Chapter 8

MacGyver gripped the steering wheel of his jeep in an usually tight fashion as he drove toward the hospital, his brow furrowed and his lips pressed into a thin, grim line.

He'd overslept a tad this morning, and he wasn't entirely sure why. He knew he had another moderately strange dream last night, although he couldn't remember much of it. He simply had a vague inkling that it was a repeat of the dream he had of Ruby before, a couple of weeks back or so, with the metal trees and a mysterious man hurting her and… changing her.

It had been just a dream… though he also knew for a fact, as he once told his dear friend Carrie, that dreams–especially the recurring ones–were the brain's way of storing information and trying to communicate something.

So what in the world was this one trying to convey to him? And why did he have such a deep sense of dread in his gut as he pulled up into the hospital parking lot, almost to the point where he felt sick to his stomach?

Despite the pragmatic part of his mind assuring him there was no logical reason to be concerned, he found himself hopping out of the jeep and moving into the hospital with more haste than he had any previous time.

He shut off the engine and slipped the keys into his pocket, then leaned over to the passenger side briefly to gently scoop up the small bundle that lay there. He had opted to bring along the afghan he'd procured from Lilly yesterday, hoping that maybe… just maybe, if he presented it to Ruby again today, she might be more receptive to it.

It was worth a try, at least; it might be something that would brighten her spirits, especially after he'd given her time and space. He regarded it thoughtfully for a moment as he exited his Jeep, part of him wondering if he should leave it in the vehicle and try this on another day when she'd had a bit more time… or perhaps wait and see if she mentioned it first. He finally decided to just go for it and headed inside with the afghan nestled in his arms.

Irina had the day off today, and the slightly younger nurse on duty barely cast him a glance of acknowledgement as he greeted her, stated his business, and then proceeded toward Ruby's room. A pair of orderlies were coming down the hall with a collection of dirty dishes and bits of partially eaten meals all piled together on a cart, forcing Mac to move to one side and wait for them to pass.

"'Scuse me," he uttered apologetically when he violated one orderlies' personal space a tad in his haste to get by when they were almost by him.

All of a sudden, there was a huge commotion as someone spoke urgently over the hospital loudspeaker, alerting everyone to the fact that a patient was in cardiac arrest. Mac froze momentarily and listened, waiting to see if there was any indication of who it was.

He then found himself nearly plastered against the side of the hall as an emergency team rushed past him, complete with a heavy piece of machinery to help a patient with a heart problem. He watched them go, noting that they were going in a room several meters down from Ruby's room.

Mac looked after them for a moment, perhaps giving the closest approximation he was able to give to a prayer or mental hope-for-the-best for an individual he didn't even know, then proceeded toward Ruby's room.

When he opened the door, however, he quickly found that no-one was inside… and her wheelchair was missing.

He took a moment to glance around the room, almost frantically seeing if anything was amiss. The plastic vase of flowers–which still had the plastic flowers he'd given her, but the real ones had been weeded out days ago after they died–and all of the books and magazines were still stacked haphazardly on the table in the corner. Even the guest chair that Mac himself had regularly sat in was still there.

The only thing missing was the wheelchair… and Ruby herself. The bed had not been made; the covers were tossed aside like someone had taken the young lady from the bed, but no-one had tidied it or anything. However, there did not seem to be any sign of struggle.

Did that mean someone had taken Ruby out someplace? There was a slim possibility that she just wanted to get out of her room for a bit and, if so, someone on the hospital staff could have helped her out and wheeled her someplace. Yet, considering Ruby's current emotional state and how she had never wanted to leave her room before–the only exception being Bill's funeral–Mac found it unlikely.

Mac immediately left the room and headed toward the front desk, where a young nurse named Kendra was on duty. "Excuse me," he said, "do you know where Ruby Allen is?"

"She should be in the room just down the hall," Kendra stated.

"She isn't in there," Mac replied, the sense of urgency hardening his tone. "Her wheelchair isn't in there, either. So where is she?"

"Hang on," Kendra opened a drawer and pulled out a file folder. "Oh, that's right… she was discharged about an hour ago."

"What?" Mac's eyes narrowed.

"A man who identified himself as her uncle came in," Kendra supplied, still fingering through some of the paperwork. "She seemed quite eager to go with him, and he signed for her release. Her doctor said that he hadn't seen her so happy or enthusiastic about anything since her uncle came in, so he figured this might be the best thing for Ruby at this point."

