May, 1993

His left arm hurt like hell. The pain dragged him, slowly but persistently, out of dark numbness. Richie Ryan blinked in confusion at the sight above him. Gray sky, broken glass, splintered beams, rusting girders. A black shape, swooping and twirling with faint cries. Batman, he thought fuzzily. He seemed to be lying on a wet pile of cardboard and garbage beneath the broken skylights of a derelict warehouse. His cold, aching body protested being awake, and one incautious movement of his left leg sent a harpoon of blistering redness to the base of his skull. The world started to blacken and spin away from his grasp.

He breathed slowly and deliberately, stubbornly holding out against the darkness. Consciousness faded but didn't completely leave, and came back by degrees. Summoning all the strength he could, he lifted his head to peer down at his throbbing left arm. The sleeve of his favorite green jacket had been slashed along his forearm from elbow to wrist, and the fabric was stiff with dried blood. He caught a glimpse of the torn flesh beneath and swallowed hard against the bile that rose in his throat. Gingerly he tried moving his fingers, and found them stiff but workable. His arm didn't seem to be broken, at least. Someone had obviously taken a knife to him, but he had no memory of a fight.

Lockdown.

Lockdown. What did that mean? The word floated into his head as he eased back down. Lockdown. He tried to work through the situation, but the maddening gap in his memory kept him from getting very far. He coughed at the dryness in his throat and thought maybe, if he was very lucky, he could find something to drink. A Coke would taste great and clear his head. Yeah, that was it. He would get up, careful to keep his leg still, and find himself a Coke.

His right arm, outstretched at shoulder level and nearly numb, wouldn't move. Pulling at it only sent a spasm of pain spiraling up his shoulder as something hard and metallic dug into his wrist. Moving as slowly and carefully as possible, Richie maneuvered himself upright. His left leg notched up more in the agony column. He blinked past a sea of dizzy spots to focus on his knee. The fabric of his jeans was pulled taut, the joint swollen twice the size of the other one. No blood, which was reassuring, but he had no hope of walking anywhere soon either.

He really wanted that Coke. A Coke and a doctor, to give him something to stop the pain. Then he would sleep somewhere soft and warm, and wake up when this nightmare was over.

Richie tried to focus on whatever was holding his right wrist. It looked like another wrist. That didn't make sense. He counted wrists. One, two, three. The other wrist was attached to an arm beneath a leather sleeve. The sleeve traveled up to a shoulder, a neck, and a marble-white face with bulging eyes staring straight at him --

Richie screamed and tried to jerk away. Blistering pain raced up his arm, his left leg exploded into new agony, and awareness started to slide away again. Richie slumped, and the corpse's arm fell back with a soft and lifeless thud. Richie gasped for air, each breath sending splinters of fire up through his brain, and forced himself to look away from the eyes boring into him. Nightmare, his brain insisted crazily. This was just some horrid twisted terrifying nightmare -

But the handcuff around his wrist was real. The blood that had soaked through his sleeve was real. Richie stifled his whimpers and squeezed his eyes shut. Several minutes passed before he dared look again at the corpse. A teenager his own age. Dark hair, crooked nose, brown eyes, blue lips. No one he knew, thank God.

Slowly, in case any movement inspired the corpse to rise from the dead, Richie forced the cold, stiffened fingers of his left hand to close on a piece of cardboard backing. Moving his injured arm brought fresh waves of pain, but he gritted his teeth and managed to drag the cardboard around and cover the other teenager's face. Richie could still feel the eyes boring into him, but at least he didn't have to look at them.

He pulled at the handcuffs. Solid steel, double locked. Maybe he could pick them. A wave of dizziness and faintness made him lay back down before that question could be answered. The warehouse tipped and swirled beneath his sore back. He could hear the faint cries of unseen seagulls and the sighs of the wind, pushing through the rafters and rattling the building's exterior. He licked his dry, cracked lips. Richie forced his injured arm up to check his watch. The numbers blurred in front of his eyes and then settled on twelve-ten on Monday the 24th. He tried to remember going to school that morning, but his memory resembled a giant chalkboard wiped clean.

He lifted his right wrist, wincing at the drag of the corpse, and then let it drop. He realized he was shivering and wondered when that had started. It occurred to him that maybe the corpse had the keys to the cuffs, but the thought of searching a stiff gave him the creeps. Reason waged a war against fear and finally he levered himself up again. Clumsily, his left arm cramped with pain, his fingers shaking badly, he searched the other teenager's jacket pockets. Nothing. No money, no wallet, no keys. Richie started to search the jean pockets, but one brush against the marble-hard skin beneath the denim made him instantly recoil.

He tried to wipe his eyes clear of stinging wetness but his injured left arm wouldn't lift that far. Richie turned his head into his shoulder and sniffed miserably. It took a few minutes to stop crying, and he didn't appreciate the snot clogging his nose, but he felt a little better when the tears eased away. He pretended the guy really was a statue and forced himself to search through the jean pockets. Nothing. No clue to his identity and nothing that would be useful to pick the lock on the cuffs. Richie did find a small circle of blood around a gash in the corpse's green T-shirt, just below his right ribs. He'd been stabbed, but there was no sign of the knife.

Richie stared at the cardboard, imagining the guy's eyes behind it, the protruding tongue reaching out to lick him -

He wondered if he'd be able to scream when the cardboard shifted, and the guy rose from the dead. He wondered how to kill someone who was already dead.

Maybe I should stop reading Stephen King, he thought to himself.

Maybe he should try to get out of this place.

Richie braced himself against the pain and pulled himself up to kneel on his good right leg. He tried balancing on his hands, putting as little weight as possible on his bad knee, tried to stand, but the bad knee collapsed anyway and sent him slamming back to the floor. He lay still and exhausted, gasping against the redness, nose-to-nose with the wet cardboard, rusty beer cans, empty wine bottles, torn food wrappers, and one shriveled old condom.

Shit, shit, shit. He hurt very badly, worse than he could ever remember, and was so afraid he thought he might wet his pants. Silently he scolded himself for being so weak and pathetic. Crying like a baby and whining about the pain wasn't going to get him out of this.

He pulled at the handcuff again.

Nothing was going to get him out of this.

Lockdown, a voice in his head whispered.

He tried shouting, his voice croaking with pain and weariness, but got only the sounds of the wind and far off seagulls as an answer. Maybe it was time to rethink the God thing. Richie didn't believe much in God, hated going to church, and had given up prayer a long time ago. But he didn't know who else to ask for help in getting out of there.

He heard a very soft shuffle, like the sound of cardboard sliding away, and all the hairs on his neck stood up like soldiers at attention. He listened hard, every muscle tensed, the fingers of his free hand curled into a fist so tight his fingernails cut into his palm.

Without turning around he could see the zombie lifting up, reaching towards him with icy fingers, blood spilling from his lecherous grin -

He closed his eyes and counted to ten. To twenty. To thirty. No fingers closed on his throat, no breathy whispers from beyond the grave murmured his name.

Richie turned.

The cardboard hadn't moved.

The corpse handcuffed to his right wrist lay perfectly still and rock-hard, illuminated in the light from the broken windows and skylights.

Richie huddled back down into the garbage and started to pray.

***

Richie didn't call.

Tessa sat next to the phone all morning, checking and re-checking at intervals to make sure the dial tone hadn't mysteriously cut out. Duncan called at half-hour intervals from the cell phone in the T-bird, and even though she knew by the clock when it was him, her heart started beating in anticipation at the first shrill tone. Each time she prayed it was Richie, who had disappeared almost seventy-two hours earlier and was now officially classified as missing by the police.

Richie didn't call.

They had been back in the States for exactly two weeks and already bad things were starting. The circumstances of their return from France - Darius' death and the mysterious organization known as the Watchers - were awful enough. Now Richie had disappeared, as if to prove nothing good could come to them in Seacouver.

Tessa didn't really believe that, of course. But she had little else to occupy her thoughts as she sat wrapped in an afghan on the sofa, watching the phone.

Damn Richie for disappearing.

And damn Duncan for leaving Tessa behind to act as phone monitor. She'd rather be with him, driving around and looking for clues - doing anything, in fact, to drive away the nervous energy flooding her muscles and clustering in a headache at the back of her skull. If it wasn't for the fact she might miss the phone because of the noise, she'd be in her workshop banging the hell out of sheet metal or welding something particularly heavy and obdurate.

The phone rang. Tessa snatched it up. "Hello?"

"Ms. Noel?" A young female voice asked.

"Angie?"

"Yeah, it's me. Hey, I got Mr. MacLeod's message on my answering machine. I went to visit my aunt for the weekend. What's wrong? Where's Richie?"

Tessa forced herself to sound calm. "Richie went out Friday night with friends and didn't come home. Do you know anything about where he might be?"

Angie's voice became quicker, tighter. "No, I don't know. I saw him Friday night, though, at Benny's. He was with a couple of the guys. They were partying."

"Do you know which guys? Do you have their phone numbers?" Tessa snatched up a pen and wrote down the information Angie gave her. "I want you to do me a favor," she said. "Call this phone number. It's Duncan's cell phone. Tell him what you told me. I'll call them, see if they know anything."

Angie sighed. "I really hope nothing bad's happened to him, you know?"

"I know," Tessa said. "Me too."

***

Duncan had just turned onto Lower Broadway in Richie's old neighborhood when Angie called. He had been driving since six that morning, making the rounds of hospitals, morgues and police stations. No reports of a teenager matching Richie's description either being arrested or injured. No mysterious disappearances of teenage corpses, on the off chance Richie had met his Immortal fate sometime during the weekend. No sign of Richie's motorbike, which had just arrived from France on Thursday and which he'd taken out with him on Friday. He'd waved goodbye and said he'd be back by one, and that was the last he and Tessa had seen of the eighteen-year-old.

At first Duncan had just been annoyed. Richie knew better than to break curfew. Maybe he'd gotten too cocky and independent during their time in France, and a review of house rules was in order. By dawn on Saturday Duncan's irritation had shifted to genuine concern. Richie's friend Angie hadn't returned his calls. Richie's old social worker Johnnie Franklin tried her sources, with no results to report. Richie Ryan could have just walked off the face of the earth for all anyone knew of his whereabouts.

Duncan had been tempted to confront Joe Dawson, the head of the mysterious and dangerous Watchers. Maybe Dawson had seen something, or knew if the Hunters had targeted Duncan's friends for retaliation. In the end he decided Dawson would be his last resort. He didn't want any Watcher attention even remotely focused on Richie. They wouldn't be able to sense his Immortal destiny like Duncan could, but they might prove to be a nuisance later. No, he wasn't going to ask Joe Dawson for help. He wanted nothing to do with the man or his spies.

The ringing of the cell phone made Duncan pull over. It was Angie, sounding genuinely upset. She said she'd seen Richie partying Friday night at a club called Benny's with a friend named Jeremy Carter and a third teenager, Mike Benton.

"I was with my boyfriend," Angie said, "and we kind of met in the door as we were coming in and they were leaving. I told Richie I wanted to hear all about France, but I don't know if he even understood me. He looked really drunk."

Duncan frowned. If Richie had gone on a weekend bender and was now hiding out of shame, the Highlander was going to lynch him. "You're sure he was drunk?"

"He looked it," Angie said. "But Benny's is usually strict about serving alcohol to minors, so I don't know. It's over on Fifth, by the old State Theater."

"And did Richie or the others say where they were going Friday night, when you saw them?"

"Not really. There were some other guys there, and I thought they said something about the waterfront, but I'm not sure. What can I do to help?"

"Call your friends," Duncan said. "Find out all you can. I appreciate it, Angie."

He hung up and thought about what she'd said. He'd cruised the waterfront twice, but hadn't found or sensed a trace of Richie. Well, it wasn't as if he had ESP when it came to the pre-Immortal. When he did sense him, it was at very close range, and more like the hum of a power line across an open field than the full-fledged blast of one of Duncan's peers. Duncan pulled back into traffic and went back down to the waterfront, past the tourist shops and trendy marinas towards the piers, and came up with nothing again.

