didn't do this."

"Didn't do what?" Danny returned with a bite of sarcasm. "Kidnap me? Torture my partner again?" Having now seen Steve's condition, the situation reminded Danny too strongly of his last run-in with Foster to think anything else.

But Kurtis Foster made no moves against him, answering only with a light shake of his head. "I didn't do this. I didn't hurt him."

A short silence ensued, and Danny was forced again to consider the obvious: why drag Danny -alive- out to the church if Foster was guilty? It was a question Danny still couldn't answer. He huffed to himself. "Fine. Let's pretend I believe you. What do you want?"

"I want you to take him and get him out of here," Foster pointed at each of them in turn. "Now. Before Scott comes back."

Danny stared. "You... you're just letting us go?"

"Stick around if you want," Foster shrugged, "but I don't plan on being here when Scott returns."

"And what makes you so sure he's coming back?"

A dark look crossed Foster's face. "Like I said before, he's not one to leave a mess."

Danny studied him and tried to gauge how much of it was the truth. His gut instinct still didn't detect a lie… and his Jersey gut was rarely wrong. "Don't get me wrong, I'm happy to leave, but I can't just take my partner and go- bolt cutters, remember?"

Foster scowled, his gaze briefly turning to the long chain that stretched out of the cage to where Steve lay propped against the wall. "I'll go get them."

Whether Foster got the bolt cutters or not didn't matter to Danny- he just wanted the man gone so he could focus all his energy on Steve. "If you're going to be helpful, there's a duffle in the car, too. It has clothes and maybe a first aid kit." It also had cash, and plenty of it. If Foster were being sincere, which Danny doubted, he would come back with the bag; otherwise, Danny hoped he would take the money and leave. Danny watched the man nod.

"I'll bring the bag, too," the older man said.

"I'm not done yet." Danny knew he was pushing his luck, but there was one very essential part of his life that he needed before Foster left. "If you're telling the truth about this Scott character, then give me back my service weapon. This 'Scott' person seems to trust you, so you don't need the gun; we do."

Foster glanced down at the weapon in his hands. "If it's all the same to you, Detective, I'd rather not die today."

"You give me my weapon back, and you won't."

The other hesitated. "What if your finger happens to… slip?"

"Yeah, well, lucky for you, I'm sworn to uphold the law," Danny grumbled, "and that means not shooting unarmed people, even if I really, really want to." Danny continued to hold out his hand. "Gun, now."

Foster continued to hesitate. Danny could see the argument playing out in his mind. "If I do… how do I know…?"

"You don't," Danny stated simply. There was no beating around the bush here. "You've got a choice to make, Foster- right here, right now- and if I were you, I would choose wisely."

Foster considered this for a moment. "Is there any outcome where I don't go back to prison?"

"Not my area of expertise."

Foster's eyes lingered on Steve. "You're going to arrest me," he finally said to Danny.

"And that's a surprise?"

After a few moments, his shoulders slumped and the older man shook his head. "No. Where are the bolt cutters?"

"In the trunk of my car. With the duffle." And the grenades and some other goodies that Danny hoped Foster wouldn't find.

"Give me the keys."

Danny dug the car keys from his pocket and tossed them over. "There. Free getaway car, if you want it."

Foster gave him an odd look. Then, without a further word, he took the flashlight and keys and disappeared up the stairs, leaving Danny alone in the dark.

In the trunk of the car, Lamar found bolt cutters, just as the detective had said, along with some small cannisters that looked suspiciously like grenades, and a dry sack containing a change of clothes, money, a first aid kit, and some other sundry items. Lamar paused at the sight of the bundles of cash. It was more than enough money to get off the island, or at least lay low for a while. It would be easy to climb into the car and drive away.

Of course, if he did that, he likely would never see his granddaughter again.

You haven't done anything wrong, he told himself.

Except kidnap a cop.

You didn't have a choice.

Like the courts would care.

For a time, he stood beside the vehicle, hesitating. The detective's car keys felt heavy in his pocket, and his words rang in his ears: "You've got a choice to make, right here, right now." But why did the 'right' choice seem so difficult?

