Thorne: Far Horizons - 1

by Atonia

Part 2

Toni felt her stomach lurch as the elevator rose to their floor. It was mid afternoon London time, but her body told her it was morning. Terry hurried her down the hall and punched in the numbers to open his door. Toni went straight to the bathroom and Terry dumped their luggage in the bedroom. He went about opening a few windows to let some fresh air in and to let the stale closed air of the apartment out. He checked the fridge to see if the cleaning service had brought in a few necessities as he’d asked. He felt for Toni, but there was nothing he could do but sympathize.

A week after they decided to leave the House, they were there in London. He’d already called Henry’s school and left a message. Dino was on his way back to Virginia driving Toni’s jeep. Terry thought as soon as they got home he was going to buy another vehicle. He was tired; he never slept well on planes, even nice private jets as he was traveling in now.  He plugged in the kettle for tea, one thing about the House, he was never tired there and Toni’s nausea was less apparent.

Toni had a wet washcloth over her face and moved it to the back of her neck and went into the bedroom. The bed looked awfully inviting. Terry had opened a window and cool air was stirring in the room. He appeared in the doorway, “I’m making tea can you stand a cuppa?”

“Yes please, that would be wonderful.”

“Why don’t you get in bed luv you look a little pale.”

“I feel a little pale,” she moved over to her bag and unzipped it bringing out a soft nightgown and changed into it while Terry made her tea.

He brought her cup and saucer into the bedroom, “Maybe we shouldn’t have taken this trip so soon.”

“Nonsense, I’m not sick, sick just pregnant this nausea should be letting up this month I would think, at least according to Munchie.”

“She wasn’t happy when I called and told her we were heading off to London instead of coming home. Didn’t think I should be traveling, I don’t know how Dino is going to explain his sudden health.”

Toni smiled, “He’s resourceful; thanks for the tea darling.”

Terry went back to the kitchen and poured his own cup and took it in the lounge and sat down, he may have got through half of it when he dosed off on the comfortable sofa.  He awoke a couple of hours later in a darkened room and had an intense feeling of disorientation. He was neither here nor there and it took him a minute to get his bearings. He reached over and turned on a light and looked at his watch, it was just after five o’clock. He got up and checked the bedroom, Toni was asleep and he carefully pulled the blanket over her shoulders and turned on a bathroom light so she could see when she woke up.

Taking his cup to the sink and rinsing it out he still had a strange feeling, and a fear settled inside him; fear of losing the magic again. He stood quietly for a minute, he didn’t feel any different, memories all intact, he shrugged his shoulders; maybe he’d been dreaming or something. He went back to the lounge and closed the windows, he could see fuzzy lights on the Thames, fog was rolling in. The thought that Toni may not want to go out to dinner came to him so he wrote her a little note and set off down the street to the little shop on the corner.

Toni woke and pulled herself out of bed and padded to the bathroom, she felt better now and splashed her face with cold water. She found her robe in the closet and tied it around her and went to close the bedroom window. “Terry?” she called out walking into the lounge, a lamp on the table told her he was not in the room nor in the kitchen, he was not in his study but a note on the fridge told her he’d gone to the corner store. She looked at the clock on the microwave it was a little after six and she thought he would be home soon because the store closed at six. She turned on the TV and got comfortable on the sofa.

Toni heard a phone ringing and struggled off the sofa looking around for it realized it came from the sofa so she dug around in the cushions and came up with Terry’s phone and answered it, it was Henry.

“Hi Henry, no he’s not here, he left me a note about going to the shop on the corner, how are you? Okay good, yes I will tell him when he gets back, tomorrow? All right good night Henry.” Terry would hate it that he missed Henry’s call she thought and looked at the time on his phone, it was nearly seven. Toni was beginning to worry and now she was holding his phone so she couldn’t call, it must have fallen out of his pocket. She went to the bedroom and dug some clothes out of her bag and dressed, the shop would be closed but maybe he’d stopped off somewhere, there was a pub between the flat and the shop.

She walked slowly down the street looking left and right all the way to the next block where the now closed shop sat on the corner. She backtracked to the pub and pushing her way through the crowd she scanned faces, he wasn’t there. She exited the pub with a crowd and stood on the sidewalk…something was wrong she could feel it inside, something was terribly wrong. She was jostled by people walking past her and she moved out of the middle of the walk and began walking back to the flat. Something cold began to settle around her and by the time she got back to the flat she was in shear panic. There was a manila envelope propped against her door, she backed away from it until she met the wall across from the door.  “Oh no,” she moaned “Terry.” The elevator doors opened down the hall and she jumped dropping her bag, oh God it was Max.

Max walked quickly up to her and put his arms around her, “Are you okay? Of course you’re not, get us into the flat.”

“Max, there’s an envelope,” she couldn’t look at it.

Max walked over and picked it up, something bulky inside, he turned “Toni open the door and we’ll see what this is.”

Toni punched in the numbers with a trembling hand and opened the door. “Do you know…what is it Max, where is Terry?”

Max closed the door, “I don’t know where he is, Toni, let’s see what we’ve got here.” He moved over to the table and turned the light on above it and opened the envelope, inside was Terry’s wallet and his passport. Max quickly thumbed through the passport to see if anything had been slipped inside, nothing. His wallet held his credit cards and a little cash, a few receipts nothing had been added that didn’t belong. He looked at Toni whose eyes were round and frightened.