He had no idea where Richie was. What he did have was the vague, illogical fear that he was already too late to save the kid from whatever forces had invaded his life. That Duncan MacLeod, the Highlander, had irrevocably failed in some undefined mission.

The sky began to darken with clouds. Duncan put up the T-bird's top, filled his Thermos with coffee from a corner doughnut shop, and spread out his city map against the dash. The waterfront encompassed ten miles of commercial and private developments, and included a number of expensive condominium estates he decided to disregard. To the north, past the piers, were a number of old warehouses the city and county used for sand, gravel and other storage. Duncan owned one and liked to use it for training and swordplay. He'd taken Connor there when his clansman dropped into town, and used it to train the duplicitous Felicia. Richie knew where the warehouse was, but Duncan couldn't think of a good reason why the teenager would be there.

Still, he decided he would check it out. He hadn't visited it since their return from France and had no idea what kind of vagrants or drug dealers might have set up residence. He was almost there when he got a phone call from Tessa.

"All I reached was an answering machine at Mike Benton's house. The other boy, Jeremy Carter, doesn't live with his parents anymore. They weren't very helpful, Mac. I don't think they're very good parents."

"Maybe I'll try talking to them," Duncan said. "I want to check out Benny's, too."

"When will you be home?"

"As soon as I'm sure there's nowhere else to look," Duncan sighed. "I know it's not easy, sitting by the phone - "

"Just find him," Tessa said. "That's what's important."

"I know. I love you."

"I love you too."

Duncan swerved the Thunderbird around in a gravel parking lot, but a mile later changed his mind. Maybe Richie had volunteered the warehouse as a place the teenagers could get drunk or party some more. It didn't sound like Richie, but disappearing for three days wasn't his style either. Duncan turned back and reached the warehouse just as the first smatters of rain began pelting against his windshield. He found the lock on the main doors broken, no surprise there, and edged his way into the gloom.

Everything seemed quiet. The broken forklift he'd kept around for a dozen years was still in place. The mounds of gravel and dirt, ostensibly for roadside paving, hadn't been touched. The office wedged in the back corner had been used by vagrants lately, and stank of urine and alcohol, but Duncan didn't care. He called Richie's name, listening to his voice echo against the girders and windows, and when no answer came he decided his foolish hunch wouldn't pay off.

He was halfway to the door when he felt a tiny frission in the base of his brain, a faint registering of something no mortal could sense. Duncan stopped, hope flaring in his chest. "Richie?" he called again. No answer, but he swore he heard a faint stirring. He moved to investigate with one hand on the katana wedged beneath his coat.

The northwest end of the warehouse was maze of old packing crates and discarded cardboard. Duncan maneuvered carefully along the wall and found an old flashlight hung by a fire extinguisher. The weak battery produced only a faint yellow glow, but it was enough to highlight more garbage, more signs of vagrancy, and there, in the corner, a huddled form.

"Richie!" Duncan called. "Is that you?"

The figure ducked from the light, but made no move to escape. Duncan slowly approached, his eyes picking out the familiar details of Richie's green jacket, the reddish glints of his curly blond hair. The teenager lay curled up and shivering, trying to burrow himself into the cardboard waste. Someone else was with him, stretched out and unmoving.

"Richie, it's me, Duncan," the Highlander said softly. Richie made a noise that sounded like the cry of a hurt animal. Duncan went to him and crouched down low, but made no move to touch him. From what he could see, the teen had an injured arm and a handcuff that shackled him to the other person. The teenager's mental health was more alarming than his physical woes, though. "You're all right now, do you hear me? You're safe now."

A set of blue eyes focused on him from a worried, anxious face. "Who are you?" Richie asked hoarsely, and the raw distress in his voice set Duncan's pulse hammering.

"It's me, Duncan," he answered. He gave him a few seconds, but no recognition dawned. "Don't you know me?"

Richie shook his head emphatically.

Duncan tried to sound soothing. "Well, I know you. I've been worried about you. What did you do to your arm?"

"I don't know," Richie admitted. He blinked at the yellow beam of the light. "I'm thirsty. Do you have a Coke?"

"No. But I'll get you one, as soon as we get to the hospital. How does that sound?"

"Okay," Richie said, shivering. Duncan didn't like the lost look in his features, the obvious shock and disorientation.

He didn't need more than one look to determine that the teenager handcuffed to Richie was dead.

Duncan took a deep breath. "I'm going to be right back, okay, Richie? I need to call an ambulance for you."

"Why?" It came out as the whiny, petulant tone of a child.

"Because you're hurt," Duncan said firmly. "Just stay here."

He realized it was a stupid thing to stay. Richie obviously couldn't go anywhere. Duncan left him the flashlight as a measure of comfort and then hurried back to the Thunderbird. Dark was coming on fast, and the wind had picked up. He phoned 911, asked for the police and an ambulance, and stashed his katana in the trunk. He retrieved an old blanket they'd used for camping the previous summer and brought it, the thermos, and a more powerful flashlight with him back to Richie's location. The teenager still didn't know him, but let Duncan help him up to a sitting position and watched him gulp the coffee gratefully. The blanket slipped from his shoulders, and Duncan pulled it back on. Richie flinched at his touch.

"Where are you hurt?" Duncan asked gently, keeping his hands to himself. Richie's bloody arm, definitely. His swollen, twisted left leg. Bruises marked his face, and the dried tracks of tears cut through a layer of dirt on his cheeks. His gaze kept jerking from one item to another, as if he couldn't bear to look at any one thing for too long.

"It's okay," Richie said. "I just want to go home."

"Where's home?"

"Ummmm . . .new place. Crescent Ave."

Duncan had no idea what address Richie meant. He heard sirens approaching in the distance. "Well, after the doctor sees you, we'll get you home. Tessa's worried about you. Do you remember Tessa?"

"No." Richie's teeth chattered. "Lockdown."

"What?"

Richie gazed at him blankly. "What?"

"You said, 'lockdown.' What do you mean?"

Richie's eyes closed for a moment. His face was paler than Duncan had ever seen it. "I don't know," the teenager murmured. "I'm tired."

"Why don't you lay back now and we'll wait for the paramedics?" Duncan said. Richie did as suggested, still shivering under the blanket. The paramedics arrived three minutes later, wandering through the warehouse with their own flashlights and carrying two bags of medical gear.

"You got any lights around here?" one asked.

"No, the electricity's out," Duncan said.

The second paramedic crouched down next to Richie. He was a tall, wide man who might have been a football player in high school. "Hey there, what's your name?"

"R-r-richie," the teen managed.

"I'm Kevin. What happened?"

"He doesn't know," Duncan interjected.

"You don't know, huh?" Kevin asked. "Did you hit your head? No? What do we have over here?" The flashlight shone for a brief moment on the corpse and Kevin said, "Ted, check this one out."

Ted did a quick exam of the body and said, "Yeah, okay, he's gone." He went to the ground beside Richie and broke open a stethoscope and blood pressure cuff. "How you doing, kid?"

"His name's not 'kid,' it's Richie," Duncan muttered. For the first time in several minutes he allowed himself the luxury of anger - not at the paramedics, of course, but at the men who'd attacked Richie and left him for dead. That Duncan had found him was pure luck, nothing more. He could have easily kept going to the freeway and be miles away. The paramedics didn't seem impressed with Richie as an emergency, but treated him sympathetically and professionally with calm efficiency.

By the time the first police cruiser arrived, they'd slit open Richie's sleeve and found a long, nasty knife wound. They weren't sure if his knee was broken or twisted but splinted it to be on the safe side. His pulse and respiration measured as normal but his blood pressure was very low. They found no signs of a head injury, but the disorientation and agitation were symptomatic of a concussion. The paramedics plugged an IV into Richie's arm to combat dehydration, exposure and shock, and told the police they needed the handcuffs off to transport him to the hospital. The police, who exhibited far more interest in the corpse than Richie, used their own keys to force open the standard-issue cuffs.

An officer who identified himself as Patrolman Goldman wrote down Duncan and Richie's information as well as a very brief statement from Duncan. Duncan followed the ambulance to South County General, using his phone to call Tessa and have her meet him there. It was a Monday night and mercifully slow in the emergency ward. The paramedics whisked Richie to the back, leaving Duncan to a lobby of institutional green sofas and a blaring overhead television.

Richie, who'd dozed in the ambulance, woke when the gurney was manhandled down to the emergency ward dock and pushed inside. He watched the blur of fluorescent lights overhead and tried to distinguish the jumble of voices around him. When the world finally stopped moving, someone leaned over him and flashed a light in his eyes.

"Richie? Can you hear me?"

He mumbled a yes.

"My name is Dr. Hollowell," the man said. Warm fingers encircled Richie's newly freed wrist, feeling his pulse. "Can you tell me what day it is?"

Richie thought back hard. He remembered looking at his watch. "Twenty fourth?" he guessed.

"What month and year?"

"I think it's October," Richie said. "1991. Where's the guy?"

"Which guy?"

"Dead guy."

"There's nobody dead here," Dr. Hollowell assured him. He pulled back, and Richie squinted at the doctor's long, narrow face and thinning blond hair. He was in his forties, probably, with caffeine stains on his teeth and a slightly crooked nose. "What happened to you, Richie?"

"I don't know."

"Have you been drinking any alcohol? Taking any drugs?"

"No," he said. He didn't take drugs. Someone touched his knee, and he protested with a yelp.

"Easy now," the doctor said. "Just relax. We're going to be here for a little while, patching you up. Tell me what hurts."

The two nurses he couldn't see clearly began slicing his clothes off with scissors. Goosebumps rose like ocean waves across his skin. He had only a tiny blanket for modesty, and felt frightfully cold. The paper beneath his back and shoulders turned damp with his own clammy sweat. Something touched the back of his right hand. He turned anxiously to watch as the dark-haired nurse swabbed his skin and prepared another IV needle. The smell of iodine and ethyl alcohol made him want to cough.

"Just a little pinch," she promised, sliding the razor-sharp tip into his skin. Richie blinked and looked away. He wasn't going to cry again, no matter how much they hurt him. Unseen hands poked at his knee, while something wet and cool wiped along his injured arm. A warmed stethoscope descended on his bruised chest, the doctor told him to breathe, another pinch now, and his left arm slid into numbness. More pinching and stinging as they took away his blood. They peeled the splint from his injured knee and asked him to bend it, flex it, raise it. He complained he was thirsty, and a red-haired nurse with thick lipstick gave him ice chips for his parched throat. All through it Richie cringed at the touch of strange hands on his body, at the violation, at his own helplessness.

"I'm going to give you something to help you relax, Richie," Dr. Hollowell said. "A very mild sedative. You're doing just fine."

More questions, most of which he couldn't answer. The last clear thing he remembered? Breakfast with Julie and Ted, his foster parents, and their kids whose names he couldn't quite recall. Who was the president of the United States? George Bush. Did he remember anyone hitting him? No. Did his stomach hurt? Not much, just a little sore. What was his phone number? He rattled it off and then frowned, because it didn't sound like Julie and Ted's number. What school did he go to? Mary Ronan High, in the Heights. They were doing something to his arm, but the numbness prevented him from feeling anything more than slight pullings and squeezings.

Dr. Hollowell said, "We're going to put a catheter in you, Richie. You know what that does? Drains urine from the bladder. You're going to feel a little discomfort, and those will be my hands down there, so try to relax. It goes easier if you relax, trust me."

Relax as a plastic tube was shoved up into him. Richie tried his best, helped a little by the warm calmness spreading through his body as whatever they'd given him took effect. He wasn't shivering anymore, and his stomach unclenched and quieted down. He tried not to look at the needles plugging into his arm, or twist at the strange discomfort in his genitals. Dr. Hollowell came back to him, his face strangely impassive.