Foster heaved a sigh. Reluctantly, he stuffed the cash back in the bag and slung it over one shoulder. Then he picked up the bolt cutters. His steps back to the church quickened with new resolve.

In the basement, Danny waited until Foster's footsteps had faded; then he pulled out his phone and used the meager flashlight from it to make a small lap around the tiny prison. One corner held the cage- Danny took a glance and hurried past- and in the second corner he found a pile of plastic grocery bags, snacks, and water bottles, presumably all for keeping Steve alive during his torture. The third corner was empty, and the fourth, behind some molding hymnals and other trash, Danny found a broken chair and several small wads of filthy, heavy cloth.

Danny unwound the cloth, hoping there might be something inside, but the bits of canvas were empty. Grumbling under his breath, he wadded them back up and chucked them in the corner. Then he settled down beside Steve and tried to think.

He needed a weapon.

The longer they stayed, they greater the chance that they might be discovered by the wrong person; whether that was Foster or Scott Agaran, Danny wasn't sure, but Danny was not eager fight some bad guy in the dark and try to protect his helpless partner at the same time. He had no idea if Scott Agaran was armed or what kind of physical shape the man was in. If it came down to a fight, Danny wanted to know that he could win. He needed to know that he would win.

A faint sound overhead turned his head. Danny squinted through the darkness at the floorboards above him. Was it just his imagination? Scrambling to his feet, he hurried back to the corner with the old hymnals. Behind the pile of trash, he had seen the broken remains of an old, wooden chair, and when he dragged it out, one of the legs came off easily in his hand.

"For all the good it will do me," he muttered to himself, hefting it experimentally.

The trapdoor had been left open, and Danny crept up the wooden steps and peeked out into the dim interior of the sanctuary. Grey moonlight fell through the open roof and dark shadows crawled across the walls.

The church was empty.

Had Foster come back? Or had Danny only imagined the noise? If Foster had taken the car and fled, he would be long-gone by now.

Moving at a crouch, Danny slunk across the floorboards of the sanctuary toward the nave, praying that the wood wouldn't creak. The wooden leg felt awkward in his hands, an unwieldy club, although Danny was sure that if it were Steve in his place, Steve would handle it just as skillfully as he handled every other weapon in life. Shoving down the brief feeling of inadequacy, Danny gripped the club tighter and moved foward.

Around him, the silence reigned. Danny felt grateful for the damp wood, which softened his footsteps. His eyes, now adjusted to the dark, sought out danger lurking in the corners, but all he saw were rigid pews, grey windows, and dark, stained walls that stretched up to a recessed ceiling hidden in the shadows.

A faint shuffling reached his ears. He spun around but saw nothing. Had the noise echoed? Or was he hearing rats or some other night time creature?

After a pause, Danny took a few steps forward, heart pounding.

The noise came again, a quick skittering of leaves in a dark corner of the room. Danny whirled and caught sight of something small and lithe scurrying under a pew. A mouse. Just a mouse. Feeling only slightly relieved, he exhaled carefully.

Seconds later, however, his heart caught when a louder noise, a thumping this time, came from the broken window, and it was accompanied by the distinct sound of a human voice cursing. Gripping his makeshift weapon tightly, Danny retreated to the stairs and crouched down on one of the steps, his eyes peering out at floor level.

Illuminated by the moonlight, a dark figure scrambled through the window, with something like looked like a back slung over his back. For a few seconds, Danny hoped it was only Foster.

Then there was a click, the door to the sanctuary swung open, and everything changed.

"What did you do?" Foster's voice echoed angrily through the church.

The man at the door turned sharply toward the voice. "The hell- Kurt?"

"Yeah, it's me, you idiot," Kurtis Foster answered. "Come on, Scott- what'd you do to him?"

Danny peered around the nearest pew. In the slim, grey moonlight through the broken roof he saw two men standing in the sanctuary, their voices partly muffled by the damp wood.

