Vincent arrived at home to find the door to the shop closed but unlocked. He wondered at his own carelessness that had allowed him to forget to secure it behind him, but shrugged it off after a moment and stepped inside the front room of the shop. When he tried to lock the door behind him, however, he found that the lock wasn't working. A closer inspection showed it to be broken. Had he broken it accidentally when he'd left? He would have to have it fixed again soon before anyone else realized the door was open and decided to relieve them of some of their wares.
He couldn't hear anything upstairs as he ascended to the apartment, but that was nothing new. Elira could be napping, or sitting quietly and reading. And yet, there was a sort of uneasiness in the pit of his stomach. He couldn't put his finger on it, but something didn't feel right.
When he discovered that the apartment door was open, his unsettled feelings started to become justified. He took the rest of the stairs two at a time.
His supper was untouched on the kitchen table and Elira had left her dishes by the sink. Nothing notable in that. But a chair was out of place when Elira was so meticulous about order. It looked as if it had been shoved hastily out of the way. Vincent stared for a moment at the thing that was out of place, and then went looking for his wife.
"Elira?" A quick glimpse showed him that she wasn't sleeping in the bedroom, and he didn't find her napping with a book on her lap in the living room. She also wasn't in the bathroom. She had, for all intents and purposes, vanished from the apartment. He wondered initially if she might've gone for a walk, but then there was the open door to contend with. She wouldn't have left it open. And she was so tired now so often that a walk after supper wasn't likely what she would've done. Had there been some sort of emergency and she'd rushed out of the house? Maybe Peg had called her from somewhere and she'd felt compelled to leave. But with the door wide open and the shop door unlocked? It wasn't like her. With his heartbeat starting to sound in his ears he ran back down the stairs to take a look around outside. Perhaps she was somewhere close by.
A quick jog around the block produced nothing. Where could she have gone? Grocery shopping? To the post office? But with the door left open? He pushed a hand through his hair and took a breath to calm himself before going back into the shop.
This was his third trip through the forge, and only now did he notice the one thing that shouldn't have been there. It wasn't very large, but it glinted slightly as he walked by, bathed at a certain angle in the sunlight coming in a westward window. It had been left on one of the workstations, as if waiting for him to find it. As Vincent came closer, he recognized it as a coin. He picked it up and knew it for a gold piece, or a GP as they were called at the Gold Saucer. And things started to come together in a terrifying way.
Elira hadn't gone anywhere of her own free will. Somehow the organization had gotten a hold of his address, and they had taken her. And they'd left this clue for him so that he'd know where to find her. And them.
His mind continued turning. No one had thought to look at the Gold Saucer as a possible hiding place for the organization. And yet, the Saucer was so big, probably filled with space; and Dio, the owner, had never been known for passing up money in the face of morality. For a price, he could've been persuaded to hide them. And what better place to complete illegal transactions, such as gun-running, than in a crowded place where everyone is busy about their own thing? Robberies done as a front, and to pay Dio, and perhaps even to pay for manufacturing guns, if they were into that. And everything else done quietly out in the open. It was obvious now that he thought about it.
But what was he to do now? Tell Neilson? Send the police? No, not when they had Elira. By abducting her, they'd left a message as clearly as if they'd left a written note. Come alone. And he had no choice but to comply. They had Elira. They even had Pegatha. They were holding all the cards. But it was most certainly a trap. Suddenly, he swore and, in an action both rapid and exact, threw the coin so that it ricocheted off the lathe and went flying across the room to land somewhere in a corner. And then, frustrated and shaking, he dropped himself onto the stool at his workstation and didn't move for a long time.
But his mind continued working. What would Neilson be able to do if Vincent told him what had happened? He would saddle him with that group, led by Gunther who didn't trust him and, in that case, would likely have his own ideas about what to do, probably counter to what Vincent was thinking. After all, the police would want to make arrests, while Vincent's first priority would be finding Elira and Pegatha. What he needed were people who all thought like him, who all had the same goal. Like in a Turk operation.
His face took on a frown as he began to plan. What would the Turks have done in this situation? Carefully, he sent his thoughts back into those memories of his past not often retrieved. Hostages to rescue when the abductors knew there would be an attempt to get them back. What would the abductors do? Use the hostages to their best advantage. Thoughts of Elira and Pegatha being held at gun-point, and worse, came to him and his blood began to boil. Nothing the organization had done so far had been honourable. Would they have honour enough to leave women hostages untouched? If not... He shuddered and, for a moment, wished that he could have Chaos again, just for a little while. He would give them the justice the police would be too lenient to give.