"Richie, have you had sex lately?"

He shook his head. "I don't know."

"Do you feel constipated? Any pressure or pain down there? No? That's good. I need to do a rectal exam. Ever have one of those?"

"The school doctor," Richie said, feeling a slight flush rise in his cheeks. "Bend over, the finger . . . stuff like that."

Dr. Hollowell's mouth upturned slightly. "Yeah, stuff like that. The nurse is going to help you turn on your side, and we'll be very careful with your leg. You're going to feel a little pressure-"

More discomfort, both physical from the gloved finger and mental from the image of his butt hanging out for all the world to see. The thin sheet offered very little discretion. Richie followed the physician's progress and softly murmured words "More bruises here and here-" with growing anxiousness, but didn't ask questions. Dr. Hollowell did something with a probe, but did it quickly and painlessly. They finally turned him on his back again. Dr. Hollowell's face had lost all trace of humor.

"Okay, Richie, you're going to be just fine. They're going to take you down to X-ray now, and get a look at your leg. I think you have some torn ligaments there, nothing that can't be fixed. You had a nasty cut on your arm, but it's all stitched up now. The needles and catheter will stay in for awhile, and we'll make sure you get a good night's rest. How does that sound?"

Richie wanted very badly to believe the doctor, but even under the influence of the sedation he knew the man was holding back. "How come I can't remember anything?"

"You can remember lots of things. Others you're a little foggy on. We'll see how you do in the morning, okay?"

He didn't have much of a choice in the matter. For awhile he was left alone on the gurney and was almost sound asleep before two men came and wheeled him out. He watched the alternating patterns of light bars and ceiling tile and listened to the spinning wheels beneath the attendants' idle gossip. He felt unreal, disconnected from everything. In the x-ray lab a small Puerto Rican lady with big glasses arranged a machine over his leg, and then scurried behind a screened partition. Twenty minutes later, a loud elevator lifted him and an orderly up into the maze of hospital corridors above. The orderly and a nurse tucked him into a high hospital bed with cool, scratchy sheets. The catheter and IV's hung from the bedframe or posts. He had a roommate, a big bald man watching football and eating popcorn.

"Not another one," the bald man complained. "Can't a guy get a room to himself around here?"

"Not when he doesn't have insurance, he doesn't," the nurse replied tartly. She yanked the separating curtain between the two beds, giving Richie some privacy. In a gentler voice she said, "The doctor said no visitors for tonight. You have two outside, but I'll tell them to come back in the morning."

"Who?" he asked sleepily. He was fading fast, and could barely hold on anymore.

"They said their names are Duncan and Tessa."

"Never heard of them."

"Just try to sleep," she advised. "Here's the button to push if you need anything."

She retreated out the door and into the dim corridor. Richie shifted uncomfortably, listening to the low volume of the overhead TV, aware of a new pain spreading in his chest. It hurt in a way the injuries didn't, but just as persistently. For a moment he was puzzled, then he realized the pain was loneliness. The doctor had gone, the nurses had gone, even the strange dark-haired guy from the warehouse had gone, and he was all alone.

Alone and afraid.

But he wasn't going to cry.

Sedation took him down to darkness.

***

"What do you mean, no visitors?" Duncan demanded. "I'm his legal guardian!"

Dr. Lawrence Hollowell bent over Richie's chart in the nurse's alcove as his left hand scrawled out several lines of notes. He didn't even look up. "I don't care if you're the President, you're not getting in there tonight. My patient needs rest and recovery time. Tomorrow's going to come fast enough."

Tessa pleaded, "Can't you at least tell us how he is?"

Hollowell raised his eyes from the chart. "Legal guardian?" he asked skeptically.

Duncan produced the court order that Tessa had brought from home. The doctor scanned it, his lips pressed tight, and didn't seem impressed by the time he reached the bottom. "This expired last September."

"He still lives with us," Duncan said, trying hard to keep his temper in check. "He has no family."

"We're very worried," Tessa added, laying one hand softly on Duncan's forearm. "Richie disappeared three days ago. We've been frantic ever since."

Hollowell handed back the note. He gave both of them a searching look before admitting, "He's got at least one torn ligament in his knee, took thirty stitches in his arm, and is suffering from dehydration and exposure. He doesn't have a head injury as far as I can tell, but he's got partial amnesia. He thinks it's 1991 and that the Republicans are still in the Oval Office, heaven forbid."

"Amnesia?" Tessa asked. "He doesn't know who he is?"

"He knows who he is. He said he lives with another couple . . . a Ted and Julie someone or other. He thinks he's still in high school. I don't know why he's blocked out the last two years, if it's physiological or psychological, but we'll see how coherent he is in the morning."

"I need to see him," Tessa announced. Her face took on a stubborn, fierce expression Duncan knew only too well. "I won't wake him up. I won't bother him. I just need to see that he's okay."

"Miss Noel -- " Dr. Hollowell started, but then sighed. "Fine. Follow me."

The doctor took them to a third floor corner room. Tessa edged inside and Duncan followed. The curtain was drawn on the first bed, and Tessa moved it aside carefully. Duncan took her hand and they gazed soundlessly down at the pale teenager. Richie had fallen soundly asleep, his head turned on the pillow. IV's snaked into his right arm, a bandage had been wrapped around his left forearm, and his leg lay strapped into a wicked-looking brace. His clothes had disappeared, replaced by a thin cotton gown, and Duncan frowned as he noticed injuries that hadn't been apparent before. Dark bruises marked Richie's throat, as if someone had wrapped his hands around his neck and squeezed. Other bruises encircled both wrists, from handcuffs or other restraints. He had the sneaking suspicion there would be bruises on his ankles as well.

Tessa trembled in Duncan's arms. "It's all right," he soothed, pushing aside his own fears and doubts. "He's going to be okay."

"Who could do that to a boy?" she whispered, shaking her head.

Duncan kissed her cheek and held her tight. Tessa had called Richie a 'boy' the very first night their paths had crossed in the store. Richie had burglarized them at a very inopportune time, and neither the teenage thief or French artist had immediately warmed to one another. Since that night, their somewhat prickly relationship had warmed into fondness and maybe even love. Now, standing in the hospital room above the outstretched figure, Tessa looked like nothing less than a mother lioness whose cub had been injured.

Duncan didn't have any pat answers for her question, though, and reflected grimly on his own plans for punishment once he caught Richie's attacker. When they left the room the doctor had disappeared, replaced by Patrolman Goldman and a man he introduced as Detective Mark Keller.

Detective Keller looked very young to Duncan, maybe just a few years beyond college age. He wore an extremely well tailored dark blue suit and crisply knotted tie. If he'd spent his entire day working the grislier side of homicide cases, it didn't show. The only detail that marred his professional image was the big wad of pink gum in his mouth.

"I apologize," he said. "I'm trying to quit smoking."

He asked Duncan and Tessa to sit in the third floor lounge, reviewed the circumstances of Richie's rescue, and then gave them information they didn't have. "We've identified the teenager found with your friend. His name was Jeremy Carter. Ring a bell?"

Tessa told the story Angie had related, of Richie being seen at the club with Jeremy and Mike Benton. Detective Keller took notes in a small spiral book, his handwriting small and precise. "I read your missing persons report on Richie. He never took off before?"

"No," Duncan said. A small lie. In his early months at the store, Richie had expressed his stubborn independence and quick temper by occasionally storming out and disappearing for a few hours. He'd always come back. Duncan's mind flashed back to an image of the teenager huddled in the garbage, hurt and terrified, and pushed down a wave of black rage at whoever had hurt him.

Keller asked a few more questions concerning Richie's background and then closed his notebook. "I'm glad he's alive, Mr. MacLeod. He could be like the other boy."

The detective was wrong, but Duncan didn't correct him. If Richie Ryan had been killed, he'd already be alive again. With or without his memory.

"I'll be back to talk to Richie tomorrow," Keller promised. "Hopefully he'll have a few answers."

They debated spending the long night ahead on the lumpy waiting room sofa, but a bad night's sleep wouldn't accomplish anything. They took their separate cars back to the store. Duncan arrived a few minutes after Tessa did and found her in Richie's bedroom. She had taken his suitcase down from the closet shelf and was packing it with pajamas, toothpaste, toothbrush and a large pair of blue slippers they'd bought him for Christmas and which he never wore.

She moved with quick, angry movements that betrayed her inner state of mind. Duncan watched from the doorway, unsure of how to help. Three days of worry had culminated in tense hours of waiting in the emergency room, the clinical review of his injuries, the sight of him helpless and defenseless in the bed.

"I hope they catch the bastard and cut his heart out," she said in French as she shoved more clothes into the suitcase. She always reverted to French when truly upset. "I hope they put him in front of a firing squad and let me pull the trigger."

Duncan raised his eyebrows but didn't say anything.

"Can you imagine what that must feel like? Waking up next to a dead body, with no idea of who you are or how you got there?"

"He knows who he is," Duncan offered.

Tessa brushed off his words. "He must have been terrified!"

"Yes. I'm sure he was."

"Why him? He doesn't deserve it, Duncan. He's had enough pain in his life."

"I know."

She yanked the zipper shut and dropped the suitcase onto the floor. The thud sounded very loud in the apartment. The clock in the living room chimed out nine o'clock, and Duncan realized they'd spent more than four hours at the hospital.

Tessa looked at the suitcase as if she'd never seen it before. "We can take it to him in the morning," she finally murmured, closing her eyes and crossing her arms over her chest.

Duncun recognized his cue. He moved behind her and encircled his hands around her waist. Tessa resisted at first, then leaned back against him. They stood silently, locked in the darkness, aware of each other's breathing, the warmth of shared bodies, the pulse of two hearts. Tessa turned and buried her head in Duncan's shoulder, crying softly. He moved his hands up and down the back of her cream-colored sweater, soothing without words.

They went to bed secure in the knowledge that at least Richie was alive, and promised each other that everything else would work itself out.

****

Richie woke the first time because of pain shooting up his left arm. Still groggy from the sedation, he heard and responded to voices without thinking much about the answers, drifted hazily for awhile, and then gave himself back to the sleeping world. The second time he woke he felt much clearer, much more alive. He found a nurse wrapping a blood pressure cuff around his right arm. He squinted at her, taking in the white uniform, blue sweater, the nametag that read Betsy. She had long brown hair coiled in a thick braid down her shoulders, and pretty brown eyes shadowed with too much blue make-up. The eyes brightened when she saw he was awake.

"Good morning," she said. "How do you feel?"

He tried to answer but could only croak past the horrible dryness in his throat. Betsy abandoned the cuff for a minute to raise his bed and hand him a plastic cup of cold water. He used his right arm, grimacing at the needles piercing his skin and the tight adhesive tape holding them in.

"What day is it?" he asked. October something, he thought.

"Tuesday, May 25th," Betsy provided.

May? When the hell had it become May?

She silenced his next question with a thermometer. Richie hated thermometers. He tried to distract himself from the gagging sensation by studying the room. The other bed, rumpled and disarrayed, was empty. Sunlight poured in through the white vertical blinds on the sealed windows. He could hear the hospital paging system, rolling carts, conversations, and the clang of bedpans. Everything smelled like ammonia or bleach trying to mask death and decay. For a moment he almost remembered something about a corpse, but the vision fled as soon as he reached for it.

He focused on the wall clock. Eleven o'clock. May 25th? Something was very, very wrong.

"How come I'm here?" he asked when she took out the thermometer.

"What do you remember?"

Richie thought hard. He had hazy recollections of the emergency room, of the doctor asking him questions, of handcuffs. He looked at his bruised wrists and the bandage on his left arm. "Did I have an accident or something?"

"The doctor will talk to you about it," Betsy promised. "How about some food? Breakfast is over, and lunch isn't until noon, but I bet the kitchen can send something up."