"What do you mean, what did I do? Start making sense," the other growled.

"McGarrett," Foster said. "You promised me three days with him."

There was a pause and then Danny was surprised to hear a soft chuckle. "Never figured you for the jealous type. But yeah, he's all yours, just like I said."

"The hell he is." Foster jabbed a finger at the other man. "You almost killed him."

"Didn't think you'd care if I did. Besides, he's still breathing, isn't he?"

"Barely. You didn't leave me much to work with."

"I had to have my own fun first. You understand that."

The two men walked slowly across the sanctuary together toward the basement. Frowning, Danny slipped back into the shadows.

"What are you doing back here, anyway?" Foster asked. "You were supposed to give me a few days. Did you get impatient? Decided to camp out and watch me?"

Danny perked up, curious to know the answer, too. If Scott had seen Danny and Foster entering the building together earlier, he didn't act like it, and to his relief Scott responded, "Just got here. Had to check in first. Damn house rules and all that. At least there's no monitor this time." He pointed over his shoulder out the door. "There's a different car out there. What happened to yours?"

"I'm not gonna have my own car seen around this place. How would I explain that to my boss? To the police?"

"The police aren't looking here."

"You don't know that."

"Is there some reason they would look here?" Scott asked, his voice suddenly low and dangerous.

Danny held his breath, but Foster simply shrugged it off, saying casually, "No. But I saw the news- they're turning this island upside down."

"Let them. Nobody knows about this place, not even the employees." There was a pause and a skittering sound as someone- Danny guessed Scott- kicked rock out of the way. "So. You going to tell me about the car?"

"What's there to tell?"

"How you got it," Scott replied, sounding genuinely interested. "You what- stole one?"

"Borrowed. It'll be back in an hour or two. They'll never know."

Scott grunted something unintelligible. They were nearly to the trap door, and Danny backed down the steps and hurried quickly to Steve's side. There were no obvious places in the basement to hide, and so, after stashing remaining water bottle in a plastic bag, Danny went to the only place available and slipped into the shadows under the stairs.

Overhead, the footsteps stopped just above the trap door. Danny's brow furrowed and he tightened his grip on the chair leg. Their voices had dropped again, and he couldn't make out any words. Then a dusty boot landed on the top step and he froze.

They came slowly down the stairs together, Kurtis Foster trailing Scott. Danny held his breath and peered between the slats as their shoes passed inches from his face. The old wood groaned beneath their weight, but did not break. Looking at his partner curled helplessly on the ground against the wall, Danny silently willed Steve to stay asleep and not do anything stupid.

Scott reached the bottom step and paused.

"See?" Kurtis Foster grunted as the other man squinted around the darkened space. "Passed out again, right where I left him."

"Can't see a thing," the other man muttered.

There was some shuffling, and then the flashlight reappeared in Foster's hand as he returned it to the hook in the ceiling. Steve's naked form was suddenly visible. "There. See?" Foster gestured.

"Shouldn't have left him out of the cage." Scott hadn't seemed to notice the blindfold was missing.

"I'm not as young as I once was. Getting him out was hard enough; I can't get him back in there on my own."

"I could."

"Well, like I said before, you didn't leave me much to work with."

Scott muttered something else under his breath. He turned in a circle, his eyes blindly missing Danny in the shadows. "You got another flashlight?"

"Just that one," Foster replied, indicating the weak beam. He moved back to the steps as Scott walked toward the flashlight.

Foster's back was to Danny, and Danny saw him lift the hem of his shirt and remove Danny's service weapon. For a moment, Danny thought he might shoot Scott in the back, but Foster never pointed the weapon in that direction. Keeping the weapon pointed away and his eyes on Scott, Kurtis Foster reached behind him and set the weapon silently on the nearest wood step…

…right in front of Danny.

Danny reached out and took it.

END CHP

A/N: Thanks for prayers. No job yet. We'll pay our rent for June. After that… I don't know. On the plus side, it's been a beautiful spring and I'm absolutely loving that.