“I think we might call on SI, Toni, I have a feeling he’s been snatched.”

Toni staggered back reaching for a chair; Max caught her and set her down. “Phone numbers, love, I need phone numbers.”

Toni felt like somebody else was in her body walking to Terry’s office and switching on the lights. In his desk drawer were his business cards with numbers. She sat down in the chair across from the desk and Max picked up the phone hoping to talk to Wyatt, but Wyatt had gone home and they wouldn’t give out his number to Max, he put Toni on the phone and after a bit she got a number for Wyatt. Max didn’t like the look of her but he felt he had to get this moving quickly.

Wyatt was there within twenty minutes and sat down at the table with Toni and Max.

“Tell me everything you can, Toni.”

Toni told him about what time she went to bed and when she woke up, showed him Terry’s note about going to the store and told him about walking down there herself and back. Wyatt was going through his wallet and found the receipts, some were from the airport but one was from the corner store, he’d made his purchases at 5:30. It was about a ten minute walk to the store so they had a time line there to work with. He picked up the passport and went through it page by page.

“Something's missing; here see a page has been cut out, probably by a pocket knife or a box cutter.” He looked at Max and at Toni, “the trip to Quito.” He sat back in his chair and rubbed his face with his hand. “Have you looked outside for anything?”

“No, I didn’t I only knew something was wrong and came here and found Toni in the hallway with the envelope against the door. She was afraid to open it, afraid to go inside.”

“Okay, got a torch?” Wyatt stood up.

Toni got up and walked in the kitchen and looked under the sink, there was a flashlight under there and she handed it to Wyatt who checked to make sure it worked.

“Back in a minute.” He left the room and Toni leaned over the sink, she felt sick, she felt drained, she felt numbed.

“How did you know, Max?” she asked barely above a whisper.

“I couldn’t feel him there anymore. Come and sit down love, come to the sofa and sit down before you fall down.”

“What does that mean, you couldn’t feel him there…he’s not…he’s not…” she couldn’t say it.

“Don’t even think that, Toni, don’t. He may be drugged, his mind has shut down that’s all.” He hoped like hell that was all.

Wyatt was back within fifteen minutes with a carrier bag; he took the contents out and checked them against the receipt. “I found this around the side of the building, river side in a dust bin. It’s Terry’s shopping. I need to make some calls.”

Max pointed to Terry’s office, “In there.” Toni was rocking herself back and forth, arms wrapped around her middle, he put his arm around her and pulled her to him, “He’s going to be all right, Toni, we’ll get him back, we will, believe that, believe it honey.”   It occurred to Max that maybe she might need a doctor, being pregnant and this had to have shocked her deeply, he didn’t like the look of her. He fished around in his pocket and came up with his cell phone and called his own personal physician.

Terry’s flat soon began to fill up with people, Brian Hogeland was there and another man named Chrisp with him. Max’s physician had arrived and had Toni in the bedroom, Max was pacing; he felt so helpless, surely his brothers had felt the same thing, but he hadn’t heard from them. He heard snatches of conversation, local police, river patrol, vendetta…

Max realized something had been directed at him and he stopped, looking toward the group around the table, “Sorry?”

“I just asked who you are and how you knew something had happened to Terry.” Brian looked at him with narrowed gray eyes.

“I’m his brother, I guess we have this thing between us you know, connection. I had a feeling something was wrong and rushed over.”

“It’s true, Brian, Max is his brother,” Wyatt nodded looking at Max. “Dino, I need to call Dino and let him know.”

“All we know is he disappeared between five thirty and probably six o’clock.  He could still be in the city somewhere or on the water given the close proximity to the river.”

“And somebody entered this building and left the envelope, with no fingerprints.”

Max walked over and leaned on the kitchen counter, “So what are you doing to get him back?”

“Thames police are making inquiries.”

“That’s it?” Max pushed his glasses up his nose

“Unless we hear from whoever is holding him that’s all we can do, now the page out of his passport leads me to believe it’s the same renegade group from Colombia and if it is we’ll hear from them pretty soon. He may be around the corner for all we know but we can’t go knocking down doors to find out. We’ve got to be patient.” Brian ran his hand through his hair; clearly patience was not a virtue he claimed.

Max’s doctor came out of the bedroom and Max walked over to him, “How is she?”

“Physically she’s fine; I’ve given her a mild sedative so she’ll sleep for a while, maybe through the night. Does she have someone to stay with her?”

“Yes, she does.”  Max had no intention of leaving her alone. Max saw him to the door and thanked him for coming.

Brian, Chrisp and Wyatt were standing, “I think we’re going back to headquarters, Max, you’re going to be here?”

“Yes.”

“Good, I don’t imagine you will get a call here but if you do…”

“I’ll let you know immediately, Wyatt, thanks for coming out so quickly.”

Brian put his hand on Max’s shoulder, “Don’t worry, we’ll get your brother back; we got the best in the business at our beck and call.”

“No you don’t, the best in the business is missing.” Max answered and opened the door for them.

The flat seemed awfully quiet and empty after they’d gone, Max checked on Toni and she was lying on her side asleep. He didn’t know when he’d felt so totally useless and then he did, when Terry had gone missing at sea. He felt angry that this could happen coming right on the heels of the ordeal in Colombia. Regardless of what Toni had said to him about not feeling guilty for Terry owning SI, he did, this wasn’t Terry putting himself in danger he had done it by his own manipulating.

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