"I'm not hungry." Richie stared at the brace on his left knee, but decided after a warning twinge that he was better off not testing the extent of that injury. The wrist bruises bothered him. He shifted uncomfortably, disturbed by a weird sensation beneath the sheets. Betsy told him it was a catheter, and that the doctor might have it removed later that day. She changed the bag, wrote observations on his chart, and then helped him scrub his face and brush his teeth in a plastic pan filled with water from the bathroom.

"You have visitors," she said. "They came this morning, when you were only half-awake, still pretty out of it. I'll tell them you're better now."

Richie scrubbed at his eyes with his good hand. He supposed he looked awful. He felt hollow inside, still tired despite the sleep, and aching in a dozen different places. He watched the door expectantly, not sure who he wanted to see, and then eased back on the pillow with a sigh of relief. "Angie! Johnnie!"

"Hey there!" Angie said warmly, coming to the bed and taking his good hand. To Richie's surprise, she leaned over and gave him a quick peck on the cheek. "You're awake!"

"I guess," Richie admitted.

"Enjoying the accommodations?" Johnnie asked, gold glinting from her neck, ears, wrists and fingers. Richie had never met any other social worker who liked gold so much, or who dressed so flamboyantly. She was a tall black woman with a deep voice and a deadpan sense of humor, and he'd liked her better than anyone else who'd ever been his so-called advocate in the child welfare system.

"Did you come out of your office just to see me?" he teased.

Johnnie smiled. "Had to do something with my coffee break."

"Where's Julie and Ted?" Richie asked.

Angie's smile faded slightly. She looked at Johnnie, who busied herself pulling up a chair. "Well," the older woman said slowly, "they're not available right now, Richie. Will we do?"

"Sure," he said gamely, but inside he wondered where his foster parents were. He'd lived with them for four months, and actually enjoyed the placement. It hurt to think they didn't care about him being in the hospital.

"How's your arm?" Angie asked. "They said you took a lot of stitches. Did it hurt?"

"I guess." Richie flexed the limb very slightly, and then decided to leave it be. "Was I in a car accident or something? I can't remember."

Johnnie stretched out in the chair. "What do you remember?"

"I'm not sure. Breakfast, I think. Or was it . . . " Richie paused. For a moment he almost grasped a different memory, one that had to do with a different couple. He frowned. "I don't know. I guess I hurt my head, huh?"

"Your head's too hard to hurt," Angie told him. But she didn't say anything more for a few seconds, and Richie realized they were both watching him in an odd way. He felt on stage, somehow, as if he was supposed to be doing something. He just didn't know what.

He broke the silence. "So what's new at City Hall, Johnnie? Still saving everybody?"

"Still trying," Johnnie answered gamely. "Shame I couldn't do anything with you."

He protested automatically with, "I'm on the straight and narrow path now! No truant officers, no detention slips, no arrests - " Richie stopped. He had been arrested, just recently, hadn't he? Something about antiques? It must have been a dream, or a movie he'd watched.

Angie and Johnnie stayed a half hour, entertaining him with small chitchat and old stories. Something about them seemed strained, and Richie wondered what it was they were not saying. Just after two o'clock an attendant wheeled his roommate back from a session of physical therapy. A dark-haired man and pretty blonde woman. The man had a small suitcase in his hand.

"I see you already have visitors," the man said.

"We're just trying to keep him from making a jail break," Johnnie said brightly. "The kid wants to cut loose and run a marathon."

"Not on that leg, he won't," the man observed.

Richie wondered who they were. Johnnie talked as if they were old friends, and Angie seemed to know them too. A brief awkward period descended, during which Richie stared at the strangers and they stared back.

"How do you feel?" the woman asked, moving up to the side railing.

"Okay," he said, almost reluctantly.

"I'm Tessa," she offered.

She spoke funny, with some kind of accent. Richie held out his good hand, wincing at the pull of the needles. "Richie," he said, although he guessed she already knew his name. He looked at the dark-haired man, and recalled some of the previous night.

"You were there," he said. "You're . . . Duncan?"

"Yes," Duncan said, stepping forward. A tall guy. Tall and strong. Good-looking in a men's magazine sort of way, with creased slacks and a leather jacket that must have easily cost over three hundred bucks. "You look better today than you did last night."

Richie wished he had something more on than just a thin paper gown and the regulation hospital blanket. "There was a dead guy," he said softly. "A dead guy there."

Duncan nodded. "Do you know who it was?"

Richie could feel their four sets of eyes staring right at him. "No. I don't remember what happened."

Johnnie cleared her throat. Some silent message passed between her and Duncan. "Richie, whatever happened to you, you've lost a little of your memory. I'm sure the doctor can say more about it. I'm also sure that if you're meant to remember, you'll remember. It might just take some time."

A headache flared up behind Richie's eyes. He did his best to ignore it. "What else have I forgotten? Besides the accident?"

"It wasn't an accident," Duncan said. "Someone hurt you."

Richie didn't understand. "On purpose?"

Duncan nodded. Richie looked at the woman Tessa, who wore a sympathetic look that made his stomach flutter in warning. He tried to keep his voice steady. "What else?"

Johnnie took the plunge. "You don't live with the Brannacks anymore. You live with Duncan and Tessa. They've taken good care of you for the last year."

The word 'year' rang around in his head, echoing in confusion. He thought she might be joking, but no one around his bed smiled. The fingers of his good hand tightened around the bedsheet. "Why? What happened to Ted and Julie? What did I do?"

"You didn't do anything," Johnnie said. Sunlight dazzled from her gold jewelry as she came up to the side of the bed and edged Tessa aside. "Things just didn't work out. Julie needed time to herself. You decided you didn't want another foster home, and moved to the streets."

"And then I moved in with them? Why?" Richie asked. Johnnie was the only one he trusted. She'd always played straight with him before, telling him things he didn't want to hear but which made sense anyway. If he'd moved to the streets, she must have been furious with him. Then again, she had something like two hundred kids on her roster, and he usually found a way to keep a low profile.

Duncan said, "We offered you a job, and the spare room."

Richie looked at him suspiciously. "Just like that?"

"Mostly just like that," Duncan smiled.

Richie didn't know what to make of that information. Not thinking about it was easier. "I'm tired," he said, leaning back against the pillows. Maybe if he acted weary enough, they would go away. "Can we talk about this later? A lot later?"

"Of course," Tessa said. She gestured to Duncan, who put the suitcase on Johnnie's vacated chair and opened it. She showed him what was inside. "We brought some of your things from home. Pajamas in case they let you get dressed, your toothbrush, your Walkman, some photos . . . "

Richie didn't recognize the clothes. The Walkman looked familiar, and she'd brought a handful of cassettes with it - Nirvana, Alice in Chains, Veruca Salt. The photos came stuffed in a shoebox that she put on the bedside stand beside his plastic cup and water pitcher. Obviously aware he wasn't much of a reader, she'd brought him only one book - a dog-eared trade paperback about the history and design of motorcycles.

"Try to rest," Duncan advised. "We'll come back later, okay?"

Richie's fingers closed around the book. "Okay," he said softly, unexpectedly moved by this strange woman's kindness. Something soft came to his forehead and he blinked beneath Tessa's kiss, catching whiffs of her perfume and shampoo. Duncan patted his good leg and gave him a reassuring smile. Johnnie and Angie both said their good-byes, promising to return the next day, and then Richie got his wish to be left alone.

He eyed the shoebox for a few long moments, daring himself to go through it. The prospects of rediscovering his hidden year made him feel bleak. His roommate, who'd been busy the last few minutes channel-surfing and eating Pop-Tarts from a hidden food stash in his nightstand, looked over and asked, "What are you in for, kid?"

"I don't know," Richie said. He lowered the bed and turned his head away, resisting any further attempts at conversation, clutching the motorcycle book for comfort.

***

"This stinks," Johnnie said as soon as the four of them had left Richie's room. The social worker put her hands on her hip and let out a long sigh. "I can't stand looking at him in that bed."

"But he's going to be okay, right?" Angie asked, biting the edge of one well-chewed fingernail.

"He'll be fine," Duncan said, with more confidence than he felt. "Angie, can you tell us anything more about what happened Friday night? You said Richie left that bar with Jeremy and a third boy?"

"Mike Benton," Angie said, folding her arms. "He's not really a friend. Just someone we know."

"What about Jeremy? Was he a friend?"

Angie looked down at her scuffed boots. "Yeah. He and Richie crashed together for awhile, you know, back when Richie was between places. Jeremy doesn't get along with his parents. I mean, he didn't get along with them. I can't believe he's dead."

"Jeremy came to our attention several times," Johnnie added reluctantly. Duncan knew she was bound by rules of confidentiality, but he suspected she wanted the people responsible for Jeremy's death and Richie's injuries to be punished almost as much as he did. "He was a tough kid in a tough situation."

"And Mike Benton?" Duncan asked. "What do either of you know about him?"

Johnnie shook her head. "Never heard of him."

Angie stepped back to make room for an orderly pushing an empty gurney. She didn't meet Duncan's gaze directly. "He's just some guy. We see him around."

Duncan noted the nervous tone underlying her words. "Does he have a job, or go to school?"

"I don't really know," Angie said. "Johnnie, I have to get home. I promised my mother I'd help her with some stuff to do. Can you give me a ride?"

"Sure," Johnnie said. "Tell Richie I'll try to come by tomorrow, will you, Duncan?"

"He'll be happy to hear it," Duncan said.

Tessa reached out to Angie and put her hand on the teenager's arm. "Thank you for coming, Angie. You're Richie's oldest and dearest friend."

"Yeah," Angie said, a slight blush to her cheeks. She looked at Duncan quickly, then focused on Tessa. "I couldn't stay away. I just hope the people who did this to him and Jeremy go to jail, you know?"

Johnnie and Angie left. Tessa nestled up to Duncan's side and said, "You have that look on your face," she murmured.

"Which look?"

"You think Angie's not telling you something."

"You're right." Duncan turned to Tessa and planted a kiss on her forehead. "How are you doing?"

Tessa put her head on his shoulder. "He doesn't know us. Duncan, how can he not know us?"

"The mind plays funny tricks sometimes." Duncan glanced up and down the hallway, at the nurses, orderlies, equipment and wheelchairs. He felt a burning need to be away from the hospital and out in the middle of the woods, somewhere green and fresh and untainted by pain and disease. Beneath his black leather jacket he stood coiled for action, but there were no enemies to fight or swords to be drawn in the antiseptic hospital setting.

"Why don't we go get some lunch?" he asked. "Give Richie some time to himself."

"I'd rather wait here," Tessa decided. "Maybe we can see the doctor when he comes on rounds."

They saw Detective Keller first. The young homicide investigator had changed into a well-cut black suit with new leather shoes, and sported a fresh haircut as well. He wanted to speak to Richie, preferably alone. Duncan opposed the idea. Richie was already emotionally traumatized, and speaking to the police would only upset him further.

"I don't plan on upsetting him," Keller said. "I just need to know anything he remembers. The doctor said it's not much, and considering the circumstances I suppose that's understandable."

Tessa's gaze narrowed. "Which circumstances?"

Keller looked at them. Didn't answer. A hospital page over the intercom saved him for a few seconds, and then Duncan echoed firmly, "Which circumstances, Detective?"

"Maybe you should both sit down," Keller suggested, his face shadowed by the bad news to come.

***

"Dr. Hollowell's examination shows bruising on your friend's wrists, ankles, neck, genitals and buttocks," Keller told Tessa and Duncan. The waiting room was empty except for a woman nursing a baby in the corner. The television played beside her, but Duncan couldn't have said what was even on the screen. The detective consulted his notes. "There are no signs of penetration, which is good, but his blood work shows traces of flunitrazepam. Better know as Rohypnol. Heard of it?"

Tessa looked at him blankly. "What did you say?"

