As the sun rose and the morning people started stirring, Quinn and Colin were sitting, haggard, in the living room. They hadn’t slept, instead opting to try and puzzle out where Sam could be. And time was running short.
Maggie was asleep in her bedroom, and Rembrandt, oblivious to all the problems, was sleeping soundly in the guest room. The brothers had deliberately claimed the couch and floor this time, so they could stick together and try and figure it out.
But, nope. Colin was very close to being ready to get beaten in the head again. Who knew what kind of danger Sam was in; and by extension, Maggie?
He yawned and stood from the couch, beginning to pace.
Quinn was holding the timer. It had three hours and twenty minutes remaining.
“We need to do something,” Colin muttered.
Quinn looked at him with sad eyes. “This might be a small town, but it’s not so small that we can find someone who’s deliberately been hidden.”
“Come on, let’s stop beating around the bush. Just hit me.”
“I don’t think you realise how serious head injuries are, man.”
Colin set his jaw. This was his choice.
“I’m willing to take the risk. Please. If you don’t, I’ll do it myself.”
“Colin…”
He moved to the wall, facing away from it, and leaned over, gearing up to smack the back of his head as he straightened.
“Stop, Colin.”
He braced himself, eyes on the floor under him. A deep breath in.
Then he saw a pair of ghostly feet come into view.
Huh?
He looked up.
“M-Maggie?!”
There she was, a semi-transparent hologram, one hand holding the vaguest outline of Al, as if she was giving him the ability to be seen rather than the previous time he’d seen them together.
Behind them, Quinn rose from the couch.
“What is it?”
Colin reached out his hand, and Maggie reached hers out in return, face full of relief. The two hands passed through each other.
She was talking. He couldn’t hear a thing.
“Maggie, I can see you but… whatever you’re saying, I can’t hear it.”
Maggie seemed to moan in frustration, before putting her palm to her forehead.
“You see Maggie there?” Quinn said. Colin nodded.
Quinn grabbed his detector, and flipped it on. As he drew the wand near where Maggie and Al stood, it started clicking like mad.
Maggie was looking towards Al’s shadowy shape, as if listening, then she nodded. She pointed towards the front door, and gestured for them to go.
Colin nodded. “I think she wants to lead us to Sam.”
This statement was confirmed by Maggie nodding vigorously.
Quinn strapped the detector to his body, and pocketed the timer.
“Can’t let the Sheriff get her hands on this. Okay, let’s go.”
As they left the house, the hologram blinked away from the living room, and into the road. She pointed to the left, and the brothers followed her directions.
* * *
Sam was in pain. He wasn’t in a comfortable position at all. The way he was cuffed to the wall made it impossible for him to maintain any kind of position without something starting to lose circulation. At present, it was his left arm. He shook it, trying to get the blood moving.
He’d been shaking creatures off him all night – he was pretty sure there was a scorpion or two in this shed – though, now that the sun seemed to have risen, they were starting to leave him alone. Now he just had to worry about the shed turning into an oven under the hot desert sun, and roasting him like a side of beef.
He hadn’t heard from Al in a while. Last he’d seen of him, he’d said that he and Ziggy had a plan to get Colin’s attention. But he hadn’t been back since. He felt a little abandoned, but there was no way Al was just going to let him languish here alone. There must have been a good reason he hadn’t shown yet.
Then, he heard it: the faintest sound of talking, muffled, somewhere outside.
He went back to pounding on the wall of the shed, doing his best to mimic morse code.
Knock-knock-knock. Thump, thump, thump. Knock-knock-knock.
The voices came closer, and Sam began to make out the words.
“I swear! She isn’t here! I don’t know what that noise was, okay!”
That was definitely Billy. Talking to who?
“Relax, would you?”
Quinn.
He slammed his fists on the shed.
“He’s definitely in there!”
Colin.
“I mean… she.”
Beside him, Al suddenly appeared, smiling widely. “It was touch-and-go, but we did it, Sam.”
The shed door swung open, bathing Sam in bright morning light. He squinted, and waved awkwardly at the three figures that his eyes hadn’t yet adjusted to seeing through the blinding glare.
“Maggie?!” Billy was beside himself. “I swear, I don’t know how she got here. I had nothing to do with it, you gotta believe me!”
“Let’s take out the gag and let her confirm that for us,” Quinn said, bending down to help Sam. As he wrestled with the gag, he whispered in his ear: “Looks like that concussion saved your life, huh?”
Sam let out a deep breath, as the cloth finally was pulled from between his teeth.
“Oh boy.”
Colin was working on the handcuffs, trying to pick the lock with something he’d pulled out of a Swiss army knife.
“Are you alright?” Quinn asked him.
Sam nodded. “A little dehydrated, but I’ll be okay.”
He really did need water. His voice was hoarse and his mouth felt like all the moisture had vacated, probably absorbed by the gag.
“Maggie, tell them I didn’t do this…”
“Calm down, Billy. We know it wasn’t you,” Colin piped up.
“Y-you do?”
“Yes,” Quinn confirmed, seeming to be putting on an act for Billy. “We have… a suspect that we’re pursuing. Someone who apparently tried to frame you.”
Billy seemed to relax now.
Sam looked him in the eye. “Don’t get me wrong, Billy. You need to keep your nose clean. But you’re not going down for this.”
As the handcuffs finally slid off, he rubbed his raw wrists, and stood, coming eye to eye with Billy.
“Now, if you want to be helpful… go get me a glass of water. Or maybe several.”
He nodded, and ran up the dusty yard, to his house.
Having gotten rid of him, Sam turned to the brothers, and Al.
“Thanks, guys. I was about to be baked.”
He glanced up towards the sky, where the sun was starting to really beat down.
“It was a close one,” Colin said, “Although I could see Maggie, eventually she faded to nothing, and we had to use Quinn’s detector to bring us the rest of the way.”
“The kid’s damned resourceful,” Al added, and then turned to an unseen person. “Alright, you need to go back to the Waiting Room. Sam could leap any time and you need to be in there when he does.”
He kept his eyes on the invisible Maggie for a moment.
“Yeah, I’ll tell him. See you round, kiddo.”
Sam heard the Imaging Chamber door open and close.
Al trained his eyes on Sam. “She says she’s glad she could help you, and she’s sorry for bickering with Ziggy.”
Sam chuckled at this. “Who hasn’t?”
“We need to get back to Remy,” Quinn said, meeting Sam’s eye. “He’s alone with the other Maggie right now. And only we have a half hour on the timer…”
Sam felt his teeth clench. They’d better go now.
Billy had emerged with a large bottle filled with water, and Sam grabbed it as he hobbled as best he could to the street.
“We had to come here on foot because of how we were tracking you,” Quinn said, “but we should be able to get a taxi from here.”
Sam pulled the bottle from his lips. “Billy, go call us a cab, would you?”
Billy, still flustered, nodded and headed back into the house.
Colin and Quinn supported Sam as they reached the kerb in front of the house.
“You’re definitely heavier than Maggie,” Quinn said, but it didn’t have the curious wonder of the previous times he’d made this kind of observation. Sam suspected he was a little too worn out at this point.
Just as they sat down on the kerb to wait for the taxi, a vehicle pulled up in front of them, and Sam’s heart skipped a beat.
Maggie flung the door of her squad car open, and pointed her gun towards them. She was sweaty and her face was desperate.
“Higgins, open back door, driver’s side.”
The door swung open with a chime. Sam could make out, in the front passenger’s seat, the figure of Rembrandt, who appeared to be handcuffed into his seat. He looked at Quinn and Colin with wild eyes.
“Get the hell in,” Maggie commanded. “I won’t ask twice.”