Mac was shaking his head. He and Ruby had touched base a couple of times about her family and, although she didn't like to talk about them much, he got the general impression that most of them were up north… practically on the opposite side of the united states, and their relationship was estranged. They didn't really have anything to do with one-another, and were no longer in touch. Ruby had made it quite clear she did not want any of them contacted or notified on her behalf, and Mac–as well as Phoenix–had respected her wishes.

The only family the poor girl had in this area were her parents and Grandmother, as Bill had told him, but it turned out that both of her parents had perished not long after Ruby began highschool. Her mother had passed away from breast cancer, her father basically drank himself to death a few months afterward.

Ruby had then moved in with her Grandmother for a time. The elderly lady had paid for Ruby's tuition in a private school up until she, too, passed away rather suddenly–and it was then that Ruby ended up dropping out of school, not really seeing the point in continuing due to becoming so distraught and not having anyone in her life anymore.

After that, Ruby had apparently spent about a year drifting here and there, surviving by going from one dead-end job to another, until she finally landed a secretarial position she'd managed to hold onto for at least a few months. Then, at the age of twenty-two and a half, she met Bill.

During that time, when she had landed a job as a laundromat attendant after the previous job didn't work out, she was starting to get close to him, to establish a solid relationship… she not only lost him, she lost her legs, her ability to walk, and everything about her life as she knew it.

Thus, Mac found it highly suspicious that an "uncle" had apparently waltzed in and walked out with Ruby. There was just one thing that puzzled him, though. "Did you say that she seemed happy to go with his 'uncle' of hers?" Mac inquired.

"She certainly seemed that way," Kendra shrugged.

Well, there was a possibility that the man had gotten through to Ruby in some way that Mac couldn't, especially since the uncle was family. Perhaps there could have been a relative who Ruby had fond memories of, but hadn't been in touch for any number of reasons. Sometimes, family could be funny like that… but Mac could still smell a rat for some reason.

"Could I see the paperwork, please?" Mac requested, wanting to see the signature. Once he had it in his hands, he urgently demanded a description of the man in question from the nurse. A few moments later, he hastily thanked her, then turned on his heel and headed out the door.

0o0o0o0o0o0

"Pete!"

Mr. Thornton glanced up sharply from his desk as the automatic doors barely slid open in time to permit an agitated-looking MacGyver. "Mac, what happened? What's going on?"

"Ruby's gone," Mac explained quickly. "Supposedly, an 'uncle' of hers showed up to take her out of there. I've got his signature right here… mind if I use your computer?"

"Ah, help yourself," Pete remarked about five seconds after Mac had already started clacking away at the keyboard.

After a few moments, Mac's mouth pressed into a thin grim line. "The signature and birthdate belong to a dead man!" Mac smacked the desk lightly to alleviate some of his frustration. This was a common tactic used in the case of identity theft, or when someone wanted to hide their true identity.

"I'll get right on this," Pete assured him, already reaching for the phone. "Don't worry, Mac, we'll get to the bottom of this and we will find her."

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

The next three months were like an unending nightmare.

During the first few days after Ruby's mysterious and sudden disappearance, the hospital staff and especially the police searched every room, every nook and cranny within the building (and even some of the places nearby, including the psychiatric ward which was located in a separate but nearby building), and they found nothing.

The FBI soon got involved, working in correlation with some of the Phoenix operatives, including MacGyver in particular. They still found nothing.

The best clue they managed to get, when they enlisted the help of Irina to go over all of the guests and visitors who had been anywhere near Ruby's room since her first arrival. The only individual who seemed a tad questionable was when Irina herself, and at least one orderly, had apparently seen a tall man enter the room the day before her disappearance. The only reason this was a potential correlation was because someone on the morning staff reported seeing someone who fit the description of that man heading toward Ruby's room, but nobody was paying attention due to a victim down the hall having a heart attack and going into respiratory distress at the same time.

MacGyver then did the next logical course of action he could; he used the computer at the Phoenix lab to piece together what Ruby's mysterious visitor had looked like, based on the descriptions they had given… but it still wasn't much to go on, because they had only seen the man in passing and they didn't speak to him.

Once Mac had a printout of the closest approximation he could get, he did his best to do what he could, with the help of Pete and whatever resources might help, even remotely.

He tried searching the databanks at Phoenix, and even at one of the local FBI headquarters (with a little 'pull' from Pete) to see if there was any man, wanted or otherwise, who fit the description of this individual. They found absolutely nothing, at least no concrete leads. That could possibly mean that this was a person who'd never been caught or arrested for anything before.