After a few moments, he found he had to push his fears for Elira and Pegatha out of his mind. He could get lost in them, they were distracting, and he needed concentration now more than anything.
The organization would want him in exchange for the hostages. If it came to that, he was ready to give himself to them. He'd been given another life to live because of Elira, and he would spend it, if necessary, to save the only things he had worth living for. But, hopefully, it wouldn't come to that. The Turks would never have gone alone, even if only one man went in to confront the abductors. They would have others nearby in case the plan failed, or if their comrade needed aid. So maybe, if he could get Neilson to agree with him, the group could be his backup. They could go into the Saucer before him like all of the other amusement-goers, and set up position somewhere where they would be of use to him if he needed the help. Then he could go in after as if he was alone to confront the organization. It could work.
Finally, Vincent stirred, his mind settled on a course of action. Moving quickly, he closed and locked the apartment door and then left the shop unlocked since he couldn't do anything about the broken lock right now. The motorcycle was where he'd left it and, his body moving automatically as his mind continued working over the problem, he sped off for the police station.
Neilson looked across the desk at his friend -- he thought of him as a friend now -- Vincent Valentine and tried not to let the pity he was feeling into his expression. He didn't seem the type who would appreciate pity. Outwardly, he looked as austere and composed as usual, but his eyes were empty of their usual sharp spark and he was slumping the slightest bit as if his own body had become too much for him to bear along with all of his other worries.
First his daughter, and now his wife. Neilson thought of his own wife and young son at home and was momentarily shaken as he imagined himself in Valentine's situation. Would he have this much composure? Certainly not. A new kind of respect for the man seated in front of him pricked at his mind and he knew he would do all he could to restore his family to him.
"We'll need a warrant to search the Gold Saucer," he said quietly.
Vincent turned from where he'd been staring at a wall and met Neilson's eyes. "How long will that take?"
"Not long. Maybe an hour at most. But we may have to wait a day anyway. If you want there to be the bustle of other people around to hide your group you'll want to wait until tomorrow during the day."
Vincent nodded distantly. Neilson sighed sympathetically at the delay and picked up a small stack of papers that had been left on his newly cleared desk. He slipped them into a drawer. "Maybe you should go home and try to sleep, Vincent."
Vincent met his eyes again, and there was a kind of empty dread in them for a moment, but then it was gone. He shook his head. Neilson quirked his lips. How had he known he would refuse? Well, under the same circumstances Neilson didn't think he'd be able to sleep in an empty bed, nor even want to.
"All right, you can stay here if you want. I can stay here, too, and we can go over your plan again."
Vincent shook his head. "Go home to your wife, Inspector. I'm sure she'd prefer it if you were home early."
Yes, she would. She hated it when he worked late. But... "I can't just leave you here by yourself, Vincent. Do you want to come and stay on the couch at my place?"
At first, Neilson was almost sure he was going to refuse that offer, too, but then he looked up and there was a partial, weary smile on his face. "I might accept that."
"Please do. I know my wife wouldn't mind."
"Thank you."
"Not a problem. Now, perhaps there's something else we can do before putting in a request for a warrant. Maybe we could take a description of your wife and daughter in case my officers run across them."
After a moment Vincent nodded, and Neilson felt suddenly a little ashamed for mentioning it. The last thing the man needed, or wanted, likely, was to be reminded of the things he'd lost and was so worried about. But Vincent was already speaking, and his tone and voice were such that Neilson didn't want to interrupt him.
He was looking up toward the ceiling as if recalling them taxed his memory. "Elira is approximately five feet, four inches in height, and her eyes are green. Though sometimes, depending on what's she's wearing, they can change to blue or grey." He swallowed visibly. "She has red hair, curly. She had it cut recently, to the base of her neck. She was wearing blue jeans and a green turtleneck sweater the last time I saw her." He paused for a few seconds as if waiting for the image he'd created in his mind to dissipate. "My daughter, Pegatha, looks much like her mother, but with grey eyes and black curls. She's taller than her mother now by a couple of inches. I don't know what she would be wearing, but she prefers comfortable, casual clothing and sneakers, like her mother. Something else that may distinguish her are the green butterfly clips she wears in her hair. I bought them for her one year, for her birthday." This last sentence he said quietly, as if to himself, and then he fell silent.
Accurate, affectionate descriptions. Neilson smiled. "All right, I'll tell them. Now, let's go get that warrant."