Keller consulted his notes again. "Rohypnol. Roofies. Date rape drug of the nineties. Getting to be real popular in Florida and Texas."

Duncan shook his head as if to clear it. "You said . . . " he couldn't finish. He cleared his throat and tried again. "No penetration."

"He wasn't sodomized," Keller confirmed. "Anything else. . . well, that remains to be seen. You see, roofies - this funitrazepam stuff - are very powerful tranquilizers. About ten times stronger than Valium. Throw them in someone's drink, they're out of it a half hour later. They look drunk, but they're not."

Angie had said Richie looked drunk at Benny's. Duncan's fists tightened. "And the amnesia?"

"That's one of the side effects. Trust me, it makes investigations and arrests very difficult. But I ran a check on our databases, and no one's ever wiped out as much time as your friend. He's the first."

Because something else must have happened, Duncan thought. He turned his head, unable to look either the detective or Tessa in the eye. Whatever had happened to Richie during the weekend - penetration or not - had been traumatic enough for him to revert to the last time he'd felt safe and stable. The closest his mind had come was the Brannacks. Safe and stable, after all, could hardly be applied to life at the antique store or on the barge, with sword-wielding Immortals at every turn and mortal crises every weekend.

Keller closed his notes. "The preliminary examination of Jeremy Carter's body indicates the same kind of bruises Richie suffered. Cause of death appears to be a stab wound that bisected his liver. It wouldn't have been an instant death. Maybe Richie and Jeremy were trying to escape from whoever drugged them. I need to ask Richie."

"You're not telling him all that," Duncan warned.

"No, of course not. That's for the doctor or you to tell him, or not tell him. If the information on roofies is right, he'll probably never remember this past weekend. Maybe it's better not to say anything."

"We can't lie to him," Tessa protested. "He has the right to know."

"Knowing won't make it any better," Keller said, and Duncan had to at least acknowledge the truth of that.

"What about Mike Benton?" Duncan asked. "Have you talked to him?"

Keller consulted his notes. "Mike Benton says the last time he saw Richie and Jeremy was just after midnight on Friday. He says they all went their separate ways."

"And you believe him?"

Significantly, Keller ducked a straight answer. "Look, Mr. MacLeod, the sooner I talk to Richie, the sooner I'm out of your hair. Should we see if he's awake?"

Tessa opted to go downstairs and retrieve coffee and maybe some cold sandwiches from the cafeteria. Dr. Hollowell was in Richie's room when Duncan and Keller arrived, secluded with his patient behind a closed curtain. Duncan and Keller waited outside. Duncan disliked the fact the physician had given the police more information about Richie's condition than he or Tessa had received. Penetration. Date rape drugs. The bruises. A lot could be done to a man that didn't leave marks. Duncan knew that personally.

Richie was too young for this. He didn't deserve it. He'd had enough turmoil in his life without kidnapping and molestation, and God knew what else.

The hard, cold blade of the katana pressed against Duncan's skin. He flexed his fingers. He wondered what Keller would do if he whipped it out in the middle of the hall. The curtain rattled back before he gave into the urge, and the nurse Betsy squeezed out past the Highlander and the policeman.

Hollowell, bent over Richie's chart, didn't glance up but murmured, "Mr. MacLeod, Detective Keller, I thought you might be around."

On the bed, Richie gingerly rearranged the thin blanket. His pale face and trembling fingers betrayed his shakiness. One of the IV needles was gone, along with catheter bag. His lunch tray sat on a side table, untouched.

"When can Richie leave?" Duncan asked bluntly.

"Maybe tomorrow, but probably the day after," Hollowell said. He closed the chart and put his stainless steel pen in his lab coat pocket. "We have more tests to run on that knee, and we've got to get Richie up on crutches before he can leave."

"Where am I going to go?" Richie asked, a challenge.

The question threw Duncan for a moment. He hadn't thought it would be an issue. The Highlander gave him what he hoped was a reassuring smile. "Home with Tessa and me. That's where your bedroom is, and all your stuff."

"But I don't have to live with anyone, right?" Richie asked. "I mean, I'm eighteen now. Not a ward of the state."

The physician unexpectedly rallied to Duncan's cause. "You're going to be on crutches for awhile, Richie. You'll need some help."

Richie's jaw set firmly in a stubborn line. "But after that?"

"After that . . . " Hollowell trailed off for a minute. "After that I'm not involved. Gentlemen, I'll speak with you later. Richie, I want you to eat your lunch. Then rest."

"Yeah, right," Richie muttered.

As soon as Hollowell left, Keller stepped up and introduced himself. Richie became wary at the sight of the badge. The detective asked him to recall anything he could about the weekend, and Richie's brow furrowed in thought.

"I want to remember," he said, "but I can't."

"How about what happened when you first woke up in the warehouse?"

Richie could remember that, and did so with halting sentences and a haunted cast to his eyes.

"Just a few more questions," Keller promised when he was through. "Do you know what 'lockdown' means?"

Duncan felt a jolt like a kick to the chest. He'd head Richie say the word back in the warehouse, but had failed to attach much significance to it. Richie's reaction was even more drastic - all the color drained out of his face, and his hands curled into fists against the white sheets. "What did you say?" he asked, his voice faint.

"Lockdown," Keller repeated. "You kept saying that to the paramedics in the ambulance."

Richie shook his head. "I don't know."

Keller gazed steadily at Richie for a moment, but the teenager offered nothing more. Judging from the bewildered expression on his face, Duncan guessed that Richie was being honest. The teenager didn't consciously know why he'd been saying 'lockdown.' With a frown, the detective pulled a package of black and white photos from inside his jacket. "Richie, I need you to take a look and tell me about the person in this photo."

"But I didn't know him," Richie said.

"Just be sure," Keller answered.

Richie took the photos. Three of them had been printed, each of the corpse from different ranges. He saw a dark-haired teenager his own age. He saw Jeremy Carter.

The photos dropped from his hand. The world spun away into colors, noise, chaos. Jeremy. Oh, Jeremy. The next thing he knew, Duncan was holding him by the shoulders and forcing a plastic cup to his chattering teeth. Richie gulped at ice water, barely aware of the cold, and then his gaze fell back to the black-and-white prints scattered on his lap.

"I know him," he forced out. "I know him. How come I didn't . . . oh, God, I'm going to be sick."

"I'll get the doctor," Duncan said, starting to move away, but Richie caught him weakly.

"No, don't go," Richie begged. "Just give me a minute."

He bowed his head, fighting to calm his breathing and the tears in his eyes, horribly aware of the policeman and Duncan watching him. He wiped at his eyes and said, "He was my friend. We went to school together."

"I'm sorry, Richie." Keller gathered the prints. "Do you remember where you and Jeremy went to, on Friday night?"

He was so upset he couldn't even remember what day it was now. Keller asked a few more questions, all of which made Richie shake his head, and then Duncan suggested he should leave. When the policeman was gone, Duncan pushed the button on the bed controls that lowered the headrest and pulled up the blanket.

Richie stared into space for a few minutes. Duncan sat quietly in the bedside chair, letting him come to grips with what had happened. The roommate, who'd fallen asleep to ESPN, snored from his side of the room. Finally Richie's blue gaze flickered to Duncan and he asked, in a painfully bewildered voice, "You really know me?"

"Yes."

"For a year?"

"Almost. It will be a year in August."

"What have I been doing all year?"

"You really want to know?"

Richie nodded. His eyes were heavy-lidded, Duncan noticed. He would be asleep in a few minutes, lulled no doubt by the continuing painkillers dripping down into his arm. "Well," the Highlander said, "you've been very busy. Learning and traveling. You learned a lot about art and antiques, and worked for awhile as a car salesman. We spent the last few months in France, living in Paris because of Tessa's job."

Richie made a faint protesting noise. His eyes had already slid shut. "I didn't live in Paris."

"Sure you did. You even learned some French."

"Not me," Richie murmured.

"You took the Metro, you strolled the Champs Elysees, you explored the sewers . . . " Duncan went on for a few more minutes, trying to remember their best times in France, until he was sure the teenager was asleep.

"You want to stay with him?" he asked Tessa, who'd come to stand silently at the edge of the bed.

"I'll stay," she promised. "Where are you going?"

"To find who did this to him."

"And?" Tessa asked.

Duncan didn't answer. She snagged his arm as he tried to pass. "What will you do?" she asked.

"Inflict justice," Duncan said, and left it at that.

***

Poetic words, he thought to himself as the elevator took him down to the parking garage. But until he had evidence - or the throats of the men responsible clutched between his hands - they would remain only words.

Duncan slid into the Thunderbird. He sat behind the steering wheel and stared at the ugly concrete wall in front of the car. The clues to Richie's ordeal and assault hung in the air, a jigsaw puzzle that refused to make sense. Two teenage boys, drugged, kidnapped, molested. Next seen in Duncan's own warehouse, one injured, one dead. Handcuffed together.

Handcuffed. Lockdown. Were the police somehow involved? Maybe even Detective Keller himself? Duncan squeezed the bridge of his nose. Tired, angry, upset, he knew it wouldn't take much for him to leap to wrong conclusions. Richie might not have the greatest relationship with law enforcement - if anything, his misadventure in Paris with Piton proved he attracted trouble wherever he went - but that didn't mean the Seacouver police wanted to hurt him.

How had Richie wound up in Duncan's warehouse? It couldn't be coincidence. One of Duncan's numerous enemies might have hurt Richie and killed Jeremy and left them there to be found, but the real fun for the attacker would be making Duncan figure out who had done it. Felicia, back for more trouble? Any of a hundred other Immortals who would gladly torture Duncan MacLeod? But in the absence of any cryptic notes, phone calls, email messages or the like, Duncan couldn't believe someone was seeking revenge on him.

If Richie hadn't been left in the warehouse deliberately, perhaps he'd sought it out on his own. Injured, fleeing, perhaps he'd taken Jeremy to the safe confines of a place he subconsciously remembered. With Richie's injured knee, it would have been agony dragging his bleeding friend any significant distance.

"I thought they said something about the waterfront," Angie had said, the clue that had sent Duncan down to his warehouse in the first place.

Angie, who had been uncharacteristically reticent on the subject of Mike Benton.

Duncan swung by the Burke's house on the East Side. Richie's childhood friend still lived with her family in a ramshackle frame-house on a corner lot. Mrs. Burke, a stout woman with a tired face but kind eyes, welcomed him and brought him to her kitchen. An old round table sagged under mammoth piles of magazines, bills and junk mail, and clutter obscured most of the green Formica counters. Cigarette smoke had turned the lacy curtains over the sink yellow with nicotine, and a flowerbox on the kitchen window contained nothing but dirt. Still, Mrs. Burke was warm and welcoming to Duncan, and offered him coffee.

"No, thank you," he said. "I really just came to ask Angie a few questions."

"It's terrible about Richie," Mrs. Burke said. "Is he feeling better?"

"Yes, thank you."

Mrs. Burke disappeared into a bedroom for several minutes while Duncan fended off two orange housecats who wanted to rub against his slacks. When Angie appeared, she looked young and small in yellow sweatpants and an oversized flannel shirt.

"Is Richie okay?" she asked, chewing on her nail again.

"He was fine when I left," Duncan said. "I'd like to talk to you about Mike Benton."

Angie looked at her mother, who stood hovering in the doorway. "Mom," she complained. "Can I have some privacy, here?"

Mrs. Burke gazed from her daughter to Duncan and back again. "All right. I'll be watching TV."

Only when the sounds of a late afternoon game show drifted into the kitchen did Angie pull up a chair and sit down. One of the orange cats jumped into her lap immediately. "I told you, he's just this guy we know," she said, her chin high. "You think he's got something to do with what happened to Richie and Jeremy?"

"I think I want to talk to him myself," Duncan said. "I think he scares you."

"Scares me? I'm not scared of anyone," she said with false bravado.