Mac then tried going to some of Bill's relatives and asking them a few questions, to see if they knew anything and to see if they might behave in any suspicious way while he spoke to them. But none of them fit the description of the man who'd gone to see Ruby, and as far as he could tell, none of them seemed to know anything.

Mac also did his best to try and save time by thinking back to the funeral, to all of the people and faces he had seen, especially since he tended to have a near-photographic memory in at least some situations. He couldn't recall anyone who looked… quite like this. If anything, most of Bill's relatives were a bit on the short side.

For a considerable amount of time after that, Mac refused to give up. Even if Ruby and Bill hadn't even dated that long before his friend passed away, he felt he owed Bill that much at least… and it owed it to Ruby to make sure she was safe, and that she still had a chance to live the rest of her life however she wanted.

When Pete and some of his contacts managed to correlate with some other hospitals, first in the local area and then across the country, the only thing he tentatively found was that, in recent years, the total of at least six patients who happened to be disabled or crippled had gone missing. At least, those were the only cases that had been reported or investigated in any way, and each of them had occurred anywhere between six months to a year apart. What made it more difficult to track or investigate was that each one happened in a different state.

In each case, it seemingly happened at random, the victim vanished without a trace, and almost every time, a person who seemed to fit their mystery man's description was seen visiting the individual who vanished.

And absolutely none of the victims had ever been found, nor were they ever heard from again.

This made Mac even more frantic to try and find out what he could, to learn all that he could, but even when he made it a point to go and visit some of the other hospitals who'd seen the mysterious man, all he kept hitting were dead ends. Apparently, this individual knew how to be discreet and just slip in and out. He knew who he wanted to see, and apparently he had a thing for kidnapping people with missing limbs, whether they were military men injured overseas in the line of duty, people who were injured and had at least two limbs amputated (like Ruby), or those who were born with a moderate disability that left them wheelchair-bound.

The best thing Mac could find figure out through his investigation, with the help of the FBI, was that the mysterious man did pose as a relative of each individual who went missing, and signed for their release. He used a different name each time, but they were able to confirm that the handwriting was identical in each case.

Mac hated this. The more he tentatively got a few pieces to the puzzle worked out, the more questions it raised. It still seemed like he was getting nowhere fast.

He was just beginning to do a more thorough investigation of the last individual who may have been taken by the same man who took Ruby, a victim who'd lost both his legs in a rock-climbing expedition where the safety harness let go, when he was finally told by Pete to let this case go.

"But Pete," Mac protested when he came to his friend's office at Phoenix Headquarters, "I might find something this time. Look, I just found out that the last victim was taken six months ago, from a hospital near the Mexican border. I could get over there in just a couple of hours–"

"Mac," Pete held up his hand. "It's been three months and five days. I've seen you running in circles, I've practically seen you trying to go all over the country, and I've used every resource and contacted every person I know who might be able to help! You still haven't found any trace of Ruby or even any of the other victims, or this mysterious man!"

MacGyver cast his friend a frustrated look. "Just give me another week and I swear–"

"No," Pete said firmly, putting his foot down. "Look, I know how you feel. I don't like this any more than you do!"

He held Mac's look with a solid look of his own, even if the corners of his eyes softened with sympathy. He remained silent for a moment, to give Mac a chance to accept that, then continued. "In the meantime, there are still a lot of other people out there who need our help. Right now, I need your help to rescue an American reporter in Asia who might be killed by the end of this week if we don't do something now, and you're the best person for the job!"

Mac's shoulders drooped a little, and he looked a bit conflicted.

Pete placed a handle on his friend's shoulder. "You can't save them all, Mac," he told him. "I will do my best to continue following up on any leads you might have while you're gone, I give you my word on that one. But I need you to rescue Miranda Johns. She needs you right now, Mac."

After a moment of hesitation, Mac finally straightened to his full height and squared his shoulders. "Right," he remarked. Just because he apparently failed Ruby, and failed to solve this wide and elusive puzzle, it didn't mean he could ignore or neglect other people or his other responsibilities.

"Just… keep an eye out for any other disappearance cases, if they do happen," he told Pete sternly. "That man needs to be stopped. We can't let him keep getting away with this, and we need to find out what happened to Ruby and all of his other victims."

Pete nodded his promise. "We aren't going to just forget this or brush it under the rug, Mac. There are just other people who need our help, too."

Mac inclined his head, his mouth pressed into a thin, grim line. He had no choice but to let this go, for now.

"So tell me more about this mission… and Miranda Johns."