It wasn't so much the noise as the shift of air in the room, the feeling that someone was entering, that woke Elira from a groggy sleep. There was a faint feeling of disquiet in her mind as if she'd just awakened from a bad dream, a remnant left from sharper feelings of fear and panic, and for a moment she searched her memory for what had caused those feelings. And then she remembered the violation of her home, and the acrid-smelling cloth. She hastily opened her eyes and sat up, hoping it had been a dream.
There was nothing familiar about where she was now. The room was small with smooth metallic walls and a cot on which she was reclining. There was a square metal door near the head of the cot, devoid of any knobs or handles, and she might've gone into a panic at being shut in except that the door was slowly opening. In a few seconds, a tall man, no older than mid-thirties, with brown-blond hair and thin-rimmed glasses had entered and closed the door behind him. He smiled and the strange familiarity of the action in a place so unfamiliar made her shiver.
"Ah, Elira, it's nice to see that you're awake."
She stiffened. The man chuckled. "So you don't recognize me. I wondered if you would, though I suppose that was only vanity on my part." He took off the glasses and tapped at his glass eye. "Had this replaced, and had surgery to cover up the scars. Pretty good job if I do say so myself."
"Terry." Her voice had become no more than a whisper and had there been any other noise in the room the word would've been lost.
He smiled at her again, that insincere smile. "So you do remember me. That's nice to hear."
She glanced around herself. "What am I doing here?" she asked, and her voice trembled despite her best efforts.
He gave another chuckle. "Oh, don't worry. I'm not going to hurt you. You're just going to be my guest for a little while."
"Why?"
"Can't an old friend want to catch up?"
She just stared at him. He nearly laughed aloud, but it wasn't a pleasant sound. "If you haven't guessed, my dear, you've been made a hostage."
"A hostage?"
"To catch your errant husband."
Her expression morphed into one of horror. "You're doing this to get at Vincent?" she gasped.
He smirked. "It's good to see nothing's changed. You're still the selfish bitch I remember. You think I'm doing this for revenge, don't you? As much as you may like to think it, your rejection didn't destroy me. Actually, I should probably thank you for pushing me away. Now my life is so much better than it ever would've been working in that shitty little weapons shop."
Elira didn't say anything for a few moments, trying to digest everything that was happening through a mind that still felt half asleep. Here was her old friend-turned-enemy, whom she'd never thought to see again, standing in a room where he'd made her a prisoner for reasons she still didn't know, but that had to do with Vincent. Suddenly, her expression hardened. "Why are you doing this?" she asked, though she was starting to think she knew.
Terry's smirk remained. "Vincent was always sticking his nose in where it wasn't wanted. This time he stuck it in a little too far, and I think I'm going to have to chop it off." His expression became thoughtful. "You know, I never thought to see either of you again. What were the chances, after all? Though I suppose I should've guessed that, as soon as things start going my way again, he would show up and start to ruin it all. I should've suspected it was him from the first time I heard of the Phantom Vigilante."
Elira frowned at him, barely repressing her rage, knowing it wouldn't do her any good to get angry. "He's only trying to protect North Corel from...from you people," she argued.
"Ah, yes," Terry said, putting a hand over his heart. "So noble and pure a motive. I'm sure you still think he's some sort of saint, but you didn't see him in the moments before he attacked me, his face twisted with hate and the desire to kill. I probably understand him in that respect better than you ever will. He's no hero, just a violent demon in a man's body, so bored with life that he jumped at the first chance to spill some blood. But now I have him under my thumb." He smiled chillingly. "Not only do I have you, but I also have your daughter. He won't get out of this alive."
Elira's mouth had fallen open in dismay and horror at the mention of Pegatha. Her anger melted away and she began to shake as if it had left her cold. "Oh God," she said, her voice again a whisper. "Please, let her go, Terry. She's got nothing to do with this. Let her go."
Terry's smile widened, pleased with her reaction. "Oh, don't worry, she's fine. I'm not going to harm her either. At least, not yet. And if your husband behaves himself, not at all."
Still trembling, Elira regained some of her rage. Ignoring a sole tear that trickled down her cheek, she said resolutely, "He'll know this is a trap."
Terry chuckled. "Of course he will. He's not stupid. But do you think that will keep him away?" He continued laughing as he pulled a small buzzer out of his pocket and pushed the button. In a moment, the door was being opened. "I'd love to stay here and chat with you, Elira, but I have other more pressing business to attend to. So, if you'll excuse me." With a small wave, he turned and stepped through the heavy metal door. It closed behind him with a resounding finality that made Elira jump. And then she sat very still on the bed for a number of seconds before breaking down and crying.