Duncan lifted an eyebrow. "Growing up around these neighborhoods, I think I would be wise to be scared of some people."

Angie dropped her gaze and petted the cat. "Richie's not scared of Mike. He knows how to handle him - with a six foot pole. He's really sleazy."

"In what way?"

Angie shrugged. "In every way. Some people make you feel dirty just the way they look at you, you know?"

"Is Mike a drug dealer?"

"Sometimes," Angie said.

Her short answers frustrated him. In the few times Angie had been over to the antique store, she'd been energetic and verbose. A real firecracker. The girl in front of him clearly had something to hide, or had been frightened into hiding a secret for someone else.

"Angie, who are you protecting?"

"Protecting?" she squeaked. "What makes you think I'm protecting someone? You asked me about Mike, I told you. He's a creep."

"So why would Richie be with him last Friday night?"

One bristly orange tail lifted in contentment as the cat began purring under Angie's ministrations. "Mr. MacLeod, there are some things Richie has to tell you himself."

A suspicion began forming Duncan's mind. He forced himself not to pounce on it immediately, or to shake the truth out of this young mortal girl. "Did they do business together?"

She looked up immediately, anger on her face. "Not like you're thinking. You don't understand how hard Richie had it, before you showed up in his life."

Duncan crouched down to be on her eye level. "So tell me."

"He didn't have any money, okay? Everything went for food or trying to stay warm or just trying to stay alive. Boys like Richie usually end up hooking on South Street, going to bed with all sorts of slimy guys just to make twenty books here or fifty bucks there. Mike and his father, they both got a hand in that business. But Richie wouldn't do it. Swore up and down he'd rather be dead."

"Angie," Duncan asked quietly, "What does lockdown mean?"

She told him.

***

Tessa was with Richie when he woke after dark. "Tessa?" he asked, still groggy and disoriented.

"Right here." She squeezed his good hand for support, with the flaring hope that he'd recovered his memory. But confusion clamped down in his eyes, and he blinked at her in bewilderment.

"I wish I could remember," he said wistfully.

"You will," she promised. Tessa knew it wasn't her business to promise such a thing, but surely Fate could not be so cruel as to wipe away someone's life like this. "Just give it time."

Richie twisted on the bed, seeking relief from the hard mattress. "Is there . . . anything to eat?" he asked hesitantly.

"The man with the cart is in the hallway now," she said. Five minutes later, the kitchen orderly brought Richie a plate of meatloaf with peas and limp carrots. He only ate half of it, but Tessa thought a returning appetite was an encouraging sign.

After dinner a nurse came back to check on Richie's vital signs and help him with a bedpan. Tessa excused herself and freshened up in the ladies' room down the hall. She stretched her back and legs, rubbing at the sore spot on her back that came from sitting in the rigid plastic chair. When she returned to the room she found Richie apparently absorbed in watching television.

"How about some company?" she asked.

He shrugged. "Only if you want to."

She reminded herself that to him, she was a total stranger. Everything they'd shared was gone. He didn't remember his birthday, Christmas, living in Paris. The nights they'd watched movies together, the fights over laundry and responsibility, the long hours they'd spent worrying about Duncan when he was off fighting other Immortals.

"I'd like to," she said.

With little conversation they watched the movie "Ferris Bueller's Day Off." Richie fell sound asleep before the end credits. Tessa tucked the blanket around him and then decided fifteen hours at the hospital was a long enough day for her. Duncan's voice on the answering machine told her not to worry about him, he'd be home as soon as possible. Tessa showered away the smell of antiseptic and medicine, then crawled into bed with the lights on and her silk robe belted around her waist. Duncan joined her sometime before dawn, lifting the sheets and sliding in beside her.

"What happened?" she asked. She'd been dreaming about a large green field in the middle of France, with Richie trapped on one side and she and Duncan standing helplessly on the other. She blinked at Duncan fuzzily as he put out the lights.

"Go back to sleep," he said softly, his arm coming to drape around her, his skin smooth and damp from the shower.

He was gone by the time she woke at ten. Tessa read his hastily scrawled note and then threw it away. When she arrived at the hospital at noon, Richie had set aside his lunch tray and was rummaging through the shoebox full of photos with Angie's help.

"We bought you frames," she said from the doorway, "but you said it's easier to keep them in a box."

Richie looked up, a guilty expression on his face. "None of these are familiar."

"Not right now, they're not," Tessa agreed.

Angie scooped up her purse. "I'm glad you're here, Ms. Noel, I have to get back to the soup kitchen. I just came by to see how Richie was doing."

Richie pulled a paper bag out from under his blanket. "And she brought me cupcakes."

Tessa smiled. "A true friend indeed."

After Angie left, Tessa sat down with Richie and went through the photos. Some were from her own Minolta, but Richie had shot at least a dozen rolls of his own in England, France and Amsterdam. He listened to her stories raptly, no trace of memory in his expression. They endured routine interruptions from the nurses, orderlies, Richie's rude roommate, hospital volunteers and the blaring intercom. Dr. Hollowell didn't show until after three, and gave the impression of a busy, harried man. He seemed pleased with Richie's progress, though, and took him off the remaining IV.

"Tomorrow morning we'll see how you do on crutches," Hollowell promised. "Everything goes well, I see no reason why you can't go home in the afternoon. You'll need to come back to get the stitches out, and I'd like a follow-up with you in a week or so. You'll be on crutches for a few weeks."

Tessa smiled encouragingly. "At least you can come home. That's good news, isn't it?"

Richie sounded noncommittal. "I guess." He glanced at the doctor. "How about a shower?"

"Why don't we stick to the sponge baths for now?" Hollowell said. "When you're at home, find a lawn chair or something to stick in the shower stall and sit down. You don't want to tear another ligament in your knee."

"I'm really sticky," Richie complained.

Hollowell wouldn't budge. "Sponge baths."

If Richie was complaining, Tessa thought, that was another good sign. After the doctor left Richie drained the Coke she'd bought him and asked, "Where's Duncan?"

"He had some things to take care of." His continuing absence through the day both worried and irritated her. "You look tired. Do you want me to leave, so you can take a nap?"

Richie rubbed his arm where the IV had been. "I guess."

He looked very drawn and very tired, as if the whole weight of the world rested on his thin shoulders. Tessa decided to take a risk. "Richie," she said, trying to sound confident, "once, long ago, you told Duncan that it was hard for you to ask for help. But you learned to do it. Duncan and I are here for you. We don't want anything from you, we're not going to turn you away if you're sick or in trouble, and we love you. If you can't remember that, then you have to let us prove it to you."

He shook his head and refused to meet her gaze. "It's not fair," he said brokenly. "You know all this stuff about me and I don't know anything about you. I feel like I can't even begin to catch up."

"Sure you can." She took his cold hand and warmed it between her fingers. "Ask me anything, and I'll tell you what I know."

"Why did you take me in?"

Tessa remembered a frazzled night of tears and worries, capped by Connor returning from the confrontation with Slan Quince bearing the news Duncan had gone to the island. "Well," she hedged, "you broke into the store one night. Duncan caught you stealing jewelry, gold and an antique sword. The police arrested you, and Sgt. Powell told him you were a kid with a long juvenile record and not a lot of prospects for the future."

"I remember Powell," Richie grimaced. "Guy hates me."

"Shortly after that, Duncan had to leave town unexpectedly. I wanted to join him, but I didn't have anyone to watch the store."

"And so you hired me? The guy who'd tried to rob you?"

Connor had hired him, with a glint in his eyes. He'd overcome Tessa's protests and fears by telling the teen in no uncertain terms what would happen to him if Connor came back from rowing Duncan to the island and found the store looted.

"You were very motivated," Tessa explained. "Besides, you had nowhere else to live. You were sleeping in an abandoned warehouse with some other runaways, you were starving, and you had no money."

Richie snickered as he picked lint from the blanket. "Richie Ryan proves again to be a genius at fixing his own life, huh?"

"Don't say that," she chided. "The Richie Ryan I know is very resourceful, very smart, and very courageous."

"That's not me."

"Of course it's you. You're also impetuous, undisciplined, and a little too fond of practical jokes."

He squinted at her. "Did I play practical jokes on you?"

"On Halloween you pretended you got your hand stuck in the garbage disposal and sprayed fake blood all over the kitchen counter. On April Fool's Day, you called us all frantic, hysterical because you'd been arrested in Germany, and had Duncan going for ten minutes before he found you calling from around the corner. He threw you over his shoulder and dumped you in the Seine."

Richie almost smiled.

"It was funny," Tessa said, tickling him under the chin.

"Stop," he squirmed, but he was fully smiling now. For a moment he looked just like the Richie she knew. Then the smile faded. "Oh, Tess," he said, "I want to remember."

"You will," she promised. There she went again, making promises she couldn't keep. "You will."

***

Duncan came home at eleven thirty that night, waking Tessa from her blankets on the sofa. He sat down on the coffee table across from her but said nothing. She looked at the grime on his jacket, the blood dried on his knuckles. He had a crumpled paper bag with him. His eyes, ringed with weariness, betrayed a deep and arresting pain.

Tessa sat up, fear making her cold from head to toe. "What did you do?"

"I found who kidnapped Richie and Jeremy," he said.

"And?"

"They're in jail."

Tessa focused on the bag. "Then what's in there?"

"Videotapes. Movies. That's what they did, Tess. They made movies."

She took the information in, turned it around in her head. "They made movies about what?"

"About young men," he said roughly. "In ropes. Tied up. Sexually molested - "

He couldn't say any more. Tessa understood instinctively what needed to be done. She pulled him into her arms and held him as tightly as she could. His face dampened her shoulder, and his shoulders shook as he made soft muffled noises against the silk of her robe.

She soothed him with nonsense words in both English and French. When he was done she eased him back on the sofa, covered him with a blanket, and went to the kitchen to fix him a steaming cup of tea. When she came back she found him unmoved, his eyes closed against the paleness in his face.

"Drink this," she said, pressing the cup into his hands. "Did you eat or drink anything today?"

A small 'no' came out of him. Tessa brushed his hair back from his face and said, "You must be exhausted."

"I'm fine," he said.

"Of course you are." Tessa snuggled up against him and then looked at the soiled paper bag on the coffee table. For a long time they said nothing. Then she asked, "How many is he in?"

"Two." Duncan sounded stronger and steadier, but his voice held a note of bitterness. "It wasn't the first time, Tessa."

"What do you mean?"

"Mike Benton's father ran a porn film shop down on the waterfront, about six blocks from my warehouse, using his son to lure in kids like Jeremy Carter. Benton also used a lot of runaways, paying them in cash or drugs. Sometime after Richie moved out of the Brannacks, Jeremy and Mike got him to agree to a small part for about a hundred dollars. No sex, just a little . . . bondage." That last words came out with difficulty. Duncan swallowed hard and continued, "Angie said he hated it, said he'd rather risk jail by continuing to steal than do it again."

"Angie knew?" Tessa asked.

"She said Richie made her promise never to tell anyone."

Tessa wondered how much hunger and cold it had taken Richie to agree in the first place. The hiding place she and Connor had found him in had stunk of urine and grease, with no running water or heat. Even that, to Richie, was better than the risk of being placed in an abusive foster home. Going back for help to the system that had already mistreated him probably seemed like an impossible obstacle, and so he'd resorted to drastic means to stay independent.

"The film Richie was paid for was "Lockdown." It's the first in a series. Benton really wanted Richie to be in the sequels. I guess he called here a few times after Richie moved in, until Richie threatened to call the police. When the son saw him Friday night, he thought it was a great opportunity to get some . . . "'additional footage.'"

The bitterness with which Duncan said the words made Tessa shiver. "He drugged Richie and Jeremy so he could put them in a video?"

"There are different kinds of videos." Duncan covered his face with both hands. In a muffled voice he continued, "Videos in which the participants are not willing make a lot of money, Tess."

Her stomach rolled. Tessa picked out a small dark thread from their shared blanket and wound it between her fingers. "What do they call them? 'Snuff' films?"

"If Richie hadn't managed to escape with Jeremy . . . " Duncan let the words dangle ominously.

Tessa leaned against him. "Oh, Duncan. Is Richie going to have to testify in court?"

"No. There won't be a trial. The Bentons will plead guilty."

"Why?"

"Because I let them each know what was waiting for them if they didn't," Duncan said, flexing his bloody hand.

Tessa rarely caught a glimpse of this Duncan - the hard, ruthless warrior from the Scottish highlands who'd slaughtered enemies on the battlefield and could behead another Immortal without a trace of remorse. In his mind, he'd probably done everything he had for Richie's sake. She wasn't sure that was true, but it wasn't an issue they could ever discuss.

"Are those the only copies?" she asked, indicating the crumpled bag.

"No. The police have a set."

"You don't know if we should let Richie watch them," she said.

He sighed. "They'll only hurt him more, Tessa."

"But they're his," she said, a pang running through her chest. "He has the right to see him."

Duncan frowned deeper. "And we have the responsibility to protect him."

She had no answer to that. Try as she might, she simply had no answer.

***

Richie woke to the clatter of breakfast trays and bedpans around seven a.m. He waited ten minutes for the morning shift nurse to come and help him with his own bodily needs, fuming at the humiliation. Today he was going to get on crutches even if it killed him. He plowed through a breakfast of runny eggs and dry toast, then waited impatiently for the physical therapist to come at eight thirty and help him with his leg.

His roommate went down to surgery just before eight, leaving Richie alone in the room. He closed his eyes, thinking he might get more rest, but all he could think about was Dr. Hollowell's words from two days earlier. The physician had come to check on the stitches and his swollen knee. Richie asked the extent of his injuries. Hollowell hesitated and then said, "You have some bruising around the genitals and buttocks, Richie. Someone may have . . . molested you."

Richie didn't answer for a full moment. He'd guessed something like it after viewing the circles on his wrists, after reviewing the circumstances of waking up handcuffed to a corpse. Hearing it from the doctor didn't make it any easier to swallow past the cold lump in his throat, though.

"There are a number of counselors on the staff who can help you with this," Hollowell had said. "I can set you up with one of them."

"But I don't even remember it," Richie protested.

"Your conscious mind doesn't, but who knows what's going on beneath that?"

Hollowell had finished the rest of his exam in awkward silence. Duncan and the police detective came in when he was finished, leaving Richie with no time to even consider the situation. The news of Jeremy's death blew away all other thoughts, until now, as he lay restlessly in bed contemplating going home to live with people he didn't even know.

Molested.

Not raped, the doctor had reassured him. Still, they had run an AIDS test - it came back negative - and pumped him full of antibiotics to stave off any nasty infections. He'd asked the doctor not to tell Duncan or Tessa, and as far as he knew Hollowell hadn't. He didn't want them to know.

Molested.

He supposed he should be very upset about it, but he didn't remember any details to be very upset about. If he could actually recall the abuse that would be one thing, but everything still remained blank. The idea that someone had forced him to do certain things disturbed him in a general, depressed sort of way, but it still remained an abstract kind of pain.

The physical therapist came up twenty minutes later with a pair of crutches in his large, supple hands. For the first time in three days Richie maneuvered out of the bed and to his feet. The world swayed only slightly. He learned how to put his weight on his hands, not his armpits, and did a circle of the room that left him breathless and sweating. Betsy helped him back into the bed.

"You're not ready for a marathon yet," she said.

Still, he felt a surge of triumph at the thought of being mobile again. Being helpless brought back too many bad memories . Richie rested for awhile, then used the crutches to get to the bathroom. This time it was harder, especially with no one around to catch him if he fell, but the toilet had handrails and he made it there and back without incident.

He was back in business.

Tessa and Duncan showed up at ten a.m., the start of visiting hours, and Richie proudly showed off his new skills. He thought Tessa looked a little pale at the prospect of him crashing into something, but Duncan encouraged him.

"I'm sure you'll be off them in no time," he said.

"I hope so." The sooner he was better, he thought, the sooner he'd be able to get his own apartment. He'd decided that he liked them both well enough, but that living with them for very long would be too awkward.

By the time Dr. Hollowell came at one, Richie had already pestered the floor nurse with a dozen questions about when he could leave. The physician took a quick look at his arm and leg and said, "Well, yes, I guess we can clear this bed for someone who really needs it. If you really want to leave, you can."

"Just hand me some clothes," Richie said. "I'm not going anywhere in this."

It took another two hours to get dressed, sign insurance forms and fill out prescriptions in the pharmacy. "I don't know how I'm going to pay for all this," Richie muttered, eyeing the bag of medication.

"You're not paying for this," Duncan said. "You have insurance."

"I do?" Richie asked. "What about the deductibles?"

"They're covered," Duncan said, in a flat, no-nonsense voice.

Richie backed off the topic. Duncan seemed angry, although not at Richie himself. Fine. They could talk about money later. Nice as they might be, neither Duncan or Tessa was responsible for Richie's bills. He'd have to find a way to make it up to them, pay back the money.

"Ready to go?" Tessa asked.

"Never been more ready," Richie said truthfully. An orderly came around with a wheelchair and wheeled him down to the hospital entrance. The late spring day was a little cloudy and chilly, but Richie savored his first lungfuls of fresh air. He and Tessa waited in the hospital drive until Duncan brought around a long, sleek Thunderbird convertible.

"That's a classic," Richie said, impressed.

"You should know," Duncan said, swinging the teenager's bag into the trunk. "You tuned it up last week."

Tessa held the front door open as Richie hopped on his good leg to the front seat. His crutches went with her in the back. For a minute he stared up at the sleek facade of the hospital, worried about leaving the one place that offered a small measure of safety. He pulled his jacket tighter.

"Ready?" Duncan asked.

"Sure," Richie said, although he could hear the doubt in his own words.

The drive took them past neighborhoods and stores Richie recognized - the train station, Wal-Mart, the phone company. Duncan and Tessa tried to keep up a conversation but he barely heard them. When they turned into the Heights he got a fleeting sensation of familiarity, as if he'd traveled the route a hundred times before, but then the sensation went away. When Duncan pulled up in the alley of an antique store, Richie turned to him in puzzlement.

"Here?" he asked.

"Here," Duncan replied.

A door led from the alley into a workshop of drills, saws, tools and half-finished metal sculptures. Five stairs off to the right led into well-furnished apartment with a kitchen/dining room on one side and a large family room on the other. Richie stood just inside the doorway, assailed by the homey smells of honey and cinnamon. He knew Duncan and Tessa were watching him closely. He scanned the kitchen, noting the clean counters and empty dish rack, the glass brick partition that led to some other part of the house. Nothing triggered a rush of memories.

He felt funny asking, but put out, "Where's my room?"

"This way," Duncan said.

A hall led off from the living room. His room was the first door on the right. Richie hopped inside to take a look. Brick walls. A bed with a dark blue comforter. A wooden dresser with a TV and VCR on top. Drums and a guitar, although he didn't remember being able to play either. A half-unpacked suitcase took up the corner, and cardboard boxes postmarked from overseas covered the desk.

His knee began to ache horribly. Richie got to the edge of the bed and sat down with a sigh. "This is it, huh?"

"This is it," Duncan affirmed.

Tessa, who'd been quiet since entering the apartment, leaned against the door frame and asked, "Are you two hungry? I'm going to make myself a sandwich."

"I guess." Richie couldn't tell if the butterflies in his stomach came from hunger or nerves. After a little bit of rest he asked Duncan to show him the rest of the place, and followed the man around the corner and down the hall to the main bedroom. Richie liked the big iron bed that Duncan and Tessa shared. They went back through the apartment and workshop to someone's office, and a half-empty store filled with shipping crates.

"We shut down the business while we were in France," Duncan explained.

"Oh," Richie said, looking around at the empty glass cases and bare walls.

"Let's go back. You're looking pale."

"I'm fine," Richie said, but let Duncan steer him back through the workshop to the pink sofa in the living room. Taking the weight off his leg proved to be immensely relieving. Duncan made him prop the leg up on the coffee table, and then fetched an afghan to throw over Richie's lap.

"I'm not an invalid, Mac," Richie said.

Duncan stilled himself.

"What?" Richie asked, afraid he'd said something wrong.

"Nothing," Duncan smiled. "You always used to call me Mac."

"Oh." A trifle embarrassed, but nevertheless pleased, Richie gave the room a closer inspection. A framed photo of Duncan and Tessa dominated the nearest shelf, along with a smaller one of the three of them taken on top of a boat. Richie stifled a yawn. "Are we really the only people who live here? The place is huge."

"Well," Duncan said, "sometimes you bring home guests."

Richie suspected he was being teased, but Duncan's expression remained deadpan. Tessa brought him lunch on a tray, after which he fell into a nap on the sofa. Sleeping seemed to be the one thing he could do well; he was only awake for a few hours after dinner before Duncan put him to bed in his own room, in the strange bed beneath unfamiliar sheets.

A pattern of daily life emerged slowly. When he wasn't sleeping, Richie would stick to the sofa or the kitchen. He watched countless hours of HBO and asked both Duncan and Tessa any question that came to mind. Why weren't they married? Why did they go to France? Why did Duncan like antiques so much? Why did they come back from France? Sometimes he thought they might be holding back on him, and because he didn't want to make them angry he didn't push. He saw Dr. Hollowell for a follow-up, helped Tessa make shopping lists for her workshop, and went through the shoebox of photos every night hoping for some kind of memory.

Tessa caught him circling ads in the newspaper for apartments. He was pleased to find out that he'd collected almost a thousand dollars in his savings account, but dismayed to read the going rates on apartments in Seacouver. Tessa didn't say anything to him about the classifieds, and he was pretty sure she didn't tell Duncan.

They seemed like good people, openly affectionate with each other, even fond of him. Richie found himself envious of himself, of the Richie Ryan who'd lived with these people during the past year. Sometimes he thought the past was only inches away in his mind, ready to be jolted back to awareness, but other times he feared with a dread certainty that he would never remember who he'd been.

Two weeks after his release from the hospital, Richie woke with his leg throbbing all the way to his hip. Cranky from the pain, he managed his way to the kitchen in search of something to eat and found Tessa and Duncan sitting quietly over the morning newspaper. They looked guilty when they saw him, as if they were harboring some great secret.

"What is it?" he asked them. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing," Duncan said.

"Tell me," Richie insisted.

Duncan and Tessa exchanged a private look Richie couldn't read. Duncan made him sit down before he unfolded the front page. "There's an article today that talks about the men arrested for Jeremy's murder and your kidnapping. They appeared in court yesterday."

Richie looked at the print, but didn't focus on it.

"Who did it?" he asked.

"A man named Ted Benton and his son."

"Oh." Richie said softly. He looked at the table, then the phone, then the refrigerator. He could feel Tessa watching him, hear Duncan's soft and regular breathing.

"Do you remember the Bentons?"

"No." He said it so softly he could barely hear it himself. His leg had gone thankfully numb, lost in the general wave of disbelief and shame that flooded him from head to toe. Duncan's words had ripped him open from chest to belly and soaked the raw flesh with alcohol, driving any sense of calm from his brain.

"Maybe we should talk about this later," Tessa suggested.

Richie couldn't answer. The past threatened to rise up out of his throat, bury him in darkness and shock waves. He grasped for his crutches and hauled himself to his feet. "Yeah," he said hoarsely. "Later."

"Richie - " Duncan called after him, but Richie fled as fast as he could back to his room and crawled back into bed. All he wanted was to curl up and die. He certainly didn't want company, but Duncan and Tessa followed him in as if they owned the place, which of course they did.

"Go away," he said, clutching the comforter. He wondered why he was shivering when the room felt hot and stuffy. "I'm sick. I want to go back to the hospital."

"No you don't," Tessa said firmly, sitting on the edge of the mattress and taking hold of his hands. "Richie, talk to us."

"There's nothing to say," he managed past chattering teeth.

"We can't help you if you don't let us," Duncan said at the foot of the bed.

"You can't help me anyway." Richie squeezed his eyes shut, trying to wish them away, but Tessa continued to rub his hands. "Go away."

"Whatever happened before, it's in the past," Duncan said. "We don't care what you did to survive."

"Don't care?' Richie demanded. He lifted his head focused on Duncan with a sudden anger. "Why not?"

Duncan flinched as if he'd been slapped. Tessa said quickly, "Because you're with us now. What's done is done."

He laughed harshly. "You guys don't know. You live in this nice place in your nice little world and you don't know what it's like to live out there where no one wants you - "

Richie broke off, breathing raggedly. Tessa's fingers tried to smooth back his hair. He jerked away as if scalded. "Go away," he ordered for the third time. "Leave me alone."

Slowly, reluctantly, they did as he asked.

Richie didn't come out of his room for the next two days. Tessa brought him meals on a tray but he didn't touch them. Each time she or Duncan went into his room they found him huddled under his comforter, refusing to look at them or participate in conversation. Both worried and irritated, Tessa snapped through the door on the third morning that she wasn't going to play maid anymore, and the room service would stop.

"Duncan, he's starving himself," she complained in the kitchen, washing a bowl of soggy cereal down the drain.

"He's not starving himself," Duncan reassured her. "Last night's chicken and three sodas are missing from the fridge. If it's not Richie, then we have a bigger problem with rats than we think we do."

Tessa didn't smile. "Are you just going to let him stay in his room for the rest of his life? He has to face this."

"He's facing it his own way," Duncan said pragmatically. The Highlander did, however, call in the troops. Johnnie Franklin arrived by lunch, clinking with gold jewelry and stylishly dressed in an aquamarine jumpsuit.

"Where is he?" she asked.

Richie guessed from the loud and impatient knock on his door that someone other than Tessa or Duncan had come to try and cajole him out of bed. "Go away," he said through the padded fabric he'd pulled up over his head. The door opened anyway, shoes padded across the rug, and he barely caught the aroma of some Oriental kind of perfume before the comforter was yanked back from his head and chest.

"You're going to talk to me, Richie," Johnnie said sternly.

She turned on the lamp. Richie squinted painfully and tried to roll over, although the leg brace hindered most movement. "No I'm not."

"No more kid gloves, Richie. How many foster homes did you live in?"

"Huh?" The question caught him off guard.

"How many?"

He knew exactly how many. "Fourteen."

"And you hated them, or they hated you, and it never worked out." Johnnie's face was perfectly impassive. "You moved out on the streets despite my best efforts, because you thought you could do it on your own. Instead you broke into a car and got arrested, ran away from another home, broke into an ATM and got arrested again, went to live on the streets again, hooked up with the slimy likes of Mike Benton and his dad, broke into an antique store, and wound up living with Duncan MacLeod and Tessa Noel for the last month of your miserable years as a minor."

Richie couldn't believe how callous she sounded. "All right, I'm guilty, I'm a screw-up, are you happy now? You can go to hell with everyone else, Johnnie."

She continued on as if she hadn't heard him. "This place is the best thing that ever happened to you. You have a home, security, people who love you, everything. And instead of appreciating all they've done for you, you're just running away again."

"I can't run anywhere, in case you haven't noticed," Richie said bitterly.

"If you knew how happy you've been here - "

"I know," Richie interrupted.

" - you'd be thanking your stars for these two people." Johnnie paused to take a breath. "What do you mean, you know?"

Richie pushed the words out. "I remember."

Johnnie leaned back, a suspicious look in her eyes. "Everything?"

"Almost," Richie admitted. "Everything since the Brannacks. Not Friday night. Not Saturday. But by Sunday night the drugs had worn off a little . . . I kind of remember. We tried to get away, but we were handcuffed together. Somehow we got outside, but Jeremy was hurt and I fell and twisted my knee."

He said it softly, matter-of-factly, with his eyes on the ceiling. "It's a film studio on the waterfront, near pier 12. There are no pay phones down there, no ways to call the police. I knew Mac's place was nearby and dragged Jeremy there." His eyes dropped to hers. "See? Simple story."

"Then why don't you tell Duncan and Tessa?" Johnnie asked.

Richie took his time answering. He couldn't put a name to all the different emotions raging through his chest, but after two days, he was ready to put them to rest. "I guess I'm afraid."

"They're not going to turn you out, Richie."

"They won't know how to deal with it. I don't even know how to deal with it."

"Deal with what?"

The words spilled out in a rush. "Everything -what happened-the movies-AIDS."

Johnnie leaned forward. "Whoa, wait a minute. What about AIDS?"

"I have to go back in six months for another test. What if I have it?"

"That's a very big what if," Johnnie said firmly. "You can't worry about it every hour of every day for the next six months. And even if you do get it, Duncan and Tessa aren't going to turn you out. Trust me."

"And trust us," Duncan said from the doorway. Tessa leaned up against him, her face suspiciously wet.

"Don't cry, Tess," Richie protested. He didn't care that they'd been eavesdropping - at that moment, he would have done anything to wipe away Tessa's stricken look. "It's going to be okay."

"I can't help it," she sniffed, and came to him. Richie hauled himself up against the pillows and gave her a hug. She didn't even seem to mind that he was sticky and smelly from staying in bed. She felt good, not just because she was warm and soft and pretty, but because he knew her and loved her and she'd been there for him, all this horrible time.

Richie rubbed her back and said, lightly, "The Tessa I remember was never this emotional."

She laughed, a wet, watery sound. "Yes she was."

Duncan said, "Welcome back, tough guy," and squeezed Richie's shoulder.

"Yeah, well," Richie said, releasing Tessa, "I wish I could say I was one hundred percent happy about it."

Tessa sat on the side of the mattress and frowned. "Why aren't you?"

"I don't know who I am," he complained. "I thought I knew. I thought the world was really easy, black and white. Don't trust anyone. Don't let them hurt you. Get them before they get you. Then I came here, and you guys taught me there's lots in between, that there's a whole world out there - not just France, all the little stuff too. How to know which fork to use. How to be proud of something. You taught me I could be anything I wanted. But then I didn't remember, and it was black and white time again. Simple. Richie Ryan against the world. Now I remember almost everything, and it's all up in the air again."

Duncan wasn't sure he followed Richie's line of thought, but he made the effort to try. "You mean, everything's back to being gray again?"

"Yeah," Richie shrugged. "In the middle. Never the same."

Duncan let a slight teasing note enter his voice. "And that's what you've been thinking about in here for the last three days?"

Richie shrugged sheepishly.

"Life will always be gray, always be confusing, and always be interesting," Tessa told him. She leaned forward with a smile and kissed him on the forehead. "Especially when you're involved, Richie."

He supposed he could live with that.

***

"I talked to Detective Keller," Richie said from behind Duncan in the workshop. Duncan had heard the soft thudding of Richie's crutches and slowly eased down one of Tessa's heavier sculptures from the table to the floor. Two weeks had passed since the return of Richie's memory. Some days were better than others, but the quivering note in Richie's voice warned Duncan something was amiss.

"What did he say?"

"He said you have a copy of the tapes."

Duncan reached for a rag and wiped his hands clean, considering a denial.  The truth won out.   He looked up and met Richie's troubled blue gaze. "I do."

"I want to see them."

Duncan had been afraid of that. He wished Tessa was home, but she'd agreed to participate in a charity auction all day. He felt distinctly unqualified to tackle this issue on his own. "You sure?"

Richie nodded. "Not knowing is getting worse than knowing."

Tessa had put the bag and videotapes high in a box in her bathroom closet, hidden behind boxes of tampons and feminine hygiene products. Duncan retrieved them and took them to where Richie had plopped down on the family room sofa. He passed the bag wordlessly over. Richie handled the two black cassettes with a distinct tightening of his jaw, and then handed one to Duncan with a gesture towards the VCR.

Against his better judgment, Duncan put the tape in. Then he said, doubtfully, "I'll give you your privacy."

"No." Richie's answer surprised him. The teenager focused on the screen, not on the Highlander. "I . . . need you here, Mac."

Duncan sat down. The television image flickered to life with a flurry of snow before steadying on a movie clapboard entitled "Lockdown III, Scene 1, Take 1." Duncan, who'd already watched as much of the tapes as his stomach had allowed, knew that everything they would see was raw footage.

A jail house. Fake cops in rented uniforms. New prisoners, shuffling in cuffs and shackles, about to become raw meat for the other inmates. Other scenes of brutal interrogations in smoke-filled jailhouse rooms. A riot scene. The narrative didn't make sense, and there was no sound, but Richie got the general idea. His part came up, handcuffed naked to cell bars as the guards manhandled his private parts -

Richie looked away. He was painfully sensitive of Duncan sitting on the armchair, ready to help him, but nothing could ease the raw awareness that it was his body on the screen. His body that had been violated. He noted with a certain detachment the pain on his own face even as he orgasmed in his captives' hands. He hadn't enjoyed it. That seemed important, for some obscure reason.

Duncan slid beside him and wrapped an arm around his shoulder as he gave vent to the tears of humiliation and anger that he'd held inside for weeks. He hadn't cried since the day he'd woken up handcuffed to Jeremy's body. Duncan didn't say anything, just held him tightly. The room grew dark. The TV showed nothing but static. Richie found the core of himself and drew back from Duncan's soft shirt. He wiped his nose on the back of his hand.

"Better?" Duncan asked quietly.

Richie nodded. Duncan moved away to the kitchen and came back with a glass of water and box of tissues. He nearly tripped over Richie's crutches in the darkness. Duncan turned on the lamp and watched Richie closely as he gulped half the water down. The apartment had grown chill despite the early summer weather and Duncan draped the afghan on the teenager's lap. Richie didn't protest.

Duncan waited, resolved that Richie needed to break his own silence. He wasn't sure of the teen's emotional state at all. Richie sat wordlessly for several minutes, hiccuping irregularly, and then said, "Well, I guess it won't win an Emmy or anything."

Duncan gave a silent thanks for the resilience of a certain Richie Ryan. "No, it won't."

Richie raised his red-rimmed eyes. "Detective Keller said those guys pleaded guilty right away. Did you make them?"

"I suggested it."

"He also said that after the police seized all their evidence, someone broke into the studio and smashed every lens, broke every camera, shredded every last strip of film. Did you do that for me?"

Duncan's expression darkened. "I would have done more."

Richie shook his head. "You know, Johnnie's little pep talks aside, she was right. This is the best place I've ever lived. And I'm going to spend the rest of my life wondering why you and Tessa took me in, when you didn't have to. When you should have just turned your back and kept on with your lives."

Duncan didn't know how to answer that. He couldn't tell Richie that both his and Connor's interest had stemmed from a deep, time-honored tradition unique to their kind that called for the protection of pre-Immortals. If Richie hadn't been pre-Immortal, Duncan probably would have just turned his back. Turned his back on Richie's potential, his courage, his triumph over horrible circumstances, everything. Duncan's life had already been full of enough complications without Richie's presence. But the teenager had brought him many gifts - a reminder of youth, an opportunity to make a difference, humor and adventure and love.

Duncan told the truth. "I can't imagine life without you around."

Richie thought about that. "Would be kind of quiet, huh? Aside from all those Immortals and stuff."

Duncan laughed. Richie smiled. It wasn't the full-blown Richie Ryan #1 Dazzling Smile, but it was a start.

"What do you say we make dinner for Tessa before she gets home?" Duncan suggested.

Richie looked hopeful. "You think she'd like that?"

"Yes," Duncan said, helping Richie off the sofa. "I think she'd like it a lot."